Zera knows right away that Ryudo isn’t about to go off on some stupid sword retrieval trip just to be nice. So he adds, “As your reward, we shall give you whatsoever you request.” And he means whatsoever Ryudo requests. Like that. Okay, I really hope that’s not what he means. Whatever the case, Ryudo’s ears perk up at this offer. “…However, when you depart, I wish for [Mary Sue] to accompany you,” Zera adds the shit icing to the scary proposition cake.
Suddenly, three’s a crowd, as Ryudo tries to find a way to leave the baggage behind. I’m sure this is because he wants to protect her and not because, as would be the sane option, he’s sick of her. But no, the pope says that Mary Sue will be safer with Ryudo out in the wilds with all the scary monsters than in the church with all the priests. Wait, I guess that does make sense when I write it out like that.
So that’s what the kids are calling it these days.
Ryudo’s still not buying this, so the pope has to throw more exposition at him in an attempt to wear him down: “The Pieces of Valmar struggle for dominance, each attempting to devour the others in order that the Darkness will be restored.” Which I guess is why Millenia enjoys cannibalizing all the other parts we’ve encountered so far. Man, I’m tired of recapping all this exposition, but I have to press on. You guys better appreciate this. So we already knew the stuff about Granas still napping from the big, tough battle about evil, right? I mean, we’ve already been told about it twice in this double recap alone. Well, Zera thinks that the Granaschlong will help restore at least a small portion of Granas’ Light, whatever that means. I think it’s a fancy way of saying it has special magical powers. Somehow, finding this one sword will save the world and the girl. How very convenient. Of course, it’s just as likely that Zera is blowing smoke up Ryudo’s ass, but if Ryudo’s dumb enough to buy it, then there’s not much I can do about it.
There’s just one problem. Naturally, no one knows where the fucking sword happens to be located. The only clue from the “holy book” reads that it “rests with the Legion of Darkness.” Both Ryudo and I can agree that this isn’t exactly a marked treasure map to the weapon. Even so, Ryudo’s willing to consider the request, and Zera ever-so-kindly agrees on a deadline of tomorrow. I love how Zera’s like, “Help me, Ryudo, you’re my only hope!” and then acts like there’s a time limit before he moves on to the next sucker. Whatever.
‘In my pants.’
The next several text screens don’t contain anything of note — Zera just tells Ryudo that he and his buddies are welcome to stay in the Cathedral overnight. Yeah, I just bet they are — it’s kind of tough for the pope to sneak into Ryudo’s room if he’s staying all the way at the inn in town. After I have control of Ryudo again, I make him talk to Mary Sue for some reason. I guess I’m just keeping him in character. As expected, he worries all over the place over her well-being. “Oh… do not worry about me. I just want you to think long and hard about Pope Zera’s request,” she says. Hee…”long and hard.” I’m sure Zera would like that very much.
God damn it. As soon as Ryudo leaves the room, it quickly becomes apparent that talking to Mary Sue was completely pointless, since she chases Ryudo out in the hall and basically says the same damn thing. Well, except for the “long and hard” part — I guess the amusement value of that was almost worth the pain of Mary Sue’s wanksting. “Ryudo, do as he asks, please… Not for me, but for everyone… the world!” she begs. Oh, that Mary Sue, so very selfless and amazing! After this little performance, she races back into the pope’s room like the hounds of hell are on her tail.
Ryudo heads back into the audience chamber, unintentionally causing a cut scene. Oro and the three crybaby chickenwuss priests are huddling about, whining some more instead of going back to their own rooms. The disobedient jerks. Oro is the wankleader of the bunch, badmouthing the pope right there in the echoey audience chamber where any old Geodude can fucking hear them. As soon as they spot Ryudo, they rush over to him like a bunch of gossipy old broads, demanding to know all the hot details of his meeting with Zera. It’s not like Ryudo really cares about keeping the information private, so he blurts out the Granaschlong request. Something about this statement triggers a terrified blowjob expression on Cardinal Oro’s character portrait. He comes this close to saying, “Why did he ask a rotten Geodude to perform this task?” but manages to cover up his distaste…kind of.
Ryudo, although unable to catch on to the blazingly obvious plot points in the game, somehow manages to detect the judgmental nature of Oro’s statement. He gets all up in Oro’s grill about it, but Oro and his bushy geezer eyebrows are not amused. “Insolence! Listen well, stripling… it is best you abandon your search, for it is not for a churlish whelp to find the [Granaschlong].” Whoa, he’d better be careful there with that strong language or he might start busting out with a “whippersnapper” or even a “rapscallion” soon. “Tell you what I’ll do. I’m going to ignore you. And then I’m going to leave. You just stay there. Staaaaay. Staaaay. Good boy,” Ryudo responds in a condescending fashion. Well, Oro did earn that one. I’m clearly going to have to side with Ryudo here — he’s the lesser of the asshats in this scene.
Oro laments that Zera has pretty much screwed over the entire world by choosing this little dickcheese to retrieve the most phallic of holy relics, and then slinks back to his wank lair, the other random priests trailing him. Whew, I just couldn’t stand the tension of that scene any longer! Ryudo does a little more Talking To Everyone, where we firmly establish that the Day of Darkness is bad and scary. Oh, and Ryudo doesn’t like religion. Blink and you’ll miss that little bit of subtlety.
And yet another scene that has undoubtedly been featured in a fanfiction.
Time to visit the library! Tidink and Ludo are still there and not off behind one of the pillars having some “alone” time. I’m really sorry for that visual, but after that water retrieval incident, I just can’t get the disturbing possibility of that pairing out of my brain. Recapping is a very mentally taxing hobby. Instead of talking to the two of them, Ryudo dives right into the holy texts sitting on the bookshelves. I’m not quite sure why I did this when I recorded the footage — surely I should have learned my lesson about reading anything I find in a library in this game. It’s too late, though — now I get to share with you the third version of the Granas story in this double recap alone.
This one, the Holy Book of Granas, is the definitive source. Remember that the other two I stupidly read were the versions for the hicks and children of this world. Like the Christian Bible, this book is also filled with some…rather unwholesome imagery that doesn’t get transfered to the kiddie Bibles of our own world. For example: “The earth was filled with exceeding bounty: honey and milk issued from its secret founts. Then Darkness also issued its seed.” This is clearly sexual, and the terminology reminds me of a bad romance novel. Book I uses this same kind of purple prose to describe the beginning of time, where people were all happy and shit until Valmar crashed the party with his eeeeeeeevil daaaaaaarkness. Some people thought Granas’s haircut was stupid and girly and chose to follow Valmar instead, “glutt[ing] in desire and lust.” They were probably 12-year-old homosexual British boys with tiny wieners, too. The rest of the volumes (yes, this is divided into multiple volumes as well) cover the stuff we already read earlier about the battle on earth and the battle between the gods, and so on. Just to be concise (if such a thing is possible for me), about the only new thing we learn is that the battle between the followers of Granas and Valmar went on for seven days before the gods decided to fight it out.
Like Zera said, the Granaschlong is mentioned in here, in pretty much the same words he used. It “came to rest with the Legion of Darkness in remembrance of their betrayal.” In other words, to make the bad people feel guilty about being dickholes and siding with Valmar, Granas made them look at his monument to overcompensation every day. The Day of Darkness, which we’ve heard mentioned just a few times in this recap, is described as “the Light will depart and the dead shall rise to the throne of judgment.” I take this to mean that zombies will rule the planet. I can’t see how that would make this place any worse. If anything, it would probably be an improvement. After finishing reading about how the Day of Darkness will really fuck shit up, Ryudo approaches the other two, who are completely engrossed in reading. Well, thank god.
By the way, I forgot to mention that this library is rather dinky, with shelves lining only one short wall and a set of low shelves along part of another wall. There’s only a single round table in there, too. It’s not at all the fantastic informational repository that Tidink seemed to think it was. Don’t get me wrong — it’s not like I’d want to read any more books about this Granas vs. Valmar crap, but it’s still a bit disappointing. I’d like to see something on the scale of the library in Beauty and the Beast, you know? Tidink, in the midst of a book that he falsely terms “interesting,” looks up and spots Ryudo. He wonders what the pope wanted. “You mean when he was actually talking out of his mouth? Nothing that wasn’t completely ridiculous,” Ryudo informs him. Yeah, I thought that “Let’s save Mary Sue!!!!!” stuff was pretty ridiculous, too.
No, he wants to use it as a letter opener.
The Black Screen of Exposition moves the party members into the center of the room where Tidink summarizes what Ryudo just told him about the Granaschlong quest. This is silly because: a) why bother with a Black Screen when it takes all of one text box to explain it, b) why bother with a Black Screen to save us from unnecessary exposition now after hours of repetitive exposition earlier, and c) why bother with a Black Screen to save us from unnecessary exposition if another character is just going to repeat what was said during the Black Screen? I swear, this game. Ludo thinks this quest is kind of retarded, and Tidink repeats the single “clue” they have. “You find anything else about that?” Ryudo asks, like Tidink might have become psychic and started researching the whereabouts of the Granaschlong before Zera even made the request. Turns out, no. But Tidink thinks Ryudo should read the fascinating books in this vast library, adding, “They have lots of details about Valmar and Granas, the Battle of Good and Evil, the Day of Darkness, and even the Divine Sword.” Really?!?!?! Wow, I’ll get started right away on learning this completely new information. Ass.
Hee…’throb’…
Ludo wants to quit with this boring reading and go eat dinner. With this, I get control of Ryudo again, the other two trailing behind him. And God damn it, I go read some more fucking books. What is wrong with me? Well, this fourth breathtaking masterpiece is called “Holy Annals of the Ages of the Gods.” It’s funny because “annals” is one letter away from “anals.” That would be a much more interesting book, you must agree. This book is also split into four volumes, each representing a different age: Golden Dawn Age, Silvery White Light Age, Red Twilight Age, and the Black Midnight Age. As you might have guessed, this is yet another telling of the Granas versus Valmar story. Except according to Tidink, this is the original, on which the Holy Book was based. Instead of flowery sexual imagery, this one is all pretentious fire and brimstone — I think they even use the term “fire and brimstone” in there, although I’m not going back to check. Another reason that I hate recapping this stuff is that I don’t know which details will become relevant later. For example, in this tome, we find out that Granas’ followers were called “Gaolers” by Valmar’s followers (who in turn were called “Demons”). I can’t for the life of me remember if this has any bearing whatsoever on the plot, but I know if I don’t include it here, I won’t freaking remember it if and when it appears later.
No, the game only gets worse.
One relevant bit of information is that there are seven pieces of Valmar in total. That answers my question about the number of body parts I’ll eventually have to fight. I guess the Left Toenail of Valmar and the Right Nostril of Valmar will never get their turn in the spotlight after all. Ryudo makes fun of Tidink for reading and enjoying this shit — apparently, Tidink has read it multiple times since he was younger. I have to agree with Ryudo here — this isn’t exactly entertaining bedtime reading for a kid. This is probably supposed to show that Tidink is mature and intelligent for his age, but it kind of makes him look like a psycho. Also, the fact that he’s previously read these books completely contradicts what he said before about needing the vast resources of Cathedral library to understand the whole story.
Loading ...The last volume is all about the Day of Darkness, and reiterates the bit about the dead rising and taking over the earth. Ryudo snarks that this isn’t exactly a daunting prospect, since “they didn’t do so well the last time around.” Yes, but they could probably defeat the living from the smell alone. And now I sound like Ludo. Pardon me while I commit suicide. But once again, Ryudo makes it quite clear that he doesn’t even believe in the Day of Darkness. Obviously, he’s never experienced the horror of being a recapper, which is more than enough to convince someone that darkness exists.
Ryudo and the others finally leave the library and partake of a conveniently-located Gay Save Cone. Then, they enter the Cathedral Guestroom to have dinner. I notice with extreme dismay that there are only two beds in here. I don’t want to think about how they’re dividing them up. Crap, I just did. And now you get to vote on it.