Tales of Vesperia Part #14 - Feminine Secrets, and a trip to Shaikos

Part 14: Feminine Secrets, and a trip to Shaikos

Skit: Rita

Rita's a little scary, huh?

Really?

She's about what I'd expect. Seems like she's in a crappy mood, too.

That's because you broke into her house, Yuri!

I don't exactly feel like being on my best behavior when I'm dealing with a core thief.

What will you do if you're wrong about her?

If I'm wrong, I'll apologize.

You'd better remember that when the time comes.

Oh, were you listening?

I just happened to overhear. So you think I'm scary, do you?

Watch it, Karol. She's definitely the kind to hold a grudge.

H-hey! D-don't scare me like that!

Rita is awesome. I immediately put her in my party, switching between having Repede or Karol out for now.

She comes with three Artes:

β×Ψ＝√ "Rudolf": A physical arte. Rita doesn't have a lot of physical artes, but considering she's mainly a mage the ones she does get are actually pretty decent. In this one Rita jumps into the air, throwing enemies up.

Fire Ball: A basic Fire spell. Shoots a fireball - it even kinda homes in on the targetted enemy! This spell shows one of Rita's neat things with spells very well: As you use a spell more and more, it becomes better. In Fire Ball's case, this translates to more than one fireball being fired on one cast, up to ten balls at 3500 uses (although you probably won't reach that number on one playthrough).

Stone Blast: A basic earth spell. Summons a couple small rocks that shoot out of the ground below the enemy.

She also comes with a few skills:
Magic: Increases Magic Attack by 5%.
Resist: Increases Magic Defense by 5%.
Rhythm: Shortens spell cast time by pressing the attack button repeatedly while casting.
Spirits: Increases Max SP by 20.

Rita's weapons of choice are long, thin things such as scarves, chains or whips. She starts with a Sash, which grants Magic Guard.

Note that this item is only buyable in Aspio, so you may want to buy one or two extra for some synthesizing later.

That said, we're not done in Rita's house yet. If we climb up the ladder, which was previously inaccessable thanks to the mass of books in the way (which is gone now, somehow), we can find two things.

Oh, the Collector's Book! It's a self-updating book that makes it easy to record all of the items you find.

A self-updating book...huh? I guess I'll just have to look and see what you mean...

Sure, that would work, too. It's extremely useful to have. Let's take it with us.

Huh? Hey, get a load of this! Most of the pages are blank... Are you sure you're a world-renowned researcher?

...

One's the Collector's Book, a really useful book that records all the items we have and have had in our inventory.

With this, I can now demonstrate how awesome Vesperia's menu is if you ever want to locate anything. Let's say we know we need a certain material to synthesize something and we already have or had that material at least once, but we don't remember where we got it. In that case, we just open up the menu, go over to the Collector's Book...

...and locate the item, let's say Ilyccia Weed.

We can see that item is dropped by Filifolia Bud and Tuliper, and can be stolen from Axe Beak. Now, where do we find a Filifolia Bud? Let's just press A, select the Filifolia Bud, and press A again:

And we get brought over to the Monster Book entry for Filifolia Bud! Awesome, let's press X to switch over to the second info page.

The Mayoccia Plains, apparently. Now... where were those again? Let's see, press A, select Mayoccia Plains, press A again...

Aah, the area around Zaphias! Well, off we go then! Wait a second, what other Monsters can we find in that area?

Knight Fencers, Knight Lancers and Minicoids. Good to know!

I really love Vesperia's menu because of this.

Anyway, getting back to Rita's house. There's one other thing we can find here, which is, well...

Hey! Wait!

A girl's dresser is strictly off-limits!

Even if it's full of evidence of her own misdeeds?

I'll be the one to look.

Wait...what are you...!

Don't worry. I won't tell anyone.

What do you think she found?

Feminine secrets!

Hey! I'll get you back for that!

Estelle, you'd better watch out.

No, it's you I'm talking about! You!

...yeah.

That's all we can do here. Let's get out of the town and pay a visit to the Shaikos Ruins.

Skit: Call me Estelle

Your name is Estellise, right?

Yes, but that's kind of long to say easily. Please, call me Estelle.

You look like some fancy noble, Estellise. Why are you with that jerk?

...Oh, I think that Yuri is a good person...

And really, I don't mind if you call me Estelle.

All right, Estellise.

She's tough...

The guards now ignore us completely, thanks to our new companion, so we can take the direct route through the city gate.

Back on the world map, the ruins are only a few steps east. However, if we wander around for a bit first, we can find a Search Point:

Search Points originally appeared in Tales of the Abyss: In some areas of the world map, we can find things to examine that will give us semi-random synthesis materials. After a while, they'll respawn, and we can get more items from them. Search Points are fairly rare and usually out of your way, but you can occasionally get really nice materials, so it can be worth it to search for them.

Skit: Dog Language

Repede's getting really good at handling items, don't you think?

Yeah. But I don't wanna eat any gels that've been in a dog's mouth!

*Woof!*

He said, "Come on, don't be like that. If things go bad, take it!"

That's one big mouth he's-- Wait a minute... Did he really say that?

All I heard him do was bark.

Stick around long enough and you'll figure him out. Right, Repede?

*WOOF!*

...

You look a little jealous, Rita.

N-no way!

Thanks to me going out of my way to get the first search point, Karol learns a new arte:

Using Destroying Rock, Karol smashes his weapon overhead onto the ground, causing some rocks to fly out. It's earth-elemental, and pretty nice.

Anyway, after a short walk, we reach Shaikos.

Watch the cutscene!

I really like the design of this dungeon. It also has a nice, calm background music.

...

Which means it's either the Knights, the thieves, or both.

Some of these footprints must be Flynn's.

Could be.

Hey, over here. Hurry up.

I see. So first you get us alone in the dark, then you zap us, huh?

H-hey, what's that supposed to mean? Why are you smiling like that?

Let's try to get along now, okay?

We can find a couple chests looking around (Magic Lens, Orange Gel, 800 Gald, Life Bottle, Half Guard (head equipment for Estelle)), but apart from that, there seems to be nothing here. No enemies, no knights, no thieves. Even the path further into the ruins is blocked off!

We can trigger a cutscene near one of the statues, though.

Maybe they're further in?

How far in are we talking, here?

It doesn't look like anyone's been here, does it?

The underground?

Recently, an entrance to an underground area was uncovered here. A handful of mages are supposed to be the only people who know about it...

But it's okay for us to know this?

Clear your name, huh...

The ground is scratched here.

It's not like I would've minded letting the thieves have the ruins above ground after we finished the excavation, but it's a good thing we came here when we did.