Part 31: Garoh

Hello boys and girls, welcome back to Golden Sun. Today it's time to meet a brand new friend.



This is Vall. Vall is very strong.



Vall also has a lot of pets. The Game Boy Advance is jealous of Vall and will often crash if he tries to play with them too long.

Vall is here because Quovak is a bad LPer. He can't update his threads consistently and he's always losing or poorly capturing footage. Quovak lost quite a bit of footage, and decided to have Vall help him get it back again. Otherwise, he would have had to play even more of this game for a second time. Oh no! Also, Santa isn't real and you were probably adopted.



Anyway, the whole point of doing that amazing dungeon was to get Reveal, which lets us follow some strange wolfman thing into, unsurprisingly, a sub-city network of caves. No, we have absolutely no reason to be doing this at all, but you knew that.



Look... He's using Psynergy.

Just like he did to show us that he existed and that this cave was here, prompting us to get Reveal in the first place. It's even more surprising the second time!

Could it be? Do you outsiders possess the power to reveal the unseen? So... I assume you also can use Whirlwind...

This is Maha. His name is an anagram of the Reveal user last name, though I have no idea if this is an intentional parallel or just Camelot being uncreative with names. Despite not incomprehensibly being a main character's sibling, Maha is noteworthy for being substantially less logical and substantially more a wolf.

[No] I don't think we need to hide the fact that we're Adepts from Maha.

Throughout this conversation, the smaller mouse wolf growls incoherently only for Maha to interpret/reply to what he's saying. Typing that out is a waste of words, so just assume Maha is schizophrenic and is reacting to the walls telling him how great it is to burn things.

He wanted to know what an Adept is... A question I would like answered as well.

Ooh, is it already time for two people who can use psynergy to talk about how mysterious is it to use psynergy? Man, if this is going to be as good as the last twenty times this scene has played out I can't wait.

Adepts tap the power of elemental energies to generate forces like Whirlwind...
Elementals... You mean the four elements, the power of earth and fire, water and wind?
That is correct. These elements together comprise everything in our world...
Interesting. Very interesting...

What do you find interesting about this information if you already know about Air's Rock, Whirlwind, Reveal, the existence of classical elements, etc? How are you treating this as mysterious when it's something you both already know? I hate this game.

Many consider ours an accursed race. Once, our people were burned at the stake as abominations...



Horrible...
Child, return to your home. Don't worry. We can trust them... They are Adepts, not unlike us werewolves... They guard an ancient secret. They will not betray us to the world.

You seem awfully sure of their abilities to keep secrets. Especially given that you've had one conversation with them, they don't know you at all, and they've spent the entire time divulging their "ancient secret".

It has grown quite late. Why don't you go to the inn and rest... I will not leave this place. When I learned Reveal, I lost my human form. The wild is my home now.
And the little one?
The child changed because he looked directly at the full moon.

I hate how Camelot never gives any details about anything. How did Maha learn Reveal and why did that process make him a permanent wolf? Why is Maha not surprised that we were able to learn Reveal without becoming wolves? Why were these people killed en masse if they just need to suffer the minor inconveniences of wearing hats or staying inside to avoid detection? Why are they now wearing hoods and trying to avoid changing when they're completely civilized even as wolves? Why even isolate themselves if they're going to live as though they weren't isolated and arbitrarily cast secrecy over something all of them know? The fact that they have an inn suggests that random people come here anyway, so that isolation element seems to have been pretty horribly botched. Camelot.



This is an unbelievably minor example, but, as with looking for Jenna, Camelot fails "show, don't tell" rather miserably. I would elaborate but as I'm typing this I am currently fending off eight rabid boars.



Especially because Camelot isn't that great at the whole "Telling" thing even on its own. You... you are? They can? We can? We did something? This isn't just dependent on the fact that it's light out? You can do this despite the fact that most people want to murder you, like the other guests at the inn?



(Yes, there are other guests at the inn. No, absolutely nothing about the way this town is run makes sense at all)



We could just go back to one of the other dozen places we have no reason to be, but Maha has a djinn and some pieces of wisdom for us. This wisdom will still not even remotely connect to some hint of a plot.

Would you mind telling me a little more about werewolves?
Do you find it strange that we can change our shapes?
Well, ummm... Yes.
But surely changing one's shape is not really all that unusual.



When the time is right, does it not transform into a beautiful butterfly?

Yes, a single unidirectional change that happens to all members of a particular species in a manner consistent with that of thousands of other related species is precisely the same thing as humans who turn into sentient wolves and back depending on how much moonlight enters their eyes. Thank you for clearing that up.



Remember that time you manipulated your body parts so that you could reach something on a shelf? I can turn into a wolf. Exact same thing. No difference in the slightest. None at all.



I think Maha spends too much time having political arguments on internet forums. His logic is seriously that because people wear clothes and some animals can move slightly there's nothing weird about lycanthropy. This is somewhat like having the ability to instantly teleport thousands of miles at will and getting indignant when questioned about it because fish can swim and humans have ridden in helicopters before.

I believe that evolving into werewolves is just one way for humanity to survive...Of course, there's no way I can prove this theory. But I felt that our ability to use Whirlwind was evidence of this. I had thought only the people of Garoh could use Whirlwind.

Survive what? How? What does summoning whirlwinds have to do with being wolves, and how is it evidence that being a wolf is an evolution of man unlike everything to which you've compared being a wolf? Why would you think this was an evolution when you made it clear that you used to be completely human and know exactly what changed you and what its effects were? What was the chronology of this that would make you connect Whirlwind with being a wolf rather than learning Reveal? Can other people in Garoh learn Reveal? How is any of this connected to anything either internally or within the broader storyline of the game? You are not insightful at all.

But now I find that you, too, can use these...What does it all mean? Why are you able to use Whirlwind, and what is an Adept?

Didn't we answer this question last night?

These two hail from the village at the base of Mt. Aleph, a village called Vale. Everyone from Vale is an Adept to a certain degree.The mystical stones on Mt. Aleph... The Psynergy Stones... They are closely linked to the powers of the townsfolk. If there were similar stones in Garoh, it might explain your powers as well.

Again, doesn't Maha already know the source of his powers? Does this even answer his question? Does he even have a question? Is there even any information asymmetry here or is everybody just pretending there is so they can talk more?

You've seen them, Maha! The shining stone at the heart of Air's Rock.
I've seen the stone you speak of, but... I don't see how it could affect the people here.
There were strong winds blowing within Air's Rock... Those winds would carry far...

Garoh is nestled in a valley and protected by terraced cliffsides between it and Air's Rock. The psynergy stone at Air's Rock was in the heart of a mesa in a cave down through a network of other caves that was sealed away until we destroyed the ancient mesa top. This is the worst explanation.

How is that possible? How could the stone's power be carried on the wind?
Do not belittle the power of the wind! Given time, the wind can grind great mountains down to sand! The wind at Air's Rock was strong enough to blow us off the ground! So why couldn't the wind carry particles of the stone all the way to Garoh?

Because of everything I mentioned above? I don't think anybody in this series knows how to use examples to further a logical argument.

This explains why your Psynergy is weaker than that of Vale's people...



Are psynergy stones midichlorians now? Are people like Alex and [sage #89923] only sages because they touched slightly more of the rock than other people? Wouldn't this mean that we would become more powerful every time we recovered pp? Maybe that's why Vall is strong enough to essentially kill elephants with his eyes.

The wind patterns might also affect who among us in Garoh can use Whirlwind.

Couldn't everyone in Garoh use it earlier this conversation? If that wasn't the case, why would you think Garoh had any special connection to Whirlwind? Also, does any of this actually connect with the lycanthropy thing, or is that just a complete non-sequitor that's been completely forgotten about because beetles can crawl along the ground?

Of course, this is all mere conjecture, but it does offer us some clues... You must permit me to thank you for all you've done.

What did we do? We stormed your town and broke into your house then told you that you weren't even remotely unique in any way. How did we help you? Did you even have a problem needing to be solved or a purpose in this game? If anything, didn't we hurt you by risking exposing your secret to people who might want you dead?



A "Djinni"? Is that what you call them? When he is with you, he adds to your power. I think you will get more use out of this "Djinni" than I will.

Stop suddenly becoming an expert in things you didn't know anything about ten minutes ago and acting mysterious about things you specifically bring up.

This is a great gift. We are quite thankful.
You don't need to thank me. Just take care on your travels.



Well, that accomplished nothing. Next time, backtracking. Also I hopefully learn about what updating means.