A random priest stands in the chamber, informing them that dinner isn’t ready yet. He leaves to go trigger the Black Screen of Random Cut Scene. This one, sadly, involves that irritating fucktard Oro, who’s currently standing near a door — guess what? — whining to himself some more. He monologues that it’s pointless to go after a legendary relic, following this with, “I must consult my auguries for some means of holding back the Darkness!” Yes, because chicken guts and tea leaves are so much more sensible than looking for a sword. Oro starts rubbing a crystal ball that’s sitting on a small table. A moment later, some ominous red light shines through the set of nearby windows and the ball goes dark. Oro is all, “Fuck, we’re dead!” and takes a look out the window. The camera does, too. Valmar’s Moon hangs huge and red right in the middle of the screen, causing the towers of the Cathedral to look even pinker. Silhouetted against the moon, standing on a curved protrusion, is a familiar form — Millenia, with her wings outstretched. Some evil porn music thrums in the background as the camera zooms in on her lasciviously.

Millenia flies offscreen, right into a Black Screen of Lazy Animators. While the screen is still dark, we hear something that sounds like glass breaking, which could mean that Millenia accidentally ran into one of the penis towers. But when the black screen disappears, it turns out that Oro’s flat on his ass on the floor, having presumably knocked over his glass ball. Although our very own party members took forever to figure out that various creatures and incidents were related to Valmar, Oro knows right away that he just saw the Wings of Valmar and screams for someone to come quickly (hee).

Unaware of the sinister porno music still thumping away in the background, our three male party members sit around the table in the guest chamber, stuffing their faces. “Truly, bread is the body’s life as the earth is to all that spring from it; so also a fine bread is loam for the soul,” Ludo drones on. Does he just string random words together? Or was he raised by Xenosaga writers? I hope the next battle ends up breaking his jaw or something so he won’t be able to talk any more. Ryudo the lucky bastard has somehow managed to tune out the beast-man’s blathering, and is lost in thought. When Tidink calls him on it, Ryudo announces that he’s going to go find the sword. Tidink and Ludo decide to accompany him. How utterly unpredictable.

Randomly, Tidink announces that this quest has meaning for him, too, but just as he’s about to explain why, a priest enters the room and interrupts him. Oh, the suspense is killing me! When will we find out what Tidink was about to say?! Ryudo gets all foot-stampy over the priest’s presence, but he’s there to tell them about Valmar skulking about the Cathedral. “Have you seen any suspicious persons?” he asks stupidly, like Valmar is just popping into random rooms and saying hi. When Tidink informs the guy that no, Valmar didn’t feel the need to visit the guest chamber, the priest is all, “Okay, see ya!” Well, that was an awkward way of progressing the plot.

Ryudo knows that Millenia is the one causing all the trouble, and wonders why she’s being all public and shit. Because Millenia has never been a showy attention whore at any point. I make Ryudo head over to the opposite side of the Cathedral where the balcony is located. The room they end up in doesn’t look like a balcony to me — it appears to be all indoors. Millenia stands on a dais, basking in the red light coming through some high windows. The camera takes its sweet-ass time gliding around Millenia as Mary Sue’s song starts up in the background. Obviously, the game designers were lazy and just reused the same musical track as when Mary Sue is actually singing. Or else Millenia is supposed to have a gorgeous singing voice as well. Wait, no, she starts talking while the music continues in the background. It’s the laziness option, then.

Millenia’s all, “So you’re gonna get the Granaschlong, huh?” There’s a big old grin on her character portrait as she says this, so I take it Millenia isn’t exactly upset about Ryudo helping out the other side. But Ryudo isn’t in the mood for polite chatter. “What the hell are you doing here?!” he screams at her. “You’re practically standing on the Dinner Plate of Granas!” While that may be true, I don’t think Millenia’s in any danger of being eaten by Granas, if you follow me. Oh, but Millenia has no cares for her own well-being. She’s perfectly happy to let Granas poke her with his big, long, divine sword as long as she gets to be close to Ryudo. Again, I doubt Granas would be much inclined toward that activity. Annoyingly, Millenia continues her clingy behavior, mistaking Ryudo’s warning about the Granaschlong as concern. “No one has ever been such a… gentleman to me before! Just do what you think is best,” she chirps. Ah, being attached to Valmar’s evil back for all those years must not have allowed her to meet quality men. The scene fades out on Millenia reiterating her determination to complete her mission before time runs out. Nothing new there.

Too bad it won’t be used to stab annoying people.

The Black Screen of Random Scene Endings warps the party back to the guestroom. I’m not sure if this is the next morning or what, but the calming organ music has replaced the stressful porn track and the Mary Sue songfest. And…there isn’t really any followup on the whole Millenia incident, not even a ChoadChat. Not that I’m complaining about the latter. In the audience chamber, Zera’s back in place on his pedestal, all anxious to hear about Ryudo’s decision. Even though Ryudo already told his decision to the other party members, he feelds the need to draw out this scene further by asking for some clarification on the matter. Because what we needed was more talking. Namely, Ryudo wants to know if the Granaschlong, after its retrieval, will belong to the Church and if it will be used in ways that Ryudo would find acceptable. “The sole purpose of the sword is to strike down Valmar. As such, it belongs to none, for this great hope Granas has given to us all,” Zera reassures him smoothly. “I’ll take your word for it,” Ryudo responds, even though he’s made it clear about fifty bazillion times in this recap alone that he doesn’t trust the Church in the slightest. I’m not sure why the sudden change of heart, unless his brain flew out the window the second the pope said, “Yeah, this thing will totally save your girlfriend.” Dumbass.

Finally, Ryudo makes it official. But he’s not risking his life and my sanity for the Church, as he is very determined to point out, just in case we were confused about his feelings on religion. “Look. I’m sick of all the suffering in the world. If Granas won’t do anything about it, then SOMEONE has to,” he wanks, making me vomit. Also, if he was all that concerned about ending suffering, then he wouldn’t constantly insist on prolonging my suffering via his nauseating relationship with Mary Sue. It’s safe to say that Ryudo is all talk.

Zera blabs to Mary Sue some crap about holding onto her pure heart and not succumbing to daaaaaaarkness — even though she already has, by her own admission — then they say their goodbyes. Then Zera turns to Ryudo and spouts some more BS: “Lord Granas spoke to me last night. I am permitted to tell you this: Ryudo must face the past should he desire the Divine Sword.” Good grief. I’m sorry, but this is just upping the retard quotient of the game, which is a very dangerous matter. Lord Granas just showed up and had a nice evening chat with the pope? The god who’s been asleep since the big battle just dialed up the pope on his cell phone for a little small talk? And what an asshole, he didn’t even bother to tell Zera where the sword is! And wow, you don’t say — an RPG hero searching for a hidden, powerful weapon has to face his dark past? A braindead slug could figure this out — I seriously doubt anyone would need a deity to show up and reveal this particular plot point. In short, Zera’s totally making shit up, and although it is blatantly obvious, no one bothers to call him on it. At least Ryudo should see through this.

Full of shit or not, Zera at least comes through with the swag — I get a new Skill Book that I’ll completely forget about before I next play this game. Bidding farewell to Mary Sue again, without so much as a word to the other people who will actually do the heavy lifting on this quest, Zera clomps back up the stairs and off the screen. With Mr. Exposition out of the way, Mary Sue practically creams herself over Ryudo’s decision. “I wasn’t going to let a dainty little princess mince and prance about without her faithful and obedient bodyguard,” he says, acting like she’s Twink or something. Everyone celebrates their RPG party reunion like they’ve been apart for months rather than under an hour of game time.

If we follow the events from the beginning of the double recap, the party would need to sleep and ChoadChat after their ten minutes of being awake. That’s why it’s kind of a shock that I’m allowed to leave the Cathedral right away — I guess this quest really is urgent. I’m just kidding — I could spend hundreds of hours building levels in the mountains without the world ending. Back on the lavender circle in front of the Cathedral, Ryudo Homosexual Anime Grins, “Never thought we’d travel together again.” You know, game designers, just because you repeat something a bunch of times doesn’t mean it’s any more believable.

We’re screwed.

The characters exchange the requisite “We all have to work together to succeed!” tripe, and muse over how difficult the next leg of their mission will be. No, I thought the game would decrease in difficulty the more I played it! You’d think that if this mission is so critical to the survival of the world, the characters wouldn’t spend so much time talking — plus, they had more than enough time to get the chattiness out of their systems in the last mindnumbing hour of the game. But no, they just keep on jabbering away like the game’s writers were getting paid per word. Thus, we get such essential gems of dialogue as, “Traveling would not be fun at all without, Miss [Mary Sue]” from Tidink and more wordy garbage from Ludo. Oh, how I pray my next party member is mute.

Now that they’ve covered the necessary motivational asskissing, the party can move on to the less important things like where they should start looking for the damn Granaschlong. The fact that no one knows the answer to that doesn’t mean they’ll actually remain silent. Mary Sue muses, “I remember… in the holy book containing a passage… ‘the People of Darkness continue to hide deep in the bowels of the earth.'” I’m not about to go back and check the books for that line. Even if she’s not making it up, it doesn’t exactly narrow it down — the earth is a big place, presumably with lots of bowels.

All of a sudden, Tidink blurts out a suggestion: “Perhaps if we visit the Kingdom of Cyrum where I lived, we might learn the meaning of these words…” When Ryudo presses him on this — and how I wish I hadn’t phrased it that way — Tidink admits he doesn’t know anything about the Granaschlong’s location. He just thinks they can “learn something useful” there. Well, his track record isn’t very good concerning informational sources. Remember how excited he was see the Cathedral library and look what a lameass place that turned out to be.

Ludo politely ignores that “contribution” from Tidink, and reminds Ryudo about the only other piece of information they know. And I use the word “know” lightly, because he’s referring to the stuff that Zera pulled out of his ass. I mean, that “Granas told him.” Yes, the stuff about Ryudo’s past, which they both take to mean Smellfice. “[Smellfice]… A long time it has been, brother,” Ryudo monologues. “Now, now, you two,” Mary Sue for some reason scolds Ryudo and Ludo, as if they just got into a pissy slapfight. Basically, she’s shooting down the idea of pursuing Smellfice in favor of Tidink’s half-baked suggestion. I’m not sure if this makes her smart or dumb — clearly, believing without question what Zera claimed to hear from Granas would be stupid, thus making Mary Sue smart. On the other hand, as I said earlier, dogs know that the RPG hero must face his tragic past at some point, so acting like that won’t happen is dumb. And of course, going along with Tidink’s completely out-of-the-ass plan is dumb. The final score comes out to be Smart: 1, Dumb: 2. Dumb it is.

And that makes Ryudo dumb, too, since he changes his mind and decides that Mary Sue and Tidink are spot on with the Cyrum idea. At least Tidink makes Cyrum sound like a decent place and not a complete shithole, although he could be lying. They’ll have to cross over the St. Heim Mountains to the east in order to reach this beautiful kingdom. Well, crap. I hope the trip over the mountains doesn’t necessitate fifty more ChoadChats.

While it would be hilarious if this completely random course of action turned out to be a dead end, we all know that’s not the case and that it has to do with the various dropped hints and interrupted exposition regarding Tidink. But you’ll have to wait until next time to see what happens, because I am all expositioned out. Stay tuned for more riveting action, excess talking, and of course, finding out Tidink’s big secret. Oh, you can hardly wait. See you next time!