...and she's riding the choo choo to heaven.

We're in jail, so we're gonna have to break out. But first...

..house tour! Sterling, the foreman in charge of keeping his fellow prisoners working, has been tasked with giving us a look-see of the prison. It seems nice of them, but I guess this is how OHSA works in the Protectorate. We have to walk to four areas:
The gate to the south,
The graveyard in the southwest,
The guard tower in the north,
And the random spinning thing in the east.
Sterling tells us this area is blocked by magic gates that prisoners can pass through. Guards, though, have no issue. When we get to the north gates, Sterling suggests that the best way to learn something is to do it. Lucy walks up to the dreaded gates and passes right through. Sterling is shocked, but then something starts to glow. It's the Gittish Medal that Greygnarl gave us. I had forgotten all about that, which is why I didn't write about it. Grey handed it to us just after he got drunk, and the whole scenario made that seem like a moot point. Despite being able to charge the guards, Sterling suggests we wait before trying. That night, after our first night of slavery, Sterling confides in us that he has a plan. He doesn't know we'll enact that plan, but we're the key to getting out!

We awaken to hear a commotion at the gallows post. A fellow slave is being loud, so the guards want to kill him. This, of course, causes him the be louder, and Sterling can't see anyone else die for a dumb reason. The plan begins now! Sterling whips everyone into a frenzy, and the humans rebel against the few guards around. Before we go on, though, leave the prison. If we can walk through the barriers, you might as well get a full team together. It felt wrong to tarry, so I got my team and Zoomed back ASAP. We went to the guard tower and shut the magic field down. There's one, lowly, soldier in charge of it, and he's small fry. Beneath him is the solitary confinement wing. Sterling leads us down there, and Commander Hogg is waiting for us.

Hogg only gets one attack a round. He can buff himself, attack one person at a time, or swing his mace to strike every one. Sap works pretty well, and physical blows are the way to take him out. He's not strong, so just keep your team healed. As he dies, he remembers he's died before. Greygnarl killed him long ago, but he was still human then. He wonders if this means that he's still dead? With the leader taken out, we hear no more words from the guards. Sterling opens a nearby chest to find his whistle. The other chest contains the Ultimate Key that opens any lock in the game! Sterling suggests we open the solitary confinement doors first. Down the stairs are a handful of rooms, each containing a Celestrian in a coffin shaped box. As we free our brothers and sisters, we can see they're nearly dead. Sterling wonders if Hogg had been draining their magic power for the barrier? I wonder how he can even see these guys? Once every one is free, we help them outside.

It's very much not safe. As we exit, Barbarous attacks. He spits purple balls at us, and the former slaves begin to panic. Sterling manages to calm them down by reminding everyone that he's gotten them out of other messes before. Besides, Lucy is here! Despite that, Sterling blows his whistle. From the sky, behind us, shines a brilliant light, and from that soars the Starflight Express! Is this the "fatguts" Stella has been yelling at the whole game? In what might be the funniest scene in the game, the train rams into our attacking dragon, which makes him retreat. We cut to the cabin of the Starflight to see Stella pounding away. Lucy spears behind her, and Stella is relieved. That relief turns to annoyance as her boss enters. I won't go into detail about their relationship as it's more annoying than anything, but Sterling is in charge of the Starflight Express. Which makes me wonder what Stella's role is? Regardless, we have four or five nearly dead Celestrians in the back car, so we should head to The Observatory.

When we get there, we see everyone we saved is in good health again, and they tell us to talk to Apus. The fyggs, right! We walk down the building and speak to the guy in charge. We inform him of the fyggs, the Gittish Empire, and Apulia's betrayal, but that's not how he's seen it. Apus says that Aquila showed up a while ago with the fyggs. He lied about us working together, but there wasn't any animosity in what he said. He simply handed over the fyggs and said "farewell" before leaving abruptly. Apus begin to worry about him, but we have our role to fill. The Celestrians have been waiting for Yggdrasil to bloom for eons so that they may ascend to the Realm of the Almighty. And that time is now!

We hop aboard the train, and Sterling hits the rainbow speed. It's not plaid, but it's close enough. The doors open onto a beautiful, green, heavenly rock formation. It's all floating in the air, and there are a few treasures to find, but we need to climb the stairs. There's a door that only lets those pure of heart in, and they open for Lucllia. I always knew she was of divine nature! We climb more stairs until we come to a building with a similar architectural design as the Observatory. We venture inside, and poor Apus' heart nearly gives out. The throne room of God is in ruins. A massive hole has been blown out from the floor, and Apus believes that the same attacks that nearly wiped out the Observatory struck here as well. Worst still, the Almighty is nowhere to be seen. Up more stairs is where the offering of the fyggs is to happen. Apus hands them to Lucy, and they pray together. The seven fruits float in a circle over our head, and a voice echoes from somewhere far away.

The voice congratulates us on our accomplishments and welcomes us home. We're suddenly warped back to the Observatory, to the foot of Yggdrasil. From the world tree appears a golden maiden. She introduces herself as the Goddess Celesia, the daughter of the Almighty. Do you remember the dream Lucy had on day one? The message behind that is revealed now. God, Zanon, wanted to destroy the human race. However, Celestia believed in us. In an attempt to stop her dad from wiping everyone out, she turned herself into a tree. The only way to return her to normal was to collect benevolence. Zenon didn't think humans could do it, but he had no choice but to follow her daughter's plan. He created the Celestrians, and the rest is history. But that's the past, and we need to do something about the present and future! Celestria knows Zanon is still alive, or else she'd be "dead," too. No one knows where he is, though, but there's something happening in the Protectorate. The Gittish Empire is amassing an army capable of destroying the planet and the domain of the gods. We have to stop it! Stella and Sterling return to the Starflight in preparation for us storming the Gittish Castle, which I'll have to do...

..tomorrow!

The castle is surrounded by a dark magic forcefield that the goddess has to remove. I get big final dungeon vibes from this, but I know this isn't it. We're getting close to the end now.