Let's Play RPGs I Missed! [Now Playing: The Legend of Dragoon]

[Roarian]

Baskar

We start this scene with our three party members unconscious, laying down somewhere in a field - they were apparently teleported there, dropped off in the wilds. It feels very Chrono Trigger for a moment there, that instant right after the first time jump, you know? Jack is confused about where they ended up, but Cecilia has the answer, courtesy of Gurdijeff - they're near the place with the seal that's keeping Mother locked away, preventing her from being revived. Jack doesn't like this at all, being jerked around to hunt down some demon boss…



Cecilia receives a few more goodies from the local gods - three slabs containing Runes, the ones representing Earth, Wind and Fire to join the Water rune she got from Stoldark earlier. They contain what remains of Gurdijeff and the other two spirits that tormented our three heroes before with visions of their flaws. Cecilia is worried how important these secret demon-warding seals have to be, though, for all the Guardians to risk the last of their strength to protect them? In any case, time to explore a new part of the world map!

It's still too early to have any real idea where we are in the world, exactly, but we definitely got transported somewhere else - there's no familiar landmarks around, just a small tent village a little ways west, Baskar Village. To say it's coded 'Native American' is… putting it rather lightly. The people are literally wearing feathers on their heads and sleep in tipi lodges. Not that the locals are totally unaware of the wider world, however - there's an ARMs reloader guy here, for one, and a treasure hunter, as well as a trader who came in from elsewhere and is willing to sell stuff. The latter is annoyed that this place doesn't run on capitalism, so he can't actually sell them anything! Hah!

Taking a stroll around town, a villager explains that if I follow the mountains to the north, I'll eventually get to Mount Zenom, where the locals worship the Guardians. Legends say that the Mountain Guardian who sleeps there holds a piece of an evil soul. (No shit?) A woman in one of the more developed buildings asks if I know about the stone circle to the north. When I tell her I have no clue, she explains that the alignment of the stones and letter-like markings there seem to be a representation of a star formation. The Baskar people use it to determine important dates for ceremonies. They still can't figure out this unpredictable [New Moon] however. It seems to watch them, judge them… Ominous much? Given that it was mentioned to be a space castle belonging to demons in Cecilia's intro, I can see why...



One person in the middle of town seems convinced we've arrived to get rid of the dangers upon them - maybe our silent protagonist let them know why we're there? He explains that the Chief was talking about [Zephyr] coming to save the world, whoever that is. Another villager gets preemptively defensive and declares they won't change the way they live - the people of Baskar are at peace with nature! Okay, thanks, mister hippie. A lady lets us know that the Chief had a dream that a terrible event is about to take place, and explains that the people of Baskar gave up their weapons long ago, but they're willing to fight for what's important, even if that means picking their weapons up again! A few other people also reinforce that this is a stereotypical 'live in harmony with nature, pray for good harvests' pastoral culture.



In the southwest I find a guy who doesn't seem to be a native, and he tells me that he wants to get to the pyramid altar in the village, but the security around it is too tight. He bets there's a lot of valuable treasure in there! Jack, that you? Another person tells me about a ruin which belonged to the Elw - it's yet another pyramidal structure in the forest to the northeast. The Elws, he recounts, were an ancient race of magical beings who lived in harmony with the laws of nature, and the lifestyle of Baskar may be closer to that of the Elw than that of human outsiders. This town focuses on [Return to Nature], while outsiders and the Curan abbey focus on [Coexistence with Nature.] This town was probably founded by that radical offshoot sect written about in Cecilia's introduction then, huh?

I've seen enough of hippie-ville for now and decide to hit up the big kahuna - the Chief. She has a huge huggable shaggy-haired dog, which is cool. She explains that she's long forgotten her own name, but she is the leader of the Baskar people and has foreseen our arrival in dreams. She's aware that we already know about the encroaching demons, and explains that they are after the Guardian statue situated in the Zenom mountains. Three different Guardian statues hold the three broken pieces of the Demon Queen's heart, which was torn to pieces in the war that happened a thousand years ago. We should head north and reach it before they do - for the Chief believes we are the callers of [Zephyr], the west wind of hope!



First, we should go visit the Wind Caller's Altar in the north of town, though - the guard there should be of some help. I head north as instructed and find the huge pyramid altar that the treasure hunter mentioned, and the guard in front notes that since our party was summoned by Zephyr, we can pass. We should step up and summon the west wind… When I head up past several statues, however, nothing actually happens - after a few moments I'm told that the west wind of hope is not, in fact, answering my call!

It turns out [Zephyr] is the name of the Guardian of Hope that the people have long forgotten, as mentioned in that one book in the Sealed Library about the lost Guardians. In fact, it turns out that the names of the Guardians themselves are actually the real names for earth, fire, and so forth - but humans have forgotten that fact, too! It's not because of the battle with the demons that the Guardians have lost their power - it's because of humanity! The guard tells me that I should return here once I become a true caller of [Zephyr] - then the wind shall answer.

Okay... that's a lot. If I parse this correctly, then the reason the Guardians faded during and after the war with the demons wasn't just because they just got defeated or destroyed - but because humanity lost its faith in them, or forgot about them. It seems like people's beliefs are sustaining them, like they're powered by faith. Apparently the names of the Guardians are literally just descriptions of what they represent, if probably in some extinct language. I'm reminded of Ursula K. LeGuin books, or Patrick Rothfuss, or freaking Christopher Paolini. The name and the power are the same... I wonder if the Guardians' names are in the Elw language, whatever they might speak?

My hypothesis of what happened, based on what's been shown so far, is that when humanity decided to start adapting enemy technology to their own needs - creating golems to defend themselves, for example - they left their traditions behind, including Guardian-worship. The impromptu technological revolution came hand in hand with a loss of faith, or the loss of faith resulted in the humans resorting to using the enemy's technology. In either case, the Guardians got screwed over in the exchange, their power waning right at the moment that it was most needed. Which is probably when disaster struck and one of the golems went nuts, razing a huge chunk of the world, necessating those same Guardians to use their waning powers to keep the world from exploding entirely... And that's been the status quo ever since, a slowly disintegrating planet dangling on the edge of ruin...



With that little adventure turning out to be a bit of a dud, I travel north-west from Baskar and come across a strange structure in the earth - presumably this is the mysterious ring that the guy in town told me about. They're called the 'Rings of Timespace' which sounds awesome, but they're not actually interactive right now. Instead I need to go further north to find a big snowy mountain, Mount Zenom, and continue the adventure proper. A messenger is already waiting at the entrance, happy at our arrival and declaring that he believes we shall be victorious! Thanks, dude.

Dungeon: Mount Zenom

Heading up Mount Zenom is not too difficult - once again it's a mix of statue-pushing puzzles, random battles, and the occasional foray into the outside world instead of just the inside of caves. I find a Lucky Card hidden behind one tree, then my way is blocked by grass, and I have to pull out the lighter for a purpose other than turning on lamps - it can burn away patches of pesky vegetation too! There's honestly not a lot of use for that function, but it's obligatory to get past some passageways, so there you go. Gameplay!


At one point I head down a short flight of stairs, outside, and find a whole host of treasure chests there - lots of generic items! The moment I go to leave, however, it turns out there's a reason I was lured down there - a big rock lets loose up above and rolls down the mountainside and nearly squashes everyone. We dodge out of the way in time, but Jack gets inspired by the drama and develops a new Fast Draw - this one is all about a crashing hit from up above. Meteor Dive get! That's actually fantastic, because it's one of the better moves for him for a long time. Reducing its MP is useful - spamming this against bosses will be almost obligatory from here on out!



After burning down some more local plant life I get to a door which is locked by a 'strange device' - by which it means that I need to burn down yet more weeds to find a hidden switch. After I do, though, I run into a random battle with a strange dragon-like enemy which turns out to be a bitch to kill - Devonova is more a mini-boss than a regular enemy, and I have to pull out all the stops to take it down. At least it leaves some good experience points behind? This path also leads to a chest with the Mystic Word, an accessory for Cecilia, so it's not completely pointless.

Afterwards I head back to the main path and push some more statues to open the passage to the outside world - and to the Guardian statue! The party gathers in front of the statue of the Guardian, only for a bolt of lightning to suddenly strike from the sky and destroy it at the same time that Belselk appears up in the sky. He declares that we're too late, only for Jack to scream his name in fury - this annoys Belselk, as he realizes that his boastful speech doesn't really work anymore, since we got there ahead of him. He decides he might as well have a bit of fun now that we're here, and sends 'Orga Widow' out to play with us. Naturally, Orga Widow is a mammoth-sized spider with an old crone's face, because of course she is!



[Boss: Orga Widow]



Orga Widow's biggest headache is an attack named Capture Web which hits everyone and has decent odds of paralyzing people, preventing them from doing much of anything. She can also poison people, but since that is targeted towards individuals, it's easier to handle. I end up spamming the Guardians a bunch in this fight, since this is the first proper boss since getting the runes, so it felt like the right time for them. Stoldark is particularly effective, since this spider lady is weak to water/ice magic. They get pretty nice models and animations, though they're a bit jerky by FF standards.



Beyond that it's just Meteor Dives and gunshots for the win!

After the fight we're still facing the destroyed statue of the Guardian Tenoginos, and it seems that the being inside cannot form a link with Cecilia properly and ends up turning into the Summit Rune, presumably in order for us to summon what remains of this god-like being in combat like the rest. Cecilia comments that the seal in the statue has broken, which means the return of Mother is one step closer to reality. She can't believe the Tear Drop is being used for such horrors! Jack points out that there are two more statues left. He then turns away and to himself he mutters that he needs the [Power]... to defeat the enemy, and to destroy everything! Uh, you okay there, Jack?



I use Escape to head back to the entrance of the dungeon, and the guard there is aghast at what he just sensed - the seal holding the Queen of the Demons was broken! We should head back to notify the elders about this situation! For lack of other options I elect to go along with that and exit to the world map…



But that's not where the scene goes. We're once again seeing Mother's room, where the voice of the cocooned Queen speaks, observing that it's dark - she can't see anything - can't hear anything. Her precious Zeik, her children… She begs to be seen, to be heard by them. Mother is still helpless, but she's regained consciousness - that's not a great sign. It seems her first thought is of Zeikfried and her other children, but given the implication that she's the progenitor of the entire demon race, that's no huge shocker. Is Zeik the oldest remaining, perhaps?



Suddenly a skinny gray-skinned dude with green hair jumps into frame and declares that it was easy to get there, after all this talk about seals! Who cares about the Quarter Knights now that Mother is awake? He can go on with his career, and glory is up ahead! This weirdo is another demon named Zed, and we'll see his goofy ass again…



We return to the party, and they're already back in Baskar Village, where the Chief tries to appease our panic at the fact that the demons are a step ahead of us. There's still two other statues which have not been broken! They are in the towns of [Saint Centour] and [Port Timney] respectively. If just one of those can be saved, then the Queen of the Demons can be prevented from reviving, and only our brave party of three can accomplish this mission!

To get there, however, we can't rely on the Guardians to teleport us again - after all, they're in our pocket! We'll have to use the Elw Pyramids instead, since they are a link to the Guardians that we can use to transport ourselves, and they're usually situated near to where statues are kept. Apparently all life can become energy there, and thus be moved to faraway places through the use of Elw technology! I think we read about this in Cecilia's introduction, right? Teleportation! I am sort of curious why a teleportation network would be considered a link to the Guardians, though. Are they the ones maintaining that system so long after the Elws departed?



The three of us, the so-called Warriors of the Guardians, also receive another gift - the [Kizim Fire] of Baskar. This can be used to light the furnace in the pyramid, thereby activating it. For the good of all life in Filgaia, we should protect the remaining statues! The Elw Pyramid isn't too hard to find, and inside there's a hole in the wall where I insert the fire - which is more of a magical crystal which exudes energy and powers up the teleporter upstairs. Gotta insert dilithium crystals to make the transporter go, I guess. I get on the glowy green device to be moved… and it turns out that this game has even more sci-fi trappings than I honestly anticipated.



The teleporter turns the party into green energy and blasts them out of the roof, and we get a shot of the entire world of Filgaia from space as the bolt of green energy heads straight towards a titanic space station in orbit, complete with huge solar or radiator panels. The light glances off this satellite and heads back towards the ground in another direction, and there's a hyperspace style transition until the world comes back into view and the screen fades to white, before we arrive in a second, identical teleporter room. Huh.



I wonder if you can actually go to that fancy space station? [Editor's Note: You probably don't want to, past me.] Or is that the second moon they were talking about...? This whole teleportation system is of Elwen make, though, so probably not...

Next time we visit scenic Saint Centour, the location of the next Guardian statue, and its closest landmark - the place where the town's people keeping getting abducted to! Also we meet another new side-character of some notoriety...

 

[Roarian]

Saint Centour

The moment we arrive from teleportation, Stoldark speaks up (presumably from his Rune) and explains that this land we've arrived in contains one of the Holy Statues which seal the evil heart. Yeah, thanks, we got that! On the way out of the slightly different Elw pyramid I pick up a Hard Guard, a pair of pretty decent gauntlets, and then head towards civilization. On the way there, I'm surprised to find a guy standing on the overworld - he's the same size as our party, which is kind of weird when towns and such are all tiny - it kind of messes with the perception that our avatar is just a representation of our party when other giants show up, heh. The man declares that he can't remember the last few days, and he's just been wandering around confused. Hmm…



A little further south is the actual town of Saint Centour, and it has an elaborate entrance with a glowy blue crystal over the gate. The moment we go to pass through, Jack is suddenly pushed back by the gate, physically repelled, and a guard soon shows up to investigate. They explain that they thought we were monsters - the town of Saint Centour is protected by a dimensional protection seal on the walls which keeps monsters out! (Stargate's Hammer of Thor comes to mind.) Hanpan wonders if he was the one who triggered the device, and Jack is confused that he'd even suggest this. Okay, that's… a little suspicious…



The guard states that the barrier will stop spirits as well, and he wonders if Hanpan is a pet. Hanpan is offended at the very notion and declares that he and Jack are partners! The guard believes this and tells Jack that he should hide Hanpan deep inside his pockets when he steps through to avoid getting repelled again. That is, if he's not a monster himself! This time we can pass through safely, however, and make our way into a new town. Yes, showing a stranger the way to circumvent your town's protections, definitely a wise decision! Saint Centour is apparently pretty strong on their security after a series of recent abductions, though nobody is quite sure what to make of these brief disappearances since the people just show back up a few days later without any clarity on what happened while they were gone…

Okay, hear me out - I'm not saying it was aliens demons, but…

I talk to the people in town, and one guy explains that Saint Centour means 'sacred beast', and it was probably named after the Guardian which protects this town. In the bar, someone says there are some strange ruins to the far north and in the forest to the east - Elw pyramids, presumably, since we just came from one of those! Another says that he doesn't think monsters have anything to do with the abductions, since the town is protected by that dimension thingy which keeps them away. It must be something else! Apparently nobody is taking the abductions too seriously, since people don't get hurt and just come back on their own. They're safe and happy, you know? It's still a little strange.



The barkeep muses that ice-covered Arctica is covered in monsters, and the constant snowfall and powerful foes there keep it a true mystery. The sudden fall of the people who lived there terrified everyone - is it possible that they fell to the demons? Seems like Garrett/Jack didn't really tell much of anyone what happened, huh? Outside, a lady tells me that in ancient days, the [Cage Tower] in the northeast was used to capture monsters - a magic device stored in the tower immobilized them. In the corner of town I also discover a heavily fortified room with a guard in front, who lets me know that there's a magic key called the Duplicator being stored in there, which can open any sealed door - that's why it's being protected!



Anyway, I talk to a few people in town who were abducted, and it seems they all tend to talk with a lot of ellipses. Suspicious! I speak to the guard from before again - or his identical twin brother, given the limited sprite variety - and he lets me know that according to his records, roughly 30 percent of the population has been abducted at this point. Strangely enough, it turns out, most of the abductees were found wandering around near the Cage Tower. If us Dream Chasers want to check that tower out, he's willing to give us the key that opens it. He has to stay here and protect the people of the town!



In the southwest of Saint Centour I run into a small home inhabited by a blind girl - she explains that she was injured as a child and left like this. Due to her impairment, however, her other senses were enhanced. Most notably she can tell bad people from good ones by the sound of their voice! Speaking to her with each of the characters gets a different response - she tells Cecilia that she's a strong woman, but that she hasn't reached her potential yet. She tells Jack that he's very virtuous, but also easily hurt. She even tells Rudy, who doesn't really have a voice, that he's a nice person, but that he's had many bitter experiences in his past…



I can go towards the statue of the Guardian, and the guard there helpfully lets me know about the piece of the Demon Queen's evil heart sealed inside it, which is perhaps not a thing to blurt out to random people who might be passing by. We can't actually get to the statue itself, however, since the guy threatens to arrest me if I do anything stupid. Wait, so the party is just going to let this guard stop them from saving the freaking world because he threatens to toss them in jail? I guess they're convinced the definitely not dubious town protections will keep the statue safe...? Whatever.



Instead, it's time to follow up on that mystery threat at the Cage Tower, by using the 'Key Plate' from the guy in town to open the door and head inside…

Dungeon: Cage Tower

This tower is, as in every JRPG, a series of floors full of random encounters and puzzles.



The first couple are easy enough - I just have to find the switch to lower some walls in another corner of the map, then retrace my steps and do it on the other side as well to unlock the way forward. Mostly it's an excuse to have me run around, I figure. I get a Crest Graph for my trouble, at least, and more spells are good. Higher up in the tower I encounter some floors with falling tiles - running across them ensures that you stay ahead of the collapsing path, though there's a little platform in the middle with two chests. One of them is a fancy metal one and actually contains the Prism Laser - this is a new variation of ARM for our blue-haired boy! Yeah, Rudy's thing isn't just that he wields a gun, it's that he's a one-man armory of modern weapons, and this one is a futuristic laser!



A few more (fairly boring) floors later I find a mural on the wall with a riddle:

'The sun rises from the east, and sets in the west. The sun rises from the east again to light the path for the insecure.' ​

I then move on and find a set of three staircases next to each other, and honestly the clue here is rather easy to figure out. I move through the eastmost route, then the west, then east again… and exit out on a floor with three chests containing Goat Dolls (They're scapegoat accessories, reviving you once when killed - very useful against anything with one-shot attacks, obviously.) I travel up the rest of the way and exit out onto the roof of the Cage Tower, which is oddly isometric unlike most of the rest of this game's design aesthetic.



I climb the long hexagonal tower to find a place on top of the roof with three distinctive obelisks. The moment I step in between these, like an idiot, a triangular energy field sparks between the obelisks and pins the party in place - presumably the device meant to capture monsters that was previously described.

Immediately Alhazad of the Quarter Knights descends from the sky, and concludes that we must be the humans working for the Guardians. When Jack furiously snarls at him, Alhazad informs us that the statue in the human town of Saint Centour will soon be destroyed. Unlike Belselk, though, he doesn't like making a big mess out of things. He's going to need a few minutes to complete his experiments in town, though, so he's going to leave us a friend to play with for the duration... We won't be disappointed, he promises! Alhazad then vanishes and drops a dragon on the party, a big-bellied thing with green wings.



[Boss: Night Gaunt]



The Night Gaunt is a flying enemy, so it avoids a lot of basic attacks pretty easily. I end up using a lot of Lock On to blast it with bullets, and Meteor Dive is still amazing. Earth magic works best from Cecilia, but I didn't actually bring it with me this time, unfortunately. The dragon mostly just takes a bunch of time to kill - its damage output isn't too great, but even with repeated summons it took a while to whittle down its health pool. The fact that it doesn't breathe fire so much as laser blasts didn't help, admittedly…

Here's a couple more Guardian summons in combat, by the way:



After the dragon goes down at last, the party gets a metric ton of reward money for completing it. Jack wonders what Alhazad meant by his 'experiments' in town, apparently unaware that this game has been foreshadowing ominous shit for the entirety of his stay, and then asks about the barrier still keeping us trapped. That's when the camera pans down to the long staircase, to show that someone new has arrived - a blond girl along with someone who is apparently her butler.

The girl asks her servant whether he knows about the 'Night Gaunt' and whether it's in this tower or not, and he's a bit hesitant to answer. The butler then points out that clearly the three of us already took down her target before she got here! Jack asks if the new arrivals can get us out, and the girl wonders what she'll get out of the deal. We have her bounty, after all, and she needs the cash! Cecilia is offended, stating that we're in this to save the world, but the girl just wants moolah. She declares that she doesn't care what we're trying to save - all she wants is cash! 2000 gella worth, actually, and in exchange she'll let us out of this cage we put ourselves in! Jack refuses to pay, and we can keep refusing, but eventually we're forced to go along with this - losing most of that super-sized bounty we got from owning the dragon. Lame.



The girl then uses a gun of all things to destroy one of the obelisks, and Jack is surprised to see her using an ARM - just like Rudy! She then finally introduces herself as Jane Maxwell, known locally as the most beautiful woman next to her sister. Her servant adds that she's also known as Calamity Jane in some parts - ah, I've heard of that! Jack is astounded that this little girl is the actual Calamity Jane, and she gets offended by his disbelief and instructs her servant McDullen (or Magdalen in other localizations) not to tell them anything more! She then leaves us behind, telling us to make our way back to town ourselves.

Calamity Jane is a fun character - she's clearly set up as a sort of rival here, what with her sharing Rudy's ability to use ARMs while also sharing Jack's interest in delving through old ruins for profit… and I guess she shares her gender with Cecilia? I'm interesting why she came here, though - she's apparently after the Night Gaunt we just fought, but that only showed up because Alhazad dropped it off - how would she know it'd be here? Or did the demon just grab an existing monster from this vicinity to toss in our direction? Regardless, this is obviously not the last we've seen of Jane and her long-suffering Alfred...

Saint Centour Post-Mortem

Given Alhazad's ominous warnings, we quickly head back to town - and things are weird. It's very quiet there - too quiet. There's… nobody around, at all. The streets are empty. Indeed, houses are vacant, streets are deserted. Several items previously blocked off by people are now accessible though, including that Duplicator key in the well-guarded house, so this is a great time for loot-goblins!



The only person I can find in town is the little blind girl, who says she's been hiding inside all this time, ever since she felt some strange energy surrounding the place. What happened?



After picking up the last loot around, including raiding the inventory of the bar and stealing a dog's lost bone - I finally move towards the statue of the Guardian at the center of town. Predictably, Alhazad did what he promised and decimated the statue. As we arrive, though, the Guardian speaks directly into Cecilia's mind, explaining that he is the sacred spirit [Ione Paua], and his powers are weakening. He asks Cecilia to take what is left and use it as a weapon against the demons. We thus receive the Saint Rune! Cecilia muses that another piece of the Demon Queen's heart has been released, so there's only one remaining at the town of Timney. We must set off and reclaim the Tear Drop before the demons use it to awaken their queen! Again.



Jack dryly points out that the entire town is empty, and everyone just disappeared, and Cecilia concludes that the demons must have done this somehow, just to get at this statue…

---

We switch back over to Mother's room, and see the Quarter Knights gather before the pulsing cocoon of their master, who is definitely more awake now. She proclaims that she can hear the voice of pain and sadness, feel the screams of the human fools releasing her from these cursed chains! Zeikfried declares that they're almost there - Filgaia is practically theirs now!

Alhazad muses that he's still concerned about the humans who contacted the Guardians, and Lady Harken observes that her colleagues screwed up again in trying to take out our party - not once, but twice now! Perhaps these humans are too much for them to handle? She offers to take care of us herself - she's sure she can accommodate us! Belselk is annoyed and declares that she'll just have to wait until he does it, but Zeikfried stops the infighting. He proclaims that Lady Harken is not wrong - the Elws and Humans have shown abnormal abilities when pushed into a corner. They can't afford mistakes until the revival of the Photosphere and Lord Mother is completed!

Belselk is annoyed at the fact that Zeik is also siding against him, and swears he'll show him - show everyone - what Belselk can do!



He'll bring the heads of those humans and line them up right here! Guardians or not, they're history! He storms off, and Alhazad mutters that his fellow duke always did have such a temper… Still, he feels like he should contribute himself, and also disappears. Lady Harken scoffs in dismissal and leaves as well. In their wake, Zeikfried recalls that it has been a thousand years since the demon race came here, after the loss of their homeworld Hiades, to make this place a new home… Power rules all. This place will belong to them, and only then will they… He trails off, and we end on a shot of the cocooned Mother, awaiting her hatching…



It's interesting to note that this puts a bit of a new spin on the demonic invasion - it probably wasn't just a brazen attack on Filgaia for reasons of conquest - or not just that. The demons lost their homeworld, and conquering Filgaia is just how they seek to get themselves a new home. Possibly most of demonkind is still locked up in that second moon of theirs, maybe in suspended animation ever since the war? That's evidently pretty much what happened to Mother, even if the humans did lock part of her away to prevent revival…?

Next we'll be heading for Port Timney, and having a rolicking time with dumb pirates, mostly.

 

[Roarian]

Port Timney

With our task in Saint Centour finished and the village now without its population - uh, yikes - it's time to do the only thing we can do… We head to the next Elw Pyramid to hunt down the last of the Holy Statues! After another trippy teleporting space-scene we end up in a land which contains the Lightning Statue according to Stoldark, the final lock on Mother's prison. Outside, the first thing I find is a sign warning me about the nearby desert - apparently entering it means you get eaten alive! Lovely.



A short distance from that cheerful message is the town of Port Timney, which is our next destination. This, as the name would suggest, is a seaside town of sailors and merchants, filled with buildings topped with purple roofs and with barrels all over the place.



Speaking to some of the sailors, we learn of a local tale of woe - apparently their captain found a stone statue, and ever since their luck has run dry! Another sailor lets me know that you need a ship to get around the Inner Sea, and he wants one so bad! An old lady mentions that when she was a little girl, the desert ruins weren't known as the Maze of Death yet - in those days, Dream Chasers went there in search of the [Crystal Bud]! Seeding the next mission real quick, huh?

If you smash one of the barrels towards the north end of town, you find that there's actually a person inside there - and he sure wasn't playing hide and seek. Apparently this fellow was locked in that barrel as punishment for pickpocketing. When he offers some money for freeing him, Cecilia gets offended at the thought of taking his dirty money, and the pickpocket just thinks she's being too PC. Who cares how he makes his living, money is money! He says he only steals from the rich anyway, since they're usually really dumb - just distract them a little and they're defenseless! Jack proposes to Hanpan that they should give it a try themselves, and the mouse warily wonders if they're really going to be mere thieves now. Jack responds that's not what he meant - he meant that during combat, Hanpan should try to fly over and search through monsters' pockets to get useful goodies! It's a new kind of treasure hunting! This unlocks a new Fast Draw hint, Trickster.



Yeah it's still basically thievery, but for useful items. Stealing items from mobs is a great way to get rare healing items that you can't just buy in store, like Full Revives, and it's also possible to steal Secret Signs to quickly decrease the cost of Jack's powerful moves. It's specific to a given enemy species, so if you find a particular drop you like, grinding works out… After getting that Fast Draw, I continue my exploration of town, and I'm told about that Duplicator I took from Saint Centour - apparently there's one hidden in this town too! I'll have to keep an eye out for that one.

Outside the nearby pub, a girl muses that she can't figure it out - Captain Bartholomew doesn't have a normal sense of love…! I head into that pub, where the waitress tells me that this captain in question is a nice man in spite of his strange antics, but he seems a little depressed - perhaps I can help him out?



A guy at the bar agrees, telling me that a verbal feud between Captain Bartholomew and Captain Drake has gone too far this time - apparently the captain told Drake that he was going to use the [Crystal Bud] to propose to his beautiful girlfriend. Now he has to get the Crystal Bud! He's not sure how he's going to get his hands on that, though… The bartender helpfully lets me know that in this town, the Bartholomews and Drakes are always feuding, and every time he hears about it, the reasons get more ridiculous…

Finally I head over to speak with Bartholomew himself, who's drowning his sorrows, and he mourns the mess he got himself into - if he doesn't stop drinking, it's going to get the better of him one day! The Crystal Bud is in the Maze of Death, and he's heard there are many monsters in that place. Who is he going to get to find the entrance in the desert to the west and retrieve that precious item? Drake's going to have a field day when he finds out! Ever since Bartholomew found that Guardian statue, weird things have been happening!



Jack pulls the others aside and wonders if that's the statue they're looking for… Obviously it is, numbskull! Instead of asking about the statue, though, Cecilia concludes that if we get the Crystal Bud for the Captain, we could probably get access to that statue for our own purposes…

Heading to the harbor for a minute, a sailor there tells me that they're often mistaken for pirates because they're armed to the teeth, but the reason is that you run into a lot of monsters out there on the Inner Sea… Sure enough, the ship docked here belongs to Bartholomew, and this fine vessel is named 'Sweet Candy'. She's a great ship, except for her name!



A sailor says that while the captain is tough, he's also very short. Doesn't he look like a dwarf? Bartholomew is sensitive about it. Heh. We can actually walk all the way to the back of the ship and get within two tiles of the Guardian statue, sitting right there in the open, but apparently this doesn't count for the purposes of our nebulously defined 'protect the statues' mission. JRPG mechanics, man…

Dungeon: Maze of Death

Instead of doing that, we need to head out and find that Crystal Bud. The Maze of Death is a dungeon off in the middle of the previously mentioned desert, beyond the sign that warns that we'll be eaten. Once there, though, it turns out that it's just another statue-pushing dungeon, where most of the early items are retrieved via entering and exiting doors so you can push blocks from the opposite direction and unlock new pathways. Thematically this place isn't very deathly, you know? I find a ton of stat-boosting apples here, as well as a Crest Graph or two and a Clear Chime, an accessory which prevents the confusion status effect.

The actual mechanic of the dungeon is to find five different statues and shove them all into the correct position to unlock a path deeper into the dungeon, since each of them is somehow linked to a second statue that's blocking off a central passageway, and moving one also moves the other. A few of the statues are easy to find, but one or two are a bit complicated to find because paths in here look pretty similar, and you also have to take south-facing passages which are a little harder to find than big obvious doorways in the wall.



Eventually, after pushing all the statues correctly, the central path opens up. We could have probably squeezed past those statues even when they were in the wrong spots, but that wouldn't be sportsmanlike, right? At the end of the long path there's a blue flower, which naturally is the Crystal Bud we came here to retrieve. That was surprisingly painless for the Maze of Death!



The moment I pick up the item, of course, I find out why it's called that - the entire temple begins to shake under our feet, as it seems what I just picked up was a load-bearing tiny flower bud! Damn it Rudy, that's two earthquakes you caused through reckless plant-retrieval! I get a whole five minutes to hustle my way out of the dungeon, and there's a countdown on screen and everything. Now, you can easily get out in that time - just use the Escape spell and you can probably do it instantly - but there's a trick here. If you kept an eye out while exploring this dungeon, several treasure chests were left conspicuously unopened in inaccessible areas, despite exploring the entire place. But now that the place is crumbling around us, the collapsing architecture has opened a new route. Near the beginning of the dungeon a wall has cracked, and Rudy just happens to have wall-cracking bombs on hand to turn those into a doorway! Time for some optional content!



After heading inside the newly opened room, I quickly loot two free Crest Graphs from those stray chests - nice - which would be enough of a reward on its own. Deeper in, however, there's also a spooky white sphere hovering above an endless pit, and as we approach a blue-skinned figure with a golden crown and white dress forms from that sphere and challenges us to combat. Time to fight a secret boss! Thankfully this isn't Final Fantasy, so the end-of-the-world counter doesn't actually keep running while we're in combat, and we can take our sweet time.

[Boss: Chaos]



Chaos is relatively tough - she casts silence on the party which prevents magic use, and she sometimes casts sleep on those same characters which makes them even more useless. Beyond that she's just a heavy duty attacker, hitting single characters with 200-400 damage per blast - something like a third of the max at the moment. Meteor Dive cares not for that, though, and between that and some ARMs bombardments she goes down - Cecilia unfortunately spends a lot of the fight pretty useless, beyond occasionally healing.

In the wake of her demise, a voice proclaims that Death isn't the end, but a new beginning. Our civilization, bound by chaos, has turned this world into a Temple of Death where nothing survives! Okay, Doomer.



She asks the Innocent One, Cecilia, to release her from this land and use her powers to revive the dying land of Filgaia! After that you receive the Death Rune, one more way to blast enemies for our collection… Curiously, the being you summon with this rune isn't actually Chaos, but a separate being - which implies that the thing we just took down wasn't really a Guardian but more akin to that book demon from Cecilia's introduction, another demon who stole the powers of a Guardian for themselves and locked them away here.



After leaving the dungeon the entire thing sinks into the sand, and becomes inaccessible (including any items you left behind in there, such as the Death Rune.)

Port Timney

With our prize in hand, it's time to check up on Bartholomew! The Captain, when he realizes what we have brought with us, immediately offers to buy the Crystal Bud from us for 5000 gella - he needs it real bad, and can't explain why right now! Apparently the Crystal Bud is a token of engagement in these parts, but he's a fish out of water in these things.



After introducing himself, our friendly chat with Bartholomew is interrupted when Captain Drake and his two flunkies show up and immediately insult him for being short. Drake spots the Crystal Bud he just received, though, and Bartholomew immediately shoves it in his face, asking him to smell the crystal bud. Drake points out that even if he does have the Crystal Bud, he actually needs to have a mate to marry. Where does he think he's going to find someone to marry his ugly mug? Bartholomew, desperate not to be outclassed by his rival, immediately declares that Drake must be blind - she's standing right next to him!



Bartholomew quickly drags a confused Cecilia over to him, and Drake declares that he didn't even notice her. He declares that Cecilia looks way older than Bartholomew's preferred age group, which… dude, she is literally seventeen years old. What the fuck!? Bartholomew responds that he's sorry she's above Drake's standards… having two legs and all! Drake laughs his ass off at the vicious bullshitting going on, but Bartholomew sticks to his story and quickly agrees to get married… the very next day! After Drake leaves the building, chortling about the whole situation, Bartholomew finally breaks down and declares that he's done it again! Him and his big mouth!

Jack laughs in the poor Captain's face and wonders what in the world he's going to do now. Cecilia tries to weasel out of things real quick by telling Bartholomew that they're leaving for someplace else - only for him to latch onto her and declare that they must go through with it, to continue the faux wedding! He must deceive Drake or he'll be laughed out of town!



Cecilia declares that he shouldn't lie - she can't get married! Bartholomew announces that it's too late for that now - she's in it till the end! Either way, they'll definitely think she was in on this scheme! The Captain decides he'll give her a tour of the Sweet Candy first, though, since they must plan for the great event tomorrow…

It's a fascinating decision, in my opinion, to have the final of these three 'save the statues' missions be a complete farce - it's played for laughs, which is a strange juxtaposition with the alleged gravity of what's really going on here. The party seems in no particular hurry, though, so I suppose this is demonstrating that whole thing where the Guardians were dropping heavy visions on everyone to remind them they're totally shit. They can't even stay on task while saving the planet! At least Captain Bartholomew is a fun side-character, and I'm amused how this game just piles these quirky side-characters on us in quick succession here. We've barely met Emma before they toss both Jane and Barty here on us in subsequent missions. Can't say they're not memorable weirdoes, though...

Next time: Let's get roped into marriage on the high seas!

 

[Roarian]

Sweet Candy Wedding

We move now to the ship, where the captain introduces the Sweet Candy and explains that there are many special rules that the sailors of the Inner Sea must follow. One such rule is for the groom to provide a place for the ceremony to occur, and the ship will do. He apologizes again for all this, saying he feels guilty for what happened, but that the fake wedding will still take place the next day. We should read up on local customs to get ready to fool the Drakes! After being led to a room belowdecks, Bartholomew leaves us alone, and Cecilia immediately complains about all this nonsense - they're here to look for the statue, not to get mixed up in this stuff!



Jack points out that Cecilia should just go along with it already - because of this misadventure, they were able to get onboard the ship after all, the exact place where they can find the statue! Cecilia accuses Jack of having far too much fun at her expense, and he jokes that her wedding is soon, so shouldn't she be reading up on her vows already?

I get free run of the ship, though a cabin boy offers free resting until the start of the ceremony, basically the timeskip option when you're finished exploring. This is the time to get to know everyone and learn some sailor lore! Inside one cabin we find a sick guy - he explains that he peed into the ocean, and clearly the Ocean Guardian Lucadia got angry at him! Another lets me know that since a sailor's life involves sleeping, eating, and working alongside other men, all the special ceremonies are led by women. I am also assured that Bartholomew knows the marriage is completely fake, so we shouldn't worry too much. Another sailor mentions that the Old Moon tells them not only about their location, but also the weather, so it's an important marker for sailors to remember. The New Moon is too unpredictable to be used as a navigational aid, however…



If we visit Bartholomew in the captain's quarters, he lets us know that the bride and groom are called towards the Minister in this ceremony, in that exact order. Another sailor tells me that there's an exchange of jewelry involved, and the more expensive the better. The [Water Lily Flower] is the ultimate jewel, he figures. Tom the Repairman, who's down near the engines, which seem a bit out of place on a sailing vessel, lets me know that the Captain actually has a fiancé named Olivia Clare, so he's not sure who Cecilia is supposed to be. Someone else also mentions a statue of a monster down in the cargo hold - the skipper got it as a fee for passage from a merchant, though, so he's sure it is of no real value. Huh, is that the statue up top that I saw previously, or is there a separate statue stashed away somewhere…?

Up on the top deck, one of the sailors warns me that Bartholomew only likes eighteen-year old women, which at least puts my concerns at ease about any pedophilic tendencies that Drake alluded to - I guess Cecilia just looks older than her age? Let's not think about this any further. The guy steering the ship informs me that if a marriage is unwanted, tradition dictates that one holds the ceremonial cup with their left hand. This marriage is supposed to be fake, but since we want everyone to believe it's real and thus a wanted marriage, we should use the right hand instead.

With all of that information squared away, we head for a nap.



The wedding immediately gets started! Everyone's gathered on the deck, including two dozen nigh-identical sailors, and it turns out that all that running around learning random stuff had a point to it. There's a quiz here, where you have to instruct the bride and groom on what to do based on what we've learned would fit best with Bartholomew getting married. Who walks up to the Minister first? The bride. Who is marrying the captain? Olivia Clare. Every correct answer results in a cheer from the crowd, but screwing up gets people confused and upset. You can't really fail, but you lose out on rewards later for every failure.



Eventually, just before the marriage can properly start, the festivities get rudely interrupted.

Like the last few times we've been doing stuff, a demon shows up to ruin it - but this time the off-screen voice belongs to an unexpected new arrival. There, standing on the prow of the ship, is that green-haired newbie Zed striking a pose! He declares that he is here to hack the statue into pieces with his blade!



After another weird acrobatic tour ends with Zed standing on the deck in front of the party, and Cecilia comments that this demon is quite lively - Jack just thinks he's dumb. Zed then engages the party in combat, and it's boss time…

[Boss: Zed]



Zed declares that it's his debut, and gets ready to find… He's not a complete pushover, despite his dumbass teenager energy, though he does have an edgy Doom Bringer attack which is actually just his regular melee attack with a dramatic name. He can also do an energy beam attack which hits for over 300 damage, but he's not nearly as scary as Chaos by any means, and goes down to repeated meteor kicks and lasers to the head. Zed complains that it's unfair to have a three-on-one fight, and swears that next time it'll be one-on-one! Humorously he's entirely soot-black in his cartoonish post-battle sprite before he vanishes, promising to return for a rematch.

Jack is relieved that they fought so well against that fool, saving the statue in the process. Ironic twist! Abruptly, all hell breaks loose - people are running around as there's some sudden commotion from the back of the ship, and half the crew seems convinced they're about to die, or are calling for mommy. Tom is just annoyed that people are doing damage to the ship, since he's the one who has to fix it!



I head to the back of the ship as indicated, and discover that Zed did not come here alone - he brought Lady Harken with him, and when she sees us approach, she complains that she has to put in work. Ugh!



Jack concludes that Zed was just a decoy, right as Harken whips out an impressive scythe and reveals that she's capable of using Fast Draw, just like Jack! Harken mocks Jack after that, telling him that his skills are more 'Fat Draw' than anything, and slices through the statue of the Guardian in one move, destroying it.



She declares Jack does not deserve to die by her hands, and then quickly leaves. In her wake the Guardian of Lightning, Nua Shakks, grants Cecilia his rune - the Thunder Rune!



The last of the three seals has now broken, and the resurrection of the Mother cannot be stopped… Cecilia worries about her Tear Drop being used to cause great evil, at the same time that Jack is still hung up on discovering that Lady Harken shares his skill set. Someone else who knows the Fast Draw?! Impossible!

Well, that's a thing...! This entire interaction between Jack and Lady Harken makes me suspicious that she's… not who she seems to be. I already concluded earlier that Garrett from the opening sequence is the same character as the Jack we're playing, just several years later - he'd gone off to get enough power to get vengeance, and between earlier scenes and a reference to Arctica slightly later in this segment, that seems pretty well-confirmed. So here Jack runs into a demon that just happens to be a red-haired woman who has the same unique sword-skills as him? Coincidence? I think not! Lady Harken has to be Elmina, right? Brainwashed, maybe, or a traitor - but the way she lets Jack live suggests that whatever happened to her, there might still be some part of the 'sword princess' in there. Alhazad, what exactly did you do…?

Leaving that dangling plot thread for now, we regroup with the sailors, and learn that in the commotion Drake and his men ran away with their tails between their legs. Bartholomew apologizes for everything, since due to everything that happened the wedding was called off. We were still able to fake all the necessary parts, so he's quite grateful. Since he heard that we were apparently here looking for his statue, and since he can't give that to us anymore since it got cut apart, he still wants to hand us something as a token of his appreciation - 5000 gella and a variety of items! The reward here is based on how many of the wedding answers you got correct - getting all ten right gets you quite a bounty! There's also one automatic gift, the Magic Wand, which is a new [Tool] for Cecilia and allows her to speak to animals if she whacks them on the head with it. Situational, but might come in handy!



After telling Bartholomew to take the ship back to Timney, the sailors in town mention that without him or Drake in town, things are remarkably quiet. Apparently the Drakes took off en masse after the encounter on the ship, and due to their cowardly act they won't be respected by the sailors anymore. They're probably gonna have to live in Arctica or something…



Half the town is talking about the aborted wedding and what happened, but one man comments that there's another port town out there along the Inner Sea, a place called Ship Graveyard. He's heard it's near some place called the Sand River. Ships used to depart for Arctica from there, so that's our next destination. Before leaving, I take one more stroll through Timney to find the secret route to the only treasure chest I couldn't open before, and it turns out that with some judicious application of bombs and secluded passageways you can get to a chest behind the item salesman and steal his Duplicator key. Score!

I then finally head out of town - only to be interrupted by Stoldark! He declares that the Queen Mother, the Lord of Demons, has risen from her deep sleep. Her seal no longer holds back the ripples of darkness from spreading, so this will be the last transmission of Stoldark's thoughts! He begs the Warriors and the Innocent One to go to the source of these ripples of darkness - the final battleground is the snow-covered Demon Castle in the far northern plains! Cecilia remarks that Stoldark's voice is thinning, that the waking of Mother is overcoming the Guardians' power! Jack realizes from the vague description that the northern plains of Filgaia are probably the snowy areas around Arctica - that's where the demons must be hiding out! That means his vengeance is about to be fulfilled! Cecilia is worried about Jack's bloodlust, just as the scene fades out…



In order to get where we're going, there's a new Elw Pyramid we can use, though this one has a sealed door inside which requires a Duplicator to open. Good thing I grabbed that one in town, huh? Incidentally, these sealed doors are similar to the one seen in Adlehyde Castle, so eventually I'll want to grab that one as well for some bonus items, if I can find another Duplicator somewhere. They're rare, but there's a fair amount strewn around.

---

We switch over to Mother's room again, where she comments that she can see now! What a wonderful wasteland… Life is in its last whisper! The visions in her eyes, all the bloodshed, all the tragedies… Not a nightmare, but a beautiful reality! Zeikfried teleports into the room and faces the cocoon, declaring that the Tear Drop is potent - and how ironic that the life force of Filgaia gives life to its destroyer!



The other Quarter Knights then gather, and the cocoon pulses faster until it finally, in a flash of white light, bursts open and reveals what was hidden inside all along. Mother! Now freed, and revealed in all her freaky alien bug-princess glory, Mother welcomes Zeik and all her other demon children and thanks them for awakening her from eternal stillness. She tells them they can relax now, her children, for she is here! Together, they shall bring humbleness to this place called Filgaia!



Life will end, she declares, and she will prosper. Destruction to all life, for beauty lies in complete destruction! Zeikfried wonders if that's when the Quarter Knights get to rule the world, but Mother scoffs at that thought. To rule a world? To bring a new order of things? What do these things have to do with her? No, Filgaia will end up just like the other worlds she's been to!



The flame of life, she explains, is the most beautiful at its scattering end… the end of a planet is the ultimate beauty supplied by the universe! Zeikfried concludes that they're not fighting to win a second home on Filgaia… Are they trying, then, to win back their lost home? Mother says that this isn't true either - for the planet Hiades was just her last stop, and the Quarter Knights were only newborns at the time. She saw the magnificent fall of that planet with her own eyes! Zeikfried asks what they'll do after destroying Filgaia, then, and Mother tells him not to worry - she'll complete the beauty herself by devouring all that is left here. The Quarter Knights shall be burned in the eternal flames of their own mother's appetite! No other heaven exists in the universe…



Wow. So those comparisons I made to FF7 before, and my guess that there was a Jenova in there somewhere? Not so farfetched, it turns out. I'm not even sure Mother is actually a demon, now - she seems distressingly organic and xenomorphic for a metal creature, and her words imply that she's traveling between worlds and destroying them as she gets to them. She's an actual freaking Calamity from the Skies, and she evidently annihilated Hiades before taking some of its inhabitants (and possibly their vehicle, the second moon) along to hunt her next prey, Filgaia. Her motivation seems to be purely nihilistic, or even a sort of death-worship… She doesn't really want to take over, she just wants to destroy all life and devour all that remains before moving on, reveling in the annihilation. Not exactly deep as motivations go, but she is a JRPG Big Bad!

More interesting than her motivations, though, is that the demons didn't know. They recognize Mother as their leader from back in the day, presumably, and the implication is that the Quarter Knights themselves were around (if much younger) when their own world went down, but they clearly weren't aware of Mother's ultimate intentions or possibly even her role in their planet's downfall, since they keep second-guessing what their overall goal is. Zeik wants to conquer the world, or maybe repopulate their old planet after this one is dealt with, but Mother is not interested in either of those options - she fully intends to kill Filgaia, then eat all the locals and demons alike and move on. Yikes.

I do have to wonder, though, what exactly Mother's intent is in speaking about this stuff aloud where her minions can hear her. Like, she's basically telling them their future role is as snack food. That none of their goals are actually ones she shares, and that she's just in this for mindless destruction. The Quarter Knights clearly have their own motives for what they do… so are they just going to bow to Mother's superior might? I suspect we'll be heading for some dissension in the ranks here, or maybe Mother is just trying to make her children fight against each other to see them killed. She does seem to enjoy witnessing death, after all… I'm betting on Zeikfried as the one who cuts and runs, since he's the one who keeps getting all the skeptical lines…

 

[Roarian]

Crossing the Sand River

So, you know that teleporter we stepped into earlier? Yeah, it brought us to a familiar place - we're back at Milama, where we failed to save the first of the three statues. Well, that was a big runaround just to return back here with empty hands, I guess. At least there's new dialogue!

There's a guy on the world map who informs us that someone is harassing travelers of the Sand River. In town, a woman informs me that in the old days, merchants used the cave known as the Sand River to trade with the Arcticans, but these days nobody can get past it to go north. Someone else tells me that a monkey is now living in that cave, passersby have mentioned that to him, and it's constantly trying to tell them something - he wonders what? Another guy got quite offended when the animal mocked him...



A lady also tells me that after passing through the cave, you have to take a ship nearby, for that is the only way to get to Arctica… An old man also comments that in his youth he was a Dream Chaser, and the Sand River was his playground… it shouldn't be a problem for experienced folks like us! Thanks for the vote of confidence, oldtimer.



In the southeast of town, a lady informs us that there's more treasure in town than we might think, but she wishes there was an easier way to find it. Unsubtle hint? If you head a little further east from her, you can actually talk to the barking dog using the recently obtained [Magic Wand]. The dog admits he doesn't have any friends, but feels a little happier now that we've talked to him, and moves aside. In the building behind him I get Rudy another [Tool] - this one is the Radar, which lights up nearby treasures, thereby making them easier to find. It's useful in towns for things that aren't already in obvious treasure boxes to begin with, like random money or apples hidden in barrels or the like. (Author's Note: I didn't get much use out of this thing, but I guess it's an option?)



It's time to visit that Sand River that people keep talking about. Normally you wouldn't be able to do much in there, since there's flowing sand which funnels you back to the entrance, but if you speak to the monkey with the wand, he's pleased to find someone who speaks his tongue, and reveals a secret side passage through the darkness at the side of the screen.



This route bypasses the entrance hall entirely and leads to more stable footing further in, to permit us to move on. Inside the actual cavern there's a bunch more flowing rivers of sand, and depending on where you step in you get swept off to different locations in the dungeon. Mostly this leads to stat-boosting apples. It's actually a fairly small area, for all that it feels large due to getting dragged around, and there's no boss or anything in here.



Eventually, after looting a bunch of that minor stuff and an Orb of Power - an accessory which gives a 25% HP boost to the user - I finally make my way to a big stone plaque with writing, and thankfully there are no plants for Rudy to steal to crash this place down upon us. I can't make it out properly in the dim lighting, so I have to use the Lighter tool on some nearby torches. Afterwards, Jack can now see that it's describing the most important thing in battle - your mind! It instructs one on battle meditation techniques, and Jack decides to give it a try and learns a new Fast Draw hint, this time for a healing technique called Heal Blade.



From here it's only a short trip to the exit, and a return to the world map…

Ship Graveyard

Almost immediately after exiting the far side of the Sand River, I find the town of Ship Graveyard, which looks pretty desolate, with plenty of boxes around to bomb or throw if you feel inclined. An older man tells me that this place used to be bustling with merchants, once upon a time, but not so much these days. Some people are there who've been trying to cross the Inner Sea, but no ships have come in days! His cat, meanwhile, feels quite lucky - this town is full of fish!

A man at the north edge of town tells me that the town is called 'Ship Graveyard' because the Inner Sea's currents bring a lot of debris to this region and wash it up onto the shores of this town. A passing Dream Chaser nicknamed the town Ship Graveyard, and it stuck - only a few people even remember the old name it used to have. A cowboy-hat wearing dude tells me that this was originally the town of Yard, though everyone calls it by that terrible nickname. Okay, now that makes sense!



Sure enough, if you check out the nearby beach you can pick up a few stray items - a Revive Fruit and a Toy Hammer in this case. I'll check back later.



If you ask the local cats, they helpfully explain that the Guardian Blade is in the sand around here somewhere, but it can't be found by us. The reason it's here, it seems, is because this is where some of the final battles of the war were fought a thousand years ago, and the Guardian Blade was somehow pivotal to them. There's many legends about it in these parts… Stories which are, apparently, kept alive by the local cat population! Inside one of the houses also I run into Dan, a former Dream Chaser chasing after the Guardian Blade. He reminisces about the past and then laments that he left Anna at the Pleasing Garden, back when he was trying to find the legendary weapon from the Demon War. Out of lust for that sword he lost his wife.



We're also told that due to the injuries he suffered he can no longer walk. Regrettably, despite explicit mention of his impairment, Dan isn't depicted in a wheelchair - or even a regular chair, for that matter. His disability is entirely based on his dialogue, he's standing like anyone else. (The PS2 remake gave him crutches.) Anyway, Dan requests that we retrieve his wife's bracelet from the Pleasing Garden, if we should find myself there in our own quest, so he can finally give her a proper burial. He then explains that the Pleasing Garden is a place where dimensions meet - it's a dreadful labyrinth. Dream Chasers are his only hope to get what he wants from in there…!

A green-haired woman helpfully explains that there's a place called the Maze of Mirages inside the Pleasing Garden, and it's some sort of labyrinth of illusions. To dispel the illusion, you must retrace the path that you have already traveled.



She's also heard that at the second cross section you have to walk straight through and then go left on the way back. She's not sure why, though… After looting the town a bit and buying new weapons and armor, including a poncho and a chic bolero, I head off into the desert to hunt down this moving Pleasing Garden, a dimensional tear that you need to catch in the act to get inside. It's basically the same as the Maze of Death in this regard, you have to rely on the 'zoom-in' effect of getting close to an interactable location to find it.

Dungeon: Pleasing Garden

I have no real idea why I'm even in here, beyond getting that missing bracelet - is this mandatory? Eh. In any case, this dungeon is quite annoying in keeping with its reputation of being full of illusions, and it appears like it's flying high up in the sky - I presume that's an illusion too, though you need to 'jump off' to leave, which seems a nerve-wracking prospect. In any case, teleporting further inside leads to a long, long row of identical windows, but one of them is different enough that you can actually tell it's a proper passageway instead of illusory.



After getting lost several times and getting myself turned around I end up finding a Duplicator in here, before throwing several switches which open up new passageways in this confusing maze and get me more forward progress - much of which involves heading back the way I came, as the earlier hint suggested.

After figuring that out, I eventually find myself inside a big room with a crystal and some mysterious creature moving underneath the sand nearby. What you need to do here is to actually pull a classic Legend of Zelda - the idea is to lay down bombs in the path of whatever's moving down there to force it out of the ground and get it into proper combat. Sure! I spend a bit of time chasing it around and failing to predict its movement, until I get lucky and a huge monstrous insect bursts out of the floor and attacks!

[Boss: Gigamantis]



The Gigamantis uses its big mantis fists to do decent damage, but that honestly isn't too problematic at this point - the more dangerous attack bypasses your armor rating entirely, which means it does a fair amount on even the more tanky guys in the party. Still, this bug is considerably easier than some of the previous bosses, and he goes down to a bunch of Meteor Dives and gunshots. Victory music! Once the boss is dead his head drops into the room, which we can then pick up and toss into that crystal from before to activate it, opening the final door of the dungeon. Gnarly!



In that room, sitting in the middle of the floor, is the Grapple - it's Jack's newest [Tool] which is once again an obvious Zelda reference, since it's the Hookshot. Just that. You use it to drag yourself over to places, in much the same way as in that other game.



After this cool acquisition, the dungeon isn't actually over yet - using the new tool you can get to some new places in here to loot a few Crest Graphs, and head further up than before. The Grapple attaches best on specific pillars made for it, so it's easy to see where it'll be implemented in future dungeons:



Using the totally-not-Hookshot we can get to the very top of the Pleasing Garden, after passing through several more teleport puzzles on the way, and there's a familiar ball of light hovering at the end there, which you can talk to. The Guardian of this place declares that this is the world of mirages - the curving light and the endlessness! He begs to be freed from this prison of illusions by the Innocent One, so that the power of light can show this world some shadows! We then receive the Flash Rune for our trouble.



After leaving the room, we're teleported to one more new location, where we find a bracelet emitting a sad light.



With Anna's lost relic in hand our adventure here is complete, and we jump off the edge of the dungeon - illusory as it might be - to return to the desert so we can trudge our way back to Yard. I immediately head back to Dan to give him his wife's bracelet, and he's quite thankful for our assistance. He wishes the pair of them had only had the sense to distinguish between courage and stupidity, back then! His wife's death taught him a harsh lesson about what's truly precious.



Jack, hearing this, mutters to himself about 'courage' and 'stupidity' - it's a familiar refrain to him. Dan comments that many think that courage is power, but real power is when you surpass your own desires and instead protect something dear. Jack, hearing Elmina's words from the opening scene echoed back to him almost word for word, feels courage slowly build up inside of him. He then received the [Sonic Vision] power, his third level Force technique in combat. I don't know about the localization here, but it's basically a super-speedy attack which goes first regardless of the normal order of attacks.



It's kind of wild to me that this game sets up this quest for three specific statues which had this 'get there before the demons' energy behind it, but now that the enemies have achieved their plan and resurrected their dreadful leader... we're left to basically just do random sidequests and checking off boxes to eventually get the means to actually arrive at the Demons' door. Seriously, we're heading for Arctica through a very roundabout route here and retrieving precious items for random NPCs for the sole purpose of maybe eventually figuring out where we can go. And also to make Jack more empathetic. Also our lore dumps are now coming from cats. This game is kind of nuts, and I have no idea where any of this is going, but I'm enjoying the silly ride...

Next time: dealing with a returning friend and some ghoooost piraaates. Time to go sailing on the high seas! (Or a small lake.)

 

[Roarian]

A Tale of Two Ships

After squaring things with Dan, it's time to get a move on. A lady outside his place informs me that a merchant ship arrived at dock while I was off doing stuff at the Pleasing Garden, so there's now passage available across the Inner Sea. Yay! She also lets me know that just recently the remains of a ghost ship washed up on the beach! Uh... not yay? She explains that the merchant ship can't leave until someone looks into this ghost ship business first! One man warily wonders whether, with an actual ghost ship around, this place is finally living up to its name! Will it be called the Haunted Ship Graveyard soon? Spooky stuff…!



I run up towards the port, which was entirely desolate before now, and a girl on the way there mentions that the trade ship which just arrived... yeah, it's named the Sweet Candy. Oh boy! Didn't take long for ol' Captain Bartholomew to work himself back into the story, did it? Sure enough, a sheepish sailor realizes that we probably hoped we wouldn't see their captain again so soon, but with the situation as it is, they'll go out of business if this mess isn't handled! He begs us to meet up with Bartholomew and help out! Sure. The captain is hanging out at the end of the pier, and proclaims he's happy to see us - we always come just when he needs us, his soulmates!



Bartholomew explains that he wants our help in order to get rid of this mysterious ghost ship that's frightening everyone at the port - that's the most important thing to take care of right now (besides, you know, demons conquering the planet.) If we succeed at conquering the ghost ship, then the people here will be happy again, and trade will be able to resume. We, of course, would be known as the Dream Chasers who saved everyone! It's a win/win situation, isn't it? A sailor nearby adds that they wouldn't have asked for help if there hadn't been actual ghosts involved. The Captain is basically a nice guy, you know?

Dungeon: Ghost Ship

After accepting this impromptu ghost-busting mission, the Sweet Candy swiftly sails the party over to a spooky ship out in the ocean, and the last bit of the distance is bridged with a rowboat. Bartholomew warns us to come back there if we get in trouble, then lets us free on the decrepit and half-rotten ship.



The place has deteriorated from long term exposure to sea air, and there's skeletons lying in various places - some of which come to life! Apparently they used to be pirates, since they complain about not wanting to be pirates anymore, especially now that they're not even alive! Let them out of this darkness! Let them die! Of course they then attack us in order to force the issue, so go figure…



This dungeon is a little annoying to navigate because it relies heavily on darkness, which means Jack is doing an awful lot of lighting lanterns to get a brief view of what's going on - and that's not even an option on a few occasions, so you just have to stumble through with a small vision range. Jack also needs to use his new grapple to get around to various places, which isn't easy when the far end of the room is hidden in the dark.



Eventually I find a log book in one of the rooms, with a small piece of paper sticking out. It describes a hidden door, with a switch hidden on the side of a bed to open it. After entirely too much trial and error, I eventually find that switch at the very far east of the ship, and head down to another secret lower level…

There's a huge hallway run there where you can technically light a lantern, but honestly it's not necessary because beyond one grapple point it's a straight shot. In one side room you can see three chests, but there's actually no way to get to those. Annoyed, I move on from there and eventually make my way back up a few levels, but now on the other side of a huge gash in the middle of the ship which gives access to the prow. There, a ghostly flame flickers, at what looks like the culmination of this little adventure...

As I approach the flame resolves into a guy, Captain Geist - or the geist of a captain, I don't know - who declares that the dead will roam the wasteland now, and we should celebrate their glory with our lives! He then challenges us to a fight.



[Boss: Captain Geist]



This ghostly privateer is not that impressive, honestly - he's pretty slow as he smacks people with his huge anchor, but he's not really any more impressive than any other regular bitch boss of recent times in terms of damage output. He can stun people occasionally, sure, but mostly this fight was just an exercise in spamming powerful melee blows until he went down. Kind of odd for a ghost boss to be this simple to get a hit, really? That Night Gaunt from before was a lot more annoying! Not gonna complain too much about an easy win, I suppose!

With our mission complete, it's time to head back to the rowboat - thankfully there's a nearby ladder which allows us to take a shortcut instead of taking the long road back. Afterwards the ghost ship starts collapsing in the distance while the party watches alongside Bartholomew and crew. Just as the last of it disappears below the waterline there's a sudden spray of intense energy - they're probably intended to be souls, presumably the dead pirates finally being released from their cursed undeath. Soon the sun comes out and the sky clears up, and it's good weather for a sailing voyage again…



Back at Yard's port, Bartholomew observes that we helped him out not once, but twice now - he owes us something. His pride and honor tell him to give us the use of his ship! Yes, he'll allow us to use it to travel the Inner Sea!



He wonders why we're even traveling around Filgaia anyway, and the party decides to get into everything right then and there - they lay out the entire story, complete with demons, Guardians, the Tear Drop, everything. Bartholomew is stunned, as he wasn't aware any of this was happening up until this point, but he thinks it all sounds mighty exciting! The Sweet Candy can take care of the sea part of that epic journey!

The ship's engineer, Tom, arrives and asks his captain for a favor. See, he's originally from Adlehyde, and that town was recently destroyed by monsters - huh, who knew? - so he wants to go there and start rebuilding it. Bartholomew recalls that Tom is an architect by trade, so he quickly agrees. The ship will be fine, he should go help rebuild his town! Tom thanks Bartholomew and says he's in his captain's debt, then leaves the screen. Afterwards, Bartholomew comments that Tom's a very talented person, so he will probably rebuild the town better than it was before. For now, though, the captains needs to start making preparations for departure, so he tells us to meet him at the beach outside of town when I'm ready to get going!

Back in the town of Ship Graveyard, people seem to realize we were involved in the Ghost Ship incident, and thank us for it. Presumably we've told someone of our interest in Arctica too, since it's mentioned that the bridge between Yard and Arctica is gone, so walking there is no longer possible, and no ship can sail through such shallow waters either! There's still a spot where you might be able to cross, theoretically, but we'll have to figure out how to manage that… Nobody could do that unless they were tall enough to make it through without getting swept away!



The water is, it seems, a very convenient and specific depth which negates all our current traveling options, including the brand new ship we just got! A guy in the pub tells us that just because Arctica's bridge is gone, that doesn't mean we can't reach our destination - just go around it, if we need to! We'll have to keep an eye out...

If we head back to that northern beach where we picked up some random items before, we'll find that Ship Graveyard's reputation is quite accurate - debris piles up here, including those three locked treasure chests from inside the Ghost Ship that couldn't be reached before! These are a Crest Graph, another Goat Doll, and finally a Wind Vane, an accessory which prevents surprise attacks entirely. Neat!



An old man up north has also started telling stories of a supposed sleeping giant in these parts, located in a ruin that was named 'Giant's Cradle.' That is where the heartless giant sleeps forever! You can ask around about this sleeping giant, and apparently the local legend goes that if you seek the giant without a soul, you have to present its missing heart. One piece in blue, another in red. Not sure what any of that means, though! A lady in the northeast knows more about this riddle business - the good heart of the golem became water, and shines within the tower. The evil heart became fire, and shines within an island mountain. That's the legend of the Inner Sea Giant. What does it all mean?

Revisiting Familiar Places... on a Boat!

Now that we have an actual ship to sail around with, a bunch of the world has opened up - we can go back to basically any location previously visited, and several new ones on top! You can also pick up some random floating bottles with minor item rewards. Among other, uh, things...



The Inner Sea is, as the name suggests, just a very large lake of sorts - it's entirely ringed with continents and shallow impassable patches of water, and the only way out into some larger ocean is currently blocked off by a whirlpool. We can only park our ship on clearly marked beaches, like in the OG Final Fantasy, but we can then walk from there to various other locations.



I revisit Adlehyde immediately, of course, as it's something of a hub area for our whole adventure. Ruined and destroyed as it is, this place still has a few people in it - one of them is a traveling swordsman who requests to be given a Secret Sign item. I do so, and he's very pleased - in exchange, he promises to teach a Fast Draw hint. This one is about how to hit the soul without harming the body - reaching another's soul by extending one's own. This is the essence of void, the ultimate sword fighting mentality! (And also how Neon Genesis Evangelion excuses half its nonsense.) This gives Jack access to Soul Breaker, a move which has a chance of instant death on hit. Neat! Also vaguely horrifying, but neat!



In one of the few intact houses in town you can run into Tom the architect again, who has indeed swiftly returned here after departing from the Sweet Candy. He's already completed repairs of the town's cobblestones, and he's working on the rest of it now. I also revisit the hospital for old time's sake, and find that one of the guys there is very upset that the doctor apparently buys into faith healing - what kind of hospital is this?!



The Doctor observes that we have a ship now, and that he'd hate to imagine a whole ship full of casualties… I'm not sure whether he's being creepy or compassionate? Probably creepy. One patient is convinced that his bed is haunted, since he gets frozen in the bed every night with ghostly beings all around him! The ever-present weirdo in the far bed, meanwhile, is now complaining about the hospital food...

In one of the other houses, a lady tells me that the protected ruin called Giant's Cradle lies somewhere near the shores of the Inner Sea, and allegedly there's a giant inside. Thanks for the repeat info, mam. Someone else reasons that this giant must be a golem, seeing as other towns than Adlehyde found golems of their own. There's supposed to be eight of them altogether, you know? There must still be some that nobody knows about… In the pub, a man tells me about a strange triangular tower near the eastern side of the Inner Sea. Another explains that the Outer Ocean is what surrounds the lands which hem in the Inner Sea. That explains that!

If you head to the largest building in town you can meet up with the Adlehyde Restoration Committee, which is in charge of setting up all the repair plans and the like. Engineer Tom is the one actually doing the construction work, as we already saw, but the rest of these people are also doing… something. Probably. At any rate, they'll need money to fund the reconstruction efforts, and they request we chip in some of our own moolah to get this deal started. Right now they request a 500 gella donation, which is peanuts - sure, have it. The requested amounts will go up as we return here, though, as an ongoing background sidequest which will slowly rebuild the town as we invest in it, giving us some NPCs, loot, and sidequest content in return.



One little side-adventure I also did at this point, by the way, is to return to some of those Elw Pyramids from before - one of them had a path where you needed the ersatz Hookshot to cross over to the far sides of the place, but I didn't have that yet when I first went through it. The side-paths lead to a pair of Crest Graphs, which is not too shabby a reward.



Exploring a little further around the Inner Sea, I also discovered the ruin of Giant's Cradle itself - unfortunately it's blocked by a large stone door with a weathered piece of paper attached to it. It declares that we should sacrifice the innocent to the sleeping giant. Lovely? We'll need to find the red and blue parts of its heart first before we can head into this giant's hiding place, as previous hints suggested, so we'll be back here later…



This entire sequence, just like the previous one, really feels like it's this huge sidequest - besides gaining the ship, none of what we're doing is really all that related to the main story beyond the vague notion that we want to somehow get to Arctica. Instead we just keep getting waylaid by other quests like random ghost pirates or now digging up what's presumably another golem for the sake of... something. We got a vehicle to cross water but apparently it's just a tool to use in order to eventually get a separate vehicle which can cross less deep water. Or maybe Emma builds a balloon? This is all quite fun so I don't mind the meandering, but it does seem like we lost track of the momentum of the game and are just checking boxes at the moment until the plot kicks back in for real.

Next time, we'll be tackling the two dungeons which hold the pieces of the giant's heart...

 

[Roarian]

Dungeon: Tripillar

So... where was I? Right! I need to go fetch two shiny rocks at this point - a blue stone from a tower, and a red one from a mountain island! Totally not at all padding out this game with some bonus dungeons, not at all!

The tower can be found to the far east of the Inner Sea - it's that Tripillar place which was mentioned by a random villager. The mountain island is known as the Volcannon Trap, and that lies in the western side of the Inner Sea. You can guess what its theme is going to be, right? At this point you can actually pick either one of these as your first destination, so for once there's the slightest fork in the road! I head for the Tripillar, a decision based almost entirely on the fact that it was closer at the time. Deep decision making at work here, folks! Since you can do the dungeons in either order, I think their difficulty is pretty similar anyway, combat-wise.

As the name suggests, the Tripillar is a triangular structure composed of three tall pillars with various connecting hallways between them, at least ont he overworld - reminds me of Azkaban. Scale is hard to gauge - it's small on the world map, but since our walking sprite is the same size as our ship, that doesn't really say much!



Inside the dungeon, the very first thing you run into is a big stone tablet with an inscription - it explains that there are three roads in here, and cooperation and trust will bind them into one. Basically, we're once again doing three separate challenges, one for each of our party members, just like back in the Temple of the Guardians.



Unlike the first time we ran into this sort of dungeon, this go-around you get to actually pick which challenge you take with which person - which means that they're less specialized to the skills of a given character. There's still a few reasons to take certain characters down certain routes, though - there's some optional side paths based on specific [Tools] to retrieve items on each route, and that includes another Fast Draw hint for Jack. In fact, let's start with that particular route first! After taking a glowing red teleporter Jack finds himself in a series of U-shaped hallways which are filled with various platforms, and it turns out they're extremely simple to navigate and just require a bit of running around and fighting off a bunch of random battles to get through. Bit lame, there's not even really any puzzle to it.

Partway through I discover an old statue of a knight down an optional side-path. The chunk of rock speaks into Jack's head and tells him that the essence of chivalry is the ultimate challenge for a swordsman, and if he can defeat the statue's challenge, it'll teach him the art of the Fast Draw!



Jack readily accept's the junky statue's challenge, and after an insultingly simple set of three battles against generic enemies, between which you're not allowed to heal yourself, I get the latest addition to the Fast Draw list - Divide Shot, which halves an enemy's HP but costs a bunch of MP. Quite useful against tanky enemies, since it can do huge amounts of damage that way.

At the very top level of this same route you actually need to use a ranged blast to activate the door, so I suppose that means this can only be completed by Jack after all, since he's the one with Hanpan in his pocket. An unfortunate surprise if you wandered up here with anyone else, I guess! After activating a shiny blue gem in a gargoyle's hand, thus completing this section, I switch over to Cecilia. Her path is actually extremely similar to Jack's at the start, with very similar U-hallways, and is unremarkable except for the very final room, as it contains three large stone slabs with writing on them, containing instructions on how to proceed.

These three monoliths proclaim that the 'Golden Beast' holds the song of the blue heart, and the blue doors will open when the three lights merge. So, basically, everyone needs to reconvene to beat up the boss, gotcha. I'm also told that behind 'those doors' lies the benevolent stone giant… Deep inside the ground, the stone giant awaits for the blue heart… Nothing new here either.



I move through the last door and find an identical gargoyle to Jack, holding an identical shiny gemstone which I light up, thereby fulfilling another segment of this dungeon's requirements. It's not exactly challenging, is it? Rudy's path is much the same as well - honestly it feels like they should have varied up these routes a lot more, since you basically just do the same thing three times over.

Once everyone has lit up their respective crystals we're all teleported back to the entrance room again, but now a door has opened directly in front of the group. Inside that next room is a big white chest with golden filigree - it's our loot! The moment I try to touch this bounty, though, the screen fades to black, then blue with sparkly lights, and a voice begins to speak from the shimmering void. It decrees that this shrine belongs to her, and nobody else! May a swift death come our way!



Manifesting from the lights, a many-tailed fox appears - and it's time for boss time!

[Boss: Mage Fox]



This Mage Fox isn't a full-on nine-tailed fox, but she's got the Kitsune thing going on anyway - she's five-tailed and floating in mid-air in a kind of kaleidoscopic pixelated blue background seemingly straight out of Earthbound. She mostly relies on magic, as her name would suggest, and casts stuff like Valkyrie and Blast for pretty significant damage. Cecilia's spells do basically nothing in return, so I end up just beating face with Rudy and Jack. Meteor Dive and guns do the job just fine, while Cecilia plays obligatory healer-chan for the duration. After finishing off the Mage Fox, I receive the Blue Virtue item - that would be the first of the two keystones I need to unlock the Giant's Cradle. This entire dungeon was kind of a write-off in my opinion - the teamwork aspect was half-baked compared to the last time it showed up...



For the other key, the red one, I'll need to get back on the boat and sail back towards the far west, where a volcanic island rises up out of the seas - the creatively named Volcannon Trap. Wonder what element I'll need to counter there…?

Rosetta Town

Once I arrive at the Volcannon Trap dungeon, I'm a little stumped to realize that the doors of this place are shut tight, and I can't actually enter! Huh. That's annoying. Now I have to find the key to the dungeon which contains the key to the next dungeon!



For lack of better options I set off again to find newly unlocked content, and discover there's a beach a short distance away from a conspicuous whirlpool blocking me from exiting the Inner Sea and entering the Outer Ocean. (Luffy would know how to handle this.) There's a person standing on the world map nearby, like that guy wandering around near Milama earlier, so I go have a chat. He just tells me he's getting dizzy from looking at the whirlpool, and he's going to throw up - very important!

Running further south along the peninsula of land he's standing on, however, gets me to a new location. There's a village towards the south of this landmass where it borders the ocean: Rosetta Town. The moment I enter, a local girl assures me this is a nice town - nice, like her!



I also find an equipment salesman who charges me exorbitant amounts to get me new stuff, as befitting a town of means - but at least the items sound cool. Come on, Jack can buy a blade named Extinction here! Thus far I've never lacked cash for these investments in new towns, so I haven't really brought them up - there's no real choices to make, you just get new and marginally stronger upgrades to your weapon and armor whenever possible. Accessories are where you specialize.

Asking around town, I learn about a little girl living by herself at the east edge of town - the kids aren't supposed to pay with her, as rumors claim that she's an Elw - allegedly she's lived here for decades without aging, which spooks the locals. She's probably the last Elw still in Filgaia, and some of the locals are quick to call her a dehumanizing 'it'.



There's reports of Elws living in this town going back at least 200 years, and some comment on her never aging, so that might just all be referencing the same individual. Mayor Hernandez can be found in bed afflicted with some illness, and he comments that there's a rumor going around that the Elw girl caused his illness, and he reckons he's lucky that his sons are healthy and doing fine - thanks to his money, of course! Outside, a guy bought a dog to keep the Elw away from his house, and the dog figures that the people aren't nice around here, and that's not great for his own personality either!

In the local pub, a guy muses that this town and himself have benefited greatly from trade on the Inner Sea. The girls are busy all the time, ho ho ho! His waitresses also seem quite money-obsessed, though one of them pensively muses that this town might be rich, but something is missing from the hearts of people here… Indeed, the theme of this entire village seems to be that they're a bunch of rich racist pricks, which isn't exactly an endearing character trait.



Naturally I go on a quick raid around town to get its items, since I might as well Robin Hood the place. Afterwards I make my way over towards the east part of town, since literally everyone is pressuring me to go visit this lonely Elw girl nobody likes. There's a rather run down shack there, separated from the rest by a small canyon, with a tiny field next to it which bears only a single flower right in the center.

Entering the hovel, I find the Elw girl sitting next to a doused fire pit, but she won't talk to me. Inspecting her lonely flower, however, prompts my party to separate out, and they comment that they weren't aware such beauty still existed in Filgaia. The Elw girl comes outside and wonders if we like flowers, and Cecilia compliments them. The girl warns her that she's different from us, and talking to her will only get us in trouble. Jack quickly points out that we're already aware she's an Elw, explaining that he once met one of her kind in a ruin, although it was only a holographic projection - that's a nice little callback! Cecilia explains that she was taught that all the Elw had disappeared after the war with the demons, yet here one sits in front of her! The girl admits that she's indeed the last one left in Filgaia, all alone, and she's here to pay penance. That's why she could not leave with the rest…



A trio of snot-nosed brats suddenly show up to bully the Elw, apparently a well-worn ritual, but our party intercedes this time and tells the 'rat-faced kids' to leave when they try and insist she hand over her flower. One of the kids tries to tell the group that staying near an Elw means you get cursed, and when the party warns them off again, they threaten to go to their dad - he's the mayor of this town!



Eventually the entitled brats leave, once again threatening a curse. The Elw just wonders why we did that for her? Nobody's been nice to her in a long time! She's supposed to be alone forever…

The scene shifts to the inside of the cabin, after nightfall, and it's revealed that the Elw girl's name is Mariel. She thanks our group for their help today, and says that those boys from town always mess up her flowers, and she's glad we prevented that! Her flowers possess strength as well as beauty, coming up through the hard ground like they do - she loves that strength. Jack asks if she's trying to bring back greenery in her own way in this dying world - if so, that's real strength, something a person like himself couldn't manage!

Mariel pauses and argues that she's not strong, actually. The father of those boys earlier, you see, he has a grave illness. She knows the cure, but she's kept it quiet. There's a herb called [Arnica] which grows in the forest to the south, and it would treat his ailment, but Mariel fears that the people of the town would do terrible things to the forest if they knew that, so she kept it to herself. Cecilia immediately and unilaterally decides that our party will go to that forest and get some Arnica tomorrow, and Mariel doesn't get a word in before we decide to stay the night. In the morning, she agrees to lead us to the location where the flower grows to whip up a cure for the mayor...



Did we just browbeat a four-hundred year old child...? Before heading out I make a quick visit back to town, and discover that rumors of our overnight stay at the Elw's place have already spread due to those annoying boys, and people are reluctant to talk to us. We're warned that the Elw girl has a reputation, while other people - especially at the Pub - are disgusted by the fact that Elws make do without money, which is clearly anathema to late stage capitalists like these. Indeed, the entire town is full of red-baiting racists who are quite miffed about us daring to even look in the direction of the town's freak. Harsh!

Finding the flower isn't difficult - you can just walk a little ways south from town and find a forest mound where plucking the required medicine is as simple as just grabbing it from the side of a tree stump in plain view from the entrance.



As Mariel goes to take it, however, the three boys from before reappear, having followed us here, and they declare that they've found an excellent playground in the middle of the forest! Let's make this a fort! It's theirs for sure! Mariel begs them to realize that important herbs grow here, and not to abuse them. The mayor's sons just tell Mariel to move, then forcefully shove her away. This is a step too far for Rudy, who again intercedes, but this time he just straight-up punches the lead bully, stating that Mariel is here to help their father. Don't they understand that both the Elws and Humans live in Filgaia? Why should they fight each other, when demons threaten both of them!?



The bully who got clocked muses that he was told that human history contained many battles - so what's so wrong with the strong leading the weak? Dream Chasers possess the power to fight, so aren't we being hypocrites? Employing 'might makes right' themselves while telling off others for doing the same!? I have to admit, it is kind of funny that this random bully opens up this can of worms on our party... but he probably should have saved it for a bunch of Dream Chasers who aren't in this to kinda sorta save the world. Even Jack's gotten better!

After the bullies run off, Jack comforts Mariel and tells her she doesn't have to be afraid. She admits that she's still quite confused about these interactions, since no one has ever been nice to her before, and she doesn't know what to do! Damn. We gather the Arnica herb as we originally meant to, and while I'm there I also note the presence of a mysterious magical machine nearby - it's inactive, but probably something to keep in mind for later...



With our task finished we head back to town to deliver the herb to the Mayor, to see if healing his illness will buy Mariel a little good will from these miserly bigots. Who knows? The Mayor, naturally, is incredulous that 'the Elw' brought healing herbs, since rumor has it that she cast a spell on him to make him sick in the first place! You'd think the freaking leader of town would learn the name of the immortal girl that's been living in his town for the last however many centuries, but of course not.



Cecilia tells him that he should ask the people spreading those rumors how hard Mariel fought to get these herbs for him. (Not very, but whatever.) They actually met his sons at the south forest, she adds, so they should know as well! She tells Mariel that they should get going, afterwards - but now with a strong heart! Outside, Mariel heads off to water her plants, but tells Cecilia that she'll take the lessons learned here to heart. She has a feeling that she can change the world too! Let's hope that this one act of goodwill somehow cancels out this town's Bad Vibes, but I doubt it...

All the town's residents - save for one dickhead - do abruptly change their tune about Mariel after she cures the Mayor's ailment - not enough for them to use her name, naturally, but they're all stunned by this development. Mariel herself, if visited over at her secluded home, gives us a small flower in gratitude for our help, and says that she believes flowers will someday bloom again in Filgaia! These are the same flowers that can grant you luck which you could buy cheaply at the Ruin Festival. Besides this minor development, something else has changed in town - you can now find a familiar pair of people hanging out near the front of town.

I have to admit, this feels very pointless - this entire section is essentially a mandatory side-quest, since it has no real relationship to the ongoing plot, and doesn't really connect to the next plotpoint either. Mariel's entire deal here is separate from our great mission, and literally the only reason you have to do it is because it sets a completion flag which allows for the next few characters to appear and get us to somewhere actually important. Still better than the Tripillar though, at least we get a new character out of it who will definitely be relevant again, given the mysterious ancient ruins a stone's throw away from her home...

Anyway, it's time to speak to Calamity Jane and her long-suffering butler McDullen, who have just arrived! Jane is here with an interesting proposal for us, and she asks us if we're game.



She explains that there is a ruin called the Volcannon Trap at the west edge of the Inner Sea, and rumor has it that the Guardian Blade used in the ancient war from a thousand years ago may rest there. (She's wrong, according to some wild animals I met.) She briefly wonders to herself why interest in that particular weapon has perked up all of a sudden, then explains that she came to ask us if we'd like to join her in the search. She wants the treasure in the dungeon, while we want the blade… so we can both get what we want. Deal? Jane adds that we should leave the key to the Volcannon Trap to her - I'll just have to take care of the local monsters. Let's go, it's time to get back to the ship, ready for more adventures!

Next time: time to delve into the Volcannon Traps, and maybe the dungeon I unlock with the key I get from this dungeon!

 

[Roarian]

Dungeon: Volcannon Trap

Time to head back to that door I couldn't open a while back. No, not the Giant's Cradle, the other one.

Entering the locked dungeon with Calamity Jane alongside us, she swiftly declares that she has the special key needed to open this door! McDullen asks her if she's sure about this, and Jane boisterously announces that of course she is! Now, he should get to it! The key, as it turns out, is cartoon explosives. She's basically just set a bunch of C4 on the locked door and blown it off its hinges in lieu of doing any actual legwork. Check this out, Jane does her thang! Her work is flawless and fat free! (Actual quotes.) She decides her job's done and that she'll leave things to us from here. She'll bring up the rear so she can be there when we find the loot she wants - she's done her part, from here she does the easy job!



Exploring this dungeon entails avoiding clearly marked spots on the ground which are bubbling lava - standing there hurts, as you might expect. There's also plenty of chests containing money, a bullet clip, and some other consumables, most of which require Hanpan's assistance to grab due to the ouchy floors. The Grapple tool is necessary to get over most of these fiery chasms, which seems like it'd be mildly terrifying, and it also means we're basically playing almost entirely as Jack. In a far corner of one of the floors is a familiar grey box, though - a unique chest which can only be opened by Rudy, since anyone else gets summarily rejected for not being able to synchronize with it. It's an ARM case - and this one contains a Rocket Launcher! Yup, Rudy adds a third weapon to his loadout of dakka! And this time it's adding a bunch of BOOM! Without upgrades, though, we don't actually get a lot of mileage out of it just yet.



After another floor of dodging fiery lava to grab some more items, I eventually get to a pair of staircases. Taking the right one first, I discover a huge amount of treasure chests in there - but I can't actually go open them because Jane and McDullen suddenly reappear and declare that we've found the motherlode! The two of them then go stand in front of the only path to all that loot, declaring that they've reached their destination - we'll have to split up from here! McDullen promise he'll do his best to find the Guardian Blade in the pile, while Jane happily declares that this was an easy bounty, so that's her kind of game! This deal is getting worse all the time...



Since we're not rude enough to bodycheck the butler, we head towards the left staircase in the last room, passing through several short corridors to reach a lava-flooded chamber with a distinctive crack on the wall in the shape of a passageway. Naturally, this is where Rudy pulls out his trusty bombs! Before I can detonate my way through, however, there's a sudden scratching sound, and a figure bursts through the wall from the other side - it's the demon Zed! You know, that tryhard from the ship-wedding? He thanks us for waiting, and declares that the execution shall now begin! He's totally up and ready to go, dude!



This time things are gonna be different! So sunny breakfasts for us tomorrow! Boss Fight!

[Boss: Zed]



Zed keeps talking in combat, declaring that clearly we're in awe of him! Then we get control, and can beat him up. This encounter with Zed is pretty similar to his first fight - he's brought a slightly stronger normal attack with a new obnoxiously long japanese name, and I think the joke is that he keeps giving his basic physical assaults incredibly excessive names. He has more HP than last time too, but he goes down pretty easily once again, declaring: next time, no more Mr. Nice Guy! He is also once again shown as burned up and comically bug-eyed before poofing out of existence for a later rematch. Dude doesn't know when to quit.

Passing through the big hole in the wall which he left with his entrance, we enter a larger Boss Arena beyond, and it becomes clear that we haven't actually finished this place quite yet - that was just an appetizer conflict to set the stage for the real conflict. There's a large round construction in the middle of a lake of lava, and when we approach we discover who's waiting for us here - it's Belselk! He's that boss who flattened us back in Adlehyde after the Ruin Festival, the one who started this mess. You know, the green pirate orc guy with the big flail, remember him? He's here for his own rematch, naturally.

Jack is incensed at meeting Belselk again, and the Quarter Knight explains that it was as simple as spreading a few rumors about the Guardian Blade, and he knew that us fools would show up. (Actually I'm here for the red golem heart, but go off.) Belselk declares that the blade is long gone, lost a thousand years ago. You know that ocean of sand in the middle of Filgaia? That is the power of the Guardian Blade. It destroyed the demons, the humans, and all of Filgaia at the same time. In the end, it even destroyed itself! We took a long journey here for nothing, but we don't have to worry about the trip home… he'll bury us, right here, right now! Belselk then starts glowing, green energy pulsing through the room and motes of light gathering like Goku charging a Spirit Bomb. This is the reason he chose this ruin as the stage for our fight!



Suddenly the energy stutters and begins fading, much to Belselk's consternation, and he panics when he realizes that his powers are being drained away again - what's going on? We switch over to the treasure room again to discover that Jane has looted all the treasure already, and is now blowing up the big glowy artifacts around the room, mostly just because they started glowing while she was in there and she got spooked. McDullen is worried that if she gets any more excited, the whole ruin will come down… Apparently those artifacts are the ones that are empowering Belselk, so she's unintentionally helping us...



Back in the boss room, Belselk snarls that he doesn't need help from any enhancing machines - he's a Night Crawler! Beware, humans! Boss time, again! Belselk complains that he's weakening, but he'll still never yield to a human!

[Boss: Belselk]



This time the boss fight is for real - Belselk is considerably tougher than Zed, and has a new Blaster Howling attack which can paralyze everyone, as well as a high damage single-target attack called Belselk Breaker which hurts a lot. Meteor Dives, Freeze, and gunshots make quick work of him, of course, but that's a proven strategy for most of this game. Nuking the enemy - it's the only way to be sure, you know? Once you get a good strategy going, most of this game isn't that tough until you get to the really ridiculous challenges. I did end up using a bunch of summons here, including some weird-ass new ones... I don't even remember some of these!



After Belselk finally goes down - he's in utter disbelief when it happens - I head across the room into a neighboring chamber and grab the Red Malice, the red heart we're meant to retrieve in order to open the Giant's Cradle.



Our party walks offscreen while the camera lingers in the center of the boss room. The defeated Belselk is still there, blackened and bug-eyed like Zed was before him, and muses that he can't believe he lost to a human, but he'll get them next time! An echoing voice interrupts him, however, declaring that he's pitiful - he used all his powers, and yet still lost! Against humans, of all things!



Belselk demands to know who is speaking to him, and then seems to recognize who it must be, since he declares that the speaker isn't even a council member! Belselk asks the newcomer to give him a hand, to gather his body parts and take him back to the Photosphere. The voice says it has no hand to give to a loser, before suddenly bisecting Belselk, who evaporates into nothingness. RIP that guy, I guess! The voice then snarls that the humans should climb - climb up here to his level of dreams! With that the boss room starts erupting around him…

We switch back over to the entrance of the ruin, where Rudy and Jane are making their way outside when a sudden earthquake hits and sends them to the floor. Jane falls and trips, dropping the priceless treasures he was holding, and Rudy quickly tosses her bodily aside to avoid getting crushed by the collapsing ceiling. Jane tells him to get off her already - how long does he plan to stay on top of her?



Rudy scrambles back after Jane realizes that the collapse crushed her treasures, and she demands to know what the hell he was doing. Rudy then… answers!? He tells her he's sorry, and that it won't happen again. Oh my god the silent protagonist just said words! It's like the only time in this game, too. I'm pretty sure it's also a localization goof. I have to say, the entire mini-plot regarding Calamity Jane is really entertaining - she's a fun character, and her occasional mad outbursts explain her nickname pretty well! It's fun how she and the boat captain are these recurring characters who just suddenly pop back up to be relevant!



Everyone soon gathers around, and McDullen tells his lady that under the circumstances he thinks that Rudy did the right thing. Her safety is the most important thing to him, after all. Jane begrudgingly accepts that logic, but tells him not to start up with all this 'safety' talk again. She then begrudgingly thanks Rudy for saving her life, and tells him to remember that you can't buy a life, but there's lots of other things you can buy in this world...! With that, the scene fades out...

---

Back in Mother's Room, Zeifried morosely reflects on the fact that Belselk was defeated by the humans. Alhazad teleports in and says that the oaf ruined the plan he so gracefully gave to him, so he guesses you really can't teach an old dog new tricks… Lady Harken also pops in and tells the others not to laugh at Belselk's scattered remains. She heard that this was a death befitting of him, and with him gone, they can have all the fun instead! Alhazad wonders how they can still call themselves the Quarter Knights with just three of them, but Mother quickly cuts in and tells her children that she already has a replacement in mind. Sheesh, not even giving them time to breathe, are you?



Zed arrives in the bottom corner of the screen, ecstatic that his turn has finally come - with him, the Quarter Knights shall revive like a phoenix! He's ready to go, but Mother instead calls out for… Boomerang? Two new figures then enter, a broad dark-skinned guy with a huge sword as well as his pet, a blue wolf. Zeikfried is appalled at the presence of the former - Boomerang is known as the Cannibal, the Executioner, and a demon with his reputation should not be joining the Quarter Knights! Boomerang declares that to kill other demons was one of his missions, and of course he didn't have any misgivings about that unimportant mission! He does as he pleases! Zeikfried again insists that such a man is not worthy of being a knight... (I think we know who finished off Belselk now.)



Mother doesn't listen to Zeik's arguments, instead stating that she has a mission in mind for Boomerang. He is to eliminate the humans guided by the Guardians, the ones who are preventing them from achieving their goals! Zeikfried reluctantly goes along with this, and Boomerang promises that he'll handle the elimination of the humans personally, since he would like to see if they are worth the trouble. He then commands his companion Luceid to come along. Given some earlier lore dumps, I have a strong suspicion I know who that wolf is - wasn't there a Guardian in the shape of a wolf who sided with the demons…?

After Boomerang leaves the room, Mother explains to Zeikfried that she wants to save her strength right now, which is why she sent the newcomer off to deal with the humans. Zeikfried wonders if that means the rest of them are going to launch a major attack soon, and Mother confirms that they are - but until then, nobody must come near her! Understood? Zeikfried does, and declares that he will activate the Soldelita… the ultimate defensive barrier! It'll keep all enemies from entering, and it's why this fortress is called the Photosphere - the sphere of light! Soon, we shall see chaos and destruction!



The scene switches to the outside of the Photosphere, showing the cracked halves of some half-buried object in the earth, like a submerged Death Star. A burst of red light erupts from it before a line of red laser beams turn on and a shimmering force-field activates between them. We get a larger scale view on a snowy part of the world map, and it turns out that the entire complex is now surrounded by a glowing geodesic dome of force-fields, protecting the enemy base from all attack…

Next Time: With both keys in hand, it's time to open the original dungeon this entire mid-game quest-chain has been leading to, the Giant's Cradle!

 

[Roarian]

Dungeon: Giant's Cradle

After finishing up our foray into the Volcannon Trap, we arrive back in Rosetta Town, where Jane and McDullen say their goodbyes and set off again. Our party decides it's time to handle some unfinished business, now - with both the blue and red hearts in our inventory, we can now head out to Giant's Cradle and finally finish up that golem-centric quest we've been working on for several hours now! Time to unlock those heavy stone doors to go find the sleeping giant inside, another one of the eight machines that were instrumental in defeating the demon attack that happened a thousand years ago. The enemy already stole three of them, so it's probably good to deny them this one! The entrance to the dungeon has two large conspicuous keyholes, and shoving the Blue Virtue and Red Malice into them results in the door sliding open, allowing access - no C4 needed this time.



Inside there's almost immediately a room with a save point which also contains a pair of Crest Graphs, so that's nice! After that, though, it's time for a gauntlet. This dungeon is full of traps - notable are several fake grapple points which send you falling into the abyss if you try to use them, as well as spikes in the floor which make things difficult, and spears in the walls… It's a nuisance, but interesting! There's also block and switch puzzles, grabbing crates to throw them at crystals - honestly, this place is pretty complicated compared to the previous dungeons, and is even combining their ideas. Certainly it's more challenging than that boring Tripillar. Probably my favorite dungeon yet?



Eventually, after getting through the trapped rooms, I arrive at the central chamber containing the Golem. No boss fight? Surprising! On the wall there's an inscription which tells me that the Fort of the Gods is an invulnerable machine protected by a magic seal, and this is where the lines blur between defense and offense. I assume it's describing the Golem, but it kind of works for the Photosphere too, doesn't it? Anyway, walking up to the Golem, Jack morosely observes that we were right - another one of these things sleeps in this desolate ruin! Cecilia calls it one of the eight [Powers] from a thousand years ago, and Hanpan confirms it as a weapon built by humans to fight the demon race. But what should be done with it now…?



Jack immediately decides that obviously we need to figure out how to operate this thing, since it's an overwhelming feeling to even be in its presence! Cecilia questions if the only useful thing this golem can do is to fight - is that really what Jack's trying to tell her? They're going to awaken this ancient being, which has been slumbering all this time, only to make it fight again…? Jack dryly points out that a sword is made for cutting, and a spear is made for stabbing, and just like them the golems were made for a purpose - mercy is precious, but mercy can also be an indulgence in a world like this one. Cecilia isn't so sure about any of this. Jack concludes they should just ask for input from that strange Professor, Emma, since she seemed to know her stuff back when we first encountered the golem Lolithia down in its tomb…

With no other options remaining except to look at the pretty paperweight, I escape from the dungeon with a spell and set sail back to Adlehyde - it's not far. After paying off the reconstruction committe while I'm here, I go to let Emma know that I found another golem. Obviously she's very pleased and asks to be taken straight there - we won't be sorry! She has experience from the Tomb of Lolithia, remember? Lucky for her, and lucky for me! She asks Rudy why she feels like she's the only one talking here, and concludes that she just has the traits of a person born to be in charge! Okay, time for the Filgaia Defense Force to go have a look at this golem!



Thankfully, we don't actually have to traverse through the dungeon again - in an obvious echo of what happened in the Tomb of Lolithia we just get time-skipped through the boring parts and arrive straight back at the golem's room with Emma in tow. She moves to stand in front of the huge machine and muses that she never thought she would see this while still in her thirties! We must have great karma, just like her! She's going to check it out now, she says, asking Hanpan for a hand. There's then a brief cutscene of Hanpan climbing all over the huge magic robot while Emma inspects it and takes notes, before the screen fades out for a moment to depict some amount of time passing.



Eventually Emma returns to the party and lets them know what she's found. She names the golem we found the Earth Golem - a less than imposing moniker compared to the others. Its proper name is 'Asgard' in later games, but here we'll have to do with a boring descriptor. Emma found some ancient writing on the golem pertaining to the so-called 'Fort of the Gods.' It's written on the shield mechanism located on both sides of the arms. Because this ruin is in such good condition the golem is also still in perfect working order - it just stopped in place, but it's still alive! Unlike Lolithia, this golem is merely sleeping… Emma immediately tried to wake it, of course, but it clearly needs more than a little shove to make it work! Still, when it comes to these matters, there's nothing she can't do! She calls out to Hanpan and says they'll try again!

The screen fades to later in the day, after a slew of failures, and it looks like even Emma is running out of steam. Everyone goes to take a break, leaving Cecilia behind with the sleeping golem. The wayward princess asks the huge lug why it won't wake up... Surprisingly the being answers, asking why it would get up? After a thousand years, nothing has changed. People just want to use it as a weapon! Cecilia turns away from it, and explains that she was born in a house that was a little different from ordinary people. As she grew up, she was looked after every inch of the way. What was really important for the people was the symbol she represented, and everyone has expectations of her because she's royalty. She muses to herself that people only like her because she's the Princess…



Cecilia apologizes to the golem for telling it all her problems, but she figured it might understand. It didn't want to be born as a weapon, to be treated as one all its existence... Suddenly she jerks up and belatedly realizes that the golem just spoke to her! She panics and quickly tells it that it's right - everyone does want to use it as a weapon, so it should pretend not to be awake! She begs it to remain asleep until all this is over. However, if it can hear past her voices, and can hear the cry of the people under fire, she declares it must wake of its own free will!

The localization here is a big wonky, but I think the general idea is that she asks the golem to help not because people want to use it as a weapon, but to protect the people who are in danger... to protect, rather than to attack. She's pretty gung-ho about the golem's free will, but given how she seems to identify with its plight, I am not surprised! She too would prefer the freedom to choose her own path, clearly, rather than to follow the one set out for her. The callbacks to that sequence in which Cecilia was faced with her insecurities are pretty obvious here, and she seems to be landing on the side of free will - at least where it comes to others. Jury's out on whether or not she can apply that logic to herself long-term, or if she'll return to being the princess that she's expected to be once this world-ending mess is over.

In answer to Cecilia's heartfelt pleas the golem activates, spewing steam out of its back with lightning crackling across its arms.



Emma comes running into the room again and demands to know how this happened - she tried everything to get the golem to start up, and nada! What did Cecilia do?! The Princess answers that she was only talking to the golem, and it decided to get up on its own. Jack joins them and says that he doesn't really care about that, he's just glad that we now have the [Power]! The ancient antidote to the demons! Cecilia warns him that the golem is not their weapon, though - no, instead, it's joining as a member of the party! The Earth Golem agrees, as it seems Cecilia somehow registered her voice print in the golem's memory. She begs the golem to lend its big hand for the future, one where it will no longer be needed as a weapon!

Without any further prompting the golem activates a handy elevator built into the floor beneath it, and begins to raise itself to ground floor in a scene quite similar to how Lolithia was removed by Emma - I assume the reason there was a hole for her to use was because this is how the golems are supposed to leave their 'tombs', but Lolithia's was in far worse condition and open to the elements. The Earth Golem soon walks out of the front door of Giant's Cradle and onto the World Map. Yeah, so it turns out that the Earth Golem here...? It's actually a vehicle!



You can ride the Earth Golem around on the world map like the most badass FF8 box car ever, and it has the additional ability to traverse that middle-ground level of shallow water that we've been looking to cross, since it's huge and can just ignore the tides. We still need the boat for deep waters, and you can't take it through forests either, but it's something! As a bonus feature, its shields should keep enemies away, thus preventing random encounters. Emma is rather disappointed by the shield's output, though - we can't expect much more from it unless she figures out how to upgrade it! This is a defensive golem that was not made for battle, but it can still cover a lot of ground… Time to go!

...You know, we haven't quite reached the end of this wild mid-game diversion yet, but I have to say - this entire chain of missions is utterly ridiculous, isn't it? We had to traverse a desert, then beat up an illusion dungeon and a ghost ship just to get ourselves a boat - and then use that boat to beat up two dungeons (and an entire elw-related subplot) to earn ourselves two keys, which we then used to open up a third dungeon in which got ourselves a golem vehicle... all of which are purely there so we can now traverse some shallow water which is evidently completely impassable in any other way. Never mind that we literally saw our party use a dinghy to get to the ghost ship. This is like the archetypical example of fetch-quest padding, and it's kind of hilarious.

Court Seim

You thought we were done with all the runaround, and we could head towards Arctica or the demon headquarters now? Think again! Although you can walk across the nearby shallows and walk up to the Photosphere, our newfangled golem isn't actually strong enough to penetrate the forcefield! Alas! Which means we've got to do more secondary tasks before we can finally head over there.



Making my way southwards instead, using those previously inaccessible chest-high waterways as bridges to get to warmer climates, I discover a newly accessible village - it's the town of Court Seim. I ditch our new humongous party member on the edge of the village, then head inside to see what's up…



It turns out Court Seim is a tiny settlement of orphans and various other people running from monsters, and inside one of the few houses I learn that two sisters are in charge of the orphanage - those would be Jessica, who is beautiful and very nice, and Jane, the toughest when it comes to fighting but also the nicest of all. Hold on, Jane…? The orphans are very proud of their boss, they proclaim, and want to be like her. It's unusual to call her Sister Jane, though - she's been called their boss for years! Jane is the breadwinner of this town, they explain, but they have no idea how she gets the money. Hm.



Ah… it's true, isn't it? In one of the houses I learn that a 'Mr. Maxwell' came to this town and spent his fortune on the children - long ago he started researching ancient technology in the town of Milama, but he moved here to house orphans that he took in from the wastelands, and his two daughters are the ones who take care of the orphans. I also remember to try Cecilia's wand on a stray dog, and... get a creepy response. The dog claims his whole body feels weird, that it doesn't feel like his body. Okay, that's spooky! Did you eat chocolate, by chance?



Anyway, I'm sure that's not ominous at all. Instead I head into the largest building, and in the basement of the largest building, I find a bookshelf:

Controlling a Golem: The golems are voice activated by a pre-registered voice. They can also be controlled by a musical instrument being played at a certain frequency.​

Well, the first method was evidently how Cecilia got things working, so I'm sure the second is a hint to how we get another golem later. Speaking to a nearby engineer reveals him to be Nicholi Maxwell himself, the ARMs Meister who resides in this tiny village. Long ago he was one of six who studied at Zepet Roughnight's Laboratory, which specialized in the study of ancient technology. He asks for our name, and is quite shocked when Rudy reveals his identity.



For our Rudy is actually Rudy Roughnight, grandchild of the old man! Nicholi explains that they used to call Meister Zepet the old man, and he asks how that old codger is doing these days, since they haven't seen each other in close to fifteen years. Yeah... about that. Rudy remains silent, as he (almost) always does, but he still somehow recounts his Dream Chaser days before he met Jack and Cecilia - in a manner of speaking. Because we get an actual flashback!

We first see a forest path, where a much younger Rudy and his grandfather move through the area as others pass them by. Zepet Roughnight - Rudy thought of him as his father. He was an old Dream Chaser who had raised him since infancy. We see the two of them sitting at a campfire in the woods. During their travels, Zepet taught Rudy about the life of a Dream Chaser, but most importantly, he gave Rudy a heart. A heart to protect the ones he loves!



We next see Rudy and Zepet at their home, the latter bedridden and being cared for by Rudy. One day the inevitable happened, and the old man's traveling days came to a final end. Rudy tasted the true meaning of being alone. We then witness Rudy mourning at a cross on a protruding cliff, in a shot which reminds me of a similar scene in Chrono Cross. Rudy buried Zepet on a hill that the old man was fond of, and the rest is history...



Nicholi is very sorry to hear about the old man's passing, but gets quickly distracted from his mourning because he notices Rudy's ARMs. He wonders if the boy knows how to use that properly, before realizing that the ARMs wouldn't have synchronized with him properly if he didn't. He explains that his daughter Jane is also capable of synchronizing with an ARM, but it's not nearly as powerful as what Rudy has right here…! This is the very moment that Calamity Jane returns, of course, and she's rather distressed at finding all of us hanging out in her home. Nicholi notices the reaction and asks his daughter if she knows us, but Jane plays it off, declaring that we only met just a little while ago.



Nicholi wonders why she seems so harried, but she rushes back upstairs and tells us to make ourselves at home. After she leaves, Nicholi tells us that Jane is a good daughter - and it's because of her that he can keep the orphanage running! Returning to the subject of old man Zepet, Nicholi instructs us - but Rudy in particular - to head southeast and cross the shallow sea to reach the Epitaph of the Sea Wind, an incomplete tower that was once used in the research of a flying machine. The research that Meister Zepet and Nicholi left behind there may be junk to some people, but we might find a use for some of it! He also offers us a key, and says that it might look funky, but it'll get us inside. Many of Zepet's belongings from before Rudy was born are still there! He then hands over a Wind-up Key…

Nicholi goes on to explain that the six disciples of Meister Zepet each became ARMs Meisters and spread out across the land, and they were all outcasts in one way or another - he wonders how the others are these days…? Upstairs, McDullen lets me know that he's thankful for what we've done for his lady, and that there will be a humble banquet for us later. (Probably after we finished the latest quest we were assigned, huh?)



We can also speak to Jane herself, just outside her front door, and she tells us that her dad isn't actually aware that his daughter is the legendary treasure hunter Calamity Jane - and we shouldn't tell him either, or we won't like what happens! Okay, so Jane is Robin Hood and she's saving up cash to fund an actual orphanage. This is positively saccharine. Does make feel better for that money she extorted out of us on Cage Tower, though. At least the money went to a wholesome place!



Next: Time to make Cid proud, and also have a moonlight date with Calamity Jane.

 

[Roarian]

Dungeon: Epitaph of the Sea Wind

After taking our new-found friendly golem across the nearby shallow sea, we immediately run into the aforementioned Epitaph - it states that 'here lies obscure memories of a master and his disciples.'



We can enter the ancient remains of the tower nearby, which seem like just another stone ruin… except for the weird mechanical device to the east of the room which resembles a small robotic tank of some sort. Using the Wind-up Key on it makes it work again, and the machine immediately drives off into the nearby wall and wrecks itself, opening the way.



As we enter, there's plenty of conveyor belts and other mechanical paraphernalia to signify that, yeah, we've gotten to the steampunk dungeon! There are thin pathways alongside ubiquitous conveyor belts which, when carefully navigated, allow access to a few stray goodies - some healing items, a Lucky Card, a Magic Carrot - nothing too remarkable. Eventually our wandering leads us to a doorway which leads onto the next floor, but the moment we pass through it locks behind us, and Cecilia wonders out loud if that means we're trapped in here. Jack decides someone must have locked us in, and he'll kick as many butts as required to get them out of here! That's when a blue wolf appears next to us - this is the 'Black Shadow.' Smacking it with the magic wand allows us to speak to the beast, and the wolf declares that we should come with it…



What follows is a bit of a minigame where you have to chase the wolf as it makes a circuitous route through the fairly expansive next room. It's pretty fast, so you have to make use of the slip-slidey dash to stay close enough to see what route it takes, as an incorrect path means you have to try again. Technically, keeping up with the beast doesn't matter since the route is always the same, but it'd be a lot of trial-and-error to figure it out without a guide! At the end the wolf declares that his master awaits, and Cecilia concludes from 'the vibration' that the creature was actually a Guardian - namely the only one who hasn't lost their powers. That was Luceid the Black Wolf, the Guardian of Desire! Was she the one to lock us in here…?

Leaving that aside for the moment, the next floor contains a few more rooms, one of which contains a few bookshelves with lore:

The History of Arctica: The industrial society of Arctica… a country bound in ice and snow, yet it holds its life true… The technologies found among the many ruins around Arctica have made this place… a paradise in ice. There is still much to discover in the ruins of Arctica…
The Wind Sea: The great magic of the ancient days has called the ever stretching sky above our heads… The legendary Metal Bird once traveled the Wind Sea with eloquence… Those were the days when people held the reins to the skies… Can we be masters of the sky once again?​

More implications that the ancient past had advanced technology - and given that this is the steampunk dungeon, that makes sense. Arctica seems to have been of some significance in this regard, which may explain why it was an early target for the demons to take out. The 'Wind Sea' book implies that humans mastered flight, possibly even spaceflight, in the days before everything came crashing down. I assume, then, that Emma is our Cid for this game? Someone has to be the mad genius who reinvents the wheel (or the flight stick.)

A third bookcase contains:

Erotica: Not yet!​

Heh. Beneath that small library is a crack in the wall, and sending Hanpan through it allows him to hit a switch on the other side to open the door.



Inside the room there's a trapped chest containing 'Metal Bird' - it's actually a book which contains theories and applications for a flying machine. Once that chest explodes, a new switch is revealed beneath it which opens another door - this one leads to a room with a few chests containing stat-apples. Towards the north of this floor there's a mysterious machine embedded in the wall which requires a password - 'The ones who seek the ocean wind… you shall receive the gift of flight!' The codeword is naturally 'Metal Bird', and this opens a secret door in the library room which allows us to move on to the next floor.

On the next floor there's a Duplicator doorway, behind which there's a Bullet Clip, a Secret Sign, and another Crest Graph - not a bad haul. To the south there's also a room which contains a shiny new [Tool] for Rudy - it's the [Skates]! These fancy rollerblades allow Rudy to counteract damaging floors and moving walkways, and to charge across them at super-speed in order to go against their flow.



These skates are immediately useful since we need to get past a walkway which leads to a Full Revive and another long, long ladder to the final floor of this place. (What a thrill… With darkness and silence through the night…) We climb back up past the last few floors we've gone down and finally reach the roof.

Up there I walk around the perimeter to pick up the Reflex accessory for Rudy, then make my way to a nearby room with a large machine which is surrounded by three more of those wind-up robot tanks. Activating all three of them with the Wind-up Key makes them crash into the central machine and the build-up of internal pressure eventually causes them all to violently explode.



Hanpan explains what happened, but Jack isn't getting it - could he say that again in English? Hanpan slowly explains that a great concentration of energy eventually bursts out in an explosion, and Jack is inspired by this to make a new Fast Draw technique for himself - this would be Blast Charge, which does the obvious - explode! With that task complete, it's time to head back outside and down the final courtyard towards this dungeon's final treasure chest…

An echoing voice cries out: 'Human warriors! What do you wish to carve in this epitaph? This is the resting place for the dreams of the sea, wind seekers!' With that Boomerang and Luceid reveal themselves in front of the treasure chest, squaring off with us.



Jack immediately determines there's something a little different about this new demon, and Boomerang declares that he sees the group followed Luceid's directions well! Cecilia asks the wolf in question why she's siding with the demons, but Boomerang talks over her and introduces himself instead, and says there's a little something he's cooked up for our party… It's boss time!

[Boss: Boomerang & Luceid]



As combat begins I belatedly realize my primary spellcaster is still silenced, which isn't great, but I'll manage. I focus on Luceid first to take her out of the fight quickly - her attacks deal considerably more damage than Boomerang's do, though occasionally he does pull out a whopper of a super-attack which knocks out half or more of a character's hit points. After the wolf is gone, Boomerang himself is easy enough to focus on - ARMs and Meteor Dive for the win! Magic doesn't seem terribly useful in this battle anyway, so Cecilia mostly restricts herself to healing.

After we win, Boomerang declares us 'pathetic fools, going up against the Demon Race…' Seems like our 'victory' is more symbolic than anything, as Boomerang and Luceid are just fine, and the former declares that if we want to finish him, we must attain the miracle we seek.



If we can win that for ourselves, he shall appear again! Jack points out that Boomerang was clearly just testing us there, similar to Belselk's original encounter, but his reason for doing so is murky… I assume he's basically a proud warrior race guy, like a Klingon, and he's in it for the strongest foes, the best fight - which would explain why the Guardian of Desire would stick by him. I'm guessing she got wooed by his pure desire to kick ass.

Afterwards I head up the dais and grab the 'Rune Drive' from the chest, then use Escape to get out of the dungeon and back to Court Seim. I'm not entirely clear on what this thing even does, to be honest…

Court Seim

Not much has changed in town, so I quickly head back to Nicholi's place to speak with the man of the house, and he is surprised and pleased that we found the missing Rune Drive - he never thought that it would be hidden at the Epitaph! He decides he'll explain what that thing is tomorrow, since today he's got something different planned. We must come, for his daughter is waiting! They have a little banquet planned! Jane grouches that she didn't have anything to do with this party, of course.



Everyone heads upstairs, where Nicholi goes back on his promise to wait until tomorrow, and mentions distractedly that the Rune Drive I got only works as part of a pair, but luckily he has the other one - they can use them to unleash the true power of the Earth Golem! He'll install them first thing in the morning. He'd hoped he'd come across something like this, so he could help us with something…

After chatting with a few of the orphans in the building, who are mostly just happy Jane is home, I head for her room and she admits it's actually pretty nice to see all of us again. She asks if, when everyone's asleep, Rudy could sneak out for a bit? She's got something to talk to him about.



Going outside right now isn't really an option, we can really just walk around and talk to people about how cool it is that Jane is home, so ultimately I head over to McDullen. He's standing next to a bed, and offers to wrap up the party and call it a night. This is how you progress, so I take a nap…

As agreed, we sneak out later that night to meet with Jane on a nearby bridge - have to get that cliché in there somehow, right? Jane admits she feels bad about making us hang out with her just because she couldn't sleep. She didn't wake anyone up, right? She turns to the water and admits it's silly that 'Calamity Jane' became a treasure hunter to provide for a bunch of orphans. Rudy supports her in this endeavor, because she says she knew she could count on him! She explains that they all used to live in Milama, but they spent all their money taking care of the kids, and they eventually drifted all the way to this desolate place when the money ran out. She hates this kind of life, but what can she do? Jane freely admits that she hates her father for giving people false hope, as kindness and care have no place in this wasteland. He gives people hope just to have it shattered by reality, which is cruel!



She muses that Rudy is making this journey to protect Filgaia, right? Why? For money, for fame? To be a king like in the fairy tales? Any of those reasons are fine to her, but she won't accept that it's for some noble cause like saving the world! She dislikes it when kindness is thrown at just anyone... Kindness should be personally valued and expressed only to those you care about! Otherwise she'd be hurt to know that he saved her just because he felt obligated to... Sometimes, she muses, she thinks a day will come when dawn will no longer appear…

Just as the sun rises, Jane asks Rudy to promise her that he's risking his life because he loves Filgaia - that this is the reason why he can sacrifice so much. Right? If not, she'll never be able to like us do-gooder types! Rudy is deeply affected by Jane's (rather poorly localized) words and learns his Level 3 Force power - Protector!



I've got some difficulty parsing what exactly she means here - but I think Jane objects to nebulous 'save the world' motives and prefers tangible ones like keeping your friends and family safe. Presumably this is because she feels her father gave up a lot to save some orphans, only for them all to end up stranded out here. In any case, her objection to being saved for 'obligation' echoes the way Cecilia feels about her own life, doesn't it? These folks just want to be free… I guess living in a dying world doesn't help things, either.

Moments after that heart-to-heart, a familiar being suddenly takes shape in the air - it's Alhazad! The demon declares that he tends to run into these situations a lot - see, he came here this morning because he has a matter to discuss with the pretty lady! He asks Jane if she could kindly deliver the Rune Drive rumored to be in the mansion to the demons, within three hours? If she doesn't, they'll slaughter everyone in sight in order to find it! Understood? Alhazad assumes we'll make the right decision, then departs.



Jane, not easily shocked, declares that they can't just sit there - they must wake everyone up and tell them what happened! It's kind of interesting how this tactic mirrors the one Belselk used earlier in the game - basically threatening the town into giving the demons what they want, but it's by Alhazad this time - who doesn't seem like the type to go for such blunt tactics. It becomes clear rather quickly that there's more going on here, however...

Soon the entire town has gathered together near Nicholi's house - there's a ton of sprites, including many duplicates - and he hastily explains that in the past he excavated the other Rune Drive from another ruin. Just in case, he hid that Rune Drive in the Sacred Shrine to the south, deep in the forest. A sacred field prevents monsters from entering that shrine, so he'll evacuate everyone there while our party stays behind and watches over the village alongside Jane!



Everyone quickly rushes off towards safety as the clock keeps ticking. After a while, though, Jack says that it's too quiet. Are the Demons late? Hanpan decides there's something wrong - there's no attack, despite Alhazad's warning. Jack muses that they advertised their threat loudly enough, so what's going on? Hanpan decides that the Demons must not have known where the second Rune Drive was - that's why they appeared here in the village instead of heading straight for the shrine…



Jack doesn't get it until Hanpan points out that the normal reaction to the threat of an imminent attack is to evacuate to the safest place. Where would that be…? Cecilia realizes that the pyramid that controls dimensions is in the forest to the south as well, and Jack declares that Alhazad is always one step ahead - he baited the village into revealing their secret hideout where they were keeping the Rune Drive! Rushing out of town towards the Sacred Shrine, it's time to see if we can get to the demon before things go from bad to worse!

Next: Time to delve into the totally safe Sacred Shrine to get that second Rune Drive... and maybe save some people, I guess.