Acta Est Fabula part XIII:  The Ritual to Reform the Great Power

Upon the completion of Reverie Corridor in the Epilogue of Trails of Cold Steel II, the party comes face to face with Loa Luciferia, who states that “This trial was never meant to appear…You will gain nothing from completing it.” Alas, it is no fun to just assume that’s all there is to it, so let’s take this a few steps further.

When devising a system like this, it is important to take everything into account, like a debug mode. And generally, things that are never meant to be accessed are made impossible to access. In this case, the process the witches and gnomes never meant to be accessed was reforming the Great Power. As a result, I am making the completely baseless claim that completing the Shadow Trial is the qualification to reform the Great Power. So, once the qualifications are met, where is the ritual performed?

It’s blurred in the English translation of the Black Records, but the Japanese version makes it very clear the modern day Heimdallr was literally built atop the ruins of the old capital, as if to conceal it. In the center of Heimdallr, deep beneath Valflame Palace, rests the Vermillion Throne, or as I’ll call it, the “Original Throne.”

So, if the Witches and Gnomes are devising a system, a system where the Royal Family of Erebonia is deeply connected to, where would the place the power was split, and where would the reformation place be? I can think of no place more fitting than the throne room, which now rests deep underground Valflame Palace.

These lines are spoken by Duke Cayenne while descending to the Vermillion Throne. There are two parts that stick out to me…the first, it is the only time in the entire script for either CS1 or CS2 that something is referred to as the “Great Power”, rather than “Fragment of the Great Power.” The second, is the line “It is where everything both ends…and begins.” This line reminds me of one spoken of by Valimar in the Reverie Corridor…