Part 69: Love, Friendship and Speed Battles

Update 69: Love, Friendship and Speed Battles

In This Update:
- Rich womanizer uses young boy as scapegoat!
- Clan Sawyer: the FedEx of Ivalice
- And a couple battles we should have cleared a long time ago.

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Remember this guy? Well, Marnot is still trying to go on too many dates at once, and we apparently are going to help him.


Seriously, too many dates.


At least we're getting paid for this.



: You have a love song you plan to sing for me?

: A love song!?

: Sing it for me.

: Um, let's see...


As always with these quests, we have a choice. Two of them cause us to immediately fail.

: There was this one song I heard on a library music box, once. But I don't remember how it went. How about I sing my school song instead?


It's the most romantic school song in existence, apparently. Wait, didn't we do the "school song" gag last time?


Normally I try to do these missions without dispatch, but this one is impossible. We only have one day left, and we only just reached Moorabella -- we don't have time to cross over to Fluorgis!


So dispatch it is then. No worries, they succeed.

---


Marnot is giving dating one last chance. It's his most ambitious set of dates yet.


We'll take care of the Zedlei Forest one and then dispatch the rest.



: You wrote of a pose you could strike to win my heart.


Is this a JoJo?

: Well? I'm waiting!

: Uh, let's see...


As usual, you have one real choice.

: Well, there was this one cool pose I remember from a movie poster. Here goes nothing...


I don't know how Samuel keeps pulling this off.


As for the dispatch...


When you select a dispatch team, the leader (in the red square) will communicate their chance of success by jumping, walking or kneeling. For non-combat missions like this, you're almost always going to see jumping, like Zoe is on the right. But for some reason, everyone I choose for Goug is walking. Odd.


Oh well, I'm sure Lenolia will be fine.


...Or maybe not. The failure of one is the failure of all, so it's time to reset and try this again!


This time, we'll start from Goug.


This... is not a promising start.



: She doesn't look happy to see me...

: Don't understand the question? You Marnot or not?


Look, I know the first one is the correct response, but I'd really like to not be Marnot right now.


Seriously, if you don't play the game and insist you're Marnot, you fail!


And if you do answer...


BAM! It's a battle.


I think we're going to need as much luck as we can get here.



: You led our sister on and left her crying herself to sleep at night.


This Ranger runs -- literally runs -- in to help his sister.

: Sister? I don't remember any sister... but I'm guessing putting up a fight will only make things worse...


I don't think that was the right thing to say, Samuel!


I really wasn't sure what to do, so I let Samuel just stand there. He gets attacked, but it's ok, he has innate Regen! He'll be fine.


Also, this battle is timed. If you were wondering how you're supposed to win this, it's by outlasting the timer.


Maybe I shouldn't let them punch Samuel in the face.


So he'll just run away instead.


What an appropriate trap!


They can't catch Samuel, so it's just a matter of waiting out the timer now.


Doesn't take long.

: Keeping cool under all this heat, are ya? You'll take a lot more before we're through with ya. Hya!

: Easy, sister. To tell the truth, he doesn't seem like such a bad lad. Look at him standing here, taking it on the chin like this and tell me otherwise. No, I think we've done enough here today.

: What are you getting at, brother? He broke our sister's heart. You want to let him get away with that?

: Maybe he did and maybe he didn't. But beating a man within an inch of his life seems like payback and then some for a broken heart. Let's leave him be, and the two of them can work out whatever's left to work out.

: There's some sense to that, aye. I'm willing to call it even if you are, brother.


To be fair, Marnot probably deserves more than just this. He's led on a lot of women.

: She didn't put us up to it. Family has to watch out for family is all.

: Uh, sure. As long as this is over...


Makes sense why we had to take care of this ourselves now.


The rest of the quest can be taken care of by dispatch.

Unfortunately, we don't get any closure. Does Marnot ever find true love? Does some enterprising family member finally pin him down before he can break more hearts? We'll never know.

---


This next quest is one I've been avoiding because, frankly, I don't like Galerria Deep. It's where they stick the worst battles.


Even worse, it's a speed battle.


Law's not too bad. I don't think there are any places you can really get stuck, unless you get surrounded somehow.


The low rank of the quest is a little misleading, since the enemies do scale up! Which is good, I was worried this would be a one-sided stomp.


Here's our crew. Given the nasty terrain here, you'll want plenty of ranged damage. Move +2 also helps a lot.


Of course, Scarface wants to chat before the battle.

: Well, no sense wasting time chatting, kupo. On with the speed battle!


Here's our target, a big ol' White Pudding.

: You know how a speed battle goes, kupo?

: The first side to take down the mark wins. Just let me at it!


Remember, that means whoever lands the finishing blow wins.


I have a feeling it's going to be us.


It's actually very nearly a two-turn KO, but Jalia rolls low on her damage.


Lian has it under control.


So I can see why this still counts as a Rank 22 quest, even though the enemies scale up.

: Kupo... You're not as weak as you look, kupo. Still, it was a good battle. We should do this again, kupo!



---


This little quest chain was going to be in the voting list, but I don't think I ever found a good time to include it. It's a simple but sweet set of quests.




Here's our client. Yes, the conversation starts with this line, I didn't skip anything.

: But father says I'm still too young to travel alone.

: I sympathize, believe me. Don't worry, I'll make sure everything gets to her safe and sound!

: Someday I'll visit her myself... Until then, this will have to do.


I, uh, forgot to check the clan notes entry for this. Sorry. I don't think it says anything interesting -- obviously we aren't going to read the letter itself!




One quick airship hop later...





: A letter and a package, actually. She wanted to come herself, but she couldn't.

: Her father ever was strict. I see that hasn't changed. It's a shame. They're quite wealthy. Think of the fun she could have!


Does anyone else get the feeling Meena is much older than Riddim? Maybe it's just the sprites.

: Hm? A letter and a bundle of gil notes? How odd...


That's all for the delivery.


Meena's reply is already waiting for us in the pub!




I think she's happy that we're the ones carrying the letter back.

: Nothing to it. There is one thing I was wondering, though. How come you don't send it through the regular mail. It has to be cheaper than posting a quest for it.

: To be sure. But I've included an unusual gift that I would prefer not to send by post.


I did remember to check this one!

: There's actually no letter to speak of. Give it to Riddim, and she will understand.


Here's the letter. As you can see, we don't get to actually read it. But, er, "raw smelling"?


Oh, hey, a diversion for the journey back.


I haven't been to the auction houses because, well, we've cleared them out. And there are few items that you need multiple copies of.


This spread at the Moorabella Auction House is excellent though! I would love to see an auction like this early in the game. Madu teaches Red Mage's Doublecast, Nirvana and the Life Crosier teach powerful magicks and the Seventh Heaven teaches Ultima Shot to Hunters.


Our trip to Camoa is otherwise uneventful.

: You've a reply from Meena?

: Sure do. Well, sort of. She said there wasn't really a letter inside.

: That means she found it! Let me see!



: Whisperweed! The money I sent her must have been enough. Whisperweed can carry the voice of those who speak into it many leagues.


This is so cute!

Also what is happening to that poor Archer on the right.

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This is it, the last filler quest!


Signed: Farmer Colt

It's one I should have taken many, many moons ago. In my defense, it's only available a couple months out of the year, starting in Goldsun.




It's very much an early quest. There are so few enemies!


And, well... yeah. These levels.


We, uh, really should have taken care of this already.


Here's our team. It really doesn't matter.



: I think these cockatrices want to make a meal of the tomatoes. I wonder what they taste like...


Blood, I think.


Hmm.


Mhmm.


The tomatoes have no sense of self preservation, by the way, so stay on top of them.


But even at lower levels, you should have plenty of time to get between them and the cockatrices.



: But what will happen to them now? Are they still going to end up being someone's dinner?




And that's it. We're done. No more quests but the quest lines I mentioned earlier.

---

What shall we do next?


Perhaps... it is time...



Maybe not quite yet.

---


Thanks for reading! We've made it, 284 quests in over 100 hours.

So... what's next?

The whole clan is level 58, but I'm not quite, uh, emotionally prepared, shall we say, for Brightmoon Tor Third Watch. So we're going to do one of the long quest lines. I think either the poaching one ("On the Rampage") or the Culinary Crusade ("Hors D'oeuvre of the Hour") line.

Speak up if you have a strong opinion either way, otherwise I'm gonna flip a coin cast Silver Disc.