Part 20: Chapter XX: A Quest Of Fetching

So, we finally get through the horrible shifty magma plate room to find a room with a bunch of ladders.



Hey, a little house! I'm not going to ask how a wood roof about 20 feet above lava doesn't burst into flames. Maybe that's what the pipes are, geothermal A/C.



Wait, nope, it's a furnace heater. We enter to find a dwarf hammering away, cause we all know dwarves love hammering and getting hammered.



Hi ho, hi ho, shameless reference is go.

: "Excuse me, we're sorry to bother you, but we need you to make something for us."

: "Ho! The King's Sword! Of course I know what it is! I made it! No, no - wouldn't be hard to make another one just like it! But...I need certain materials if I'm going to make one."

: "What do you need?"

: "Ho ho! There's a rare metal called a Faerie Drop...it can only be found in the realm of the faeries. The only problem is that, as you know, faeries can't be seen by ordinary folk like us!"

: "Ershin was able to see them."

: "Ho ho! Well then, that makes things easier, doesn't it? All you have to do now is find some faeries, and bring back a Faerie Drop!"

Faeries, huh? I know where to find faeries! To San Fransisco Wychwood!



But first, let's check out this nice little lava-side patio.



Complete with cocktails!



Alright, let's go out the back entrance which we somehow couldn't find before.



Thankfully, we can go right to it now.



So, back to Wychwood we go, and we hear Faeries giggling.





So, we go back to where we last saw the little bastards and talk to the sparkly invisible thing.



: "We won't do anything to you! Promise!"



: "They say they want a Faerie Drop!"

: "There aren't any around here..."

: "There used to be a lot where we lived..."

: "...That's it! Do you want to come to where we live and get a Faerie Drop?"

I don't like where this is going, but sure.

: "OK then, turn around!"

: "Normal people can't go to where we live."

: "But since you've got a dragon with you, you can! Probably...I think..."

Another mention of Ryu being a dragon that's somehow forgotten.



: "It'll only hurt for a little bit!"

Wait wha-



*CLANG*





The transportation to Faerieland is actually really hilarious when you think about it. It's the Land of Dreams. To get there, you obviously need to be dreaming. So, what do they do to get you to dream? They knock you the fuck out.



: "We faeries used to live here, in the Land of Dreams!"

: "But then, those big meanies came, and..."

There's a loud grumble from nearby.

: "Did you hear that? That's them! That's those nightmares snoring!"

: "They're big and nasty and ugly too! They attacked us and drove us out of our homes! Mean old nightmares!"

: "All right, Dragon Boy. We'll give you a Faerie Drop if you promise to get rid of them for us!"

Alright, so we're basically being dreamland ghostbusters.



Each nightmare is snoring away, and you can find them by the ZZZ bubbles over their heads that pop up occasionally. The area's very small, so they aren't hard to find. You then talk to the invisible nightmare to wake it up.



: "Hello...and goodbye."

And with that, we go into battle. Something to keep in mind is that all the nightmares take damage from healing magic, making them absurdly easy to kill if you exploit their weakness.



Chkom spams Sleep and Rock Blast, but goes down like a ton of bricks.



: "What a good, refreshing nap that was! I'm glad you're here - I could use some exercise!"

Kyo hurls some pretty nasty debuffs at the party, but is easy to deal with otherwise.



: "You must be tired after doing so much work for the faeries. Why don't you take a rest? A long, permanent rest."

Udy's actually pretty annoying. He uses Drain and Leech Power all the time to keep himself going, and has an absurdly high parry and dodge rate. Blow him to kingdom come with magic or just heal him to death.



: "I'm very glad to meet you. Why? I was getting tired of the taste of faerie...I think I'll have you instead."

Nmago counters nearly every physical attack that hits him, and throws Frost at you if you hit him with magic. He's a pest.



: "So...you've come to help the faeries get back their homes, you say? I'm terribly sorry, but what's ours is ours, and what's theirs is ours too."

Bokta's only gimmick is that nearly all of his attacks are critical hits. Just kill him quick and that won't be a problem.

So, we kill all the ghosts, and the ground rumbles violently. A shadow appears in the center of the area, and something falls down. Something...goofy.



I'd better just be having a flashback to Quest For Glory here, cause I refuse to believe a giant flesh-colored Antwerp with a clown nose is the next boss.



Boss Video X: It Totally Is







So Fantam's horrible lamprey nose flops around and shrivels to nothingness, inspiring nightmares in thousands of young children across the world.





: "Now we can live here again in peace! Whoops! I almost forgot! I promised you I'd give you something, didn't I? Wait just a second!"



Oh boy oh boy shiny treasure



...must be heavy, I guess.



: "That was a big one! Here you go!"



: "A Faerie Drop...look at all the colors...it's so beautiful...."

: "Hey! Don't stare at it like that - it's embarrassing."

...awww, don't tell me.



: "Come back and play with us again sometime! Bye!"

So...if I get bird drop from bird monsters, and it says it's used for fertilizer...then Faerie Drop...







I'm with you, buddy. Let's just pretend we never realized this.

(Also, I believe this is the only time that portrait is ever used. Shame, cause it's amazing.)

The keen-eyed among you may have noticed we broke 3,000 damage in Fantam's fight.



That means we can get one of the best skills in the game.



Super Combo lets you do a string of attacks equal to how many buttons you can press correctly in a timed QTE. The attacks aren't always as strong as regular ones, but the sheer number of them usually makes up for it. Anyways, let's go give the Faerie Drop to the smith.



: "Ho! What's this? Just look at that color! That shine! This is one of the most beautiful Faerie Drops I've ever seen! Now that I've got this, I can make another King's Sword for you! You wait right there, I'll have this done in a jiffy!"



Yep. The King's Sword, symbol of the Alliance, was originally made with faerie crap.

This game has a weird sense of humor at times.

Not five seconds later...



: "I told you it'd be ready in a jiffy! Not a bad job, if I say so myself. Here you go!"



: "Thank you very much, sir. With this, we might be able to help Cray. Let's get back to the castle!"

Hold your horses, Nina.



I gotta try this out first.



The buttons are shown onscreen, they only use the four face buttons. People with fast fingers have gotten some absurd amounts of hits with this thing.



Oh yeah, you also get goofy names for the result depending on how many you get right. They get pretty interesting.

To the castle!



"I'm sorry but this area is being used for the inquiry of Chief Cray. No one is allowed entry."

: "I have vital information regarding Cray! It's about the King's Sword..."

: "The King's Sword? Why, it's right here!

What.



FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

: "In exchange for its return, they have made several difficult demands to us. Among them are changes to our treaty - changes that we have little choice but to accept!"

: "But...my sister...we were going to..."

: "Silence! This is no longer a matter you need concern yourself with. Know this - Cray's punishment will not be light!"

: "Oh, Cray..."





: "You let them go off and make a fake sword like that...what were you thinking!?"

: "You said to w...w...to watch them. You didn't say anything about s-stopping them." ()

: "Grr....the next time they try to do something, let me know immediately! Understand!?"



: "I guess our only hope now is to get Cray out of there ourselves! You'll help me, won't you, Ryu?"

Yeah yeah, sure sure.

: "Thank you. All right, let's wait until dark in our room."

So, let's recap. Scias is still working for the Ludians but he's intentionally being obstructive to them, either because he likes us or - more likely at this point - he just wants to wheedle more money out of them.

More importantly, the Empire stole our idea. Now we look like complete idiots, Cray's going to get the shaft, the Empire's screwing over the Alliance even more, and the last two hours of gameplay have been made completely pointless. There's a reason the manga skips right to step jailbreak. This is the first real time the game's writing excels at making you, the player, hate something, but it certainly won't be the last. If there's one thing this game is good at, it's evoking emotions from plot twists.

<sub>Also I personally blame Yuna for this move. He's obviously dealt with the West before, the latter half of the game gives a precedent for his ability to make stuff like a perfect copy of the King's Sword (I assume he could get Faerie Drop from The Occult Coffers Of Plot Contrivances or something), and it's something he'd do.

Because he's a dick.</sub>