Part 11: Days 16-17 - Labyrinth: starring Kyte Seaman

Days 16-17 - Labyrinth: starring Kyte Seaman

Where we last left off, we saved General Bagoth from being blown up and went exploring all over Pandule, going as far as to find a magical sky island with people immune to the time loop.

Now we are going to start a new loop and experience something truly awful. For reference, it is now the 16th day of Mouse’s adventures on Pandule and the 4th week.

Starting off at the dock, we are greeted by a familiar face…



We can hear her playing the song on a flute.

”Pattimo, I played the “Song of Courage” for her last loop.”

”I know. I stand by my statement.”


Now Playing – Rinna’s Theme




“I remember every single one of you! So, I won’t be afraid anymore! I mean, I’ll still be afraid, but I won’t be scared!”




“Hey, we’re counting on you, little girl!”

“…..Huh?”




“…..Haahh….why do I even try?”



We get a yes/no prompt as usual for new characters. No point refusing. I’m just going to dump her the moment I hit Claire’s place anyway.

Walking along the dock, we notice something odd…



Lordan’s Son: “You’ve come to the right place. The islands are in the middle of celebrating the Princess’s wedding. Stay a while and enjoy it!”



(Where could Kyte be?)

This is our hint that the Kyte sidequest has begun. However, we have bugger all to go on: it’s obvious it has something to do with the ship we saw last loop, but how do we proceed from there? As it happens, going back to Kyte’s beach won’t accomplish anything, even if you go there at the exact same time you saw the last cutscene.

There is another scene that hints at what happened with Kyte’s sailors, but it’s at a ridiculously specific time, and merely going back to Kyte’s place after seeing he’s gone won’t trigger it…



Wexler: “Wasn’t he at the harbour? That’s odd…that’s usually his favourite spot.”



Lordan’s Son: “It’s something he seldom discusses.”

Mog: “That’s right. For the first time in a long while, he was talking about old times this morning. The name was…I think he said “Matilda”. That’s the name of the ship.”

Mouse then walks outside.



(That’s why today he went to the Northern Shore. He’s in danger! What should we do?! Are you going, Mouse?)

We get a yes/no prompt. It doesn’t matter, as I don’t believe saying you won’t go prohibits you from acting on this quest. We’re gonna do it, no matter what.

Anyway, we learnt absolutely nothing we didn’t already know from that scene. I’ve checked and checked, but as far as I can tell, there are no organic hints at where Kyte has gone. Checking the beach does nothing, no NPCs claim to have seen Kyte go anywhere.

Without any organic information as to what happened, I’ll just come out and say it: Kyte has gone to the Celestial Village that we saw last loop.

Even with that knowledge in hand, places that would theoretically have something to do with this don’t hint at what happened to Kyte. To get to the Celestials we had to play a song to that tree, but the guy that gives you the song doesn’t mention Kyte, even if you get the song after triggering the quest. Even if you talk to the weird shadows in the strange village, they do not mention Kyte by any means.

Thus, your only chance of figuring out what happened is by happening upon the Celestial Village after triggering this quest.

But before we get on with Kyte’s quest, let’s talk about Rinna briefly.

She is still utterly worthless right now. She just has her mop and it does bugger all damage. You can’t even upgrade it at a blacksmith.

However, Rinna has a secret set of abilities accessed via the “Skills” menu…



If we select the “Change” option…



Rinna changes into her dancer costume and becomes “RindRinna”. No idea why it’s called that.

EDIT: Polsy informs me the intent is likely a pun the word "Odori" which is a word for a dance, as in Japanese it's "Rindorinna", and this is of course Rinna's dancer costume.

RindRinna still isn’t much of a physical fighter, but she learns a number of useful skills that regular Rinna does not. Most say she is the best, if not one of, the best healers in the game. A solid option, I should think.

But there’s a downside: like I said ages ago, Rinna’s dancer costume is basically pseudo underwear. If you use RindRinna, you have to stare at Rinna’s ass in disturbing detail. A very unpalatable option for myself at least.

Anyway, we dump Rinna and grab some better party members. I actually bring Bagoth in anticipation of going to the graveyard, but this turns out to be a waste of time.

I jump to the Celestial Village.



The Leader doesn’t say this until Kyte’s quest starts. This is at least a hint that he came here. In case you’re wondering, no, his cutscene dialogue doesn’t change to mention Kyte if you see it after starting the quest.



Although Kyte’s ship rises from the ocean every day 4, we don’t actually know he’s gone there, and thus have no idea if we need to use this falcon to cross the ocean.



This is presumably a reference to Kyte coming through, but uh…..is he mixing up Kyte and Mouse? What is he saying here?



With Kyte’s quest initiated, clicking on this sky well gives us a scene…



“Could it be that the seaman who saw the scene below and was shocked by it was….Kyte?”

For starters, none of the NPCs seem to mention a seaman being shocked by a scene like this. Secondly, even if Kyte did see this, what does it tell us about where he went? How could we possibly guess from this what we’re supposed to do next?

As it happens, we need to go talk to the guy who sells falcons now.



So much for the society without worldly desires, charging us for their falcon.

It costs 10000G to use the falcon. That’s over a third of my total funds right now. Also, just to find out what the price is, you have to say yes to the first prompt, and then they give you another prompt after telling you the price. Just in case you really didn’t want to pay 10000G for this sidequest, I guess.

We’re not backing down now, however, so we’re buying that falcon.







“Come on. Hurry, Mouse!”

This is where Kyte went. No idea why just yet, but we’ll find out.



What we’re looking for is this building. Smack dab in the middle of one of this island’s squares, it’s hard to miss.


Now Playing – Sea Cavern



When you heard that we were doing a Kyte related sidequest, what did you expect? Was “A bland featureless maze” anywhere in your list of picks for what we’d be encountering?

This dungeon sucks. It blows. It sucks and blows.

As I said, it’s a bland, featureless maze. The whole way through, it’s all grey floors and walls designed only to frustrate you. There is one level of the dungeon that is different, but it’s basically just grey cobblestones rather than grey tiles. Not much of an improvement. The Thunder Mine from Legaia 2 has nothing on this place’s levels of dull and grey.

Of course the real terror of this dungeon is the encounters. Anyone who has played this game knows how high the encounter rate can be. Until now this didn’t really matter, as I was either deliberately grinding or going through short stints in territory with encounters. Here, with the dungeon as long as it is, and with great potential for getting lost, the encounters become an enormous and overbearing chore to deal with. There’s a high chance that you might forget what direction you were going after a tedious fight, making navigation in this maze all the harder.

There are two items that might have mitigated this tedium: Fog Spheres and Evergreens. Fog Spheres reduce encounter rates, and I don’t have to tell you how useful that is here. Evergreens reduce the chances of being “ambushed”, or the scenarios in which the enemy surround you and all get to act first (and can’t all be targeted by area hitting attacks like charging strike either). Of course I didn’t think to use either of these. While Fog Spheres come up here and there, Evergreens are sold by a flower store in Pandule city. There’s not a lot of hint that they’re a thing, and you probably got tired of poking around random buildings long before now.

Now let’s discuss what enemies we encounter here.



These ones are the “Paralyzing Bean Pastes”. Contrary to their names, they don’t actually paralyze you but put you to sleep. Theoretically the same effect, but Sleep lasts longer than Paralysis in Ephemeral Fantasia, and usually can only be broken by a physical attack.



This is a “Merman”. As you can see, its physical hits are trivial, but they have a magic attack that can do about 100 damage to Mouse as is. While not so dangerous normally, if Mouse gets put to sleep, magic spells won’t wake him, so there’s a chance he’ll have to sit there and get pummelled for a bit. If anything can kill you down here, it’s the Mermen.



These enemies, called “Killer Bites”, do nothing but attack physically. You’ll be praying to face more of them than the ever-so-frequent Bean Paste/Mermen encounters.

Every time you’re “ambushed”, this means that every enemy gets to attack before you, nearly guaranteed. This means tediously sitting through every enemy’s attack animation until you get to make a swing at them. As “ambush” enemies are spread out and never in one group, you can only kill so many before they all get to attack again. Even if you kill three out of seven enemies in a given encounter, that still leaves four that you have to watch munch on you a second time. Combat can be rather slow paced in Ephemeral Fantasia, so this gets really tedious over time. I jacked the emulator’s speed boost up to 400% because I was so tired of the length of encounters.

As you might have already noticed, Mouse is the only character here. The whole falcon gimmick meant we could only bring him. You have to fight every encounter with him alone, and hope you never get cheap shotted to death. You also better have stocked up on Live Berries and Super Live Berries, or you’ll have to turn back, and perhaps even pay another 10000G for the falcon.

Mouse could actually learn two moves that hit all enemies by now. They’re learned from two other characters. The first is RindRinna, meaning you have to stare at her loli ass in her jailbait outfit. The other is…..uuuurgh, Plosi. Suffice to say I didn’t end up nabbing either one.

The only benefit to all this is you’re likely to come out flush with cash due to fighting so much. And Mouse will probably gain a bunch of levels.

Anyway, let’s get on with the dungeon.



‘When the seals of the Tombs are released the releaser will bear great misfortune.’

So this sounds like a really bad thing, but this is the way to proceed: go to the “Tombs” and release the “apparitions”.



The tombs are actually just switches that you need to press to open the way forward. They’re in the corners of the dungeon, so you have to traverse the whole first floor to go on.



This pool allows you to recover HP and MP and even save your game. It’s useful, but it won’t substitute for items. There’s only the one and it’s far too far from the way to complete the dungeon.

Once all the switches are pressed, you must go through a stairwell in the centre of the map.



On the second floor, we have to go down four more separate sets of stairs in search of chests with switches in them. Man, even the way forward is getting repetitive.

When you’re on the floors with the chests, you will occasionally have a semi-unique encounter…




Now Playing – Combat

And you thought I was kidding about Chris the tentacle monster.

Despite getting an intimidating boss theme, these unimaginatively named “Tentacles” are pushovers, and far easier than the monotonous Bean Paste-Merman ones.

Once all the chest switches have been pressed, we have to go back up to the first floor and take a stairwell in the top right corner. From here, it’s a fairly linear path with only minor deviations for treasure.




This teleporter takes us to the dull grey rock area. We could see it from the chest switch areas, but we couldn’t reach it until now. Searching around this area will reveal…


Click here to see me fight Chris the tentacle monster.





“You overdid it, guy! Coming to this place alone…!”



“He…? What are you talking about?!”



Everything starts shaking after Kyte stamps his foot.



“The entrance has been blocked off!”




“To say adios to past nighmares…! To settle the score for the last time…! I will borrow the powers of my best mate….!!”


Now Playing – Combat



And so begins our boss fight with the “Magic Sea Gule”.



It is joined by two “Drowned Corpses”. They aren’t a threat to anyone but Kyte, and unless you’ve been using Kyte this whole time, Kyte’s basically worthless here except for tossing items.



The real threat in this fight is the boss, as it should be. It has a magic attack that does about 300-400 damage to every character. This could make things rather dicey, and I end up overcompensating with healing as a result. By the time I start dropping Super Live Berries with each character, I could have ended the fight with one more Ray Slash.

Anyway, the Gule dies.




Now Playing – Time Limit

We now must escape the dungeon under a time limit. It’s not too harsh a time limit, but if you get majorly turned around in this maze like dungeon while escaping, you might run out of time.

Naturally, you now have to follow the path you took to get here in reverse. Hope you have a solid memory! On top of that, you have to fight encounters the whole way out, meaning you could easily forget where you’re going between long and drawn out encounters.

But I manage just fine, and Mouse and Kyte escape the dungeon.




The flash of white cuts us to Kyte’s beach.


Now Playing – Kyte’s Memory






“They’re saying, “Good job, Captain! We can now rest soundly.” That’s how I see it.”



“Finally…At last! Sorry it took so long.”




Just to make it clear: Kyte went out to this island in search of the sea monster that wrecked his ship all that time ago. This had nothing to do with Xelpherpolis, the time loop, or the time demons. This was just Kyte settling an old grudge with no relation to the plot. How uninteresting.

It’s not even clear how Kyte got this far. I suppose it’s a logical guess that monsters that sunk his ship would hide out on a nearby island (but not so much ancient evil ruins), but how did he get to the Celestial Village? Even if he’d heard of it, why would he assume they had the only way to get him out to the island he wanted to visit? There’s not a lick of sense to any of this.

But, this sidequest is not without its rewards…




“You’ve got a good nose. Ha!”



“Yeah, we’re both all right! I’m here too you know! Heh, in top shape!”



“If we could have, we’d have saved you too. But without the falcon, we couldn’t cross the sea, and we only had enough money to buy one bird!”

(She must never know I had enough for at least two.)



“…that falcon. Kyte, didn’t you say that we couldn’t leave the island by boat because of the tides?”



“That is, unless we build a ship from scratch that’s even bigger than the Matilda.”

“How about from the air?”

“Oh! Right! I see!!”

We then cut to shortly later.


Now Playing – Pandule




“The members’ names?”



We are prompted to name…someone. You don’t know right now, but these are two of Mouse’s friends. Their default names are “Beak” and “Fang”. You see how Mouse’s name fits in with the wildlife theme. Well, only partially, because a mouse is an actual animal whereas the others are just parts of animals (or birds). We’re keeping their names as is.



“What unusual names. What kind of people are they?”

“They’re longtime friends….And they’re the greatest! Mouse…Beak….Fang….It’s a long story, but…They’re called the “Golden Three”.”



You know I don’t recall Mouse ever confessing to anyone that he’s actually a thief.

“Ha. Ha. They’re both.”

“All right, all done!”





“It will if they haven’t moved.”

Which would seem unlikely, given they’re travelling thieves/bards like Mouse, no?

“Hmm. Instead of putting your faith in something so unreliable, why don’t we use the falcon and let at least one person escape from this island?”



“If he was the kind of guy who’d escape alone, I wouldn’t have to suffer like this. Besides….Besides….he now has a reason to stay on the island and fight this thing to the end.”

“…Mouse. Oh, I get it. It’s because of her, isn’t it.”

And then the scene ends, and we’re sitting in the strange village. Kyte gives us map pieces to the island we came from, called “Ghoul Island”. It took me until day 2 of this loop to clear that dungeon, so it’s now day 17.

Those friends of Mouse’s we just sent for won’t arrive for some time. However, at least one of them will be worth it. We’ll find out more in due time.

If you don’t attend to Kyte’s quest the moment it is presented, there are no consequences. I was able to rescue Kyte at least one loop after his quest began, so it doesn’t matter how long you leave him down there. What DOES matter is how far you proceed with the story, as if you go too far, Kyte and his sidequest will be unavailable after that (and he’ll be gone from any cutscenes!).

Alternatively, should you fail to escape the dungeon before it collapses, you will be sent to the start of a new loop. Kyte will be back in his usual place and will not mention your mutual death by crumbling ceiling. You miss out on the opportunity to nab Beak and Fang, and that’s it. Also, despite the dungeon’s roof collapsing, you can actually just go back in there anytime you want after getting the map piece (I believe you can also reuse the falcons, but you still have to pay every time).

This is where we shall leave things for now.

Join me next time, where we recruit Ano and find out where Gallhint and his bandits are hiding.