We establish through some more scintillating dialogue that a) Ryudo had a bad dream, and b) he wants to forget about the past. Now that we’ve had those two things forcibly embedded into our skulls, Ryudo comments, “That was the… dream they saw!” Without any further information on this random “they” (the freaky eyeballs?), I get control of him. Okay. I walk him over to the window, because obviously that’s what I’m supposed to do. Surprise! There’s an eyeball floating just outside. This one isn’t as big as that honking final one from the dream. Another difference is that this one has some pokey things on it, which obviously serve some purpose. I have no idea what that is, so you guys get to decide.

“It was… that THING!” Ryudo shrieks, confusing me. It’s clearly not the same eyeball from the dream, and if it’s the “they” he was referring to, how would he know that some random pokey eyeball thing was outside the window? It’s the mystery of the ages. The eyeball has a schedule to keep, so it flies off, accompanied by some creepy sound effects. “The cause of the nightmares…? If so, this village’s curse…” Ryudo says. Could he be getting close to the solution? Nah.

As if the flying pokey eyeball wasn’t disturbing enough, at that exact moment Tidink and Ludo run into Ryudo’s room. We establish that none of them were harmed by the pokey eyeballs, but it sounds like Ludo also had a bad dream. Probably one in which his nose was stuffed up. Ryudo reiterates his hypothesis that the pokey eyeballs are responsible for the nightmares of the villagers. But what about the cursed villagers who are having good dreams? Whatever, let’s just chase some stupid eyeballs.

But first, Mary Sue has to run in, just so that Ryudo can make sure she’s okay and tell her about the nightmare-inducing pokey eyeball. Christ, we get it. For some reason, Mary Sue and Ryudo deduce that Irina must be in danger as well. Even though the four of them (five if you count Skye) are fine after their eyeball experiences. It would be totally awesome if they busted into Irina’s room, all, “WE MUST SAVE YOU!!!” and she’s just sleeping. But of course, their random hunch was right — a pokey eyeball hovers over Irina’s bed, raping her in the brain. So Irina must feel like she just watched FLCL.

The pokey eyeball is all, “Oh shit!” as it jets out of there, but the damage is already done. You know, it feels like we’re getting conflicting information here. From what we were told before, it sounds like the villagers just fell asleep in the middle of other stuff — like Irina’s kid when he was playing with Samara for example. No one said anything about brain-raping eyeballs. But suddenly, we’ve morphed into a world where the eyeballs sneak in when people are asleep to steal their soooooouls. So which is it? How does Samara fit into all this? Is she commanding an army of evil eyeballs? It would be a lot more exciting than anything else in this game.

This is only just the beginning of the recap, so let’s move on before our brains leak out of our skulls prematurely. Skye decides to chase the pokey eyeball. Is he also going to peck its eye out? Can he peck the eye out of something that is an eye? It’s like one of those paradox thingies.

Ryudo once again bitches about the pokey eyeballs being responsible for this whole clusterfuck. Wait, I’m confused here — what does Ryudo think the eyeballs did again? Seriously, we’re totally getting it over here. At least I gain control of my party in order to finally do something — and traipsing around the inn earlier doesn’t count. It’s time to head outdoors and take care of this mess.

As soon as the group steps outside, two eyeballs race past. The icing on this cake of incompetence is Ludo’s next statement: “Ah, I see now the source of our trouble.” Sometimes I wish I could reach into my TV screen and put dunce caps on people. Cripes. Luckily, that’s the last statement on the matter. Just kidding! Tidink the God Damn Neurosurgeon einsteins, “So THOSE things are causing all the nightmares?” You know what that means!

DURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

These people all need to be shot. Speaking of shots, I’ll be right back. By now, the eyeballs are whizzing all over the place. Er, not like that. They hover over Sandra and Samara’s house, joined by a third eyeball a moment later. I’m sure their choice of meeting place is random and not at all suspicious or foreshadowy. Now that the whole gang is there, the three pokey eyeballs zoom into a nearby cavern with a handy Gay Cone nearby. So it doesn’t really matter that Irina can’t provide my resting and saving needs at the moment. Plus, I have the added bonus of not having to listen to her bitching. Yay for the eyeballs!

“There are so many of them!” Mary Sue dipshits, barely able to count to such a high number. Regardless, I have to go chase down that mob of eyeballs and stab them with pointy things. That image kind of makes me wince for some reason. At the entrance to the cave, Skye comes flying out to meet the party, causing the annoying “URGENT! URGENT!” music to die down a bit. “Skye! Where’d they go?” Ryudo tards. “Into that McDonalds over there, YOU FUCKING IDIOT,” Skye responds. Okay, I get that Ryudo couldn’t see the cave from the inn, so I’m willing to cut him a bit of slack. Except for the fact that he saw Skye — who was following the eyeballs — come out of the cave. It seems that he’s still a moron.

In case the rest of us aren’t as smart as that genius Ryudo, after Skye replies, the camera pulls out a bit to show us the cave. Which is right in front of the party. And the little directional compass thingy is also pointing directly at it. Seriously, I think I can figure this out here.

We establish once again that we must follow the eyeballs into the cave. Then I get control of the party again and the music screeches back to full volume, shattering my eardrums.

Wait, what am I supposed to do now?

Oh, right. The cave. It’s another of Grandia II’s exciting underground dungeons filled with monsters. The first ones that inevitably ambush me look like badly sunburned Uruk-hai. I can already tell that this dungeon is going to be loads of fun. Well, anything from Lord of the Rings can only be an improvement over the rest of this game. Except for that giant spider. Hey, maybe it was Shelob that made the Skyway cable.

A random cinnamon roll-shaped hill is really the only other interesting thing in this dungeon. That means I can be lazy about recapping it, yay! I mean, I love recapping dungeons. They are the best and I can barely contain my excitement.

The next chamber is an underground lake with a handy walkway. Oh, and there’s a broken Seal of Granas in the center. A minor detail. “Isn’t this a Seal of Granas!?” Ryudo morons, as if there’s anything else in this game that looks like one. “As I had suspected, it has been broken…” Mary Sue lies out her ass. She had no fucking idea. She steps forward to comment on a group of green pixels in the center of the platform — apparently, it’s a familiar-looking flower. Well, Mary Sue, since you’re such a fortune-telling wizard, why don’t you fill us in on where you saw it before? Oh, that’s right — because everyone in this game is stupid. Everyone.

Before we find out the surprising and shocking connection between Samara, her magical garden, and this evil place, four pokey eyeballs crash the party. Well, it’s not like they invited Ryudo and the others into their fine home, so I can understand their irritation. Think about how you would feel if you were sitting down to a nice dinner and those assholes with their moronic dialogue barged into your house.

Thus begins a very irritating and drawn-out battle. The eyeballs — properly named Eyeball Bats — have roughly a Jesuszillion HP. It also turns out that my party is as slow physically as they are mentally — the Eyeball Bats end up with a grossly unfair number of turns. Ryudo winds up dead in the first minute of battle. Oh, and did I mention the lovely eyeball attack that does about 500 HP of damage? Well, I might as well do so now, since Ludo dies from it. This battle is going awesomely.

I won’t keep you in suspense any longer — I manage to squeak by with a victory somehow. And I know there are a few of you out there right now with an e-mail already half-written about how shitty a gamer I am for not having XYZ attack or for not using some fantastic kill-everything move at the beginning of battle. No, no, don’t stop. In fact, I encourage you to send them to me so that I can get the chastisement I truly deserve for being such a subpar human being. This is your moment to shine, people. I promise you I will take your 1337 gam0r comments to heart and spend the evening crying into my Squally body pillow and I won’t laugh at you one bit.

Apparently that battle was important enough that I manage to earn a Skill Book from it. Okay, I don’t feel so bad about sucking then. Afterward, on the glowy platform of evil, Mary Sue predicts that the villagers will be all better now. “No. These things are small change. Nothing like Gadan. The real money’s somewhere else,” Ryudo says. Not only is that a giant DURR, but it’s completely the opposite of what he’s been saying throughout the entire recap. So what happened to change his tiny mind?

Ludo explains his and likely Ryudo’s reasoning: the Pure Evil responsible for the villagers’ plight must be a LOT harder to beat than those wimpy eyeballs. First of all, it’s amusing that they’re using game logic (monsters not that difficult = must not be boss) within the game. Second of all, what the hell is Ludo smoking with this “not hard” business? Excuse me, but he croaked once during the battle. I’d hate to see what he thinks is challenging.

So it’s decided that they must hunt down Valmar himself — or, more accurately, one of his organs or appendages — in order to get anywhere. I’m glad they finally caught up to the rest of us. Except for the part where they haven’t figured out which villager is the tool of Valmar yet. Well, they’re all tools, but you know what I’m saying.

A Black Screen of Magical Teleportation returns the group to the inn, where Ludo asks, “…Is this too the work of Valmar?” I have no idea what he’s talking about — at first I think he’s referring to something that took place at the inn in their absence. But then I realize that he’s actually just realizing that Valmar is responsible for the plight of the town. I am not joking. This guy makes Tidus look like a nuclear physicist.

Ryudo responds in the affirmative, reminding Ludo of the broken seal while at the same time managing to refrain from punching the oversized furry in the face. Mary Sue interrupts this essential exchange as she exits Irina’s room. We learn that Irina, like her son, is still unconscious. Tidink arrives a moment later to inform us that people either fell into unwakeable sleep or had nightmares the previous night. I don’t think this conversation could be any more boring or pointless if they started reciting multiplication tables.

To add to the thrilling nature of this scene, it turns out that Ryudo, Tidink, and Ludo all had shitty dreams about their Tragic Pasts. Yet Mary Sue slept like a baby. I’m sure this has something to do with her possession by Millenia, but I’m kind of surprised that she didn’t at least make up some horrible nightmare just to make sure her wankst wasn’t upstaged.