Remembrance

Hugo passes the First Threshold

## Trophies

*Even if it kills us... what have we got to lose?*
The children unite in a plan to end the Inquisition

"**Remembrance**" is the fifteenth chapter of *A Plague Tale: Innocence*. It features a boss battle and a major turning point in the plot as well as the relationship between the de Rune siblings.

## Plot

### Synopsis

> Helped by his mother, Hugo has become able to control the rats. Vitalis, who injected himself with the boy's blood, tried to force Hugo through the First Threshold. But, protected by Lucas' elixir, Hugo resisted. The de Runes are still the Grand Inquisitor's prisoners, and he intends to continue his experiments.
>
>

### Summary

Day breaks over the Château d'Ombrage. In the great hall, Amicia lies unconscious as Lucas and Mélie tend to her. Suddenly, she wakes with a start, and Lucas explains that Amicia had been missing for three days in her search for Hugo, who ran away from the hideout, and she was found close to death by Mélie and Arthur. Learning that Hugo has not yet been found, Amicia demands to be left alone in her despair.

A month passes and the date is now January, 1349. Amicia wistfully watches the sun begin to set before she and the others go set up the defenses in preparation for the rat hordes that attack the castle every night. She finds Lucas trying to open a chest. Worried for her emotional state he offers her sleep aids to help with her nightmares, but she refuses, needing to move on from Hugo's disappearance. He askes her to get Mélie to open the box for him. In the first room on the right, Amicia can find rockfoils to put in her hair, as Hugo would often do, and further into the castle is a workbench she can use to upgrade her equipment with gathered supplies.

Approaching the courtyard, Arthur and Mélie can be heard loudly arguing, with her no long wanting to "live like an animal" and stay in the castle while her brother desires otherwise. Mélie goes to help Lucas while Arthur and Amicia get to work as Rodric, in the center of the courtyard, is angrily working with the machinery that turns the moving braziers. He succeeds by beating on the workings, and now the braziers will stay in place rather than roll uncontrollably. As they finish up, Arthur reveals that while he is not afraid of the rats. The castle defenses will not stop the Inquisition when they inevitably come for the children and he only wants Mélie to be safe.

No sooner than the defenses are set up, the unthinkable occurs: the massive pitfall, which normally contains the rats, has overflowed. A swarm unlike any seen before quickly begins to overwhelm the braziers, cutting her and Arthur off from Rodric and Mélie, who take cover in the Great Hall. Working together, Arthur and Amicia manage to escape the courtyard and rejoin the others in the hall. Everyone is panicked, with even Lucas in shock at how the purpose-built defenses had fallen so easily. The door is smashed and, to everyone's surprise, in walks Lord Nicholas leading Hugo by the hand. The boy, now a brainwashed servant of the Inquisition, has been controlling the rats, giving them the coordination needed to breach the castle.

Fleeing, Rodric breaks down a door leading into a passageway that he and Amicia explored before, and they all try to flee down the damaged corridor, but Nicholas catches them, brushing Arthur aside, collapsing the passageway and knocks Amicia out. She awakes in the courtyard, surrounded by rats as Nicholas goads Hugo to kill his sister, threatening to kill their mother Béatrice if he fails. When the boy hesitates, the Inquisitor roughly pushes him aside and makes to kill Amicia with his sword. However, Arthur appears and knocks over a pile of masonry onto him, seemingly killing him. Rather than flee, Amicia confronts Hugo while Arthur moves make sure Nicholas is dead. Furious at Amicia's lies about their mother, Hugo sends rats to swallow Amicia, but she rushes him and wraps him in a sisterly embrace as the rats engulf them both. This act of love breaks through to the boy, allowing him to finally pass the first threshold and move on from his hatred for his sister.

However, this display distracts Arthur, and it is already too late when Amicia sees Nicholas get back up and, without a word, run Arthur through with his sword, killing him instantly. Turning his attention to the de Runes, he decides to take it upon himself to kill them both and make Vitalis the sole carrier of the Prima Macula. Nicholas' high-quality armor protects him from physical attack, a blow from his sword is instant death, and the fires in the courtyard prevent Hugo from sending rats from the ground to kill Nicholas, so Amicia must put them out. However, when the rats swarm over the Inquisitor's body, he lights his sword and right arm on fire, allowing him to start fires. Once extinguished again, the rats attack once more only for him to set his entire upper body on fire as well. After these are put out, Hugo sends the rats a final time, dragging the Inquisitor down as he screams in rage, plunging him into a hole in the ground.

Mélie is brokenhearted over her brother's death and the others mourn as she flies into a bloodthirsty rage. In the name of their fallen comrade, the children come together in a plan to attack the Inquisition headquarters backed up with Hugo's immense power, rescuing Béatrice and ending the threat once and for all.

Navigation

* I – The de Rune Legacy
* II – The Strangers
* III – Retribution
* IV – The Apprentice
* V – The Ravens' Spoils
* VI – Damaged Goods
* VII – The Path Before Us
* VIII – Our Home
* IX – In the Shadow of Ramparts
* X – The Way of Roses
* XI – Alive
* XII – All That Remains
* XIII – Penance
* XIV – Blood Ties
* XV – **Remembrance**
* XVI – Coronation
* XVII – For Each Other