Last time on “Two chicks, one body, and a whole lot of jizzing fanboys,” the crew attempted once again to visit the Pope. Yeah, like that’ll happen anytime soon. Instead, they took a crash-landing and ended up in another village afflicted by a Body Part of Valmar. This one has possessed a creepy little girl. But we’re not supposed to know that yet. Remember to look surprised when we get there.

We rejoin the party in the inn after their encounter with the creepy High Priestess Selene and her band of phallic knights. In order to move the action forward, I have to spend the night. And lucky me, choosing this option nets me a thick stream of ChoadChat aimed right at my face. Fortunately, this one breaks the insidious cycle of lamery and pointlessness. Gotcha! It’s more of the same crap.

Ryudo comments that the Mirumu townsfolk are a bunch of hick assholes who are all set to blame their neighbors (Sandra) for their problems. Mary Sue and Tidink wank all over the place about how the townspeople aren’t evil — they’re just suffering and that makes them bitchy or something. It’s the “it’s okay to be an asshole if you’re depressed” defense, which doesn’t fly with me. Get some damn therapy or something.

Ludo has to add in his two cents, which means that it’s time to think up yet another inappropriate replacement for SMELL. Today’s phrase, “pole polish,” was contributed by John. “There is no malicious scent, but something does POLE POLISH awry…” Ludo says, which may cause your imaginations to go crazy trying to think of the many different ways a pole polish could possibly go awry. Or maybe that’s just my imagination.

Tidink turns the dinner conversation in another lighthearted direction as he predicts that the Cockthedral Knights will raze the village to the ground, killing and raping everyone. Mary Sue is still dumbfounded over the discovery of the Knights’ true purpose — emphasis on “dumb” — while Ryudo thinks those scary dudes would be better off taking their phallic objects elsewhere. Since Valmar isn’t likely to be defeated by a bunch of overcompensating dudes with penis replacements. In fact, the Wings of Valmar in particular might enjoy a wang or two. Or more.

“Valmar possesses even me…” Mary Sue says between bites. Since we haven’t been reminded of the main plotline for a while. I’m not sure if I’m being sarcastic or not. Meanwhile, Tidink and Ludo go off on tangents of their own. Although I would once again like to note that ChoadChat isn’t the most natural of dialogues, it occurs to me that maybe some of you have had conversational companions like that.

I don’t want to waste any more of your time (or mine) with the remainder of this repetitive conversation, so here are the salient points:

1. Mary Sue, as a Songstress, may or may not be safe from the Cockthedral Knights. After all, they are big assholes.
2. Some serious shit is going to happen in this town.
3. Valmar is likely responsible for all the bad stuff — an obvious conclusion that was brought up and discarded by these same rocket scientists in the last recap.
4. The pole polishing continues to go awry. Several times. Yeek.

Ryudo closes this exciting discussion with the suggestion that they get the fuck out of town first thing in the morning. So it looks like he forgot the part about Selene closing off the exit. I guess that’s okay, since I forgot, too — yay for refreshing my memory via recaps! Or maybe Ryudo remembers and just thinks he’s man enough to take on the well-endowed Cockthedral Knights. And another fanfiction is born!

The next scene fades in on a view of Valmar’s Moon through a window. And we all know those nighttime cut scenes can’t mean anything good. Indeed, the camera pulls back to show Mary Sue gazing out the window. I’d like to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that she’s thinking about that cool book she read last week, or maybe making vacation plans for when this is all over. You know, something upbeat and fun. Sadly, I would just be deluding myself — she’s obviously wallowing in self-pity.

This scene apparently takes place in the common room, so when Ryudo approaches her, I only have to feel nauseated because of the Romantic Nighttime Conversation potential and not because he’s in her hotel room. Small favors. Some “We are Attempting to Build an Annoying Relationship Between These Characters” music drones in the background as Ryudo strikes up a conversation with the martyr.

Mary Sue comments that Valmar’s Moon is “eerie,” as opposed to, say, “uplifting” or “joyful.” “I wonder if it always stares down on us like that,” she says. I’m totally praying for Ryudo to go, “Um…it’s the moon, dumbass.” He kind of does: “No use getting worked up about something you can’t do anything about. Besides, we’re pretty damn far enough away from it.” I suddenly have this totally awesome vision of the moon crashing down a la the big angry moon from Majora’s Mask and crushing this entire miserable planet. Beautiful.

“…I suppose… but what of the presence of Valmar… inside of me?” Mary Sue innuendos. The game designers seriously need to stop pandering to the fanboys like that. It’s giving me the willies. No pun intended. Like the aforementioned fanboys, Ryudo practically jacks it over the thought of the scrumptrilescent Millenia. He tries to convince Mary Sue that there are worse things than being possessed by a hot, scantily-clad demon chick. A chorus of harpies couldn’t screech as loud as Mary Sue after that comment. Ryudo has to brace himself against her hissyfit.

“Who knows when… Millenia will do something like Gadan did — or worse? What if her purpose is to restore Valmar to life?” Mary Sue wonders. Well, she kind of has a point, there. Ryudo is all, “Uh, we’re going to the Cathedral to fix that, remember?” But that’s just the crazy logic of people trying to think positively and solve their problems. That has no place in the repertoire of a Mary Sue! “‘Valmar prepares a dwelling place within the souls of the wicked…'” she quotes from some unknown yet asinine source. “I am sure that Millenia is the evil inside of me: she is the blackness in my soul!” Mary Sue freaks, like Millenia is some horrible child-molesting, dog-raping murderer instead of a hot babe who hits on guys and helps the team out in battle. Seriously, let’s get a grip here.

Ryudo, having already tried to appeal to her sense of logic in order to cheer her up, now attempts to…well, I’m not sure what he’s doing exactly, but he wonders “what happened to [her] happy face.” So maybe he’s just trying to irritate her. Or me. I hope he’s not actually seriously asking that. “C’mon, we’ll knock on the doors of the Cathedral. Zera will get off his porcelain throne, and he’ll make everything okay,” he finishes. And thanks for that frigging visual of Zera taking a shit on the pot.

Mary Sue is all, “Hel-LO! I’m trying to be a victim here, and you’re crashing my pity party!” Ryudo apologizes for drowning out the ensemble of tiny violins with his annoying optimism. And when Ryudo is optimistic compared to you, you know that you’ve reached lethally irritating levels of negativity.

At this point, Ryudo has no choice but to call her bluff. He’s all, “Millenia could kick my ass, but since you’re such a fucking wuss…” And then he whips out his sword. His actual sword. This is not a euphemism, you guys. Mary Sue pisses herself in fear, but I’m on the edge of my seat. Okay, I’m not really because I’m not stupid enough to think that the game designers are going to spend this much time with their tongues in Mary Sue’s ass only to kill her off now. But in that fantasy world in my brain where game designers don’t all have a personal vendetta against me, I totally am on the edge of my seat.

“Look, you’re not giving me a choice here. You can keep crying about Valmar this and Valmar that, or we can settle this now,” Ryudo threatens. Oh, baby. After a couple of seconds, he sheathes his sword — and by that, I mean that he puts the actual sword in the actual sheath. God, you guys. He figures he done showed her good, but once again, he did not count on the extreme levels of Mary Sue martyr wankst.

No comment.

“… All right, Ryudo.” She gets down on her knees and folds her hands, the prime “Kill the Mary Sue” position. “Kill me! If that will destroy Valmar…” Do it. Ryudo hesitates because he’s obviously a big dummy. “What’s wrong, Ryudo? Do it quickly! I’m a little… scared… so please, make it as painless as you are able,” she drama queens. Jesus Christ on a rollercoaster. Unfortunately, Ryudo doesn’t kill her. And that’s sort of understandable, because I wouldn’t give into that sort of wankstfest either. Still, I’m sad. But he essentially calls her retarded and adds, “That’s Selene talking, not you!” Like there’s only one person in the world who can be a freaky religious zealot and Mary Sue was totally not one until Selene came along. DURR.

“My job is to get you to the Cathedral. If you want any extras, hire someone else,” Ryudo snots. And yet another fanfiction is born. Also, we’re supposed to get that Ryudo won’t kill her because he LUUUUUUUUUUUUUURVES her. Because who wouldn’t love a whiny religious drama queen? Don’t all raise your hands at once, people.

Ryudo orders Mary Sue back to bed. Her bed. By herself. No sexual activity involved. At all. When she leaves, Ryudo strikes the Squall pose and snits, “Dammit! NOT the right approach, Ryudo. NOT the right approach!” Which…doesn’t really seem like the correct reaction to the previous wankversation. If I smoked enough crack to become a game designer, my choice of dialogue would be, “Jesus Christ, what a fucking nutjob.” But that’s just me again forgetting that everything has to revolve around the stupid Mary Sue. See, I would never make it in the biz.

Oh, but Ryudo does add, “What the hell is wrong with her?” at the end of his tirade, so maybe I have a chance after all. Ryudo decides that bed isn’t such a bad idea, and proceeds through the exact same door as Mary Sue. Ewwwww.

To add to my nausea, the next shot is a black screen with a text box reading, “Ooooh…” Groooooooss. The moaning goes on for a while as the bile rises up in my throat. I think the game designers should reimburse me for my stomach meds, because I only go through about a million per recap. Next we see Ryudo standing in place, surrounded by empty, dark bluish space. Well, that’s nice and neutral and not morally offensive. Whew. As soon as Ryudo asks the pertinent question regarding his location, four eyeballs suddenly appear, surrounding him. Yikes, that’s mildly unpleasant. Yet still preferable to a Ryudo/Mary Sue sex scene. Ryudo feels violated by the unblinking stares of the eyeballs, so he takes off running. Only to find eyeballs floating everywhere. He must feel like a female at an anime convention.

He runs for a while so that we can see various shots of him in Floating Eyeball Land and get that it’s all unsettling. Suddenly, the eyeballs disappear. Ryudo stops, looking back and forth at the empty space. But uh-oh! He turns around as a startling sound effect reveals an eyeball the size of a shoopuf that’s been staring at his ass. I think I jumped about a foot. That’s some creepy shit.

That’s how I feel while playing this game.

“Don’t… This is MY ass soul, dammit! Stay the HELL out of it!” Ryudo shouts at the giant orb. It’s all, “Derp, okay!” as it bounces off into the night. I’m just kidding, of course — it’s evil and stuff. It keeps staring at him. A bunch of Vague Screenshots From the Past flash on the screen suddenly, upsetting Ryudo. We see an artistic shot of him reflected in the pupil of the Sauron Eyeball of Doom, looking like he’s about to cry or something. He mutters that he wants to forget about all the unrevealed shit that went down all those years ago. I kind of understand, as I’d be happy if they’d stop throwing it in our faces, too.

Cut to Ryudo, fully clothed on top of the covers of his bed, still in the throes of his nightmare. He sits up in time for Skye to ask, “Ryudo, what’s wrong? You were moaning…” And you know Skye wasn’t about to stop that performance.