Part 34: Rebels plotting rebellion against the royal family.

Thane can finally do this quest. I had to set up some generic dweeb just for this quest. The reward even sucks.


Any Black Mage can do this one. The trophy acts like the other ones.


These aren't actually available until the story mission at the palace is done, as walking on the palace automatically starts the story mission.


After getting some dispatches done, the Wyrmstone finally coughs up its semi-unique character!




Pallanza's main advantages are that he has a lot of HP and a goddamn metric ton of WAtk thanks to being a Gladiator the whole time. His MP is good for a Bangaa and his speed is... passable. His weakness is that he's only got two abilities at this late stage of the game, and he's a Bangaa, so he's without ranged weapons and can't use that Ultima all that well because of it.


Everyone wants wine. I wish I had some. I could get Carson all drunk and then things would get either awesome or tragic, depending on whom he lands.


Everyone wants bread too. What, are we the biggest suppliers for the Eucharist?


FFFFFFFFFFFWHAT?! The Feather Badge?!


PALLANZA! ACCOMPLISH!


Uh huh. That's... odd.


The reward is even odder...


Oh hey, it's the fairy wings that maid wants.


Hey, wait a second...


At least... we'll be able to return the laundered gil. If not, Ramza is fabulously wealthy because there's nothing to buy.


Of course, this requires murder.


Murder.


This leads to nothing that I know of.


Look closely at the world map by the palace. Notice how the line linking the panel below this desert to the palace is ever so slightly shorter than the line connected to Ulei river.


That means the pathfinding AI decides that trekking through the palace is the fastest way to Cadoan.


This is the first point where killing Montblanc shows itself. Ezel takes his place in this scene and a few others. He says about the same things.




Never mind his physical description was given out by the palace.




This line comes out of left field since it's Ezel saying it and not Montblanc.


This is a lugaborg:



How lovely!


"It couldn't possibly have anything to do with how I'm public enemy #1, no sir."


It did have something to do with Ramza being public enemy #1 and inside the palace. Imagine!


Good golly fuck, I wish I paid more attention to the laws.


Life Crosier if you've failed to get one from missions.


The Pearl Blade is something I should honestly have by now.


This Mog Knight is also hiding something.


Eldena takes a break because Color Magic is against the law. That's the only law that really gets her, because Doublecast is still in Red Magic.


Stabbing fuckers in the face is still legal.


As is Quicken.


And stealing! Don't forget stealing!


Norma sits in a corner and repeatedly vanishes while Ramza mugs the poor Mog Knight.


Yoink! These things sell for a bit and teach a skill Lini already stole.


Through the clever manipulation of all my quicken effects...


He finally draws his hidden weapon! Here's one if you don't want to do that arrangement from ages ago.


Yoink! Also he gets killed.


It would be wonderful if Ramza just bust into random rooms and mutilated the inhabitants until he found Mewt. Sadly, that's not the case.


Instead, some more guys show up but Babus stops them. Statuses are against the law today but Babus doesn't care.




Babus is either fed up with having his stuff stolen or he's somehow been convinced by Ramza that escapism is bad.








He's been convinced by Ramza that escapism is bad. Which means I won't fight him again so I can't steal his stuff yet again. Dammit! I want a Sage Robe already!






"Oh, okay, let me tell you about how many problems Mewt ha-"


At this point, every significant character besides Ramza can teleport. Babus can, Cid can, Mewt can, Remedi can, Llednar can, Ezel probably does it when we aren't looking, everybody but Ramza pretty much.




"Is it the ice cream man?"




"You aren't the ice cream man!"


Make a joke for me. I really can't think of one that would fit here.






"That's why he brought Ivalice's most wanted criminal with him!"


Bringing the person whose goals are diametrically apposed to yours isn't helping? Blimey!




Mewt was probably asleep during the psychology lesson that Ramza got his stuff from, or maybe it was held while he was recovering from a snowball coma.




"I don't need themes repeated that frequently!"








"He knows a thing or two about bad parents."


He never bothered to find a way to do that so he made up a reason why it's bad for Mewt to stay to justify his actions later. At least, that's what it looks like.




Stage five: Acceptance.




The would be destroyed already if he didn't like it so much. Our hero.


Ramza seems to forget that he's part of everybody. His own snowball was one of the eight that downed Mewt.


If Ultima abilities count as magic then Ramza's using magic to make everything worse.




Remedi teleports in.


Was it an accident this game is so damn Oedipal? Ramza has mommy issues too. They get addressed in the next story mission.


What did Ramza expect to happen, anyway? He'd get to Mewt, yell at him about escapism, steal his shirt, then yell at him some more, then Mewt would be "Okay I'm leaving"




What.

Mewt's been pretty damn adamant about wanting to stay here. Your previous argument is that it was bad for him, now you're making up shit.


This is where problems with Ramza's plight show up. There's not much within the game itself that indicates that this Ivalice is less "real" than St. Ivalice. It takes a developer's interview just to ensure us that Ramza's not a presumptuous jerk.




This, however, is just hilarious.




Then they teleport away.




Then Llednar teleports in. See what I mean by everyone teleporting?




Llednar says nothing in response. I'm pretty sure that, if he had any dialogue here, it'd be something akin to "Fuck you."


"'e's got some valuables on 'im..."




"Cid! Save Ramza's ass!"
"No."
"But you need to lawyer at someone!"
"Okay, now I can offer him assistance."


They kinda do concern him now, as these "matters" are the direct cause of his actions.


Llednar still has his plot immunity on him. Bugger.




Last round was a loss because you were in jail by the end of it, Llednar.


I think it would be hilarious if Llednar had one red card during this fight. Apparently, he served his time for violating Forbidden: Omega and got his record cleaned.


Speaking of Omega, there's no judge in this fight so he's free to use it. It deals double damage.

It's 50% short of an Ultima attack.


Remember how Babus could not stop Ramza during the 4th Totema fight because he had Damage>MP? It works here, too. It's very helpful because Llednar can deal some damage.

Well, now he can't because I stole his sword, but anyway.


His sissy fists can't really dent Ramza's MP.


It's the strongest Helm in the game, if I remember right.


This would be my third one of these.


Abyss's poison can hit past Damage>MP


But Ramza has a means of curing poison, too. Nurse is the only Paladin skill Ramza hasn't stolen. The other three were picked from Dread Raven.


Oh no! He's making some incantation like in FFT!


Oh no!


Oh n-Where did he get that sword?


Oh no!





Ramza steals Llednar's paycheck, even.


Cid teleports in!


Llednar. You're slower than Ramza. Ramza could use Nurse every turn and you'd never get anywhere.


Llednar teleports away. I'm tired of all this teleporting. It was cool when the Templars in FFT did it because they were powered by a Satan-analogue, but here Llednar's a dick.


Across the country, a woman with a child blink in and out of existence, followed shortly by an Eeyore with a tomato on his nose doing much the same.




"But he's got some plot invincibility going on!"


But, Llednar has 192 more HP than Mewt.


Mewt's dangerous aspect isn't that dangerous.




So Llednar is like a Totema, but rather than being an old FF boss or a Lucavi demon, he's Mewt's evil side. That's why his name is Mewt's, but backwards.

This is as dumb as it sounds.


Tomato-nosed Eeyore was followed by a drunk man in plate armor who was periodically riding an ostrich.


"I failed at beating u-I mean convincing this friend, but I'll try with the other two!"






And so Ramza stole his own equipment, only for it to end up right back in his bag.


Who the hell is paying me for this? Is this stuff Ramza took from the royal treasury? Did Mewt drop a fucking broadsword when he teleported away?


At this point, 50 magical talent is the only talent that matters anymore.


Another cave is dropped next to the one already there so I have to look at both of them less.

NEXT TIME:

Some more dumb stuff happens but the important part is that I get even more crazy items.