The Manipulative & the Subservient,[1][2] also known as The Manipulative and the Subservient,[3] is the second chapter in Final Fantasy Tactics, which depicts events between Delita Heiral's kidnapping of Ovelia Atkascha and the outbreak of the War of the Lions.
Story[]
After telling his story, Ramza Beoulve's party, along with Agrias Oaks and Goffard Gaffgarion, pursue Delita across Ivalice. They find him and the princess at the Zeirchele Falls, surrounded by hostile Order of the Northern Sky forces. A Northern Sky knight tells Gaffgarion to attack Ramza and he complies, revealing himself a traitor working for Dycedarg. Delita fights on Ramza's side, and tells him afterward that he was trying to rescue Ovelia from the Northern Sky by leading her to the Order of the Southern Sky stronghold at Fort Besselat. He leaves, letting Ramza's party take Ovelia to safety at Lionel Castle, held by the supposedly neutral Church of Glabados.
On the way, the party meets a machinist named Mustadio Bunansa, who is running from assassins sent by the Baert Trading Company, a crime syndicate specializing in human trafficking and opium smuggling. Mustadio joins Ramza's party, thinking he will find help at Lionel.
They meet Alphonse Delacroix, second-in-command of the church, who offers refuge to Ovelia and her knight, Agrias, and reveals vast knowledge about Mustadio's plight. He knows that Mustadio carries the Taurus auracite, an artefact of great power related to the legendary Zodiac Braves, twelve knights said to have led by Saint Ajora to defeat an ancient demon. The cardinal promises to aid Mustadio against the trading company.
Ramza and Mustadio make for the Clockwork City of Goug where Mustadio's father, Besrudio, is held hostage by the company. Mustadio leaves Ramza briefly to rescue his father, but is captured himself. Ludovich Baert, head of the trading company, threatens Ramza and demands he give up the Taurus stone, but Mustadio is prepared and tells Ramza to give him a fake. The company believes it but attacks anyway, and Ramza's party defeats them and saves Mustadio and his father.
Baert returns to his master, none other than the cardinal, who, not willing to suffer failure, destroys his conspirator using an unknown magick. Gaffgarion returns to his employer, Dycedarg Beoulve, to report that he failed to kill Ovelia. Dycedarg sends Gaffgarion to fight Ramza, apparently working with the cardinal and unbothered by the idea of ordering his brother's execution.
The cardinal blocks Ramza's route, forcing them to travel by ship to the Port City of Warjilis to rescue Ovelia. They run into Delita, who tells Ramza to stay out of the affairs, saying he is going against the current of history, though what he means is unknown to Ramza.
They find Agrias fighting the cardinal's soldiers in the Balias Swale. She says she has escaped from the cardinal who plans to execute the princess. Ramza's party rushes to save her, but Agrias has been misled and they find only Gaffgarion and his troops. Ramza kills him at the gates of Lionel Castle, then goes to confront the cardinal himself.
Delita, working with the cardinal and an unknown man, takes Ovelia to the Order of the Southern Sky. The man reveals Ovelia is not really the princess, but a lowborn impostor placed to create strife among the aristocracy, as the real princess had died as a baby.
While weeping at his sister's gravestone over his failure to protect her or bring down the nobles, Wiegraf is confronted by Loffrey Wodring of the church's Knights Templar. Loffrey promises Wiegraf that, if he were to join the organization, he would help destroy the tyrannical nobles. Wiegraf takes the offer.
Ramza enters the cardinal's demesne and challenges Delacroix who uses the power of the Scorpio auracite to transform into a Lucavi demon called Cúchulainn, the Impure. Ramza's party defeats it and it explodes with dark energy, leaving the auracite behind. Ramza realizes that the auracites are not holy relics of the Zodiac Braves, but something far more sinister.
With the Southern Sky claiming Ovelia as the rightful queen and the Northern Sky holding up Prince Orinus as king, Ivalice is divided by the civil war that becomes known as the War of the Lions. Marquis Elmdore, now fighting for the Southern Sky, dies in battle, and Queen Louveria is captured by her enemies and imprisoned in Fort Besselat. Delita rises in the ranks of the Southern Sky by exposing a plot and killing a lord who betrayed Duke Goltanna. Lords bleed their people dry even as the kingdom is beset by famine and drought.
Events[]
- In Pursuit of the Princess
- Reunion with Delita
- The Machinist
- Ovelia's Misgivings
- Dycedarg's Scheming
- The Cardinal and the Stone
- Seekers of the Stone
- Besrudio's Rescue
- Delita's Warning
- The Cardinal's Wrath
- The Manipulative and the Subservient
- Vow for Vengeance
- The War of the Lions