The guards at the front door attack them, not even bothering to find out who they are. Is this what happened to the real dragon feeders? Cronabe defeats the guards easily and uses his brand new manor key to walk right in the front door. A few moments later, Steve shows up and follows him inside. She seems slightly impressed that they managed to get in.
The foyer of the manor is quite fancy and has a big-ass dragon design in the floor. The doors leading straight ahead are locked, of course. Biotch has her first line of the recap: “This door doesn’t have a keyhole.” I guess the next step is walking around the mansion and trying to figure out how to open the door, a brilliantly executed dungeon puzzle unlike any other.
The hallway to the right is annoying because there are these switches that drop steel grates and blob monsters, and I end up fighting a bunch of random battles. I think there must be some trick to it, but I’m an idiot. Therefore, instead of the exciting and witty commentary on the plot of the game, you get me bitching about battles.
I don’t want to know how or why he could bugger without her.
Genius that I am, I give up and go back to the snake statue near the central doors. Entering the wrong combination drops the party into a cage. Well, crap. The three guards poke fun at Cronabe for being an idiot (I won’t argue there, although technically it was me that got them into this mess), and two of them wander off to ask what should be done with the prisoners. Um, shouldn’t they know this beforehand? At least I can make Cronabe extra annoying by rattling the cage. Finally Steve runs up the stairs at the bottom of the screen and knocks out the guard. She tells Cronabe and the others that they’re pathetic. She frees them anyway, and then runs off, warning them not to “interfere with [her] work.” I doubt Steve has anything to worry about, unless her work involves saving endangered creatures.
Wouldn’t you know it — just as Cronabe leaves the cage, the other two guards return and I have to fight another damn battle and write more filler so this recap isn’t too short. Maybe you’d like something short and to the point, but that just isn’t going to happen.
With the three guards down for the count, Gandy gets a brilliant idea. “Why don’t we dithguithe ourthelveth with these thuitth?” I’m sensing a small flaw in this plan, and my suspicions are confirmed when it turns out that Gandy can’t fit into the suit, seeing as how it was designed for a human. Gandy needs to take lessons from Red XIII.
Cronabe and Biotch, inconspicuous now except for the fluffy pink talking dog, head down the stairs. Something happens here that further supports my theory that game designers are on crack. There’s a treasure chest that, once opened, sprouts legs and morphs into the “Boxer Boys”. This sounds like some weird gay theater troupe or something, but is actually a big treasure chest and a little treasure chest. Choosing the correct one gives you a prize, and choosing the wrong one….well, I don’t know what it does because I chose the correct one. But it’s probably something bad.
After being attacked by some lamps, Cronabe finds his way into the dragoons’ dining hall. Most of them reiterate what we learned earlier from Lady Riddel — that the general’s guest is responsible for all the strange shit that’s been going on, including the monsters in the manor. Why do these bad guys always have to bring monsters along with them?
Yeah, you and TEN MILLION OTHER PEOPLE IN THE GAME.
Our friend Glenn is hanging about the dining area, getting the trapdoor code from a random dragoon. Why Cronabe doesn’t try to get the code himself is beyond me. I guess that would make the game too easy or something. There’s not much else of note inside the dining hall or kitchen except for the chef who is clearly related to Speedo. Even if their speech mannerisms weren’t identical, which they are, the game designers gave us the extra clue of rhyming names. Now isn’t that cute? I guess if I ever get Orcha in my party, I’ll have to name him “Eedo” just to make the names match. I’m so clever. Oh, one more thing — the dishwasher guy is a spy, not that they made it super obvious or anything.
The two “dragoons” and their bright pink dog head over to the dragoon sleeping chamber where a bunch of guys all share the same room. Nope, that’s not a good setup for yaoi fanfiction at all. Glenn has just written down the combination to the trap door, a safe practice if ever there was one, so I’m guessing that Cronabe will eventually get his grubby little hands on it. If not, that whole scene was pointless. But I’m used to it.
Some random dude in the corner says something about a genius named Luccia working with “weaponry from an ancient, lost supercivilization”, another surprising plot feature that has never appeared in any RPG. We don’t care about this information yet, but we might someday.
The most important item in the entire room is a save point, and that’s my cue to end this recap in what is essentially the middle of a dungeon. No one said my ending places made any sense. Or anything else I write, for that matter.
But you keep coming back for more, don’t you?