1. Patron Anais (5)
1. Patron Anais (5)
Title: TT3 Prologue Stage — Complete Walkthrough
Posted by: Torch Dancer
Hello again.
Torch Dancer here.
The TTT Complete Walkthrough series has brought us all the way to TT3.
The Prologue isn't very long, so I figure I can cover it in a single post.
Let's start with the table of contents.
1. Full Map and Item Locations
2. Main Quest
1) Cleaning the Mansion
2) Defeating Aeodra
3) Defeating Viscountess Bergson
3. Sub Quests
1) Collecting the Viscountess's Diary
2) The Maid's Last Meal
3) The Man Who Couldn't Leave the Prison
4) A Birthday Present for His Daughter
4. Support Characters
1) Sir Porshu
2) Hunting Dog Mars
5. Endings
1) If you did not receive the Kill Switch
2) If you received the Kill Switch
2-2) Defeating Aeodra
Once you finish '2-1) Cleaning the Mansion' to the ghost butler's satisfaction, you still won't have found the [Viscountess's Room Key].
The ghost butler suggests the 'monster in the annex' might have swallowed it.
Off to the annex we go.
Here, you'll face soldier-type monsters that are tougher than the regular servants and maids.
The only ones you really need to watch out for are the armored ones.
Clear a path through them, make your way to the final room, and you'll meet Aeodra.
A monster that looks... a bit like an excavator, right?
Half biological, half mechanical...
With that elongated neck...
If you collect the Viscountess's diary as part of the sub quest, you'll learn what this monster actually is.
It used to be a machine the Viscountess relied on before her illness was cured.
A device to help her breathe...
A respirator?
I've always thought the science in this world was wildly inconsistent...
Anyway, because it's fused with a respirator, it uses wind-based skills.
You can consider this the real Boss Battle.
If you can just drive the Viscountess to the front door, the ghost butler event triggers and wraps everything up on its own.
[Phase 1: Inhalation]
By default, this thing attacks by swinging its neck.
It's a simple three-beat pattern, so dodging is easy.
After swinging a few times, it will use 'Inhalation.'
*If you've left any items lying around that you haven't picked up, grab them NOW!!
Everything in the room gets sucked into its mouth like a vacuum cleaner.
You need to use the Knight's 'Push' skill to escape its range immediately.
Otherwise, you'll get dragged in before you know it.
So, use the Knight to create some distance and just wait out the Inhalation from beyond its reach.
Don't even think about firing arrows with the Thief.
The steel plating cuts all damage in half.
This guy is a Prologue mob, but he's an elite, so he has 300 HP.
And we're stuck with our starter gear.
You'd have to swing your sword 120 times, or fire 300 arrows.
It's just easier to follow the walkthrough.
Once the Inhalation ends, the monster will gape its mouth wide and start panting heavily.
This is your cue to have the Thief craft a fire arrow and shoot it into its open mouth.
You can find three vials of oil in the main building's kitchen beforehand, so grab those before you head over.
Even a monster plated in steel can't do much about a fire starting inside its throat.
A fire arrow to the gullet deals 30 damage and sends it into a frenzy.
Then it goes right back to swinging its neck.
It repeats this cycle until its HP hits 200.
Usually, after landing about two fire arrows and chipping in some extra damage with the Knight, the monster enters Phase 2.
[Phase 2: Exhalation]
This time, Aeodra starts blasting wind out.
Before that, it swings its neck a few more times, but now the three-beat pattern ends with one extra-wide sweep.
When it gets ready to exhale, use the Mage's 'Barrier.'
If you just throw one up, the wind will push you back, so put your back against a wall or pillar and shape it into a dome.
Wait until the Exhalation is over.
Then, when it starts panting again,
switch to the Knight, use 'Push' to close the gap instantly, and jam your sword right into its snout.
Fire arrows won't work here.
Before, it was sucking air in; just now, it was blasting it out.
Think about it: when we go haaah, we open our mouths wide; when we go hoo, we purse our lips.
So you just don't have the angle to shove a fire arrow down its throat this time.
Anyway, repeat this process to rack up another 100 points of damage, and it shifts into Phase 3.
[Phase 3: Lightning]
With two-thirds of its health gone, the monster goes berserk.
The attack pattern shifts from three beats to six. The fourth and fifth hits come fast, in an off-beat double-tap.
At the same time, it starts spitting lightning across the floor, making it impossible to get close.
You'll have to use the Thief's double-jump to hop along the wall decorations and approach that way.
See the head area?
That's the core of the respirator, the machine this monster was originally built around.
Wall-jump your way up to the third-floor decorative ledge, then switch from Thief to Mage.
Create a U-shaped barrier and drop it over the monster's neck like a blade.
As established in TT1 and TT2, our Mage's barrier possesses 'mass.'
You can solve pressure-plate puzzles with it, build bridges over traps — that kind of thing.
If you collar it with three or four of those bracket-shaped barriers, the weight becomes too much, and the monster's neck snaps.
Its head smashes into the floor, the core takes 100 damage from its own lightning discharge, and the thing goes down.
And it coughs up the [Viscountess's Room Key].
*An Alternate Method
The above is the standard, textbook strategy for the mansion stage.
But as is typical for this game, there's a hidden approach.
After the opening, instead of heading straight to the mansion, poke around the village.
Under a tree behind the inn, you'll find a character named 'Pierre Maupassant.'
Talk to him.
- To the Viscountess, I was the daughter she lost. She followed me around as a child, calling me her aunt.
- That monster... it sleeps for five minutes just before midnight... just as the original machine used to. When the monster is asleep, if you use 'this,' you should be able to finish it off.
[Obtained 'Kill Switch'.]
After getting the switch, you can just set up 'Camp' somewhere near the village or the mansion gate and pick 'Rest' to fast-forward the time.
Once it's time, go inside, and you'll find the monster snoring away deep inside the annex.
Wheeee-eeeze... hrrrrrk...
If you examine the mechanical core's panel,
you see the orange afterimage of a message, right?
[System Check in Progress]
Open the access port under the panel, connect the 'Kill Switch' the man gave you, and activate it. That's it.
Kzzzt- zzzt-
[Sy... Systeeemmm... Checkkk... in...... Progggggrrrr......]
Wheeeeeeee—eeee—ee— THUD!
As expected, it drops the [Viscountess's Room Key].
After that, head back to the main building, use the key on the locked door, and that starts the final Boss Battle.
Since the ending plays automatically after the Boss Battle, make sure you've wrapped up all your sub quests and support character recruitment before you go in.
5. Endings
5-1) If you did not receive the Kill Switch
Where the ghost butler disappeared, a notebook of clipped newspaper articles is left behind.
It's a collection of reports about people all over the world who were 'helped' by Wonderstein — and who have since been turning into monsters.
It also contains a rumor, collected from an island in the Caribbean, about 'bringing the dead back to life.'
Looks like the butler did a bit of digging on his own.
Wait, don't tell me — resurrection flags for Wonderstein?
5-2) If you received the Kill Switch
After the Boss Battle, Pierre Maupassant opens the mansion door and walks in.
He sheds a few tears at the sight of the Viscountess's body.
A moment later, he stands up and starts talking about Wonderstein. (That guy just doesn't miss a cameo, does he...)
- I've met Wonderstein myself.
- I was here the day Wonderstein visited this mansion.
- Did you know? The 'Kill Switch' I gave you was originally meant to be used that night, at the stroke of midnight.
- Yes. I came here that night to kill Anais. I was going to make it look like an accident...
- Wonderstein cured her with some mystical power before I could make my attempt, though...
- But I could feel it. A merchant's instinct. Behind that kind smile, there is something utterly chilling.
- Ah, you want to know why I was trying to kill her? That's...
***
"Uncle Pierre...?"
His face was cold, the look he leveled at her unsparing.
A face she knew well.
And yet, a face she did not know at all.
The warm smile he always wore for her, the affectionate gaze—both were gone.
"Uncle... why are you here...?"
"Because you became an obstacle."
"What...?"
"It's me, Anais. Me."
He dropped the stack of documents in his hand onto the table.
The very files he had carried off earlier, promising to investigate.
"You know exactly what I mean. Clever as you are."
The traitor inside the company with ties to the pirates.
She had known a few branch office employees couldn't be responsible for it all.
She'd suspected someone in the company's upper ranks was pulling the strings, but... of all people.
The uncle she'd trusted above anyone else...
"Why do you think I dropped by so suddenly today? I rushed over the moment I heard you were investigating the Florand Branch. I wanted you to stop before you crossed the line... but now that you've uncovered the truth about the 'island'..."
"You dedicated your whole life to this company... why?"
Pierre's lips twisted, the words bitten out like he was chewing on them.
"Because someone made me an offer I couldn't refuse."
Anais swayed and collapsed to the floor.
The carpet cushioned her fall, saving her from injury, but an oppressive pressure coiled around her whole body and bore down relentlessly.
"Hahh... hahh... what did you do... to my maid? And the machine...?"
"Don't worry. She was only given a mild sedative."
Pierre rose from his seat.
"As for the machine... tch. IMT's engineers should learn some humility. The underworld has talents every bit as capable as theirs."
He toyed with the kill switch in his hand before tucking it into his coat.
For a moment, looking at Anais collapsed on the floor, he felt a pang of guilt. He hardened his heart.
"I'm sorry, but this can't be helped."
"Nnghh..."
Breathing was so labored she could barely hold herself upright.
Her limbs went slack and her muscles trembled with spasms.
It was the agony of oxygen deprivation, visiting her for the first time in fifteen years.
She couldn't even muster a scream.
Beads of sweat broke out on her back and forehead.
'I actually endured this for months when I was a child?'
How much must five-year-old me have suffered?
Tears slipped from the corners of her eyes.
"The maid will have dozed off without realizing it. While she was out, you suffocated due to a mechanical malfunction."
"Hah..."
"I'll take responsibility and dismiss the negligent maid. Oh, and I'll draft the lawsuit against IMT for their shoddy maintenance while I'm at it."
Bluish lines began to spiderweb slowly across Anais' pale skin.
Cyanosis was setting in.
Pierre picked his bowler hat up from the table.
All that remained was to retreat to his room and wait for the tragic news to arrive.
A complicated expression flickered across his face as he looked down at her, and then he walked past.
Tears traced silent paths down Anais' cheeks.
Her entire life was a sandcastle built on a foundation so fragile that a single, simple accident could collapse it.
Her genius intellect, her influence in the business world — none of it could help her now.
Anais closed her eyes.
If she had to die in a so-called accident, she refused to leave the people who found her with the guilt of staring into frozen, wide-open eyes. This small act was the last consideration she could offer those who had cherished and loved her.
Only this.
And just as she accepted death,
Screech.
The door opened.
Cold night air poured into the room.
Reflexively, Anais lifted her head.
The image shimmered in her tear-blurred vision.
A hallway washed in moonlight.
A dark silhouette stood within it.
A blink brought him into sharper focus.
Tall and solidly built, brilliant blond hair tousled by the draft.
His white, sculpted face seemed to overflow with leisure and amusement.
"I'm not too late, am I?"
Frank Wonderstein.
He smiled at her as he spoke.
"Viscountess?"