With Enhasa explored, Punk leaves town and heads north to another “Land Bridge” dais that sends him back down to the frozen earth. The party treks through the snow once again to find another Echo base outpost, and warps back up to the sky, this time appearing on a floating island west of Enhasa. This island appears to be the main island, as it is larger and has water on it. I have no idea where the water is coming from, and I totally don’t care. Punk crosses over to the west side of the island and finds an airship hangar. As he tries to check out the ship docked there, which we find out is called the Blackbird, Punk finds his way obstructed by two guards. The guards are not very interesting, but right when Punk talks to them, another character enters from the bottom of the screen and asks if everything is all right with the Blackbird. The guards tell “Sir Dalton” that everything is peachy, and Dalton responds, “Of course it is, you idiot!” So… why did he ask how things were going in the first place, you might ask? So that Dalton could come and check out the Party, of course! Dalton approaches Punk, M!Sue, and Babs, and muses to himself, “Aha… so it was true then! You’re the ones the Prophet said would come and cause trouble!”
Whee!
I guess the party’s reputation for fucking things up through time precedes them? Dalton whips around and says menacingly, “Let’s see how you handle THIS little situation. I didn’t think they’d make it so easy on me!” But then he doesn’t attack the party, and just walks away. So… that’s weird. Confused, the party leaves the hangar.
The city right next to the Blackbird’s hangar is called Kajar. It’s decorated in the same style as Enhasa, but has more of a laboratory feel, and in Talking to Everyone, Punk learns that the citizens of Kajar do magical experiments for the Queen. Punk also learns that Queen Zeal has two children, Schala and Janus. Everybody is really into Schala and talks about how awesome she is at magic, but nobody seems to have a high opinion of Janus. Cue the Debbie Downer noise.
While exploring Kajar, Punk finds another trio of magical books, and opens them in the same water, wind, fire order as before. Again, as before, when the fire book is opened, a nearby bookshelf lowers itself to reveal a hidden room. While the last one held a mini-boss fight, this hidden room only has a stuffed doll sitting in the middle of the floor. When Punk picks it up, the Random Text God announces, “You’ve found something strange!” and then laughs evilly. But then we learn that inside the stuffed animal was a Black Rock accessory. What the fuck is up with these rooms? I mean, I know that they belong to the three Gurus of Zeal, but I don’t remember if Punk ever finds out, or anything. So I’m sure it seems a little strange to him, or the casual player, to find a series of what are essentially magical stockrooms sealed by a set of elementally-themed books. Is all I’m saying.
Janus is… a squib?
While the people of Enhasa were really into dreams, the people of Kajar are really into magical technology. More than one NPC tells Punk about the magical Sun Stone, which apparently is a Moon Stone that has been left sitting in the sunlight for millennia, and contains the infinite power of the sun. Punk can’t help but wonder what he’s ever going to do with that oddly specific information. The NPCs also “hint” that Zeal used to use the Sun Stone for power, but has recently switched over to a new power source. Even magical utopias floating in the sky have infrastructure problems, I guess. Finally, Punk learns that there are people who live on earth — appropriately named Earthbound Ones — who lack magic but are being used to build the Queen’s new Ocean Palace. You know, like slaves. Nobody in Kajar seems to have a problem with that, either. Guess which of the two groups is going to be left standing at the end of all this?
With his head stuffed full of totally unrelated bits of exposition, Punk leaves Kajar and heads for a series of small caves in the nearby mountains. These caves are all linked by yellow teleporters, and eventually lead Punk to the top of the mountain, where Zeal Palace sits.
When Punk enters Zeal Palace, the ethereal music that had been playing on the floating continent is replaced by sinister music. Nobody in the party notices, of course. The NPC standing directly in front of the entrance to Zeal Palace announces pretentiously that the Queen’s palace is the center of Zeal Kingdom, making his position in the middle of the walkway the “center of the universe”. I’m starting to get the hint that we’re supposed to think the inhabitants of Zeal are fatally self-indulgent. I wonder if they’ll ever get what they have coming to them?
Continuing his three-round marathon of Talking to Everybody, Punk learns that the Kingdom of Zeal draws its power from an energy source under the sea, and that the Queen’s new Ocean Palace is being built near the energy source’s location. Punk also learns that there’s a teleporter leading from the Queen’s hall to the Ocean Palace, even though it’s still under construction. Well, maybe the party can just share a scuba helmet to explore it, then.
Hey! That’s the name of this game!
Continuing his exploration of Zeal, Punk finds a woman who randomly asks if he likes plants. Assuming that this is some Ice-Age-utopia code for weed, Punk responds that yes, he loves plants, in fact. The hippie woman responds with delight that the party is just like her, and asks their advice. Apparently the “Guru of Life” gave the hippie woman a “sapling”, but the Queen has ordered the hippie woman to destroy it. But the hippie woman is conflicted because it’s a “magical” sapling with “powers to cure the environment” — basically, she wants the go ahead to start her own grow-op. Always one to thumb his nose at authority figures, Punk suggests that the woman plant the sapling in secret. I mean, it’s a “victimless crime” anyway, right?
Another stupid thing that Punk has to do in Zeal is approach the Nu sidling along one of the walkways in Zeal Palace. Instead of multiplying and attacking the party, like the other Nu the party encountered, this Nu asks if Punk wouldn’t mind scratching his back. Punk obliges, and as a result, learns the Nu’s “scratch-point”. Now that he knows the Nu’s scratch-point, Punk can head back to Kajar and scratch a different Nu’s back to earn a secret power tab or something, but I forgot to backtrack to get it at this point when I was filming, so we’ll see if it ever comes up again. Don’t hold your breath, is all I’m saying.
There’re like a million people milling around Zeal Palace, so Punk still has oodles of people to talk to. One old man helpfully suggests that Punk talk to “the Queen or the Gurus” if he has questions about the “Mammon Machine” or the Ocean Palace, which really just raises more questions than it answers, and another scholar nearby gossips that Dalton is the Queen’s aide, and he used to be in charge of the Ocean Palace project until “some traveling prophet” took over. Understandably, this has put Dalton in a bad mood, so the scholar suggests that the party avoid Dalton if possible.
Near the end of Talking to Everybody, Punk finds a pair of Masa/Mune clones, dancing around just like Doreen was in Enhasa. When Punk talks to the one on the right, it says, “I wanna be the wind, Masa!” and the other one responds, “Oh, you will some day.” So… I guess these are actually Masa and Mune, and not clones, then. So… is this what they were up to before they got turned into a sword? Dancing around in Zeal Palace in the distant past? That’s only slightly better than spending the rest of eternity in Punk’s bag of holding, I suppose. Before letting the party continue on, Mune comments that “Big sister Doreen’s at Enhasa again,” and Masa replies, “that’s ’cause she likes dreams.” Mune argues that he likes the wind more. Fascinating.
‘Why, just the other day he asked if he could turn me into a sword. What the fuck does that even mean?’
Still continuing his interminable exploration of Zeal Palace, Punk stumbles into a room in the northeast corner of the Palace. Inside, he finds the boy with the cat from Enhasa, yelling, “Schala!!” to a woman with long blue hair and flowing purple robes. Schala turns and says, “Oh, you’re back Janus! Is something wrong?” I guess these two must be the Queen’s kids, if the gossipy Zeal NPCs are to be believed.
Janus tells Schala that “the black wind” is bothering him, and Schala reassuringly tells him that it’ll be alright in what I’m sure seems to Janus like a very patronizing tone. Schala then gives Janus an amulet, and says that it’ll protect him if something should happen to her. Schala laments that she won’t be able to be with Janus soon, because of their mother’s mysterious plans, prompting Janus to exclaim, “She’s NOT our mother! She looks like mother, but inside she has changed.” Presumably, Schala has picked up on this too, but she only apologizes and turns away.
The scene is interrupted at this point by the arrival of a palace servant, who reports that the Queen has summoned Schala to the Ocean Palace. On her way out, Schala catches sight of the party, which had totally just been eavesdropping the whole time, but the servant shoos Schala out the door before she can get a chance to talk to Punk and crew.
At this point, the party is supposed to follow Schala, but Punk apparently has other plans. He heads into the room next door and learns that Schala has a pendant that is “made from the same red rock as the Mammon Machine” from a random NPC who is apparently really into jewelery. We still don’t know what the Mammon Machine is, but I guess we’re supposed to assume that the red rock in question is Dreamstone, the same stuff that the Masamune is made out of. Sounds like a pretty versatile material, then.
Fabulous!
Sick of collecting exposition, Punk heads to the main hallway of Zeal Palace and makes for the throne room. As he enters, he catches sight of Schala just ahead. Oblivioius to the fact that the party is tailing her, she approaches the door at the end of the hall, which is glowing green with a yellow insignia. Schala throws her pendant on the floor in front of the door (or maybe she holds it above her head, but fuck if I can tell from these shitty sprite graphics), the pendant glows brightly, turning the room blue, and the door opens. Schala heads through the door and it slams shut behind her.
The party is all like, “Does our pendant do that too?” and Punk rushes forward to throw M!Sue’s pendant on the floor in front of the green door, too. The door makes a “nice try” buzz, and remains shut. M!Sue dorks, “Just as we thought, it won’t budge.”
The two attendants standing on either side of the door freak out when they see M!Sue’s pendant, and comment anvilicously that Schala’s pendant glows when she “communes” with the Mammon Machine. I guess it’s time the party found out what’s up with this freaking Mammon Machine everybody is so jazzed about, then.
Um… good for you?
Punk exits the hallway to the throne room and heads for the northwest corner of Zeal palace. A Nu stationed there helpfully tells Punk that a nearby hallway leads to the Mammon Machine. Even more helpfully, he doesn’t attack the party. Nus are so unpredictable.
Punk heads up the hallway toward the Mammon Machine, which of course is fully of chatty Zeal inhabitants. One of them mentions offhandedly that the Mammon Machine contains the power of Lavos, somehow. Uh oh. Well, that would explain why the Queen is so evil and obsessed with power, then.