Part 68: Episode LXIII: Give the Boy a Hand!
Episode LXIII: Give the Boy a Hand!
Music: Village Tunes
Right, then... Off to revisit the accursed Junk Heap... Joy...
But before we venture off to my least favorite of dungeons for another exciting adventure in material grinding; let's take a look about the Village to see if any new sidequests have cropped up since our adventure back to the Lost Shrine.
Sidequest: A Child's Final Chance
"Ma'am? Is everything all right?"
"It's my son. He's got some strange illness. He's very sick. He's been ill for a week, and no matter what I do, it just seems to get worse." "That's worrisome. Any idea what's causing it?" "No. He went out to play with the other children like he usually does, and when he came home, he was sick." "Something must have happened to him out there. I'll see if I can learn anything." "You will!?" "Of course."
"Meddlesome as always, I see. Shall we begin by questioning the children?" "Sounds good to me."
"Of course they are." "But if the cause of the illness is a mystery, how are we possibly supposed to find a cure?" "...I was hoping you had an idea about that." "We could speak with the child itself." "The child? Wouldn't the adults know better?" "Even the oldest man in the world is but a child to my eyes!"
The tail end of the quest giver conversation had the right idea with the notion of speaking with the kids wandering around the market. Nier needs to speak with three of the rascals to figure out his next course of action.
I guess we should have asked if the kid was mumbling "dream dream dream" when the quest began, hmmm?
In any case, it is quite clear Nier needs to investigate the Forest of Myth to find what ails the boy. But, we're not heading for the woods of text quite yet. The kiddo will have to soldier up and wait just a bit longer.
A second quest has cropped up by the Northern Gate where a lone guard is patrolling. Let's see what his problem is...
Sidequest: A Bridge in Peril
"What is it!? What's wrong!?"
"There's this huge Shade near the bridge in the northern plains! It killed three members of my family, including my wife... Just cut her down right in front of me! Then it attacked my daughter, too... Gods, it was horrible..." "I'm on it." "It appears and disappears like the wind. You could go days in the northern plains without seeing it, and then all of a sudden..."
Yeah...that's the thing about this quest... We're pretty much at the mercy of the randomized weather. Today it is sunny as can be with little cloud cover to speak of...which means no murderous quest Shade to slay...
The Shade of this sidequest is pretty much just there to troll the player, since said Shade will appear on cloudy days even without the quest trigger. Nier can just be trucking along to go visit The Aerie or wherever and suddenly an uber-Shade will appear to smack off a third of his life bar before the player even knows what in the hell happened.
Anyway, I am not playing hide and seek with the thing or save scumming to get an overcast weather forecast. So, we'll get around to killing that thing in due time...
Meh... No more dancing around the issue any longer. Time to go return to the Junk Heap. I wonder how Jakob and Gideon are getting along in the last few years. I mean...kids in Cavia titles always turn out peachy...
Four years earlier...
"There's got to be tons of machinery here!"
"Yeah, but I don't know how much we can actually use." 
"Oh, wow! Check this out! It looks brand-new!" "Hey, be careful there!"
An ominous cybernetic foot slowly bangs into frame behind the brothers...
Gideon, being a moron like most children, haphazardly skips over some loose debris in the derelict factory...
...As you can imagine, this leads to some trouble.
"Oh, no!"
"Look out!"
Jakob makes a heroic diving save to rescue his little brother from the collapsing roof. What a stand-up kid.
Gideon makes it out of the wreck with only a few bruises and some skinned knees thanks to his elder sibling's noble deed.
Jakob for his trouble, of course, got crushed like a bug beneath the rubble instead. Cavia's hatred of children status: STRONG!
"Jakob? Jakob, no! No, this can't be happening..."
......Cavia's hatred of children status upgraded to: EXCEPTIONAL!
Pictured: Horrific mental scarring of a 12 year old...
Pictured: "Nooooooooooooooooooooooo!"
Pictured: The cold, calculating gaze of Science.
Pictured: A boy who is going to grow up to be a vengeful, murderous, mentally unstable man.
Jakob and Gideon Flashback (You should probably watch this.)