Remember, Mercedes is the lady knight with the French accent who escorted the hydra head to the capital. She’s been hanging around court ever since. Now she needs our help.
Daughter to Hearthstone’s lord (a neighboring country, apparently) she will not be “an idle burden on the duke’s hospitality any longer.” Trouble is afoot and she’s off to investigate. We have no choice but to join her.
When we get to the Stone of the North all of the guards fight between themselves. Sedition! The leader of this rebellion is Lord Julien. He has also been hanging around court, looking all manly, and is the Night’s Champion and spy for Salvation. We saw him with Madeleine at her new shop.
He and Mercedes face off while he deeply insults her with misogynistic taunts. They battle.
Big dude with a mace pounds on little woman with a rapier. I could step in — I have in other playthroughs — and kill him during the duel. Instead I let him attack so I can hear his monologuing.
“The day of Edmun Dragonsbane is past. He will not slay another wyrm. A swift death for Gransys is the greatest mercy to her neighbors.”
So his entire deal is to keep his own country safe by letting our country fall to the dragon. He doesn’t care about cults or doomsday threats, he’s all about the cutthroat politics.
Mercedes, defeated, accepts his words. If her father had meant to genuinely support Gransys at this time, he’d have sent the son and not the daughter. “I serve no purpose here, save as hollow homage to an empty pact.” It’s a brutal reckoning. However, on the other side of it, Mercedes decides to go home and petition her father to send true aid. She sees a way she can help.