Part 8: Little Big Men (Part 2)
Alright, let's get that micronizer. Ki's counting on us!
It looks like there's a valley to the east. That must be the way to giant town.
They built a giant wall?
Well, yeah! They had giant builders! Huh. Well, keep an eye out for the entrance.
Shouldn't be that hard to miss, what with bein' huge and all.
Neat cliff. I didn't think the giants would live on a mesa, though. Seems kind of weird. Why? What if you fell off?
Johnny wasn't kidding about those steps. Explains the cliff, at least!
... Uh. Is... is that a house?
Omigod. We're not looking for Giant Town! We're in it!I love love love this area. It's just so incredibly well executed. You wander out of the regular town looking for a dungeon entrance or cave or something, and then you realize the town you were in literally lives in a patch of grass on Giant Town's lawn. You don't get the full effect until you wander past the extra large "town border" wall and see the steps and first building. It really drives home how very, very tiny you are.
Giant Town, of course, is crawling with enemies. You'll see such exciting luminaries as...
Remember our first miniboss? (And no, I don't count the BabyWyrm.) Here they are as normal monsters! They're not nearly as threatening now and can be dispatched in two or three hits at most. Horn is still not fun, but it's tolerable now as opposed to an instagib. Plus, Heather can one-shot them now! If I feel like wasting a Battle Sword use, I mean. But still, it's really nice to see how far we've come.
Man, even the worms are big. If those are the worms, I'd hate to see the fish.
Fish? Fish? I JUST GOT FREE FROM THE TACKLE BOX I CAN'T GO BACK THERE MAN
Hey! Hi YAH
Did he really have to die? He didn't seem all that bad. He's seen things he can't unsee, Sara. It's totally better this way.Get used to seeing this fight a lot. That's not necessarily a bad thing, as it coughs up at least 400-500 gold every time. Fiends and worms don't have a lot of HP, so if you have anywhere near decent enough crowd control, you can pad the hell out of your bank account. However, there's also...
*squish* Ew. Grody. He's a single cell organism, Heather. He can't help it. Awwww. Little guy's probably just hungry! What do amoebas eat, anyway? Adventurers, mostly.
IT BURRRRRRRRRRRRRRNS ? idgi Nobody actually says that out loud, dude.Amoebas can spam Dissolve and Acid. If you remember Mr. S, you know how worrisome this is. They're really the only major threat while wandering around this area, so home in and obliterate them as fast as possible. Fortunately, O-Poison blocks acid, and Heather is the only one without any abilities or gear to grant that. This also seems like a pertinent time to mention that, unlike other RPGs where they're merely a helpful feature, immunities are incredibly important in SaGa. A lot of the heaviest AoE attacks a boss will wield are elemental and can be blocked with a little
Dissolve, though. Dissolve's bad right now. It hits hard, does non-elemental damage, and leeches HP. The HP restore doesn't even matter here; they won't live past a round of focused combat, so it's just kind of punting you in the ribs while you're down. Still, dissolve hurts. Don't let them do that.
Hey! I can see the secret passage from here! If you can see it from this far away, what's the point? Well, a giant wouldn't notice it if they're all the way up there. But... But that doesn't matter! The giants already know it's here! It's how they got out of their city! Hey! I can see the secret passage from here! 
Well, here we are. Guess we better find that pharmacy.
Oho! Hope they don't have any giant cats left. You really gotta keep thoughts like that to yourself, dude. Whatever, we can handle it. Let's go!
Protection lock engaged. Magi power insufficient to pass. No. Way. How does that even work? It's a mousehole! Maybe the mice were really, really advanced. Something something forty two! Again, nobody actually says that kind of stuff out loud. Hmm. How much magi is left in this world, Roy? *peers* Looks like just a couple. They wouldn't lock all the magi behind a magi-protected door. Why do you say that? Well, how would they get back in?Two years earlier...
quote:
*slam*
DAMMIT I LOCKED MY KEYS IN THE HOUSE
Yeah, I guess that wouldn't make any sense. Let's keep looking for magi!
Bingo.
Man I bet those things are comfy. Seriously. Can you imagine laying on a bed the size of a room? Check it out! Treasure! That must be the magi!
gimme You know, I'm kinda starting to wonder if we should really be giving Heather more power magi. Ehn. What's the worse that could happen? I am totally become Death, Destroyer of Worlds 
We pick up a power magi (yaaaaaaaay) and a poison magi (meeeeeh) here. Each magi you collect really does make a huge difference. I think I mentioned it earlier, but equipping just one power magi doubled Heather's damage output way back in First World. As you start to rack them up, your guys get steadily more and more ridiculous.
Even before this, our crew was pretty comfortable with the fights in this area, which is a very good sign. Heather's one-shotting with her axe and a low level martial art, Zero and Sara can blow away entire groups with their magic if things get bad, and we've got enough gold to keep everyone freshly stocked with gear. The only thing left to do is keep plinking away with those agility weapons from the back row and wait for those sweet, sweet agility points to come rolling in.
Magi levels acceptable. Welcome home, Jonathon. Johnny must've run the pharmacy out of his house. Explains why he knew so much about it. But why would the mousehole be locked? Try not to forget your keys this time! Oh.
Ooh, a round thing! I love the round things. That must be the micronizer! There's still one left! Great! Now all we have to do is—
-intruderalert|intruderalert-
Whoops, n/m! Stop saying that kind of stuff out loud What... Roy? They have metal skin, just like me! -signaldetected|identify|selfrobo28|scanning- Hi! It's okay, we're friendly! Man, this is great. I can't believe I finally found— -modeldefective|aicorrupt|eliminate|eliminate-
*boom* Roy! ...
That was a mistake.
*bzzkkpttpkt* Jeez. Remind me never to tick you off.The silver/crab/robo fight is unique to this building, and it's a few magnitudes of difficulty higher than what we've seen so far. Silvers will kick you in the head, and Robo-28s will blow you the fuck up. Crabs won't do shit and can be laughed at with impunity. You'll notice that Sara just shelled out a massive amount of damage; she's been quietly leveling up agility as we've been going along, and I think I threw some agility magi on her at this point as well. I've got some endgame loadouts in mind right now, and Sara's well on her way; Zero, nnnnnot so much. Fortunately, we have something to make up the difference in the meantime.
-threatlevelmiscalculation|reinforce|reinforce- Why are you doing this?! Roy! Pull yourself together! -neutralizeprimarythreat|eliminate|eliminate- No! I'm not fighting you! Move it, dude! *shove*
*boom* ... -sacrificeunexpected|recalibrate|recalculate-
Leave my friend alone!
R-Roy? 
Welcome to the moment I've been waiting for.
The SMG is the first crowd-control gun available. It's noticeably overpowered for this point of the game—which is odd, since it costs the same amount as a Battle Sword, which is way less impressive. But who cares, it's a friggin' SMG! These things will rip through entire groups of monsters, but at 6800 a pop for 30 shots, they ain't cheap. If you pick one up, you have to carefully measure the risks of losing the fight versus the expensive of taking a use off the stack and nah I'm just kidding, we give it to the robot. 15 shots of renewable SMG. It's not exactly breaking the game over our knee, but—at least for these next two sections—it's not far off.
You okay, Zero? Oof. Dunno what that was, but I'm really hoping I don't get hit with it again. Thanks for the healing potion, Heather. That was actually my perfume. Glad it helped, though! ... Roy? Are you alright? I don't understand any of this. Why were those people made out of metal? Why did they attack us? Why do I keep finding all these weapons that attach to me? Maybe it's just 'cause you're awesome. Zero... No, I'm being serious here. Roy, I've known you since we were little. You kick ass five ways to Sunday. Those guys were jerks. Totally! Besides, remember what Mr. S always said... ...quote:
Mr. Sigma, how can you possibly have failed this test when you were cheating the entire time?!
Not really sure how that applies here. "...The color of your skin doesn't matter." Oh, that one! Yeah. That makes more sense. But why did they call me defective? It's like they knew who I was... Uh, clearly not if they called you that. Especially since you machine-gunned them to death afterwards! Okay I'm gonna be straight with you, that part was pretty awesome. Enough emo stuff! What's in the boxes?
Ooh! They're my size, too! Sure, if you like wearing knock-offs. There's nothing wrong with knock-offs. They're cheaper, and most people can't tell the difference. Besides, what does a brand name really buy you, anyway? Peace of mind?
Okie doke, Johnny said we can scale these. Up we go!
And here it is! How does thing even work? Is there, like, a button, or...? Why don't you give me that? Hey! Why do you get to keep it? Because it doesn't shoot things, stab things, or play obnoxious music, so I'm clearly the only one qualified to handle it. You've gotten way sassier since we started this thing. I'm a product of my environment.
Sweet. Looks like we're all set! You know, there's one thing I don't understand. The giants micronized and abandoned their city, right? Yeah? And it was because they couldn't get pants that fit. Right... What's stopping them from coming back after they find some? ...
*stomp* *stomp* CHEESE IT
OMIGOD OMIGOD GET BACK TO THE TUNNELS HELLO SMALL THINGS AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANext Time: The Incredible Journey