Part 18: The Drokonia Fake Out

Chapter 17 – The Drokonia Fake Out

Where we last left off, we had just completed a whole bunch of sidequests. Our objective since the chapter before last has been to deliver the ThunderWind Stone to Darek’s Haunt and get on our way to Drokonia.

For once in this LP, let’s go straight to the objective.



Dupon: “Whoa! It’s huge! I’ve never seen a ThunderWind Stone this big!”



Yahn runs off to do as much.

Dupon: “I’ve got to say. I didn’t think they’d actually go find one for us. I’m impressed.”

”I’m standing right in front of you, buddy.”





The Crew: “Aye aye, Captain!”

The Blood Hawk begins to sail.





In a master class of intelligent thought, Kenjiro here has not only snuck into a pirate’s den, but also decided that he can somehow make a lot of money off of their venture, and is now going to jump onto their ship and somehow climb in and hide.



A short animation of the Blood Hawk sailing plays. Drokonia is of course the big island with the map marker.



Now Playing – Quiet Ruin

“Kazanjima Dorukonia”. No, not like our Kazan. The translation is on point.





“I’ve never been here before. What makes you think I would know?”

”…good point.”



“That’s right…Didn’t Doplin say that they were heading south to look for the Sacred Stones? These footprints could be theirs.”

”Actually that was Mr. Bumble who told us.”

”Bubba.”

”Right, right…”

“Look at this! See? There’s a treasure here after all. “






“It looks a lot like the letters we use in my village, but….I can’t read all of it…”

“What does it mean? What are we supposed to do now?!”



Now Playing – Already Rented




“I knew I’d make some money on this trip…I overheard you at the pirate hideout, so I snuck on board.”

“You snuck on board….my ship? Well, well….We can’t have that now, can we?”



“There’s only one way to deal with stowaways….And it’s not pretty…”

“Sharon!”



“The letters…Those letters in the magic circle…I know them! If you kill me, you’ll have no idea what it says!”

“Is that so….You’d better be telling the truth…for your sake!”







This is why Sharon’s the best character: where everyone else balks at the idea of just smacking Kenjiro when he’s being an annoying and obstructive shit, Sharon just boots the bastard in the face. Imagine how quickly we’d have gotten the Mizel Red Sand with her around?



“When I said that I knew the letters, I meant that I know the island they come from!”

“An island…?”






“I’ve done business with people there! These letters are exactly the same as the ones they use!”

“What do you want to do, Lang?”

“If there’s something on that island that’ll help us make progress here, we should go check it out. Kenjiro, you said that Jinga is southeast of Tanza, right?”





“Well, I don’t believe you, but Lang seems to. You’re the only one that knows the way! Back to the ship with you!”



It’s hard to tell by screenshot, but Sharon here is kicking Kenjiro towards the ship.



“*GULP* I don’t have a problem, ma’am.”

Kenjiro then runs off to the ship of his own volition.

“Jinga, the island of ruins…He could be lying, but should we try to find it anyway, Lang?”

”Well it’s either that or stand around. Might as well go…”

So yeah, once again, we’re being diverted from actually completing the plot. Woo.

We are now free to leave and head to Jinga. But, we’re also free to head to any other place we feel like too.



I’ll take this moment to mention that when moving around on the map, you usually see Lang’s sprite run to the different locations. For anywhere we need a boat to get to, we see the Blood Hawk sailing. If we try to move to, say, Drokonia from Nohl, Lang will run to Darek’s Haunt and then get on the Blood Hawk.

Speaking of Darek’s Haunt, let’s go there again. Now that the plot is over in regards to it, we can find our party members there.



As if we needed any more obvious hints that Kazan had something to do with these pirates.



Kenjiro is now permanently stationed on the Blood Hawk, and you can find him any time you’re in Darek’s Haunt. He sells everything, but the really useful stuff he “sells” won’t come up until later.



Trying to convince Maya that the pirates are evil just gets her mad at you. But either way, Sharon’s gang are clearly not evil, the people in Tanza said as much. There’s no reason not to agree.

“Yeah, you’re right. We can’t really offer them anything, but they’re still willing to help us…”

“That’s because they understand. They must know why we’re fighting…That’s why they’re helping! That’s got to be it!”

Let’s see some camp chats while we’re at it.

On the Sea

“Lang, wasn’t the sea huge?”

“Yeah. It just went on and on…like you could see right to the ends of the earth!”

“The sea is unending. It goes on forever. That’s why it fills you with unending dreams. Hey, listen to me, will ya? Ha ha ha! But it really IS unending, you know. That’s because it’s all connected in a big loop!”

Riding the Blood Hawk



Of course Cocky Lang enjoyed his adventure.

“No doubt! Cutting through the sea breeze! Being out on the sea is great!”

“Thatta boy! I knew you’d like it! I’ve got an idea. How about we start our own little pirate legend together, just you and me?”

“Um…”

“We could get us a bunch of henchmen. And about five pirate ships! Yeah! We could form a whole fleet!”

“Ahem…”

“You could be the captain, Lang! And I could be the captain’s girl. What d’ya say?”

“Excuse me!!”

“WHAT? What do you want?!”

“We’re trying to get the Source Forge back to the way it was, remember?”

“OK, already! I get it! But can’t a girl dream for a while? What do you look so mad for?!”

“*Grumble, grumble….*”

”Psst, Sharon, I’m totally down for it when this is all over…”

”Thatta boy!”

Silly love rivalry aside, Sharon surrendering her captaincy to some dude just ain’t right.

Kenjiro



Him being an acquaintance is the most correct option.

“Yeah, he’s an acquaintance of ours.”

“Really? Well, listen to me, then! You better not have anything to do with a guy like that! Trust me on this one! The guy gives off the DISTINCT odor of a con man!”

“What an awful thing to say! True, Kenjiro might not take a bath as often as he should…But that’s no reason…!”

“Well, it’s not good to judge a book by it’s cover, but in Kenjiro’s case! If you don’t watch that guy, he’ll scam you!”

Now, we could go on to Jinga from here. Or…..



Remember how the bartender in Kravia told us about this place? Once we get free reign with the Blood Hawk, we can come here before the plot compels us to.



Now Playing – Dream of Paradise

“Gokurakujima Foochuun”. Exactly as translated.



Before we can enter freely, the man in charge stops us with his bunny girl cadres.

Demetrius: “This is Paradise Found!!! This! Is! Phorchoon!! Pardon me, Gentlemen. Do you have any form of I.D.? This is the most exclusive of exclusive membership resorts! Yes, you are in…Phoooooorchooooooon!!!”



Oh look, it’s our Darakin-based plot coupon. Assuming that only nobility are meant to be allowed here, this will make the presence of some we meet here very strange.

Demetrius: “Yes, of course. Please enjoy your time here.”

We can now explore Phorchoon.



Phorchoon has a casino. It has typical games like Roulette and Slot Machines. Like any casino, you have to buy chips to play the games. We’re not going to bother playing, because there are easier ways to make all the chips you need in this game.



Here we have the in game measure by which you can see your affection values with different characters. You need 10 coins to use it, but 10 coins aren’t all that expensive, as for 100 gold per coin you only have to pay 1000, a trivial sum at this point.

Which character is tells you about is randomized like this…





We haven’t been doing nearly enough to push our relationship with Maya, so of course we’re not full blown lovers here. And all the better for it, since she’s still 14.

Obviously there are other characters to come up here, and they include:
-Sharon
-Kazan
-Our 5th and final party member (who we will meet this chapter)
-Nancy
-Phanta
-Balzac
-Joe (the information guy from Darakin who wears an eyepatch)

Why the game bothered to track Joe’s opinion of us is beyond me, but you’ll see him crop up if you waste a lot of coins on this psychic.

To give you an idea of how we’re doing, here’s the relationships we get so far:
-Sharon: Is “madly in love” with Lang.
-Nancy: Is also madly in love. ”Yuck!”
-Kazan: Thinks of us as a near and dear friend.
-Phanta: Is developing a crush on Lang, because of course.
-Balzac: Hates us, probably because we’re stealing his girl.
-Joe: Also hates us, for reasons unknown to me.

What does any of this matter? I think you know the answer.

Now let’s get on with the side scenes.



“Oh yeah! Back at the auction house, they were having a food competition. They had a really good dish there. It’s called Wild Gratin. There’s some weird mystery meat in there. Wild beast meat. Try it once, or regret it for a lifetime! One of these days, I’ll make it for y’alls….I just know you’ll love it!”

Sharon then leans the aforementioned Wild Gratin.

“And? Why are you here?”

“Just doing some background research on the Roulette wheel. There’s got to be some kind of contrivance, a secret to win!”

“Sharon…You’ll get yourself in trouble doing that.”



We move on to the Auction area. I’ll tell you about auctions in a bit, but first we have a scene and a recipe to learn.



We allay her worries.

“That’s ridiculous! No need to feel that way! We probably have more money on us than these twits by now!”

“…Really? You think so? Thanks, Lang…”



Eating this club sandwich teaches us how to make said sandwich.

Now let’s go actually auction in the auction room, shall we?





Except for one instance later on, every time you do an auction, Sharon will join to act as your bidder. She describes herself as “competing” with you at one point, but she’s more acting as your agent. Anything that’s purchased is the party’s stuff.



As you can see, Maya has technically joined us by virtue of happening to be in the same room. She does not do anything, unlike Sharon.



How auctions work in Legaia 2 is that Demetrius will present 3 items to you every session. The “Inscribed Sword” is not a weapon, but a decorative item for Maya’s house.



Before you even get to act, the NPCs will typically start throwing around a few bids. You might recognise the name Lonatello as the dad of the girl we rescued from the sewers. But when you talk to him outside an auction, he’s called “Donatello”, so I have no idea if they’re genuinely the same person or not.



Your choices are to make a bid, watch the NPCs bid some more, or just check out because you don’t want the item.

We check out on the sword, but there’s a stat raising item we can get here.



It says it’s sold to Sharon, but like I said, it just goes in your inventory.



The third and final main limb of Phorchoon is the Arena. As expected, it lets you fight battles in exchange for casino chips you can turn in for prizes. It’s far simpler to just fight for chips than to rely on luck.

I’d describe the arena battles, but we’re not doing them today. No, we’ll be leaving that for near the end, actually.



Yes indeed, this is the third son of the Mesai Clan, brother to the MIGHTY Balken and Raynoff the Brave. We’ll be seeing him when we finally face the challenges of the arena.



Oh look who’s here. Apparently, Bubba won’t appear at Phorchoon unless you place the Friendship Ring on Elfin’s grave. Good thing we did.



Why would we bother to say no?

“I fell in love with her the moment I saw her! That’s when I gave her that bracelet, as a token of my undying love…She looked pretty happy when she got it, if you ask me. She’s probably still wearing that thing, wherever she is now…Thanks.”

So I never quite commented on Bubba’s weird relationship with Elfin. The game skirts the line of Bubba having love love for Elfin or just being very affectionate to his not-a-pet. But I think this cements the former: clearly the “Friendship Ring” was called the “Love Bracelet” in Japan, and they changed it to avoid the bestiality reference. I assume they forgot to change it here. Yeesh.



Yeah, we can face Bubba in the arena. He’ll be a lot stronger than his boss fight counterpart.



This guy would teach us a Super Art, but we learnt all of those a long time ago.

Also, you might notice those two monsters in the arena. Every time to come out to the stands, you’ll see some monsters fighting. Every time there’s a different pair.

If we go out and in again, we can see new scenes.




We choose to be nice and offer her a coin.

“You’re in luck. How much?”




This a whole lot of coins. Naturally, I don’t have that much on me. You get to choose again, but we don’t have enough to offer even if we wanted to.

“OK…Ohhh…I don’t have that much. I’m sorry, I can’t do it.”

“Haw, haw!! I’m kidding! I can’t believe you took me seriously! Which aristocrat should I hit up?”




And so Maya learns the “Fruity Pie” recipe.

Now, with all that out of the way, let’s finally go to Jinga.




Now Playing – Roar of the Sea and Sky

“Kyojin no oka Jinga”. Exactly as.

There’s an entrance area prior to this place that serves no purpose. It just makes getting into Jinga slower and harder. And let me tell you, as this is a city of giants, it is very annoying to get around quickly.






We get this cut scene where this…dragon? flies overhead and roosts on a far off building. At the entrance to said building, you see someone we’re about to become very familiar with.






Trying to talk to the locals nets us either silence or strange and threatening words. Our only recourse is to go where that flying whatever went.




Elderly Giant: “Those people are different. They are…’Nature Speakers’…”

“’Nature Seakers’…?”



Chief West Wind: “I believe they call you Mystics now.”

“What do you mean predicted…?”

Chief West Wind: “The Spirit, Reym, told me that you would come to these lands. Come with me, ‘Nature Speakers’…”



“Does not our law forbid contact with those from the outside?”

Chief West Wind: “Do not let that concern you now, ‘Silent Eagle’…Come, there is much to tell and little time.”





”Awwwkwaaaaaard…..”

Now Playing – Wind, Tree and Water




Chief West Wind: “Something…That only I would be able to answer. Correct?”

“Yes! We’re trying to get further into Volcanic Isle, but we’re stuck! There’s this place with letters carved into the ground and some kind of jewel in the center.”

Chief West Wind: “You speak of the Earth Crest. You must sit on it.”

I think he meant he wanted us to sit down, given…



“How do you know about the Kabel?”

Chief West Wind: “I have watched the world for many, many years now. Their legends have not passed yet from this island. The Kabel were a people that sought to control the world…Through magic.”

“Control the world through magic?”





I think Legaia 2 realised that it would have to have Maya make something of her Kabel heritage here, and realised that would be too interesting and left it out.



Chief West Wind: “And what they craved…Was power. With each new power they acquired, they lost a bit of their humanity…By the time they controlled nature…even life and death itself…They believed themselves all-powerful…But the Kabel were destroyed…”

“How?”

Chief West Wind: “The Kabel were destroyed by humans. Their arrogance proved to be their downfall. The Kabel were overconfident in their powers. They started to believe that they were not human, but gods. At least, that was their claim. The rest of humanity feared their control. They wanted to save the world and it compelled them to action. The ability to survive, enjoyed by all humanity, had been weakened in the Kabel due to their dependence on magic. So when the wars began, the Kabel were indeed powerful, but were lacking something. Humanity prevailed in the end.



Chief West Wind: “Our one tribal law is as old as that legend.”

“We can have nothing to do with the outside world. That is our law. From our perspective, the outside world is full of heathens. Getting involved would make us impure as well.”

”What about Kenjiro? He’s the most impure prick out there!”

Chief West Wind: “Well yes, but one has to have an avenue of trade.”



Chief West Wind: “But I am the only one left that is able to communicate now.”

Chief West Wind: “’Nature Speakers’…The Spirit told me that you would come here and why. If the legends of my ancestors are true, you are searching for the Altar of Fire on the Volcanic Isle. However…You will never reach it…Unless you can go through the Earth Crest.”



“What’s this?”

Chief West Wind: “This…Is the Blue Sky Shard. With this…The Earth Crest should lead you to the Altar of Fire.”





Chief West Wind: “The ‘End’ is quickly approaching. We can no longer sit by idly and watch. The time to act has come. Our tribe lives on this world too. We are part of this world, ‘Silent Eagle’. You, the most noble and strongest of our warriors, are the only one fit to complete this task.”



As expected, nothing you say matters. Silent Eagle is joining whether you like it or not. May as well be polite.

“We’d be happy to have him! Are you willing to fight with us?”

“I cannot. I will follow the orders of ‘Chief West Wind’, but I will not follow you.”

Chief West Wind: “You must help each other. ‘Silent Eagle’, you are hereby exempt from the law until your task is complete.”

“But…”

Chief West Wind: “Listen to me, ‘Silent Eagle’. The law applies only to the living. If the world is destroyed, there will be no living and the law will be useless.”






So Lang canonically pulls this name out of his ass and applies it to this stranger. Huh.

“Fine.”

Chief West Wind: “’Nature Speakers’…We have many valuable items that can only be found here. Some…may prove useful in your journey. However, we have no use for money from the outside. If you have something of equal value, you may be able to trade.”

As the Chief says, Jinga runs on a barter economy, and you can get great items here, but only in exchange for equally rare stuff.

I’d go into more detail, but I think it’s best I leave things here for now.

Join me next time, where we learn more about Sile-I mean, Ayne, and finally, FINALLY experience Drokonia for real.