Part 26: Whenever, Wherever

No, I did not take a wrong turn anywhere. In order to reach the Thunderstone you really do have to go to the ice area. Which is that close to the fire area. The geography of this island is a goddamn mess.



As you'd expect from the symbol on the map, the Ice Temple is a generic cave. Unlike most dungeons at this point it's incredibly short (...if you know where you're going at least) and it lacks anything of note in terms of treasure; there's only two items here and they're so outdated by now it's not even funny. Even the mostly optional Oasis Underground had one item worth a damn.

...That said, we will be back here later. Twice. The path through it gets ingrained in you pretty darn fast to say the least. Unless you use a specific item I mostly never use (but will do at some point... probably in chapter 7).



The enemies here are, as you'd expect, mostly Water elemental but there's the occasional WhiteWind. Nothing fancy. And, yes, Terra and Sharte are around exactly for the reason you think they are.



WhiteSnow is, well, exactly what it says on the tin. It's a village covered in white snow. And yet you can still see the frickin' volcano from here (albeit on the world map). Geography in Marl's Kingdom is massively screwed up.



Anyway, there's a puppet here. Though it is super easy to miss if you didn't know he was in that innocuous snowman; it does kinda stand out, but you probably would immediately connotate it with a puppet.

: Big bro?
?: That voice..!?
: Dude! It's me, Kid!
: Hey bro! It's me, Tell!
: Yeah! We, the 3 egg brothers, are back in business!
: Thank you, Cornet! If it wasn't for you, I would never have seen Kid again!
: Not so fast! Let me outta here first!
: Hold on, dude!
: Uh, hello!? You can't get me outta here by yourself, duh!
: Dude! And I thought I was stupid. It's gonna be tough becoming a real hero hangin' around you guys...
: Shaddap! Just let me outta here!
: Cornet, will you please...




Hey, he makes all 3 of these tools guys. This means but one thing!



Well, firstly, I forget to do this until he gained enough exp to level up once; yeah, he joins at level 15. Fortunately, he doesn't actually learn any new skills/spells until level 20-ish. I doublechecked, just in case.



Anyway, with all three of those guys we can finally do their sidequest. This place has been taunting us since the beginning of chapter 1 and it's borderline useless until chapter 5.

I'm sure the prince can wait a few minutes longer anyway; not like he's going anywhere.



It seems like a dead-end with some horribly, horribly weak enemies at first glance. And, uh, it kinda is. BUT if you run into that flowerbed in the middle of the rocks that totally stands out you enter the dungeon proper. And, hey, this is an Ancient Forest! Surely, it's going to have an almost-unique tileset and actually look sort of like the Wonder Woods... right?

...Right?



Don't be ridiculous. If you head here at the first opportunity (like I do, because it's the only real time the items are worthwhile) then you realise very quickly just how horribly designed the dungeons are. The "forest" resembles "generic tower #422" in this game, and it really, really shows.



Since this is an early-game accessible area, it stands to reason that the enemies are going to be horribly weak by now. Like, moreso than usual. It would've been cool for them to be enemies from this period of the game available right off the bat but they probably would've been beatable even then, though with a halfway worthwhile challenge.

These guys gives about maybe 20-30 less exp than the enemies in the Ice Temple. And die just as fast. Kinda hard not to, though, when you're one-shotting most things.



Oh, and as this place will also teach you running through these dungeons without a competent map is a VERY stupid thing to do. Expect to see dead-ends with fuck all in them extremely frequently, especially at this point in the game. There is no dungeon this doesn't apply to, but for things in chapter 5 (and 7) it becomes painful to try and navigate through them.

You can't tell from this screenshot but, uh, this is the boss's room. Note, however, that it isn't here. That's because I'm an idiot. Having all 3 egg puppets only flags the quest trigger to be available. It doesn't trigger the quest itself. Walking out of this place sure is tedious at this point, so...



I do it anyway. This is the last thing I needed, however.



: With all these experiences, Sharte and I can now be reincarnated as humans.
: We will never forget our journey with you even after we are reborn.
: I'll try to make up for what I did when I'm reborn.
: Only our souls will leave. Our puppets will remain with you. Thank you for everything.
: Yes, Miss Cornet. Thank you for everything.

The skill for this is alright, I guess. I won't show it in the menu just yet, however, but I have reasons for that. Well, just the one but that's not the point; the point is at least this trip wasn't a complete waste.



Long story short, this guy's disciple ate the egg of a Chimera and that basically froze him in time. Somehow. Let's just get this quest done; it's already taken longer than I'd have liked...




Now she actually spawns and is a complete joke. Like, massively. She was easy when she had some semblence of backup. On her own, at the same strength as then? Giant pushover. Hence, no video. Besides, the Chimera is a random encounter soon enough anyway. The only boss to actually achieve this.



: Speak for yourself big bro!
: Uh yeah, I don't know about you, but we wanna stay with Cornet. Until she saves the Prince, at least.
: But Chimera is dead, and there will be no one to control the flow of time. Time as we know it will cease to exist. The results could be disastrous.

What? No, really, what? Back up. Chim(a)era, daughter of Typhon and Echidna, has bugger all to do with time. I can understand her being fire elemental, since in the Iliad it said that she could breath "in terrible manner the force of blazing fire," and that kinda fits. I can kind of forgive it being a giant bird, rather than an emalgam of lion, goat and serpent, since Bellerophon killed her whilst riding Pegasus (or, more likely, that is refering the chinese variant which is a winged quadruped). And, because the latter is done by damn near everyone who portrays her in some form anyway so at least it's kinda unique. But, controlling the flow of time? She had fuck all to do with Chronos (unless you count being a descendant of Gaia and so VERY loosely related to him). Especially given that he was a Protogenoi anyway, and I'm probably rambling at this point. Maybe not. Who knows?

: What do you mean? If there's no time, people won't die from old age.
: No. Remember that time will let us forget about sad times.... And because of time, happiness can exist as well.
: Uh, stop it already! You're making my brain hurt!
: Whatever happened to becoming real heroes?
: Then what do you think we should do? Turn into a clock?
: What's wrong with you?! Heroes are supposed to help people! And, Chimera wasn't just a clock. It was a god!
: Hmm... God... That sounds better than being a hero...
: Alright! That's the spirit!
: Cornet needs time to save the Prince anyway.
: That's it! We'll turn into a Chimera's egg and become one. I promise that we'll become a great Chimera.
: We'll leave our puppets behind. Take good care of them.



Hey, wait a minute, where's the skill for this? Oh, right, there isn't one. I'm damn sure this isn't just an oversight since this is the only one this happens for, so it might be a glitch. Most things I've read say that this is a glitch at least. The quest item is still in the games coding, so it wasn't arbitrarily removed from the English version (it's not a European exclusive thing; it occurs in the American version too... as well as several other far more malicious glitches than this one that appear fixed for the European version; I haven't gotten them at any rate on any of playthroughs). But enough about sloppiness from Nippon Ichi... for now. We can get back to that later.

As for Sisters' Desire? It's nothing fancy, but it does wreck dark elemental enemies. This is far, far more useful than it sounds.

Next time: I thought it was the Thunderstone.