Anyway, after the magical onslaught delivered by the three teens, Heckran’s HP is depleted and he cries a mighty cry: “If only the great Magus who brought forth Lavos 400 years ago, had destroyed the human race! The world would’ve belonged to us Mystics!” While the party brushes this steaming pile of exposition off of their clothes, Heckran lets loose a mighty growl and fades out of existence. It’s just as well, you know. He was mourning something that happened 400 years ago. It’s not exactly like he had a lot to live for.
Well, with a dying wail like that, it’s not hard for Lucca figure out that Magus must have made Lavos in the Middle Ages to KILL ALL HUMANS and take over the world or something equally dastardly. M!Sue wonders aloud that “if [the Trio goes] to the Middle Ages and take[s] out Magus, can [they] change history?” She really means the future, because Lavos hasn’t blown up the world yet at this point, but M!Sue is a moron, so whatever. Lucca reminds us all that there is a BBP at the Fairgrounds, and off they surf, riding the residual waves of the scene’s torrential exposition.
At the back of the cave, the Trio finds a gigantic, swirling vortex of aquatic doom, and jumps in, fully confident that everything will turn out okay. Because if you can’t trust the linear nature of a dungeon, what CAN you trust? Also, air is for pussies. One watery death later, the Trio is spit out of the Atlantic ocean separating Medina from Truce and onto the Truce side of the world map.
Punk and Lucca pay a visit to their parents, and Lucca nets a Taban Vest from dear old dad. Apparently, the esteemed inventor spends the time he isn’t spending taking care of his crippled wife or inventing new things designing women’s clothing. With evidence like this, I don’t care how you slice it: the man is as gay as the day is long. Besides, I haven’t spotted a gay character yet in this recap, and I’m falling behind in my quotas.
At Punk’s place, his mom freaks out that she’d heard he was to be executed, but then the mood elevators kick in and she dismisses the Trio with a friendly, “Don’t get into trouble, now!” Punk is totally feeling the love. I’m totally feeling that I’ll never get the past five minutes of my life back. No wonder his dad split. I mean, I’m trying to do this recap right, the meet’n’greet thing and all, but man, this business is drier than an AA meeting in the Sahara desert.
With all that boring family stuff out of the way, the Trio frolics its way over to the fair, and the escaped convict, the runaway princess, and the accessory to the crime all manage to walk around the fair, play some minigames, assrape a giant cat robot, chat up the locals, and even buy hundreds of dollars worth of swag without a single person noticing that, hey, these people are supposedly dangerous, and most likely crazed, felons! I mean, it’s not like I was looking forward to going medieval on two town’s collective asses in one recap, but seriously. This game? Not making with the sense. Have they never heard of wanted posters? A police force? Rent-a-cops?
Well, as we all learned last time we visited the fair, the BBP leading to the past is safely nestled between the Umbrella-like canopies of Lucca’s enormously-contrived Telepod machine. The Trio hops in, assumes angst-ridden “When in the world will this BBP take us?” poses, and away they go. But instead of popping out in 600 AD, the Trio finds themselves in…
The Lugubrious Veranda of Various Intersecting Time Periods, Conveniently Located at the Scenic End Of Time. And really, there is no reason that I can think of for this to happen. Only three people popped into the portal, preserving the Conservation of Time Space Out My Ass Theorem, and every other time we’ve used the BBP at the Fair, we’ve been whisked directly to the Past. None of this freakin’ layover business. Let’s just work under the assumption that once you know about the End of Time, all BBP’s take you there. I’m too lazy to think up a slew of rationalizations for this one. *takes a drink*
Tangents aside, the trip to the Lugubrious Veranda of Various Intersecting Time Periods, Conveniently Located at the Scenic End Of Time is very short, because as soon as the Trio touches down, Punk leads the way to a new Pillar of Light that promises to take them to 600 A.D. They blast off while Kosmo and the Snoozing Old Geezer continue to bore themselves into oblivion.
One ride on the crack express and a mountainside jaunt later, the Trio staggers into the 600’s version of Truce village. How times flies when you’re writing filler. A quick round of “Amass the Exposition” with the locals lets Punk and the ladies know that some “Legendary Hero” has arrived to save the Knights of Guardia, who are currently getting their asses whomped by a mysterious dark Wizard and his Undead legions. Could this dark Wizard in fact be the very same Magus the Trio came to defeat? Yes. It could.
Well, it sounds like the Guardians are going to need some help, because no matter how Legendary this Hero may be, I have a feeling he’s going to need the help of three random wankers before he can win, so I quickly realize that Punk, M!Sue, and Lucca will need to conference with King Guardia and find out how they can help.
Before sending the Trio to hack and slash their way through Guardia’s forest ‘o’ doom, however, I decide to kill time explore, because, you know, nothing bad will happen as long as the Trio doesn’t show up, because how would they save the day, otherwise?
Punk and company eventually stumble across a large bridge that wasn’t there last time we visited. Well, it was there, it was just broken. It has since been fixed. When the Trio enters the area, we can immediately see a man in Golden Armor cowering behind surveying several men in Silver Armor standing near the mouth of the bridge in an attempt to protect it from the Undead Legions we learned about a few paragraphs ago.
The Man in the Golden Armor whines about how the rations have all run out and demands to know if the supplies from the castle have arrived yet. Which I guess is the Trio’s cue to head to the Castle after all. Stupid linear plot.
One fast-forward button and an evil forest later, the Trio finds themselves in the King’s room at Guardia Castle. The King is bedridden, having somehow sustained a life-threatening wound in battle since last we were here, but he takes the opportunity to eagerly exposit to the Trio that the Hero has appeared and he’s a-gonna make everything OK. Blah blah blah, we knew all that before. The King also tells us that with the “Hero Medal” in his sweaty grasp, the Hero has gone south to search for the Hero’s Sword, which will enable him to slay the evil Wizard and save the Kingdom. So, if we want to see the Hero, we too must venture south. And while we’re at it, could we bail the Knights out with the bridge thing, because that would really help King Guardia in the polls. Kthxby.
After consulting the strategy guide, I realize that the person I actually need to talk to is still in the castle, so I send Punk and his women to the basement, where the Chef is scurrying around and whining about having to make food to feed the entire army. When the Chef hears that his brother, the Man in the Golden Armor, is on the verge of dying due to starvation and attack by rednecks monsters from the South, he makes up some callous reply about how that’s what you get if you think you’re the only person fighting for your country, that’s karma for you, you reap what you sow, yadda yadda yadda. Punk quickly gets his fill of homebody bitching and makes for the front door so the Chef can cool off. Plus, the guide says the Chef will chase Punk down to finish the conversation.
When the Trio makes it to the main hall of the castle, the Chef gives them a holla’ and comes scooting along after them. Apparently he’s realized what a prick he’s been over the past three seconds and has made a serious reassessment of his life goals. Whatever. Long story short, he gives Punk “1 Jerky” to give to the army of starving, battle-weary soldiers, and a Power Tab for the party, which will raise one character’s strength by one. Score!
More fast-forwarding, and suddenly, the Trio is back at the bridge. We’ll just say that they moved through time really quickly and leave it at that. And wow, the Knights have taken some casualties since last we were here! The crew guarding the bridge has been reduced to two, and several soldiers are lying about the screen in near-dead poses. Punk gives the single slice of Jerky to the Knight Capitan in the Golden Armor, and the Capitan creams his breeches over nature’s bounty. “The Cook! He has saved us all!” he cries. Because one slice of Jerky is totally enough to feed anybody and everybody you could ever hope to feed. What the hell is the Guard Capitan going to do? Make like Jesus and use his Christian Mojo to duplicate the Jerky one hundred times over? I’m not even going to bother thinking about it and instead write off the Zany Miracle Hijinks as this game being complete and utter ass fodder. Stupid game. *takes a drink*
Loading ...Anyway, the Knight Capitan prepares to have a Moment with Punk about the Chef (they’re estranged brothers, remember?), but as soon as he starts talking, battle music springs forth from the Cosmic Soundtrack and a knight rushes forward to alert his Capitan that the bridge is under attack. So, the Capitan, being the pillar of strength that he is, makes the random teens that just showed up with the Miracle Jerky fight the monsters instead of doing it his own damn self. He gives Punk a Gold Helmet as incentive, like we had a choice anyway.
The Trio dramatically dashes onto the bridge just in time to see the Airship Convenience fly by and drop off two skeletons with spears. As the Airship Convenience honks its horn (La Cucaracha, naturally) and blasts off into the horizon, the skeletal warriors stab the last two Guardian soldiers dead. As the bodies of the soldiers blink out of existence, an enormous green blob floats onscreen. We learn that Floating Green Blob is named Ozzie as he informs us that he is Magus’s top general and maniacally screeches for his children of doom to “crush Magus’s enemies.” I’m not really paying attention though, because my mind is boggling at the number of bird heads the Ozzie must have bitten off to bloat out like that. Maybe it’s the drugs? Talk about your after-school special.
After M!Sue and Lucca kill the two skeleton monsters with magic, Punk slices Ozzie with his sword and a message flashes across the bottom of the screen: “Ozzie needs help!” Yes. Yes he does.
Rather than being some type of commentary on the Prince of Darkness’ lifestyle in recent years, the line simply signifies the end of the battle. The Trio is awarded their experience and Ozzie floats away, prompting the Trio to chase after him.
When the Trio catches Ozzie again, he mumbles something about having misjudged their strength and turns three dead soldiers into skeleton monsters. They all quickly die, and once again, “Ozzie needs help!” More chasing ensues.
“Don’t mess with Punk, or you’ll be sorry!” M!Sue passive-aggressively wanks in Ozzie’s general direction when the Trio catches up with him. Meanwhile, around the world, sk8ers and greasy teens alike feel as though their lifestyles have suddenly and inexplicably been justified. SOME1 UNDERSTANDS THEEEM!!! Ozzie says some generic badguy lines and summons all the dead skeleton bodies to assemble and morph into a huge bone monster. The Bone Monster roars at the party and the boss battle begins.
My plethora of strategy guides and personal bank of knowledge quickly inform me that the Bone Monster is actually comprised of two separate parts, the Head and the Legs, and that each half has a weakness. So, accordingly, M!Sue casts Ice magic on the Head while Punk and Lucca pummel the Legs with Fire and Lightning spells. When the Head dies, it uses a cheap final move that steals all of M!Sue’s MP, rendering her completely useless. Whoo-hey. I love boss battles.
When the Legs are vanquished, the camera pans over to Ozzie, who cries “Shaaaaaron!” and dashes away to bail his children out of whatever messed up legal problem they’re in now. The party is sick of chasing him and lets him go. We’ll get him later anyway.
Well, with the Bone Monster thusly tamed and the immediate dastardly foe introduced, this recap has finally come to a close. Next time, we’ll delve into some honest to god story with Frog’s backstory and even begin the longest Fetch Quest EVAR. Forget everything Ben’s told you, this one takes the cake. Hell, it takes the whole goddamn bakery. See ya then!