Last time we saw Benjamin, he and Kaeli were just about to enter the fabled town of Windia.
And the people of Windia get straight down to business! Who's Norma? Why should we care? All will be answered in due course my friend.
Inside the house, and an identical woman gets straight down to actual business! She wants to sell us a Cupid Locket for 300GP, and of course we accept because why the hell wouldn't we?
The Cupid Locket is the higher tier armor in the "crazy magical item" slot previously occupied by the Magic Ring. The Magic Ring protected against Silence and had a defense power of 3, whereas the Cupid Locket protects from Silence, Blindness and Confusion, and has a defense power of 6.
Wait. That sucks! The lower tier armors had defense powers of 4, 5 and 6 (and 1, but it's not important)! I kinda figured that the "crazy magical item" wouldn't be that strong, but I thought it would at least protect against a whole bunch of status effects (i.e. pretty much all of them). But there's only frickin' three of them!
...
Oh christ what have I become? I'm actually expecting all the status effects to become trivial at some point. You see, that's what playing this game does to you. You're given so much ludicrously overpowered stuff that when something comes along that isn't that good, you aren't just surprised, you're annoyed. You've been given a piggyback ride for the entire game, and as soon as the game gets tired and expects you to walk on your own for a bit, you get pissed off and kick it in the spine.
Back outside, and over to the east side of town, there's an inn and another house. You can't see it in a still picture, but the weather vanes are spinning like crazy, the windows are flapping open and shut, and there's a distinctive sound of wind. Evidently, the problem in Windia that needs solving is that there's too much wind. Right...
"Windia - A Bit Too Windy"
We'll head into that bottom building first.
I wonder who this is.
Otto: Later, later...
Benjamin goes ??
... But the powerful wind from Mt. Gale broke the road-making machine. Norma's stuck there until the winds die down.
Clearly Kaeli has absolutely no idea how this works.
"We go do the irrelevant thing first, then the stuff that's actually important. There will be absolutely nothing in Mount Gale. AT ALL."
I wonder what's down those stairs?
You can't see it in a still picture, but those gears are spinning around really fast. None of them are interlocked though, which kinda misses the point of gears. Still, they're spinning, which we all know is good if we want science to happen.
Oh and that box contains Heal Potions. No I don't know why.
Further north, in a completely different building.
... If we had it we could reach the Ship Dock from here.
Oh, you mean the place that the plot blocked off? Well if there's still stuff in it, I guess that means we must get back somehow. This almost counts as foreshadowing. Almost.
And downstairs...
Oh, see when he said "here" I thought he meant "Windia" but he actually does have a portal to the Ship Dock in his basement for some reason.
Oh, and Heal Potions and Explosives.
Wait, does that mean he built the Rainbow Road to a completely empty island, then built a tower, or that he built the tower before a huge pile of land just disappeared, necessitating the building of the road?
BECAUSE NEITHER OF THOSE EXPLANATIONS MAKE VERY MUCH SENSE.
Meanwhile, in a completely different building...
"I dare you. I double dare you. All the cool kids are doing it."
"See! I'm totally doing it!"
And now!
A painfully transparent attempt to shoehorn in one of the classic Final Fantasy traditions!
Yes. It is a Chocobo. It's the same sprite that they used for the Chocobos of Final Fantasy IV, and here it is, recoloured and recast as "that bird what sits on top of weathervanes". How the mighty have fallen.
In unrelated news:
The kids' basement had a Mobius tile in it. I'd put money on it connecting to the tile in Reuben's dad's friend's house's basement in Fireburg, but we just don't know yet! It could go to that tree in the Alive Forest, with the tile in Alive Forest going to Reuben's dad's friend's house's basement instead! We just don't know!
Anyway Windia isn't any fun anymore so we'll head back out into the real world.
I may be being immature here but I'm fairly sure "Windhole" is hilarious.
That's it. That's all there is here. No crazy Magic Cid. No warp to somewhere totally frickin' irrelevant. No plot advancing explosion. Nothing.
Fuck. That.
Welcome to Mount Gale, quite possibly the dungeon which we have the least motivation to actually go to.
This dungeon has a lot of forks in the path as well as dead ends. Despite this, it's surprisingly easy to navigate. A hell of a lot easier than the Lava Dome, that's for sure. We head upwards in both the images above, but remember these places.
A rope bridge, even more dilapidated than the one that Reuben fell off.
And in writing the above sentence, I noticed that there is absolutely no rope visible on any "rope" bridge we've encountered, leaving two possibilities:
A. Invisible rope.
B. Ridiculously rough logs which create an abominably large amount of friction.
Personally I'm leaning towards A because if it were B then Reuben wouldn't have fallen off the bridge. Not without setting himself on fire at least.
So as you can see, this rope bridge has two paths, which merge almost immediately. They then split again nearer the end.
The top path leads here:
Hoo-frickin'-ray.
After coming off the correct side of the bridge and walking around the mountain somewhat, we come across some stairs, guarded by a Skuldier.
woooooooooooo
Guh. Nothing to grab on to on the other side, so we'll have to backtrack.
Below the Skuldier stairs are these stairs, leading to a Water Hag, who's blocking some stairs himself.
Down the stairs, around to the left, up some stairs and up a bit more, we have this. The treasure box contains some Heal Potions.
Back down the stairs and further around to the left and OH DEAR.
Ack. We'll head on around...
...and instead of going up the stairs to the rope bridge, we'll go down these stairs instead.
Well this looks promising.
Oh wait shit this is the Vampire/Treasure platform.
What did I miss? What did I miss? What did I miss?
I better walk around in circles for FIFTEEN GODDAMN MINUTES trying to find it!
Remember here?
TEN FUCKING MINUTES of staring at this before I remembered that yes, you can in fact just JUMP OVER a one space wide gap.
I then went on to smack my face against the table, before blaming the game for making my mind think that the Dragon Claw was the important thing here.
Yeah it's the game's fault. Fuck you Mystic Quest. First, no super-powered armor, and now THIS? It's as if you want me to hate you.
I'd like to assume that the thing on the platform in the middle of the dungeon, with nothing else near it, was the boss, but the way this game's been screwing with my head lately I wouldn't trust it. Maybe it'll turn out that this thing actually matters.
Unlikely though.
Yet another Water Hag staircase. You may have noticed that this dungeon contains absolutely no new monsters, reskins or otherwise, aside from the boss. This is a completely useless fact, but it does stop my completely pointless ranting about reskins for a chapter, which I think is good for all of us.
Past the Water Hag and down another flight of stairs, and we come to a Vampire blocking YET MORE STAIRS. It's that peg at the top right I'm looking at though.
If you so wish, you can go across there, kill the Vampire and grab some Refreshers, although why you'd want to is another matter.
Back across, down another flight of stairs and around some more rocks, and we find another flight of stairs guarded by a Skuldier.
And here we have an unnaturally long staircase.
At the top of which is a three pronged rope bridge. Which prong you actually choose to travel down is completely irrelevant because you can basically walk between the three endpoints once you get across to the other side.
It's that Water Hag we're going for first.
That Water Hag isn't really relevant right now. We're going to walk past it and head up to the right.
Oh this should be good.
The Apollo Helm increases the Moon Helm's defense power from 9 to 15. That's it. Oh, and it remains resistant to fire, but it's not exactly difficult to stay fire-retardant.
And now I explain why we need to fight this Water Hag: because we can't go back the way we came because there isn't a peg there. Simple enough really.
"Remember, you can jump across this gap."
And now we're back!
And now we go to the other endpoint of the bridge, kill the Vampire and head up the giant stairs!
No Benjamin you don't get it. Only the major bosses talk! Silly Benjamin!
HOLY SHIT
Jesus, you really didn't want to stay consistent did you? Having a normal enemy talk on the Rope Bridge wasn't enough for you, eh? Now you just have a middling boss talk to us to tell us something that anyone without a Morning Star lodged in their skull would already have figured out.
Dullahan is a headless horseman riding a headless horse. Recently, they got a headless guide dog. It was not helpful.
Exit and Aero on the Vampires takes care of them within one turn. Unfortunately, Dullahan's Doom Dance is instant death against one of us as well.
After a lot of Meteor and Aero, and Cure and Life for ourselves, he goes down.
...
And nothing happens.
It did? Why? I thought it had been established that the crystals solve the problems. Killing some random guy on a mountain should do absolutely nothing to help the situation. You know, like we thought it would in the first place?
I mean, remember how killing the Minotaur in Level Forest, the Squidite in Wintry Cave or the Jinn in the Mine helped solve the area's problems?
NO. BECAUSE IT DIDN'T. WHY WOULD IT?
I mean, for all intents and purposes, these monsters could be replaced with "some guy who was in the way" for the same effect.
BUT NOT NOW. OH NO.
Fuck this.
Just go, go try to make your road.
And, after a noise that sounds suspiciously like thunder...
Benjamin: Otto, we're going to save Norma and the Crystal.
Otto: Wait! In the Tower, you'll see switches on even-numbered floors. Flick the switches with your Axe. Then the elevator won't go past that floor!
"Oh I see. That guy mentioning that the tower was yours exists purely so you have an excuse to know everything about it. I mean did you ever even think that maybe Pazuzu changed how your stuff works? No? Didn't think so."
And now, Otto's Pazuzu's Tower!