Part 7: In the Hall of the Mountain Morg

Chapter 6 – In the Hall of the Mountain Morg

Last time, we met Kazan, who tasked us with reaching the summit of Mt. Gabel and dying against the Mountain Morg. No, really.



Once we exit the gate, we’re put on the narrow path to facing our death at the hands of the Morg.

But what if we just turn around and go back?



Kazan offers to use his shack as a place to rest and heal. As we can’t actually leave Mt. Gabel until we’re done, this is the only place to do so.



Maya’s inside the shack, doing nothing significant. There’s nothing else to do but rest, so we go back outside…

Now Playing – Already Rented



“If you’re ever in need, just let me know! I just know I’ll be able to help you out!”

“All for a modest fee of course! Ha ha ha ha!”

“So, Kazan, when do you think you’ll be ready to…?”

“Don’t you ever give up? I’ve already said no.”

“Rejection is all part of sales, my friend.”

“I’m not leaving here today until you sell me that pot you like so much, Kazan!”

“Hmph! Stay there all week if you want. I don’t care.”

If it wasn’t obvious from the way he talks, Kenjiro is a travelling merchant. His function here is to let you buy items and combine stuff while you can’t leave the mountain. He will also be a significant character going forward, for more reasons than just showing up to sell things.

Anyway, now that we’ve established our base camp, I think it’s time we actually climb Mt. Gabel.



Spike Lizards are the first enemies in a trend of foes that cause you to miss certain strikes due to their stature. Remember I mentioned that way back in Chapter 1?

These things also introduce the “Venom” status effect. It’s like poison, but apparently you can’t recover HP while it affects a character. I say apparently because these things are too weak to actually warrant healing during their fights and the effect wears off after battle, so I never really knew it was a thing.



It’s incredibly easy to miss, but if you stand on a wee bit of land in this lake, you get to stare up at the summit of Mt. Gabel.

If you squint, you can make out our quarry, waving at us (no, it’s not actually waving).



This is a palette swap of the Flytrap enemies from Hunter’s Wood. At least it’s a little longer ago than the Baki.



This is the entrance to the Mountain Morg’s Cave.



And this is the inside of the Mountain Morg’s Cave. The Japanese comes out as “Yama no Shu no Dokutsu”, or “Mountain Lord’s Cave”. I guess Mountain Lord is a bit nondescript, but what the heck is a Morg anyway?



We get a sense of how big it is from here. There’s no way it fit in that tiny cave. Did it drop in from above?



They say you are what you eat, and the Morg is an example of this.



If you hadn’t been playing a Cocky Lang so far, you’d get a different piece of dialogue here. No “Morgie” and more “GULP THIS SURE IS INTIMIDATING BUT I GOTTA DIE!”




Maybe we can take this thing. The game let us win a technical victory against Elliott and Marienne, remember?



Or it’s a repeat of Gold Eyes and you literally can’t hurt it.



Lang, Kazan made this very clear. You’re here to get beaten nearly to death.



The Morg has a handful of generic attacks that do a bit of damage, but nothing life threatening.



It’s when he does this that the end is nigh.




Not even guarding can save you from this wiping Lang out.








“Another power..lies within…me…”









Our Origin has awoken.

We now have access to the “Origin” slot in our action menu.






It’s entirely possible to lose here. Morg won’t go down in a single Origin attack. When I was a kid, I think I severely underleveled for this segment, and couldn’t kill Morg with the amount of Origin attacks you can make here (2).

But in this playthrough, 2 is enough to win.

Click below to watch Lang awaken his Stand and defeat the Morg.




Now Playing – Going to My Hometown

“Are you…Are you the Origin inside me?”

“Yes. Galea’s the name. I am the Origin of Fire.”

“If you had waited any longer to awaken me, you’d have been dead for sure!”



Note Kazan has a sword on his belt.

“Is that your Origin?”

(Such power…! Who would have thought the kid had this kind of power inside of him…)

“You’ve finally awoken the giant within, Lang..”

“Is that why you brought me here, Maya?”



“Yes…I hoped that you would realize your potential as a Mystic.”

“Your Origin may be awake, but you’re still a novice. You’ve got a lot to learn about fighting and Origins. Come with me.”



Kazan finally joins our party.

The two others walk out of the cave ahead of Lang.



“Hey, get a move on, will you? The master’s already leaving.”

“Master?”

“It’s better than calling him ‘pops’, don’t you think?”

“If it weren’t for him, I never would have woken up and you’d probably be dead!”

He means Kazan, of course.



Kazan joins at level 25 and is far stronger than Lang. He will make battles a lot easier from here on out.

And speaking of battles….



We’re immediately ambushed outside the cave.

Despite coming with a sword, Kazan fights with fist and foot. This means he never actually needs a weapon, so we don’t have to spend money and resources to improve his combat ability (outside of accessories and other items).

Kazan comes with his own slew of Arts to perform. You know what that means!

Click here to watch Kazan’s Art exhibition.

Of course we now also have the ability to use Origin attacks with every party member. We could have used Maya’s this whole time, but I figured I’d save it until we had the whole gang.

Click here for an exhibition of our first Origin attacks.

(The reason why some of it is from different areas is because I needed to re-record for it. It also gives you a sneak peek of how the Forest Maze will go)

In any case, the battle against these Stone Beasts is easily won, especially with Kazan in the group.

Click below for to hear Kazan explain why he doesn’t use his sword.


“I’ve always preferred to use my fists.”

“I can feel the battle with more clarity.”

”Only learned how to use a sword cause I needed two jobs, anyway. Doplin’s taxes were and are a bitch.”



“A student?”

“Yes. And in it thrives the spirit of my former student, Rauss…Which is why I must never ever lose it. For to lose it is to forget him.”

Golly, I wonder if Rauss is ever going to be important to the game?

The scene ends, and we begin our descent down Mt. Gabel.

But halfway back to Kazan’s shack, he stops us.




“This is the Cave of Trials. I trained here in my younger days.”

“At the very back of the cave, there is a scroll that reveals a secret sword technique. I want you to get that scroll.”

“You want me to get a scroll?”

“It may sound easy, but trust me, it’s not. This cave is filled with monsters.”

“You won’t be able to get the scroll by yourself. You’re going to need the cooperation of your Origin.”

“Stand over there.”



Deva boosts us up to the entrance.

“Origins can do things like this. I’m certain that your Origin has the power you’ll need to accomplish the task.”

“Whether you make it through the caves alive or not depends on how you use your Origin.”

“I’ll wait here with Maya. Good luck.”

Once again alone, on our way into a new cave.

Now Playing – Training Cave

We don’t get far into the cave before we’re stopped.



“I wonder if Galea can do something about it?”

The game now tells us we can use our Origin with a touch of the square button.



Galea breaks the boulder with one punch.



From outside “Hey La-ng!”

“I don’t think you’re strong enough to make it through the cave by yourself yet.”

”Okay first, bullshit, second, you think Maya’s the solution?”

”Don’t answer back boy! Maya can heal you with Rivas!”

”Didn’t need her to take down a giant crab, a sexually suggestive gorilla, and the MIGHTIEST knight in Darakin, but okay, sure…”

With Maya in the party, we can now cycle between characters to use different on-field Origin abilities. We can also run around in dungeon areas as other characters if we feel like it.



The Japanese means “Training Cave”, like the name of the song playing. I guess they felt it was a bit on the nose for English?

The Cave of Trials is basically a big tutorial on how puzzles work in Legaia 2. Oh yes, we’re getting puzzles from here on out. They all involve using the various Origin powers at your disposal to get past obstacles and find optional treasures.

We know Galea is used to break boulders and stuff, but Rivas has uses here too…



Rivas makes plants grow, for one. This lets us make a vine ladder to reach that chest up there.

You can also see an odd patch of dirt. That one requires Deva, Kazan’s Origin. Yes, that means if we want to see where that leads, we need to come back here with him. There’s a lot of things in dungeons you need later characters to get to.



These are the enemies we fought in the last update, back at Kazan’s shack. They’re no more fearsome here than there. They can cause “Blindness”, a status effect that causes some attacks to “miss”. They don’t miss the way some directional attacks do and instead just cause no damage.



Dino Gol’s are the worst enemy here. They don’t do too much damage, but they can cause the “Beserk” status. In Legaia 2, that means your characters will attack randomly. Not only does this mean they probably won’t execute Arts, or will attack only once, they can also target allies, and here Lang can easily kill Maya.

As for the puzzles, here’s a few of them…



Here all you have to do is break the rocks to step on a switch.



Here you just have to light a torch, then step on a switch.



Here, the tablet in the corner says “There is only one truth”. So I light one torch and the doors open.

The Cave of Trials is a pretty banal dungeon overall. The puzzles aren’t even complex. All you have to do is use your Origin on a painfully obvious prompt and you will get through. I don’t think even children would struggle with these.



Once you get through all the puzzles, you get the scroll Kazan mentioned. This scroll teaches you a Hyper Art, which we first saw during Elliott and Marienne’s battle.

Lang also got 5 Art Blocks as I traversed this cave. Time for another exhibition!

Click here for Lang’s 5 Block Art Exhibition and his new Hyper Art.

Hyper Arts are unlike other Arts because rather than performing a succession of strikes building up to one Art attack, they perform a predetermined attack in one go. Raging Fang takes up 3 Art Blocks, but does not perform two regular attacks and then another, but instead performs its own attack sequence. Fortunately, this is far more powerful than regular Art use, so the attacks aren’t wasted.

As you can see in that video, Hyper Arts don’t have to be used alone. You can chain them with other Arts. All Arts can be chained together with the right sequence. Here, the sequence for Raging Fang is [up, down, up]. The sequence for Thunderflash is [down, up, up, up]. The first two parts of Thunderflash are contained in the last two parts of Raging Fang. Thus, by entering just two more [up]s, we perform both Raging Fang and Thunderflash.

Hyper Arts take more AP than Super Arts to pull off, so chaining them with a regular Art helps offset the cost.

Anyway, we’re quite done with the Cave of Trials.




“I told you to get the scroll. I didn’t say anything about reading it. Someone needs to learn some patience.”

Kazan says this because we actually checked the scroll before leaving the cave. Although he acts like he’s admonishing us, nothing bad comes of this.

“It’s a style of sword fighting that I mastered. It allows you to infuse your sword with your inner fighting force.”

“Since you’ve already looked at the scroll, you know that it contains the secrets to a technique called ‘Raging Fang.’”

“Like the smithy tempers steel, so too must you temper your mind. Devote yourself to mastering this technique.”

“It looks like you’ve learned ‘Raging Fang’ quite well. In that case…You shouldn’t have any trouble learning more advanced techniques in the future.”

“Okay, then. Let’s all head back to the house!”

And so we head back to the house.



“Let’s see…It floats in the air…It’s very shiny and water comes out of it. Oh, and it’s a rock!”

“A shiny rock that floats in mid-air and water comes out of it? You wouldn’t try to fool an old man now, would you?”

”Master, we have magical spirits living inside our bodies. Why does this sound so fantastic to you?”

”Ehhh….”



“You know of it?”

“Yes. When I was held captive in Doplin Castle, I remember the Bishop bragging about it.”

Funny that Rivas says “I” when it was more Maya that was captured. I guess Rivas was stuck too, but does it count when you can just vanish into some spiritual void?

“Doplin Castle…That’s where they locked me up! You’re sure that’s where it is?!”

“Hmm…But why did Gold Eyes steal it from your village? What does he plan to do with it?”

“If we find that stone, we might find Gold Eyes too…”

“Master?”

“Let me tell you something, Lang…”



“But I can’t enjoy the sunset anymore. The eerie mist covering the mountain has made it impossible.”

“In order to get back the mountain I love…I plan to fight this gold-eyed devil that’s disrupting the balance of things.”

“You fight to protect your village…Maya and I to protect nature…”

“We fight for different reasons, but our target’s the same. How about it, Lang?”

“Master! Let’s go to Doplin Castle!”

“We’ll leave right away.”



“Yes. And I don’t think that I’ll be coming back.”

“Thanks for all you’ve done for me over the years, Kenjiro.”

“You wanted that pot, right? Take it. Take everything in the house. It’s all yours.”

“Really?! You’re going to give me the pot?! Even the hanging scrolls?”

“I won’t have any use for them where I’m going. Anything you think is valuable, you can buy…”

But Kenjiro runs off before Kazan can finish.

“Hmm…I was hoping to get some traveling money, but never mind. All right then, shall we go?”

”You know, we could just go tell him he’s not getting it all for free?”

”Too much effort.”



This is plot relevant.

But with Kenjiro pillaging Kazan’s shack, we are free to leave Mt. Gabel.



Oh whoops, we’re not actually done with the tutorials. Silly me.



“Oh well. We’ll rest here for tonight.”



Now Playing – Paying the Worthless War

(This is by far the goofiest name for a song that mostly plays around a campfire)

Introducing the Camping/Cooking system. As it says, you can make camp at certain points, both in dungeons and on the world map. On the camping screen, you can access various functions, such as saving, combining items, and of course cooking.

Cooking is as you would expect: you make dishes that are available to the party using the ingredients you need and have on hand. These dishes boost stats in different ways. You will learn a variety of different dishes through the game, and they all do different things. I must admit, however, that you’ll only find so many of them genuinely useful.

Our only option in the tutorial is to make Kazan’s signature curry.



“….Kazan!....I’m crying, ‘cause my mouth is on fire!!!!”

“Fool! It’s not curry if it hasn’t got a little spice!!”



“What’s the matter, Maya…?”

“I guess it’s so hot, she doesn’t want to eat it, Kazan…”

“That’s strange…I thought it was pretty good…”



This is what Kazan Curry does to a person. Despite Lang and Maya hating it, this dish is very useful, and we’ll get a lot of mileage out of it.

The final function of the campsites is to let you have the characters talk to each other. You typically get a few good conversations out of every new site you find.

Here’s a selection of the ones we hear here:

Kazan’s Past

“Hey, tell me a little about your past!”

“Hm…Let’s see…I…I was fighting all the time.”

“I just wanted to test how strong I was…That’s all I wanted to know…”

“I see.”

“You’ve got to get out and try things while you’re young. Sitting around doing nothing is the worst!”

“The worst thing is to regret not having done something.”

“So, is there anything you regret not having done, then?”

“Let’s see…I should have gone after even more ladies when I was young and handsome!”

“I know I had what it took to attract the laies! But I…! I…!”

(Looks like this is a major regret…)

Kazan reminds me of someone. Can you guess who before I spell it out for you?

Practice

“Lang! You’ve been practicing the technique I taught you the other day, right?”

This chat offers a choice of response. We can either say we don’t know what he means, tell him we use it in battle, or that we want to learn something new.

We choose battle.

“Sure, I use it during battles.”

“I see. Using the skill in battle is better than simply practicing it.”

“The day is coming when new skills will awaken within you. Keep at it, Lang.”

Spicy Cooking

“Why is Master’s cooking so spicy?”

“Spicy? I held back on the spice for you…”

“You held back on the spice?! How spicy is your REAL cooking?!”

“That dish is nothing compared to the foods in my home town of Tanza.”

Can you guess between Kazan’s voice acting and his spicy cooking what Tanza is based on?

The Importance of Hygiene

“Hm? What’s wrong, Maya? Why are you frowning?”

“Have you ever washed your clothes before, Master?”

“Of course! Near as I remember, I washed them a month ago…”

“A month ago?!”

“That’s right. Anything wrong?”

“You might want to wash them more often. Look, Maya doesn’t like the fact that you smell!”

“I see. I have lived alone for a long time. I completely forgot about it!”

Origin Talk



“It depends…Some become aware when they are born. Some don’t realize it ‘till they die.”

“As for me…I’m just like you. I felt mine during battle. WE fought together ever since.”

“Kazan and I share a mutual existence. The death of Kazan’s soul means the same for my own…”

“He’s more stubborn than I am. Simply put: if I die, so does Deva.”

“So they’re between life and death…”

“Correct. But even if we share destinies, our souls are separate. So communicate well with the Origin within yourself.”

Mystic Hunting

“A stone that gushes water, huh? And you absolutely HAVE to have it, you say?”

“Yes, I’ve GOTTA have it! That’s the whole reason I left home!”

“I see. Well, according to Rivas, it was taken into Doplin Castle.”

“That castle again, huh…?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, actually…that castle is where I met Maya in the first place.”

“They were gathering up Mystics, and I got caught.”

“I see. That must be how Maya got caught, too. Mystic hunting, huh? Pretty scary. It reminds me of a time long ago.”

“What happened?”

“This was before you were born. People used to believe that Mystics were the cause of misfortune.”

“There was a huge uproar and an entire town got destroyed!”

We know what he’s talking about. End of Chapter 1, remember?

“Ever since then, nobody dared say the word ‘Mystic.’…But I guess history repeats itself.”

“But the ones making a fuss about Mystics this time are some big shots. They call the Mystics ‘the messengers of the gods.’”

“’The messengers of the gods?’ That’s a little exaggerated, isn’t it?”

“Well, if we got to the castle, I guess we can see these guys for ourselves. These big shots.”

“Yeah, probably.”

“Hmm..There must be something big behind this whole thing. I hope not, though…”

Lang and Maya’s Relationship

“By the way…What’s your relationship with Maya?”

We get a choice. Unlike with Nancy, we can’t straight up claim to have an intimate relationship, only “mess with his head”. But we have no interest in playing weird games with our “relationship” with Maya.

“After we escaped the castle, we’ve just been traveling together. We don’t have any special…’relationship.’”

“Hmm…That’s what you SAY, but it seems to me Maya’s really opened up to you. And she’s such a shy girl, too!”

”Still not going there, dude.”

Lecturing

“Listen, boy. Martial arts are all about Discipline. Discipline is the only way you’re gonna master your skills. And…”

“Huh? Hey! Are you even listening?!”

We get another choice. Be sleepy, actually listen, or say we’d rather train. We choose to have listened.

“Of course I was listening! ‘It takes discipline to master one’s skills,’ right?”

“You WERE listening! OK. The 7 martial arts principles are courage, morality, humanity, wisdom, courtesy, integrity and honor….”

(*yawn* How long is the guy gonna talk?)

And with that, we’re finally done with the side conversations. I do enjoy a bit of character building, but it’s a lot of text to dump on players the first time it’s available.

But we’re not completely done. Exiting the menu gives us a cut scene…



“Hmph…Sound asleep…”

“Poor girl. If she weren’t a Mystic cursed with the blood of her ancestors…She’d probably be living a normal life…surrounded by family…”

“The blood of her ancestors…?”

“A long time ago, there was a race called the Kabel.”

“They might have had human bodies, but they had the power to control everything in the universe. The Kabel called it magic…”

“Maya is from the same blood line. She used to have the same powers…”

“If it weren’t for those powers…Maya would never have…”

“Would never have what? What happened?”

“Her powers went out of control. If I had only realized sooner, I might have been able to help. She never would have…”

Kazan says no more, so Lang decides to sleep.



We awake the next day with the ingredients to make multiple Kazan Currys. This will be very helpful in the next segment.

But that will have to wait for next chapter.

Join me next time, where we experience the dreaded SEWER LEVEL.