Part 22: Odds and Ends #5

Okay... now that we've actually gotten something accomplished, let's rewind time to fuck around a bit. That's right folks. It's time for a

ODDS AND ENDS!!!! #5

We're going to start way back when we first arrived in the new zone. Let's begin with the obvious starting point: Iluk.


"Of course it is, you fool! Why'd you ask him that? Shut up! I'll handle this! You stay out of it! Uh, uh, uh... I hope you enjoy your stay with us...

Iluk is full of interesting people.


"Stands before you! Ignorant fools! On what matter can I enlighten you?"

Veeery interesting people. Wait, I could have saved myself the trouble and just bugged this guy?


"Ask me something else."

Oh. Okay. One would think even a complete moron would know why we'd want to ask about Ghaleon in the first place, but okay. I guess we can ask him about Luna...



Eh, still more informative as the actual Damon.

Oddly enough, the guy talking to himself becomes completely coherent after you talk to crazy Damon. Coherent enough to call him a fake. Huh.

Well, now I'm bored of the crazies. Let's go bug the thieves.


"There's no doubt in my mind that he knows where Xenobia is!"

And we're still talking about Damon. I wanted to show that, yes, the purpose for finding Damon was to find Xenobia. For... whatever good that did.


"Now it's changed from a prison camp to a refuge for criminals! Ah, ha, ha!"

Which is why in Australia stealing is legal?


: But... you're not laying a hand on me! I don't need to stuffing squished out of me!
: What makes Nall attractive to women? I just can't figure it out!!

I- I don't think you want to be attractive in the same way, Kyle. There's a difference...


: I can't believe that this hasn't been dusted! What a disgrace!

Nall sometimes comments on empty treasure chests. Sometimes he doesn't. And Nall has a couple of different comments he'll make, too. Kind of a weird spot to cram more dialogue in.



There was one unique shop in town that I didn't cover in the main updates. It's... interesting.


"...he seems to conduct an honest business, but... <grumble> <grumble>"

Why do I have this feeling of deja-vu...



Ooooh. Well, they did say he was heading off to Reza. I guess we find out what he's been up to, how this business is going, whether the broken nose healed, that sort of thing.


"No more stealing jewels for me! Take a look around and see for yourself... And I wish the best of luck to your friend Ramus... what? You didn't know? He's running a very successful business in my old shop in Meribia!"

Whaaa?

I do find it interesting that in the remake, it's pretty clear that Ramus gets Dross's old shop (and turns it into the Objectivation Store), but in the original it's a bit of a reveal. I would say "surprise" but I don't think that's remotely surprising to anyone here.

That aside, I'm certain some one you wonder what Dross's new business is. He's not a jeweler anymore.



He's a dropbox. You know, considering the rather limited inventory you get some storage solutions would be nice. Sadly, you can't store the useless Prison Key or any other key item. Dross will just say it's "too worthless to bother storing." But you can store anything else.

*_{The Prison Key you get when Mia breaks you out jail. Yes, I still have it. You keep it until the end of the game; there is no way to get rid of it. And no, you never use it again}

Okay, I say "store" but if you actually select the "withdraw" option.


"Valuables safe forever? There's no need to withdraw them... ever! "

So, uh, yeah, it's an idiot trap. Considering the guy we're entrusting with the care of our goods, are you surprised?

There's one more thing to cover in Reza at the moment.


"Thousands of creatures are at his command in the Vile Tribe, as is Xenobia. Taben, the inventor, also follows him! He's making the Grindery and 500 mechanical warriors to do Ghaleon's dirty work!"

Not this guy, although that information is interesting. No, there's a woman below him that's being blocked by the text box.


"...cards?"

And she's the other person who will play blackjack with you.



It's exactly the same as playing with Brett, with one slight exception. If you pull ahead and then quit she'll say this:



But, you don't actually play one more hand or even get the choice to. You just quit. Odd.

That's it for Reza for the time being. After getting the Thieves' Crest, I headed back to Meribia to open the several red chests that Mel has. As I've said before, you can totally do this the second Kyle joins your party, but it felt more appropriate to wait until I got the chest.



There are two Jewels and two Diamond Rings, which combined sell for 8000 silver. Do not miss this mother lode; it's the only way I was able to afford anything in this section. There is one more treasure of note.



The Earth Cane casts a decently powerful single-target spell, although it seems to randomly fail. Huh. Well, it does give Anti-Magic and for a staff it's got good attack power



Nevermind, it's sold.

Next up on our magical tour is Meryod. I did say you get different dialogue if you pick up your party members in a different order. So let's collect the boys first.


: That rotted bridge!
: Well, Mr. Safety, I think you fell in the drink, too! What's your excuse?
: I was just trying not to make waves... Alex is s'posed to be the leader here...

And if we rescue Mia with Nash along...


: I'll teach these pigs a thing or two! How about a nice thunder blast to...
: Oh Nash! It's over now. Just let them be... we need to get going.

Indeed. Next up: Kyle.


: Whew! Man alive! You smell like booze!
: Oh lighten... hiccup... up, my pesky little buddy! It was just a... hiccup... glass!

Was it either one hell of a glass, or is Kyle secretly a light-weight? That's for you to decide.


: They've been making passes at me this whole time!
: Hey! I thought that was my job! Why I ought to kick their backward...
: Could you be any more insensitive? This was scary for me!

All in all, there's not too much of a difference.

So that covers most of the NPC chatter from when you first arrive on the scene. Let's warp ahead to after the balloon crashed. If you return to Reza a bit after the balloon crashed (I'm not sure how long after; I don't know what triggers it) you find the town square empty.


"You shouldn't take your eyes off anything here in Reza! It's a den of thieves!"

That didn't take long. So, wait, they picked up all that wreckage, got it through the bar and Lily's room and down two more flights of stairs?



They did. I'm kind of impressed.


"It came from the skies a few days ago. It's the chariot of Althena herself! What would you pay for something like this baby?"
: Do you believe this guy? What's his last name? Perot?

Oh, there's the Ross Perot reference!

...is it accurate? I mean, I wasn't paying much attention to politics when he was running for President. Little too busy with school and video games.


"That inventor paid me to find someone to test pilot his contraption. I sent you! Now that you've crashed the air balloon, the inventor canceled the finder's fee he was supposed to pay me. Thanks for nothing!"

If you don't recall (and honestly don't know why you would) this guy told us about using the balloon in the first place.



See, same guy. What a dick.

Speaking of dick, let's go find that guy that sent us on our magical balloon ride and give him piece of our mind.


: Yeah bud, and we can't fully express to you how sore we all are! Thanks alot!

That wasn't quite the verbal thrashing I had in mind, but I guess it'll do...


I guess that I just am not skilled enough to make complicated machines yet... If you really want to fly, you'd better go see Master Myght... my mentor."

Oh yeah. There's been a mention of Taben and his evil machines, but we can finally get an idea of the machines that Myght creates. I guess we'll have to go see this Myght and find out if he can make a balloon that isn't a complete waste of our time.

That's about it for balloon-related NPCs. If we go to Iluk again after completing Damon's Spire and the Red Dragon Cave, we can go thank the guy who gave us the Rain Cloud.


"Oh fiddlesticks! I wanted to buy it back when you were finished with it!"

...man, we've got to get out of the habit of breaking key items, I'm telling ya.


"...no really! I will!"
: More like he'll wring your neck for using his name."
"It's not easy being me. Everyone wants to be just like Damon. The pressure to perform, the celebrity... at times, it's just plain exhausting."
: This guy is totally bonkers! He really believes he's Damon!

I dunno, I think I like him more than the real Damon. He's got moxie.

Finally, if we go back to Meyrod and talk to the man who told us how to get to Damon's Spire, something... interesting happens.


"Isn't the man completely awe inspiring? I just respect him so much... I mean... did you see all those books?!"

Yeah, I did. They're not all that impress



Wait, are you leaving? What the fuck are you doing?

So, naturally, I had to warp back to Damon's to see what the fuck was going on.


"Since Damon has died, should I try to succeed him? With all the knowledge stored in the books here, I should have everything I need to do it..."

...

...

...what?

So, yeah, Damon dies shortly after you meet him. In his personal library, Damon did have this book:

Volume 5: Lineage
...I, Damon, keeper of our collected knowledge, have no heir to leave it to...

Which I cut because it didn't seem important. Whelp. I was wrong on that. I actually did not know that Damon died at this point; I didn't go back and talk to this guy because it didn't seem like there'd be any reason to. Although I do believe if you go to the Damon's room later down the line (and didn't talk to this guy), Damon is not there. I'm not sure how much later, though. Playing ahead just a tiny bit and he's still there, so I don't know...

Huh. Kind of changes things knowing that Damon dies. I wonder how this guy is taking the loss of his idol and the prospect of taking his place.



Anyway! There's one other thing to talk about before I wrap this up.



A spring, eh? Well, NotLemia did throw Alex in jail for being smelly; maybe the group could benefit from some bathing.



"If you enter its soothing waters, you can purify your soul."

Yeah, let's go-

"What? You don't have any soap? You must have soap to enter the spring. You'd better go find some."

Oh right. Soap. Now in the remakes, soap was a difficult item to get a hold of. There was a finite amount in the game and they were often in red chests (requiring backtracking) or otherwise difficult to get. It a pretty huge pain in the ass.

EDIT: Actually, you can buy Soap on the boat to Saith. But that's the only place, it's super expensive, and if you miss the opportunity, then too bad.



But in the original you can just buy it in Reza or Meyrod. And it's pretty cheap, too.

So what is all this excitement over freaking soap? Why is it so precious in the remakes?

Because it unlocks what we've all been waiting for. Hardcore nudity!


"Only men can enter into the spring. I know. I know! It's discriminatory, but hey, it's a tradition!"


_{Alex's prissy expression here just cracks me up}

Well, more like incredibly tame fan service. Certainly preferable to seeing any unwanted buttcracks, mind you (ahem).

Of course, there's a female version. In the remake, you had to fucking earn your right to view pictures of scantly clad anime girls. There was a short dungeon with unusually tough enemies you had to walk through to get to the spring.



But in the original it's just right outside of Meryod. You cannot miss it.

And I might as well include the ladies' picture for completion sake.

_{(In case if you're wondering what the lady (of course it's a lady) attending the spring says, it's pretty much the same as the male one.)}



I'm not sure what Jessica's confused about, but Mia seems to be enjoying tormenting Nall. But really, who wouldn't?

But that's it for the this section of the game. Next up we'll be searching for the Blue Dragon Cave. 'Till next time!