Part 6: The Cheagle Woods (Part II)

Continued...



Behind the corpse of the queen is a cutlass, in case you couldn't afford to buy one in Engeve.

Anyway, let's take a look at Ja-







So yeah, fuckin' Jade. He comes in roughly 40 levels higher than us, and has a huge selection of high level artes he can use to, and pardon my language: fuck your shit sideways. I'd like to point out that the final boss is very beatable around level 50. So here's Jade: five levels away from being ready for endgame. Have fun.

In fact, here's a skit about how crazy he is:

Skit: The Colonel's True Strength

: “That Colonel Jade is certainly quite strong.”

: “Humph. I could've done just fine without him. You better not try to get in my way again! I'm warning you!”

: “I realize I may have interfered with your ambitions, but the sight was just too much to bear. I'll refrain from “getting in your way” in the future. In exchange, I ask that you do me the same favor.”

: “You stuck up piece of-”

: “*cough* Well, in any case, the problem's been resolved and nobody's hurt, right? Why not just leave it at that?”

: “Yes, let's go inform the Cheagle Elder and head back to Engeve.”

: “'Resolved' indeed...”



: “There's something shining! It's pretty!”

: “What is this thing...? Oh, well, guess we'll go ahead and take it.”



The Technical Ring allows you to set characters to Manual, instead of just semi-auto. Not that the game ever tells you this; you'll probably just stumble upon it the next time you go to set your artes. Suffice to say, I set myself to manual immediately.



Anyway, back to the cheagles.







: “They're so cute!”

: “Huh? You say something?”

: “N-No.”

: “Mieu told me what happened. You met with great danger on your behalf. We are grateful that you have kept your promise even after 2000 years.

: “Of course. Aiding the cheagles is part of Yulia's teachings.”

: “But the original cause of all this was Mieu burning the ligers' home. So I will have Mieu atone for his mistake.”

: “What are you going to do?”

: “I will exile Mieu from our tribe.”

: “That's too cruel.”

: “Naturally I don't mean forever. I hear that Master luke saved Mieu's life. Cheagles do not forget their debts. Mieu will server master Luke for one cycle of the seasons.”

: “Hey, I'm not involved in this.”

: “Mieu insists upon accompanying you, Master Luke. I leave it up to you to decide what to do with him.”

: “Why not take him along?”

: “I don't need a pet!”

: “Cheagles are the sacred beats of the Order of Lorelei. I'm sure he'd be well-received by your family.”

: “Hmm, I guess I could give him to Guy and the others as a souvenir...”

: “I'll do my best to be useful, Master!”

: “You're so annoying...”

: “Well, it appears his report has ended. Let's leave the forest.”

: “Hmph, who died and made him boss?”

Skit: Mieu's One of Us!

: “Luke, can't you walk a little slower? Mieu can't keep up.”

: “Humph! Why do we have to slow down for that thing?”

: “*huff* *huff* Don't worry, *huff* Tear. *huff* I'm okay. *huff*”

: “See? Even he says he's fine!”

: “Why do you have to be so mean? Can't you treat Mieu like one of us?”

: “One of us?! He's the most annoying thing I've ever seen!”

: “Oh, please don't fight!”

: “Shut up already! It's your fault in the first place for burning up the ligers' home! If you hadn't done that, the liger queen could've hatched her eggs without bothering anybody, and everything would've been fine! You got that? Huh?!”

You know, there's kicking somebody when they're down, and then there's shooting them in the head. Fucking hell, Luke!

: “Mieuu....”

: “Now, now... I'm sure Mieu understands the gravity of what he's done.”

: “You could stand to be a bit more mature, Luke.”

: “...Yeah, yeah.”

: “Well, now that that's cleared up, shall we be going?”

: “Little son of a...”

Anyway, this has been a long update, so let's just get out of this forest so we can-



: “Hey, isn't that your body guard?”

: “Yes, that's Anise.”



: “Greetings, Anise. What's the status of the Tartarus?”

: “It's in front of the forest, just like you asked. You said to hurry, so we came as fast as we could~!”

: “Hey, what's going on?”



: “Jade! Don't do anything to hurt them...”

: “Don't worry, we won't kill them. ...Assuming they don't resist.”



Well... fuck.

Synopsis

That Ion showed up again, this time collapsed in the Cheagle Woods.
Apparently the stuff about the cheagles bothered him too, so he came to check
it out.
I found out that Tear's one of the Oracle Knights, too--and that she's
Master Van's sister. Why the heck would anyone try to kill their own brother?

Just when I was going to ask tear about that, a cheagle appeared, so we
went after it. I can worry about Tear later... Right now, we have to do
something about those cheagles.

The cheagle got away, but Ion said their nest is deeper inside the forest.
Ion looked like he'd just get in trouble again if we left him alone, so we
ended up bringing him with us. Tear argued a lot, but then again, that's all
she ever does.

We found some Engeve apples lying around in front of the cheagles' nest.
So all those stupid things were responsible after all! I'll go in and squish
every last one of them!
Inside the nest, there was a Cheagle Elder that could speak our language.
Apparently this ring called the sorcerer's ring translates for them--not that
I really care.

According to the elder, a young cheagle named Mieu burned up the home of
these other monsters called ligers, so the ligers came to the Cheagle Woods
and said they'd start eating cheagles if the cheagles didn't bring them food.
I think they deserve it, but Ion went and said we should try to convince the
ligers to stop.
We ended up heading for the ligers' home deeper in the forest, bringing
Mieu along to translate.

Mieu can use the power of the sorcerer's ring to breathe fire. We can use
this to burn up grass and stuff to open up passages. I guess we'll just have
to be careful we don't start any forest fires.

The liger queen was protecting her eggs in the ligers' nest. Apparently
most monsters are born from eggs. And because of the eggs, the queen was
really touchy and not in the mood for conversation. She ended up attacking
us, and she was really tough. I almost thought we couldn't beat her, but then
that four-eyed guy from Engeve, Jade, showed up and helped us out. We managed
to defeat the liger queen, but I wish we could've avoided breaking all the
eggs in the process.

We weren't able to talk with the ligers, but it looks like they won't be a
threat anymore anyway, so we ended up going back to tell the Cheagle Elder
about it. What a pain. Apparently Jade had come here to pick up Ion, so he
came with us, but the Fon Master Guardian that had come with him left
earlier. Wasn't she supposed to be protecting Ion? Well, whatever.

We went and told the elder what happened, and somehow we got stuck with
Mieu. I don't want any pets! But everyone else said to take him along, so I
figured I'll bring him back to the mansion and let everybody play with him.

Finally this food thief problem is taken care of. Let's get out of this
dirty forest and start back to Baticul.

When we reached the edge of the Cheagle Woods, all of a sudden Malkuth
soldiers appeared and captured me and Tear. It turns out ol' four-eyes sent
back the Fon Master Guardian, Anise, to bring the soldiers here. They took us
to the Land Dreadnaught Tartarus. And just when I thought I could go home...
Jeez!

Sorry if this update seemed too big: I really couldn't think of a better place to end it without the next update being either way too short or way too long.