Part 55: We've Met Twice

"Would the bodies have been your first clue, perhaps?"

"More to the point, who won?"

"I suppose we could start counting, but it might just be faster to try to catch up to them at the Tree."



"Okay, I REALLY want it now… Faerie! This thing is stuck!"

"Wait… slow down, try it again."



"… Faerie? Hey, uh, where'd you go? What am I supposed to do now!?"

"Did… did I miss something here?"



"The faerie has been taken by an evil hand. Please, save her…"

"Looks like it, Gene. You and me both."

"Wait… if I got the Sword, wasn't my wish supposed to come true? Tell me!"



"I can't do anything for you… but I will give you this final gift."

"Besides, you left Forcena looking for a class change so you could defeat Koren. You've already done that, you'll be fine."

"… okay, let's look at this present. It's… a drum. Thanks?"

"My heroes… Duran, Angela, Gene… Let the Mana guide you…"

"I guess we go… back to the entrance?"



"Oh, heavens, no! If I had, I wouldn't be lollygagging around here!"

"I'd be waiting behind you in ambush, preparing to take you with the element of surprise!"

"You're… actually pretty ruthlessly competent. So, if you're not here to fight…?"



"The people who did it are waiting for you, and said they'd kill me if I didn't pass the message along."

"I don't suppose you could actually just tell us who they are?"

"What fun would that be?"

"Well, they're probably going to kill me anyway! So, I shall take this opportunity to run! Ta-ta!"

"He's just so… urbane about everything. I might actually miss him, if it weren't for the whole thing with Karl."




Shit, how many groups of people were going after the sword again?"

"Umm… three? Then that means…"

"There's only one possible person waiting for us at the entrance."



"That's unexpectedly cold-blooded…"

"Goodbye… the Dark Prince was my everything…"



"Haha. Come now, Duran, you know me better than that."

"No I don't. We've met all of two times, for about thirty seconds each time. I know practically nothing about you, other than that you're an asshole!"

"If you want your precious faerie back, meet me in Altena. And bring the Sword of Mana…"

"You crook! Come back here!!"



"They waited for us to get the Sword for them! OOH, that makes me mad!!"

"That was OUR plan, and the Faerie shot it down!"

"Ah, like fish… They kidnap faerie… faerie bait… Lure us into hook!

"Uh… sure…? I don't really follow you there, buddy. But…"

"We'll go. Even if it means we get caught in Koren's trap… we can't leave the faerie to die."



"That actually sounded pretty hard-ass. Good job."



After three playthroughs, this is the first time we can actually go into Altena. It's a little bit weird, since you're forced into Rolante and have to deal with Isabella no matter which storyline you go through.



"And this doesn't worry you at all? Why would they have done that?"

"Well, obviously, they're cold weather monsters and don't want to come inside."

"Even if we wanted to run, there are still monsters outside the city…"

"Yeah, you are kinda screwed."



"A dark shadow will consume Altena and spread to the rest of the world…"

"Uh…your grandma is actually kind of right…"

"Ha! Told you, you little brat! This is what you get for not listening to your elders!"



"When you put it like that, it really seems like we should have put this all together a bit sooner…"

"Well, it's not like he lived here under your nose for years or anything. Oh wait…"



"How could he just let the castle be taken over like that?"

"I'd say he wasn't very good at his job, but you should probably think about who hired him a bit more."



"Wait… where has my mother been this entire time? What has she been up to this entire time?"

"We'll get to that. There's one more person to talk to in here."



"I certainly would be. You're alright with me, even for an Altenan."

Some time later...



"Wait… didn't the people in town say that the monsters were staying outside?"

"I guess that could have changed in the past few hours."

"This is terrible! I hope the Queen is all right…"



Behold, the rare hidden dungeon treasure. The nice thing about SD3 is that you never have to worry about missing a valuable treasure hidden away in some random treasure chest… but you also never get a valuable treasure hidden away in some random treasure chest.



"Oh? And how, precisely, can I be late to a meeting in my own castle when you never bothered to specify a meeting time?"

"How droll… but I'll just cut to the chase, shall I?"'

"If you want to see the queen, or the faerie, alive… hand over the Sword of Mana."

"Mother!!

"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Angela…"

"You… you little coward!"



"I'm going to take the Sword now. If you move so much as an inch, they're both dead."

"I'm going to take this out of your skin, one slice at a time…"

"Such power… such beauty. Only fitting that I now possess it…"




"Haha… Maybe the Sword doesn't want a coward wielding it!"

"I certainly didn't have any trouble carrying it around all this time."



"The Sword of Mana reflects its owner's soul… be it good, or evil…"

"By the power of the Dragon Emperor, we will shape it into a dark blade…"

"…ugh… uh… there! Even now, the Sword begins to acknowledge my ownership!"

"Dragon Emperor? Don't make me laugh! I'll finish what my father started, and wear your Emperor's skin as a cloak! And use his skull as a beer mug!"

"We're wasting our time. Let us now release the God-Beasts…"

"I suppose you're right… and, in payment for that last bit of rudeness…"



"What the hell!? I thought we had a deal!!"

"M…mom…!?"

"Deal? You real think I'm going to give back the faerie? Hahaha!"



"This is pointless. If I don't kill them, the God-Beasts will anyway."

"Tell you what… I'll let you all live. That way, you'll all be around to see the end of the world!"

"As a beastman, I make my solemn promise that this will come back to bite you in the ass. I'll see to it personally. You're much stupider than Deathjester."

Hahaha… we'll see about that, won't we? Find me if you can!



"They're trying to revive the God-Beasts! Tell us what to do!"

"Then it's begun… The Mana Stones are about to break apart…"



"If they combine their powers, we'll never be able to stop them!"

"Soo… do what we do best? 8 times?"

"Pretty much, yeah."



"Umm… about that…"

"Oh Goddess… my mom…"

"I think we need to get away from here, quick."



"Angela, where do we go from here? Which place should we visit first?"

"… here. We're right next to one of the God-Beasts. Let's get this started."



The game is pretty well set up to ensure that enemies are going to be at about the same strength regardless of what level you are. Once you've gotten your class change, there's no point in holding back until you start to approach the second class change.



"Is this kind of creature… normal around here?"

"Not precisely? It looks very lizard-like to be living around here."

"Maybe somebody had it as a pet and let it go when it got too big?"




"Even though it should like heat, I think we know how to settle this…"

Ooh.. burning from the inside out…"



This time, the Mana-Beast had just about enough time to go over to the underside once before being destroyed. Still an annoying battle, simply due to how long the animations can take.



"I didn't say anything about Nikita…uh.. guys, who the hell is Nikita?"

"Wasn't he the cat we found in Rolante?"

"Oh yeah. I don't care about that guy. Let's talk weapons and armor, then about where we go next."

"My home is actually pretty close… there next?"

"Eh? Sure, whatever."



Even with Kevin in your party, the Beast Kingdom is closed. It's all very route specific.



This time, I didn't bother using a FAQ to find my way around in the Moonlight tower and just brute forced it. Luckily about the worst outcome you'll get with that is a room full of enemies. Also, the "tehehe, pffpfft" just cracks me up. SD3 vampires are odd.



Saint Beam is an enormous help dealing with the Dark-Aligned monsters. There are enough gold statues scattered around here that preserving mana doesn't really come into it."



Dealing with Dolan, Ice is probably the best bet. We've only got access to the main elemental sabers, but Angela has some versatility in her light classes. Right now she's got level 2 magic in just about everything but Darkness, The programmers were pretty careful to make certain that you could win with any combination of characters.



"Does ice magic usually make a creature's arms explode?"

"Dunno. But by my count, we've got six more of them to experiment on."