Part 75: Part Seventy-Five: Straw Grasper
Part Seventy-Five: Straw Grasper
Picking up where we left off, Squall's just been told by Ellone that the past can't be changed. Naturally, he decided he'll give it a go himself. Now we just have to find Ellone, who should be on the White SeeD ship.
For whatever reason, Zell has this line way before he should, but now it almost makes sense.
In fact, everybody's talking about where the White SeeD ship is!
Since the White SeeDs are "Sorceress Edea's SeeD", we're going straight to the source.
Talking to Cid, we can get a little bit of backstory on the ship and the White SeeDs. It could be that Ellone disappeared to this ship all those years ago.
Cid: Edea served as the captain of the ship, but before long, many children were brought onboard, and it became somewhat of an orphanage.
This also brought to my mind the fact that a bunch of these orphans of the Sorceress War were taken in by Sorceress Edea. It's part of the ongoing theme that the sorceresses' personality isn't determined by their being sorceresses.
Cid: Edea taught the children well, and they too were referred to as SeeDs.
All of Cid's explanation here makes me think that the opening of Garden and the launch of the White SeeD ship were concomitant. There's an indication in Squall's flashbacks that there was some lag time between Ellone leaving the orphanage and Squall going to Garden, but that could have been anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of months.
But we didn't come here to discuss timelines.
: The White SeeD ship. The one Ellone's on.Edea: Those children are...
There's some indication that Ultimecia didn't have full access to Edea's memories while Edea was possessed, like the fact that Ultimecia didn't know what SeeD was. So maybe this plan isn't as bad as it seems at first blush.
Edea: They are very cautious. They would never remain in one place for long.
Or maybe this plan sucks.
: ...I see.Squall does not like to hear this.
Edea: Oh yes, however... Those children seemed to have taken a liking to Centra's landscape.
Yes, Centra, the barren hellscape with a continental population of 2. Beautiful.
Oh, hey, the White SeeDs might be anchored in an inlet. Awesome.
Before we go, Edea gives Squall a letter of introduction.
Edea: With this, they shall welcome you.
With this letter, we can get on the ship.
Or we can sell it for a cool 125 Gil.
This is a thing you can do for infinite Gil, and it's very easy if you have the Call Shop ability, but there's also no reason to ever do it because you can also get infinite Gil by running in a circle.
Anyway, once you've sold all the letters you want, you can go out and piss about sailing around the Centra continent for half an hour, wondering where the fucking ship is and why it would be here, but you'll find it eventually.
...Unless you
Correction: As pointed out by Vil, the White SeeD ship shows up after you talk to Edea, even if you don't have the Sorceress' Letter. I apparently fucked up and loaded the wrong save when I went back to "despawn" it. Oops!
Relatedly, we are going to ram into this ship.
It goes a lot less violently than other times the Garden has rammed into things.
: My name is Squall. We're SeeDs from Balamb Garden. I'd like to speak to your leader.White SeeD: I'm in charge. State your business. Depending on what you say, we may ask you to leave immediately.
Like Squall, this guy's pretty blunt.
It's clearly difficult for Squall to admit this. He can't even make eye contact while he says it.
This guy probably thinks that some shit is about to go down.
Thankfully, Squall has this in his back pocket. Edea, after all, hasn't been a controversial figure lately.
White SeeD Leader: Edea...how...?
The White SeeD Leader is apparently aware that Edea hasn't been herself recently.
: ......Edea is no longer under Sorceress Ultimecia's control. She is now our ally.Of course, we are taking Edea's word on that...
: So there's no reason for you to hide Ellone's whereabouts from us. We want to take Ellone back to protect her from Ultimecia.We still have no actual plan of attack for the second part there.
But hey, at least we're one step closer to our goal.
...Oh.