Part 12: Chapter XII: I Fucking Love Apples

We still have to find the mayor. Luckily, his Australian parrot (who apparently wants to bang us) told us to look in the woods.



The woods gives us a handful of new enemies. This is a Fungoid, a creepy little cyclops-shroom who undulates in a very disturbing manner. They either hurl themselves at you like frisbees or try to confuse your party, with a very high success rate. Despite their bio, I have never actually seen them use Command. They're pretty annoying.



Confused party members either attack the enemy, themselves, party members, act Distracted (same as caps, they stare into space) or they use Feign Swing, which is like Distracted in that I've never found a use for it. They just use their attack animation and nothing happens. It's still learnable, however.

Partway into the forest, we find some dude. If we'd come here before the parrot spilled the beans to us, he'd just sit here and tell us we couldn't come in.



: "Huh? You're looking for the mayor? Ummm......there's a small problem. I mean, the mayor of Kyria is here, but he's, um, well, lost. Some really fierce wild animals moved into this forest a while back..."



: "That's why we came here, but we only know how to make traps, see? We're not too good at hunting. I'm afraid we haven't had much luck so far..."



The camera pans over an area with tons of jury-rigged traps and covered up holes.



: "I don't know what to do anymore..."



: "Um...so, do you have any idea what's happened to the mayor?"

: "Well...he's either gotten stuck in one of his own traps...or he ran into that monster. If you want to go in there looking for him, I won't stop you. Here - take this with you."



: "Try putting that Apple on a stump in the woods. You should be able to lure the monster out with it."

: "So if we find the monster and follow it..."

: "...You should be able to find the mayor. I hope. But...please be careful. There are lots of traps in the woods."

The man's not kidding. The next area is absolutely covered in traps. But first!



Hey, that looks like an apple tree! Let's have Ershin headbutt it!



Free stuff! This apple tree gives you an infinite amount of apples. Your only limit is how patient you are and how durable you figure Ershin's head to be. It's probably a game design decision since you 'need' at least one in a few minutes (even though you don't really if you know where to go), and apples happen to be a consumable item. You can recover 100 health with them, so each apple is like a third of a healing herb.



No, I don't have a hoarding problem. It's free healing, how can I pass that up?



So we walk into the next area and barely move ten feet before there's a hole to fall down. This whole area has a huge cave underneath it that is thankfully free of monster spawns. To the left of the screenshot, you can see a ladder and some light. That's a well.



You have to find your way to it and climb out if you fall down a hole. Since all the holes are relatively obvious, falling down by accident isn't too much of a problem. The problem is that they block paths and make a maze without walls, and there's some items down in the cave only accessible by dropping down specific holes and not falling off of ledges. This area can be pretty annoying, and I'm going to gloss over it.



Here's one of the three stumps in the area. We'll visit this again later.



TREASURE! Maybe we can stand under it and jump up and grab it.



I am a slow learner.



Game, you are an asshole.

The Pointed Stick returns from Breath of Fire III as the worst weapon in the entire game for Nina. It serves no purpose beyond the game trolling you.



Item collection...I'll be skipping these screenshots later in the game as they mostly become money or standard collectables that blend together. I'll still try to show off the unique stuff.



Ahh, the Bandit. These sneaky bastards are quick, use Sever on you, can heal themselves with one healing herb (that you can steal, if you have the ability), and run when they're low on health. They drop lots of money, though.



Speaking of unique items, here's a nice ring that takes way too much navigation to get.



Pretty nice, but we'll save that for later. If I ever remember I have it.



Let's catch us some beasties.





That's the fearsome monster these guys have been shitting their pants over? Bunch of sissies.



The elephant-boar-raptor-thing smells delicious apples and comes over to the trunk.



It greedily gulps down the whole thing with only a few chews, and gets a little over its head.



Uh oh, busted!



The beastie flees!



Lucky for us it left tracks in its haste. There's three stumps, as I said, and each gets you a different path to follow. Two lead to items, and one shows the convoluted path to the next area.



This is a ring that makes you more resistant to earth magic. I'll give that to Nina, as she's inherently strong against wind and weak against earth.



Delicious!



The next area is just a bunch of cliffsides and a waterfall. There is this, though, which recovers 30 AP. Very, very handy.



On to the next area.



Boss Video IV: Maman
The cutscene in the video has been reproduced below for your convenience









D'aw. These little boar things are actually sort of cute.



SWEET JESUS!



Wow, this guy is a complete asshole. Who puts land mines all over a forest just to catch lunch?

: "You saw it, didn't you!? That stupid animal just walked right into it! Do I know how to make traps or what! Ha ha! Ha ha ha! That's what you get, you dumb furball! How'd you get so stupid, anyway? Run in the family?"



This guy really needs to learn not to tempt fate.



The gigantic beast lands with such a force that Ryu and the gang are propelled into the air briefly.





Ryu and his friends proceed to slice up some delicious Maman steaks.



: "Thank you! Oh, and by the way...who're you?"

: "Um...you're the mayor of Kyria, right?"

: "Yes...yes, I am. You wanted to see me, did you? Well then, let's go back to the village and we'll talk."

The scene transitions back to an overhead scroll of Kyria.



: "Bet you've never seen a village like this before!"



Check out Ershin in the back, by the way. During this scene, Ershin is either talking to or tormenting the parrot. It's hard to tell.

: "Well, there's a good reason for all the traps.

: "You mean because of the passageway to Synesta?"

: "Oh...knew about that already, did you?"



: "There's a passageway to Synesta here. A lot of people from Synesta fled here during the war using it."



: "It's our job to protect it, in case anyone ever needs to use it again."

: "That's why we're here, Mr. Mayor. We want to use it ourselves."

: "Well...sure, why not? You don't look like Imperial types. I'll open up the passageway tomorrow morning. You can stay at the inn until then."

Sweet, sweet progress. Tomorrow morning we can get the hell out of this crazy town and never have to talk to that parrot again.



...













: "How do you feel? You were asleep for a long time, you know. You must be wondering where you are. My name is Bunyan. I live here, in the Zhinga Mountains I found you a few days ago, collapsed down by the river. I brought you here, and dressed your wounds."

: "Then w...I am in your debt...Bunyan, yes?"







: "I've seen men die from burns as bad as yours."









: "That's interesting...same name as the First Emperor, eh?"



...