Other conversations worth noting are few. Several people comment on the importance of carrier pigeons to the town, as they are the only way to communicate with the outside world; one scholarly gentleman gives a very long-winded explanation about the “Serpent Trench,” a strong underwater current that goes from the Veldt all the way to the town of Nikeah; and one woman tells Guile that a wounded soldier resting inside one of the houses has only the daily letters from his girlfriend to keep him going.
I bet she shrieks this to every person that walks by…
Guile decides that it might be fun to chat it up with the wounded soldier, so he heads inside the indicated house. Inside, Guile approaches the “Injured Lad,” who, because he’s bedridden, has gone stir-crazy and has absolutely no problem in unloading all of his emotional baggage onto Guile: “I’m from Maranda. The Empire invaded, and made me join their army. I fled when I heard we were making for Doma. They caught me…and did this… Now I can’t even move. I’ll never see Lola again… On the desk is a letter. Will you please read it?”
Guile suppresses a snicker at the thought of the postman coming in and deliberately putting the paralyzed man’s mail on the desk all the way across the room from his bed, but he goes over to the desk, grabs the letter, and brings it back to Injured Lad. It reads: “I can’t get used to Imperial [Storm]troopers walking the streets of Maranda, but otherwise things are okay. Flowers are blooming in the garden, telling me spring is here. How are you doing? I’m so worried. I wish I could fly to your side! Rest, and know that I think about you constantly. Come back to me. –Lola”
After hearing the letter read aloud, Injured Lad laments that he’d like to write Lola back, but he “can’t even pick up a pen.” And apparently, the postmen scurrying around town will enter your house to make mail deliveries, but won’t take a memo, even for a paralyzed person. This means, of course, that it falls upon Guile and Kyan, a pair already dripping with romance, if there ever was one, to help Injured Lad get his groove back. Guile leaves the house to head for the post office and, after stealing an Elixir from the post office’s clock, learns that he can mail a letter to Injured Lad’s Girlfriend in Maranda for the low, low price of 500 pieces of gold. Guile coughs up the dough, and then begins a complex sequence of wasting time while he awaits the arrival of a response-laden carrier pigeon. Guile runs around town, checking boxes and barrels for items (there aren’t any), talking to townies to see if they’ve learned anything new (they haven’t), and following the postman around to see if that speeds up the mail process at all (it doesn’t appear to). So then Guile adds buying things from the armory and sleeping for free in the back of the Relic shop to his list of time-wasters. After all of that, there is still no new letter for our poor Injured Lad, so Guile’s ADD decides to go outside and mess around on the Veldt for a while.
After a random battle with one Sand Ray and two Areneid monsters, which Guile and Kyan handle deftly, Gau appears again. This time, instead of attacking the little weirdo, Guile throws him a piece of Dried Meat, which not only restores 150 of Gau’s HP, but also makes him hop around like a spaz and blink like a coke addict. Guile and I are both all, “What the…” and Kyan tells Gau: “Thou art so…odd.” Then he introduces himself and Guile to Gau. Gau responds, in pidgin English, that he wants more food. Then Guile, like, hops Gau backwards a little bit and tells him that he can’t have any more. Gau suggests that Guile go and get some more food for him from Mobliz. Guile hops Gau even further backwards and tells him that he is a “regular munchkin,” which makes him sound like a child molester. Then Gau hops Guile back and says that Guile is afraid of him. Then they “fight,” which consists of both sprites hopping around the battlefield in giant circles together.
It only looks dirty… right?
After the “fight,” Guile says, with a puff and a wheeze, that Gau is pretty tough, and Gau responds by taking him for another spin-fight, but faster this time. Then he hops back to the middle of the screen and laughs, “Me like dancing! You good leader!” which, of course, makes no sense, because wild children that can barely comprehend language have no concept of ballroom dancing and leading. But it still makes Guile mad. Then Kyan, presumably jealous of all the attention Guile is giving Gau, leaps between them. “Simmer down, sirs!” he shouts. To Gau, he says, “And thou, o wild one… who might thou be?”
Gau, predictably, latches onto the word “thou” and spends the next few minutes romping around the screen, shouting it, which deeply offends Kyan. We can tell that Kyan is offended because he turns away from the screen, and Gau asks him, “You angry?” and then hops from side to side around Kyan, asking, “KYAN! You angry…me?”
When Gau hops near Guile, Guile grabs him by the scruff of his neck and drags him to one side of the screen. “Listen,” he tells Gau, “his family was just…” and then he trails off. But Gau is apparently smart enough to know what Guile is vaguely alluding to, because he sidles back over to Kyan to apologize and tell him that he’s not a mean person. Kyan snaps jealously, “Look! We can’t have ye two prancing ’round all day!” Then, in a complete 180-degree attitude shift, Kyan tells Gau that he thinks they’re all “going to get on well together,” and invites Gau to join them. In that way, I’m sure. Gau responds that he’d like to give Kyan and Guile a present, in return for the Dried Meat. Gau reports that his treasure is “shiny, shiny, shiny!!” and in response, Guile asks, “Can anything be THAT shiny?” Which, isn’t even a punch line, really. But I think it was supposed to be. Let’s give it the benefit of the doubt.
Then some ridiculous nonsense happens where Gau calls Guile Mr. Thou, but Guile insists that Kyan is Mr. Thou, and then while Guile is talking to Gau, Gau ADDs out and starts miming where he hid his SHINY SHINY treasure. Then he just up and tells Kyan that the SHINY SHINY treasure is at “Crescent Mountain.” Then they all start walking off the screen. Guile stops to wonder why Kyan had to invite Gau along (probably to make Guile jealous–and look, it’s working!), and then Gau walks backwards onscreen to tell “Mr. Thou” to hurry up. It’s all very Vaudeville, this whole scene, and it concludes with Guile chasing Gau back onto the world map.
But first! Some ragtime music hits the soundtrack and the Black Screen of Meta-Game Commentary takes control, to hit us with some information that’s way too complicated to relay in-game. Kappa, a green “imp,” waddles to the middle of the screen to give us with the lowdown on Gau’s special abilities and, instead of just transcribing what he says, I’m going to see if I can’t just summarize the salient points.
Gau doesn’t have a “Fight” command, and, instead of a special skill like “Steal” or “Blitz,” he has an attack named “Rage.” Essentially, what Rage does is replace Gau’s skill set with that of a monster, and then he acts on his own accord for the rest of the battle. So, for example, Gau could use the Rage “Ghost,” which would give him the abilities of the Ghost monsters found on the Phantom Train, but also make it so that he can’t be controlled for the rest of the fight. Gau acquires new Rages by using his second special command, “Leap,” on the Veldt. I’m guessing it’s called Leap because he leaps on the monster’s back and then watches them to learn how they fight. But that’s entirely fanwank. What I do know is that Leap ends the battle and removes Gau from the party, but by fighting on the Veldt, the party will eventually reunite with Gau in a post-battle sequence like the one we just saw (only much shorter). And he’ll have all sorts of new Rages. Savvy?
‘Aah! I spilled my power! Why?! Why?!‘
With his vital information successfully relayed (what, was the Moogle sick today?) Kappa gives a little wave and starts to walk off the screen, then trips and falls flat on his face, and then actually walks off. Riveting.
So now that Gau is a full-fledged member of the party, Guile and Kyan take him to the armory to get him some suitable armor, and spend some time on the Veldt getting a few new Rages. Then, the only thing that is left to do before going to Crescent Mountain and advancing the plot is to wrap up the loose ends with Injured Lad and his Letters to Lola. So, Guile heads back to Mobliz to check and see if that damn letter has arrived yet. Which, of course, it hasn’t. Now, the really pathetic thing about this part of the game is that Guile’s invisible controller knows that there’s some trick to making the letters arrive, but he’s too lazy and proud to look it up on the internet. So he just keeps dicking around in town and on the Veldt until it finally does arrive. It reads: “I can’t find your favorite record…I thought I’d play it and you’d be with me, but…” and that’s it. The stupid girl just trails off in mid-sentence. The only wisdom Injured Lad has is “I’d give Lola everything, if only I could move,” so Guile rolls his eyes and makes for the post office once more. After losing another 500 pieces of gold to send a record to Lola, Guile resumes wasting time until another letter arrives at Casa de Injured Lad.
This time, the letter doesn’t even have anything to say to/about Injured Lad. All it says is: “Mother’s taken ill. We can’t afford medicine. [Probably because somebody is blowing the family fortune on letters to her useless boyfriend…] If only we had some Tonic…” So, Mom’s got an illness of the -50hp variety, has she? 500 pieces of gold to mail a shiny new Tonic, courtesy of Guile’s bottomless generosity, natch, should clear that right up. More time wasting, yadda yadda yadda, and eventually, still another letter arrives. Dumb bitch will probably be asking for a pony in this one. It reads: “I haven’t heard from you. I’m so worried…” which, OF COURSE, is not true, because this crazy-ass broad has been getting crap from Injured Lad, via Guile, for AGES now. Ugh. But still, Guile is a dutiful man, and sends another $500 letter to Needy McLonelypants. Again with the time wasting, some more. The next letter reads: “You said you were reading a book. If only I could read it, too…” Then, while Injured Lad continues to moan about how lamentable his life is, Guile rushes off to make the post office 500 gold pieces richer. And still more time wasting ensues.
If each time Guile spends the night in the bed in the back of the Relic Shop is supposed to be one actual in-game day, then I think it is safe to assume that the Empire has had more than enough time to conquer the rest of the free world while Guile pisses away his days playing Polly Postage in Mobliz. I’m just sayin’.
Loading ...Anyway, after a sufficient amount of time wasting, Guile goes to pay Injured Lad one final visit. Even though there is no letter on the desk, Guile strikes up a conversation with IL, who sentimentally says, “I heard… In my name you sent Lola many things… I wish to thank you. Please accept this as a token of my appreciation.” Then he gives Guile a shiny new Tintinabar. The Tintinabar is a Relic that restores a character’s HP for every step he takes, so I daresay the paralyzed soldier won’t be needing it anytime in the near future. Guile eagerly accepts it, and then gets the fuck out of town. Finally!
After a fairly uneventful trek across the Veldt, Guile, Kyan, and Gau arrive at a semi-circular mountain range with a cave nestled in its side. I’m going to go out on a limb and assume this is Crescent Mountain, home of Gau’s SHINY SHINY treasure. Inside the cave, the party splinters out of Guile, and Gau starts sniffing around. Guile and Kyan shoot each other “What the fuck?” looks, but Guile eventually gets a brainwave and deduces that “the shiny thing GAU spoke of is in here.” Kyan asks Gau where, exactly, the treasure is, but Gau admits that he forgot where he buried it. Durrrr. So the party decides to take a look around. The cave, such as it is, is only one level, so Guile goes the only way he can, around a cliff and over a rickety bridge. Just south of the bridge, the party splits up again, and Gau, after, like, a nanosecond of digging, produces a SHINY SHINY… diving helmet?!
Don Knottses all around!
Kyan, sweet ignoramus that he is, is all, “Durrr, is this the treasure?” While Gollum Gau hisses “Treasure… yesss…” in response, Kyan and Guile inspect the diving helmet. Kyan comments that it looks like it’s made of glass, while Guile seems to think that it “just might fit.” As in, he thinks that all three of these fatheads can fit within one helmet? No. Then, even more stupidly, Guile wonders if the diving helmet will “really let [them] breathe underwater,” which, no. No. No, no, no, no, no. Because it’s not attached to an oxygen tank. Because it clearly has a hose that would normally attach to such a tank, but now will only serve to let water in. Because it’s ONE helmet, and THREE people need access to oxygen.
DURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!
Totally ignoring all of my brilliant points, Guile shouts, “Let’s go!!”, folds Gau, Kyan, and the Diving Helmet of Certain Asphyxiation into his roided pecs, and heads for the next screen. The next screen, conveniently, is a high cliff that looks out over a rushing river, presumably part of the Serpent Trench. Kyan comments that the current looks fast, but Guile reminds us all that, “unless [they] hop in, [they] won’t see [their] friends again…” (Or ever, since neither Kyan nor Gau have met the other party members at this point.) Gau takes one look at the current and scrambles backwards on all fours. Hee. Guile and Kyan both have a good laugh at his expense, and then hop on in. Gau hems and haws, but then he eventually jumps, too. Then, they all drown. THE END.