Part 9: Village in a Strange Land

Now that we've gotten the Talon we're immediately whisked away to take care of Dion. Personally I'd leave him to stew for a bit, but it's not up to me.




The good doctor seems to be rather impressed. What did Maitreya do to him in that few minutes?

Will he be OK?


cell is enough! Wait there.

That is some serious medical technology. Part of me thinks that they should have somehow extended the time periods to make the advances seem more credible.


more gentle?

Shut up and stay put.

Great beside manner there, doc.



I can't blame him for wanting to get away from the doctor.

We have X-Plane so we can leave at anytime.

It's only useable once. The only way back is through Dr. Quacer in Pureland. Are you with me?



One way trip to asskicking-ville, here we come.



Uh.. no thanks.



The Talon in free flight. It's faster than Float and has a few other benefits.



It's possible to have encounters with enemies in the Talon, at which point the ship takes a free shot at every enemy on the screen. It's not terribly impressive with the Cannon, but there are upgrades that can do serious damage. Grinding just got a whole not easier, not the least because we're only a single button press from an inn at all times.



Alright, time to go!


inoperable from Warp usage.

The screen flashes and we get some bad news.



We're restricted to a walking pace, but can keep all the other benefits of the Talon. Before continuing with that, however, we need to get out for a second.


advance party, and you look for Faye. We'll find Sol later!

Wait, why are we going looking for your childhood friend and you're going off somewhere else?

Because Maitreya tore me apart and they're likely to have passed her off to someone even stronger.

OK, good luck.



Off to the NorthEast we have a rather more prosperous looking town than we're used to. Let's take a look!


and Float for traveling.

What a convenient excuse not to model an undersea area for this area!



We get a lead immediately, but another interesting thing is that the person giving it looks like a Ronin type enemy. Here in Pureland the FFL tradition of monsters and such running around with ordinary humans is in full swing.



Naturally the bartender has seen Borgin. The coffee cup is a lie.



We now have a location for XCalibr, although it's meaningless without a geography textbook.



Evidently they're somewhat famous?



While we're here we can loot the local storehouses. Nothing really special, but free stuff is always great.



There's another weapon upgrade available, and it's quite an upgrade for everyone. The ATM and PSI pistol are now available for purchase as regular items as well. We should already have earrings, but Diamond Armors offer better defense as well as resistance from Lightning. One piece is enough to get the resistance, so it might be worth keeping around in some form for a while.



New area means at least a few new monster types. The Typhoon looks rather like Barbariccia from Final Fantasy IV, and evidently the terrorists in Pure Land have skeletal dinosaurs/dragons on their side.



Heading southwest from where we arrived there's a smaller village with a rather unique tree next to it.



The town is full of unmoving people and weird cat mummies that are mobile.



This guy has a unique message compared to everyone else, and is sitting in front of a treasure chest to boot.



This is the more typical reaction. Humorously enough, you can push people around while they're like this. There is, however, one person who's still mobile.


to the North Maze by Fenrir, but it turned townsmen into stone.... no one here can oppose them.

We'll defeat it then.

Wait, really?

Oh yeah.

It's kind of what we do.

Take some Catnip from the tree. Guards will fall asleep.

As the owner of two cats, I can tell you that this is not how catnip works.



To get to the catnip you have to head to the left side of the town and hop the fence. Catnip also does not grow on trees. Did the writers know anything about catnip?



Talking to the cats, by the way, results in an encounter with between 1 and 3 of them. I find them rather strangely cute.



The shrine rather resembles the ruins in Floatland. Evidence of common descent?



There's something of a cat-themed motife around the place and more mummycats running around. You can avoid them for a while, but eventually they will get in your way.



You know what? It's magic catnip and that's the end of the story.



There's only a couple of real treasures in the area, both of which are armor. The Fur is nothing special, but the Wizard armor has equivalent defense to the Diamond Armor and better magic defense.



You know, out of all three protagonists in this series the main character in this one has the best entrance lines.



What!?

I'm with you, Chrono.

You'll be gone for good this time!




For some reason I failed to take screen shots of my team before the fight. This is what they looked like immediately afterward, which is close enough.



Boss Fight: Fenrir

Design wise Fenrir is rather interesting, appearing as some kind of six limbed wolfman with no eyes and a skull motif. It's actually kind of cool, although I don't know how they got there from Norse mythology. Fenrir doesn't have flunkies, but he also doesn't need them. He's got some really powerful single target attacks, and a nasty lightning attack that is still deadly even with our diamond armor. Since we still haven't got multi-target healing spells it's hard to keep up with the damage. He's not vulnerable to tricks like being blinded, either, as he has no eyes. You've got 8100 HP to chew through in this battle, and some losses are to be expected.



With this, Marle is now the only person to have survived the last two boss fights. As a result she's now our highest level character. I'm glad I've gotten over the OCD tendencies that would have made this a problem for me.



Uh.. Chrono...



We really need to start asking these questions of people before we eviscerate them.



The real point of the dungeon, obviously, is here.



Yeah we came to help you.

Thank you. But Dion... didn't he come with you?

We split up to look separately.

He was also kind of dead weight at this point.

I see. The masters want to conquer our world. Their only concern is is about Talon, with its 4 crew members and the 4 mystic swords. They needed me to get one of the Mystic Swords.

We should find the crew members first.



Faye continues in the tradition of awesome party members, being higher level than the rest of our group and wielding a sweet rune axe. She's got a good selection of spells, but a few holes in her equipment. Notably she's missing a helm and a shield.



I think she and Dion were also the artists favorite characters as their art isn't screamingly horrible.



Returning to the village we get an indication of our next destination. We have reached a dead end on this section of the continent, however, so creative means will have to be employed.


upon us. I'll give you some advice in return. Look for Buzi in Mt. Hasid. He was an Talon chief crew and can help you gather other members.

I kind of wonder if he means crew chief rather than chief crew. There is a difference...



A bit of gratitude is always nice in games like this. Next up, let's look into that chest!


Visit me when you come to Cirrus. I can be of help.

This will come back to us in a good way.



After taunting us for that entire time the chest has nothing more than a dark stone. Slightly disappointing.

Next time: Shopping, Mt. Hasid, and finally a few explanations.