Do you plan to expand upon the contract MC and Asterion made about not sending him to the valley? Right now, it seems to me its main purpose is a show of trust and MC's dedication to treat Asterion well, sort of like a marital vow, you could say(just with actual very harsh consequences). I imagine it could potentially make for some very tense moments in the future though, so I wonder if it comes up as a major point of conflict again.
Viewing post in Questions & Answers Session (Build 0.6.0)
The oath and the laurel wreath will pop up again in the future, yes.
I struggle a bit to phrase this in a way that's neither a spoiler nor so short it's unsatisfactory, but what I can say is that the Ruthless Route reveals that there are important, worthwhile things to be done in the valley, from which Asterion stands to gain. Some of those things, however, may require him to be there to be accomplished, no one else can do them.
The Ruthless route shows one of those worthwhile things, but there are more. The valley has many secrets.
Continuing along that thread... ahem... The contract with the wreath and lead band was phrased in such a way (I can't remember the exact wording) that always made me wonder what would happen if Asterion chose to go out in tongue valley by himself, not at the behest of the master. Since the contract forbids the master from forcing Asterion directly, or making another person force him, to go to the valley.
If Asterion went to the valley out of his own volition, due to some very important need, would that still amputate the master's arm?
A follow up on this, if Asterion does go into the valley, a lot of the issues he faced seemed to be him getting badly wounded due to skin contact with the environment. what if they prepared for the journey if they needed to go out and gave him proper protection? I get the heat wouldn't allow certain types of protection like full plate (even though he's solid muscle and could probably skip in full plate) but surely leather or padded armour would prevent most of the environmental hazards while the master can command any of the hostile creatures to back off
Good point! Leather armor wouldn't actually do much against the sort of stuff that's starting to wake up at the valley...
I had an idea for this that might end up being cut. I wanted to have an R&D project that would produce a special sort of fabric that can only exist in the labyrinth, that's resistant against most of the environmental hazards of the valley while still being unintrusive and cool enough to allow for exploration. We'll see if we can put it in.