Then, for fuck’s sake, Ryudo and the others explain in detail the last set of events. “The Tongue of Valmar… One of the pieces of Valmar left after he was defeated by Granas,” Tidink duhs. Jesus Herbert Christ. Ludo segues into a totally different subject — his personal vengeance obsession, Melfice. “I am here only to purge the evil SMELL… Melfice… even his name reeks of evil,” Ludo contributes. Wait, did he use “reeks” instead of “SMELLS”? Shit, Ludo’s been cracking open the thesaurus! Incidentally, Melfice is now Smellfice, in honor of the reeking of evil.

There isn’t a strong enough word to describe the pointlessness of the rest of the ChoadChat. In fact, I’m not quite sure why they bothered to stick it in there, unless they were trying for some filler before the next suspenseful scene.

Stop with the TMI.

You see, the game designers threw in a plot twist of epic proportions here. We all expected that the rest of the journey to the Cathedral, particularly the part involving a rickety contraption flying over a giant asscrack, would go completely smoothly. Not so fast! An unidentifiable, yet slightly ominous sound catches the party’s attention. Suddenly, the tram starts shaking harder than a recapper covered with tiny Tiduses.

Unfortunately, some wanksty voice acting kicks in as Mary Sue announces the presence of the Darkness. “It’s calling me…” she whines, getting into prayer position. Again, no fanboy obsessable bishounen makes her into a Sue kabob, which basically ruins the entire scene. Red light pours dramatically through the window, right before glass breaks and the screen goes black. This is all very exciting. Our shot of Valmar’s red moon may indicate, as Sam noted in her FFVI recap, that blood has been spilled this night. Unfortunately, not that of anyone who has irritated me.

Then we get an awesome Grandia FMV, full of roiling black clouds and red lightning filling up the Granasscrack. Granas may want to lay off the beans. The tram pitches back and forth as, of course, the cables start to snap. Cut back to the inside where our now FMV-style characters scream and carry on. A baby-faced FMV Ryudo yells at everyone to “hang onto something” as that will undoubtedly help when they plummet hundreds of feet to the ground. Finally, we see one of the giant funnels break off, as the view changes to a full shot of the canyon. I’m not quite sure, since the tram is about the size of Rinoa’s brain in this shot, but it looks like it kind of gets flung to the opposite side of the Granasscrack. So luckily for them, that pesky Darkness didn’t snap the cables in such a manner as would cause them to plunge into the canyon. Which would, statistically, be a lot easier than slightly breaking the cables and throwing them safely to the other side. But…hey, look over there again!

We fade in on the crash site, where a big dirt track stretches from the edge of the Granasscrack to the final resting place of the tram. It has devastated a small portion of a snowy pine forest and spewed bits and pieces everywhere, kind of like me after watching the make-out scene from FFX. Ryudo, Tidink, and Ludo have ended up right next to the smoking tram, shaken, but otherwise miraculously unhurt. It would be kind of funny if one of the characters we met within the last few hours bit it in a tragic mostly-offscreen Skyway crash. But that would mean no overdone dramatic slo-mo death scene. And the world might end if it came to that.

The three dudes wake up and make some “What the hell?” type small talk. “Check yourselves for injury,” Ludo suggests, opening up the (completely wrong and disturbing) possibility for a gay pedophilic furry three-way. In the midst of their self-examination, Ryudo suddenly realizes that Mary Sue has disappeared. Wow, what are the fucking chances? Ludo attempts to fanwank this occurrence, only to be shot down by Ryudo. Finally, Ludo announces, “I am picking up her scent.” Again with the thesaurus use! Also, ew.

As the trio wanders off to half-heartedly search for Mary Sue, we cut to a snowy clearing where Mary Sue lies — what else? — unconscious. Millenia’s disembodied voice sing-songs, “[Mary Sue]. [Mary Sue]!” then screams, “Wake up!” The delivery here is fucking hilarious, and kudos to Jodi Benson (who also voiced Ariel, FYI) for doing such a bang-up job on one of the few tolerable characters in this game. Anyway, Mary Sue is all, “Where am I and why am I hearing voices?” Millenia’s not sure about the first one, but she entreats Mary Sue to look into the shiny metal plate that conveniently fell off the tram right next to the random spot where Mary Sue landed.

Mary Sue obliges, and Millenia appears in the mirrored surface. Of course, she doesn’t mimic Mary Sue’s movements, so it’s not like she’s an actual reflection or anything, so I’m not quite sure why she needed a mirror. But anyway, we get the idea — Mary Sue and Millenia are the same person. And apparently they can talk to each other even though they never have before, nor will they for the rest of the recap. But whatever.

Millenia introduces herself all graciously and stuff, as Mary Sue continues with the stupid gaping. She finally figures out that this is Millenia, a.k.a. the Wings of Valmar. “Yeah! That’s me!” Millenia gushes happily. “You filthy Dark One, devourer of souls!” Mary Sue drama queens. “Stay away from me!” Now that’s not very nice. Millenia says as much and adds that she saved Mary Sue. This surprises the clueless bint. “That’s right! You should be thanking me. We share the same body, don’t we? I’ve gotta look out for the both of us,” Millenia reminds her. Oh, man. That’s just begging for a massive fanboy bukkakefest. And with that lovely image in my head, Millenia decides to take off. Mary Sue wants to chat some more, probably about how Granas is neato and Valmar sucks the ass, but too bad. “I will be with you always. Wherever. Whenever. Forever. Alllll the time. See? So, let’s just try to get along, shall we? Miss Granas Songstress!” Millenia declares, disappearing from the mirror. And another doujinshi hits the racks. If anyone gave a shit about this game, that is.

Mary Sue sinks to her knees in wankst, just in time for all the other party members to find her. Everyone makes a huge-ass deal over her, asking if she’s okay. Well, that’s all Mary Sue needs to start in on a wank-o-rama. “Perhaps it was an apparition… for it was not a dream. The Day of Darkness draws near. Valmar’s Moon swells with wrath,” she whines. I don’t think that’s wrath, if you follow me. Then again, I am a twelve-year-old homo with a small penis, so I’m just living vicariously here. She goes on in this overdramatic vein some more until Ryudo orders her to snap out of it. Except he doesn’t do so in his usual sarcastic manner. Nope, he’s all Concerned And Shit. Christ.

Finally, Mary Sue does snap out of it, to my eternal surprise. It seems genuine and not one of those “No, really. I’m fine. *sigh*” deals. She doesn’t fill them in on her encounter with Millenia, another out-of-character moment of non-drama-queenery. Ryudo mentions that it would have totally sucked if they had fallen into the Granasscrack, but they didn’t, so yay and stuff. As for where in the hell they are now, well, somehow Tidink establishes that they are north of their intended destination. “Looks like we’re walking from here. We’ll head for the St. Heim Mountains — pretty damn hard to miss. And then, the Cathedral,” Ryudo says most pointlessly. Thanks for filling me in — I figured you’d take a car in the opposite direction of the Cathedral. Honestly, this game.

Someone was very persistent.

And with that, it’s time for our next “dungeon” area. As I mentioned before, we’re in a snowy pine forest. So obviously, we get things like fire-breathing dragons and killer fish. Just kidding! It’s basically a slew of abominable snowmen, along with snowdrifts that cause our heroes to travel slower than Vyse’s brain. To mix things up a bit, the party also has to go through some underground, root-filled caverns containing crabs. The latter of which may or may not be familiar to certain party members. I just don’t want to go any further with that train of thought.

After alternating through more snowy forest and root cave areas, the group ends up going into the base of a large tree. Instead of an impenetrable mass of roots, they find a cozy little green chamber, where hacking away at smaller roots opens up doorways to other underground areas. Can you feel the excitement? In addition to picking up some serious loot (and I do mean that sarcastically), the party encounters some mutant caterpillars and discovers the tunnel leading to the next snowy forest area.

As the party heads through the forest, the screen fades to white, then back in briefly on a little text box that reads “To THE GARDEN OF DREAMS” right before fading out again. And then we’re actually in the Garden of Dreams. This may be our first glimpse of that special place where game designers go when they partake of their happy drugs. We can’t see much right away — the fog causes the view to get stuck in overexposure mode. Everyone just thinks they got lost, never mind that there was no fog two steps away. And this isn’t Silent Hill, so what gives? After everyone makes one or two comments to this effect, ensuring that we freaking get it, Ludo notes, “There is no SMELL of life in this place.” Okay, that’s it. I’m going to steal from the FFX-2 recap and insert a different word for “SMELL” in every recap. But since I’m essentially ripping off myself, I don’t think I’m stepping on anyone’s toes here. So our word for this recap is “assrape.” Let’s rewind a bit.

“There is no ASSRAPE of life in this place,” Ludo informs the group. With this declaration, the fog lifts, revealing a fabulous garden of flowers nestled in the gray cliffs. Last I checked, flowers were life, but then again, they’re just texture-mapped to the smooth ground, so who knows. Basically, it looks like Link threw up in here. Mary Sue steps forward, knee deep in the texture map. Soon, a trio of small lights surrounds her, accompanied by unsettling music. “Who are you? This is my garden,” an offscreen voice says. The camera pans over to the speaker, and surprisingly, it is not Link. It’s a creepy little girl with green hair and a yellow dress (kind of like an opposite Link), standing several feet away from a single tree.

Mary Sue explains that they just got lost and ended up in this creepy-ass garden. “This is the Garden of Happiness,” the girl mutters in a brainwashed monotone. At least, that’s really the only interpretation of the written text here. We see from her character portrait that she also has a scar over her right eye. It’s really more of a Squall-style scar rather than a Harry Potter one, which is appropriate, as Squall would also enjoy this garden immensely. Get it?! GARDEN? Despite these two comparisons, there’s really only one nickname I can attach to this demon child from hell, and that’s Samara.

“My precious, secret place. Everyone who comes here forgets their bad memories and gets happy,” Samara continues. Somewhere Seymour’s head explodes. Samara establishes that people who end up in her special area have a desire to be saved. And the kind of saving that Samara does can only end badly, I’m sure. Mary Sue begins to ask something about Samara’s eyes. “Yes. My eyes were bad ever since I was born. But I’m fine now!” she insists. If she’s fine, then what would cause Mary Sue to ask about her eyes in the first place? Unless she was simply commenting on their soulless, unsettling appearance. Samara comments that Granas has magically healed her vision, also fixing her loneliness issue. I’m not quite sure how those things go hand in hand, and I’m also not sure how “hanging out alone in a garden” prevents one from being lonely. But I’m just an evil babyhater, so what do I know?

The rest of the party joins Mary Sue. “…? These flowers are… nice enough, I guess. If you’re into that stuff. Not my style,” Ryudo protests too much. Seriously, he might as well have just said, “I’m not gay! Really. I’m really, really not gay. Sooooooo not gay.” Samara pretty much backs me up on this, saying that Ryudo’s “trying to be someone [he’s] not.” Skye practically starts weeping with happiness — maybe he does have a chance after all! Poor Skye.

The three lights surround Samara, again with the eerie music. “Miss, I thought you would understand how good this place is…” she begins ominously, backing away. Mary Sue is all, “WTF?” “Don’t you understand? Then you should ask the girl with the black wings!” Samara says by way of explanation. As this dialogue is indecipherable, I think we’re supposed to get that Samara is a Child Sensitive to Otherwordly Phenomenaâ„¢ as she can detect the presence of Millenia. Surely, this is a completely innocent ability and doesn’t portend anything sinister. Mary Sue Shions over this, while Samara entreats her to keep the Creepy-Ass Garden a secret. The girl runs over to the lone tree, and just before disappearing into it — yes, creepily — she screams, “Miss, don’t eat me!!” Does Mary Sue look like she has blue hair and a POONTY wang?