Part 17: The Entire Lollypop Guild

Since Jehk is being such a jackass about everything, we're going to ignore what he told us to do and go sidequesting. This is Turtle Island which, if you look at it is actually a turtle. The head's up front and there are four little flippers from the vertices.



Turtle shaped island, or actual turtle? If so, alive or dead? Could this entire town vanish if the turtle decided that it saw something interesting deeper in the ocean?




The town is full of misfits and outcasts, including refugees from the Empire and free love hippie children. Perhaps better if the turtle were to take a dive.



A poor merchant is struggling to make ends meet. Remember what seemed like ages ago when the king of Kakkara wanted one of these to magically fix his town's water supply?



I'm just grateful it didn't involve prohibitive amounts of money or some weird chain of fetch quests to trade for it. He just hands it over because he's got more of them than he knows what to do with.



When we get back, there are sadly no wacky misunderstandings involving us thinking Amar is a merchant. It'd be wonderfully inappropriate if he thought you were trying to buy a hooker or something.




That said, through the magic of an aquatic rabbit the town is saved and we're rewarded with a belt that can cause (or cure) the Moogle status condition. Situationally useful, but good to have.. and also, how does such a thing work? I would understand if you wore the belt and it protected you, but using it as an item implies something like hitting the person with the belt.




Side quest accomplished, we can head to the fabled town of Tasnica, where Jema buggered off to ages ago. Let's see what he's accomplished, shall we?



... not much. This, AGAIN? And why are you asking me? I just got here!



Somehow the weeks of monster fighting and saving the world have changed Boy to the point where Jema doesn't know him. Either that or it's been so long that he actually has forgotten what Boy looks like.



That's not a spy. It's an assassin. Spies act inconspicuously and take lots of notes about sensitive facilities and guard routines and such. Assassins murder people. Given the general level of competence shown by people in this game it's not surprising that Jema here doesn't know the difference. At least he's not in charge of security or anything like that..



Oh goddamit. Should have just brought Jema up here with us.



Our protests fall on deaf ears (as often happens when you're talking to monarchs), but thankfully we're going to be spared another trip to prison or being enslaved.



Somehow the guards realize that the man they've been standing next to and guarding for who knows how long is actually NOT their King. See what I mean about competence here?



Assuming that, you know, nobody noticed that he wasn't actually the king. Like those two inconvenient guards. This was not a well thought out plan.




It gets a bit confusing here, as it almost sounds like this was all a distraction to keep the guards busy while the actual assault force attacked the gates. The problem with this is that as far as we see, no actual assault takes place. Too bad, as it would have actually been a kind of neat game mechanic if we were to have to defeat the fake king and then clear the castle to restore order.



Speaking of which, the "spy" is an enemy called a Dark Stalker, which is a slightly upgraded Dark Ninja. This is the only screen shot I got, since he disintegrated a few seconds later.



Somehow killing a ninja in front of him snaps the King out of his weird mental funk. It's the psychological treatment of the decade.



Assassin. Anyway, this late in the game we're actually getting credit for being awesome. We only had to kill about 3/4 of the monsters in the world to do it, too.




The King is impressed enough to give us a Sword Orb. Considering how important re-powering the sword is, would he have actually held out on it if we hadn't killed a ninja in front of him?



Somehow this action, as compared to their earlier attempts to take over kingdoms and enslave their people is indicative that they're nearing success.



Translation: I'm going to go not do anything while you and kill some monsters. We will all pretend I did something important when we next meet because I'm Sir Jema of Tasnica, damn it.



.... and we're sent back to Jehk in the hopes that Joch is finally in. I swear, this has been an absurdly large portion of the game.



Now that the castle isn't on lockdown the guards have some actual dialogue. Evidently the spoiled brat on the sandship is improving... I think. I still get them a bit confused.



... ow. Just.. ow. You don't say?



Umm.. about that...




Hey, actual backstory! Evidently Jema has been out of action for a very long time. He's still got enough badass cred saved up from the old days that people treat him with respect, even if he's probably rusty as all hell.



This was just too badly broken up not to include.



For the last little bit of the game we get to bask in the sweet glow of fame. Even children know our names.



There's also a merchant tucked away in a corner.. but the question is, how to get to him? You can clearly see that the walkway here is in fact a solid wall.




The trick is to dip down into the wall below this counter and follow it all the way around to access the merchant. Poor bastard can't be getting much business if it's this hard to find him. Unfortunately, he doesn't have anything new that we haven't seen before. Actually, he sells the armor we're wearing and the tier right below it.



This exchange between a little girl and Boss is priceless, just because of how irate he gets.




We finally get an idea of the Empire's goal, but it's a bit confusing. We haven't seen the Empire at several of the Mana Seeds, which seems to indicate that either they've been damn stealthy about it or you only need to tear up a few of the seeds. It could also be that we've had to break the seals ourselves to power up our magic.



Before that, we all just kind of lived in caves and mud huts and stared at it. He's our hero because he was the first person to realize that there wasn't anything keeping us out of it. Also, that whole "15 years ago" thing crops up again.



... I like where this is going. You two, scram.



??? What could this mean, I wonder? Hmm?




Except that Jema hasn't DONE any warrioring in ages. Also, how did the legendary warrior get killed while Jema was there as his BFF?



Seriously... how Boy doesn't murder this abomination against all evidence of a rational universe is beyond me. It's bad enough that it's creepy, but it's also an asshole.



... what?




Of course, Joch is this little old man with a giant beard and eyebrows that count as sideburns. He's got a hell of a reputation for someone who can't talk with anybody other than his creepy disciple.



I really don't like the ellipses before courage. What ELSE will we find in there you old bastard?



You only have a choice if you don't actually want to continue playing the game. Feel free to walk way now if you want to.



The pathway behind Jehk and Joch pretty much looks like this the entire way through. You've got some narrow pathways with a few short detours and a few places where you need to break out the axe. The enemies in here are leagues tougher than anything we've dealt with before. Their damage isn't that outstanding, but it takes a fully charged attack to even scratch them.



Don't be fooled by the tomato man lookalike. What you're actually seeing is the grey slime enemy who's changed shape. They're actually called Shapechangers, and are far more difficult to destroy before they change shape.



It's bad enough that it's actually a huge relief to see these guys again, MP absorption and all.




The shapechangers result in a weird cross section of enemies along the path. Some of them we've seen before, but the game doesn't bother to keep track of that when figuring out what they'll turn in to. We've got a Captain Duck here and a Mimic type enemy, neither of which have come up thus far in the game.



Eventually we get to a large arena, which should presage some kind of interesting boss fight.



Instead, we get blueish doubles of all of our characters who mostly amble around and are only difficult to defeat because they have the same kind of defenses that your characters do. Also, the dopplegangers have pre-determined weapons so you can't game the system by giving them crappy equipment.



After defeating them (it doesn't take much more than a few regular attacks) Jehk gives us a congratulatory speech. Those doubles of us were about the 14th least threatening thing we've dealt with this week, so it's not really warranted.



Jehk appears to have gotten this confused with a Zelda game. I think we'll actually master the Sword by repeatedly impaling every creature we come in contact with.



... fuck you. Seriously, fuck you Jehk. And Joch. Go find a dick and eat it. One for each of your personalities. No mustard, either. Raw.



Boy's a bit more polite about it than I would have been.



Weren't ready? Wouldn't believe? You're a giant talking abomination of nature that appears to be made up of the composite parts of several ordinary creatures who were unfortunate enough to have been mashed together by an unjust and hateful god. If you'd told me that I had to go to Oz line up the entire lollipop guild and blow them I'd have done it!



We have gained.. absolutely nothing from this entire chain of events. We've been directed to the palaces we already intended to visit, sent off to Tasnica to save them from their own idiocy, and forced to fight dopplegangers of our characters for no tangible benefit. If he'd just introduced himself as Joch and told us this was what we'd had to do, it wouldn't have been a problem at all. Go die in a fire, Joch.



The final palace and the Mana Fortress are at least the same place, so we save ourselves a trip... kind of. You'll see more next update. We're nearing endgame, so things are about to get more interesting.



Kind of a quiet update this time with no real bosses. The only weapon in our equipment update this time is the Masamune, which has the interesting property of having a higher % of critical hits. The next couple of updates will probably make up for it.

Tasmanican Devils