Previously, it pains me to write, Nash finally stopped passive-aggressively hinting that he was working for the bad guys and very aggressively announced he was working for the bad guys, namely by blowing up the airship engine Fartnoise spent a whole day building. Mia, and only Mia, looked really sad about this. Also, Alex is the Dragonmaster now. Nash sure stole his thunder, huh? Get it? Thunder?

I should just end this recap now, since it’ll all be downhill from that killer joke, but we’ve got a lot of ground to cover. Fartnoise, you’ll recall, was reluctantly convinced to replace his engine with the one from Shira’s balloon. “Shira’s work has always been sloppy and rushed,” he bitches to Alex, who does not care, “so I’ll have to correct his design…” Hey, maybe Shira’s design provided protections for dickhead mages zapping it with lightning! Get off your high horse, grandpa.

Oh! So heart is all he needs! Time to dump this itchy Dragonmaster armor.

Since time is of the essence–Nash could be helping to further brainwash Gams, somehow, at this very moment!–Alex gets right to business and…well, conducts a whirlwind “I’m the Dragonmaster, who wants to fucking touch me?!” tour of the places he didn’t hit last time, starting with his backwater hometown. Look, what is this dapper new look of his even for if he can’t soak up the adulation of the peasants? Several of the townsfolk in Burg try to secure Dragonmaster Alex’s personal protection from the Magic Emperor, while others drop anvils about Althena not making public appearances anymore. I’m sure that won’t be relevant. Ram-It’s dad just uses Alex’s success as an excuse to shit on his estranged son. Everyone else, Alex’s parents included, drones on about how much Alex loves Gams, while Alex dribbles ellipses from his chin and I sigh deeply. Alex’s mom waxes nostalgic about how the two of them fell asleep together as babies and smiled the same way, “As though you were seeing each other in your dreams.” Ugh, mom. And besides, we know Gams only dreams of herself.

Alex’s dad also chooses this moment to make a disclosure: 15 years ago, Laike knocked on his door in the middle of the night, holding a crying baby with blue hair and “a tiny white kitten…or so we thought until the kitten sprouted wings and started to speak.” Laike then peaced out, with no guarantee that he would return, because he was a really, really shitty friend. “Here, take this baby and this smelly thing that flies and poops, and also talks! Byeeeee!” Alex should obviously have many questions about how this all went down, but one is really gnawing at me: was Laike aware back then that toddler Alex had the Green Eyes of Destiny, and that he would therefore be putting this–SPOILERS, HOMIES–baby goddess and baby dragon into the protection of the future Dragonmaster, or did he just think his old high school buddy could use a daughter and a flying ferret? And if he did know, does that mean he wanted them to be siblings who fall in love? Couldn’t he have left Gams to be raised by neighbors so this wouldn’t be so fucked up?

Incidentally, a woman by the Althena statue–HMM–even says, “If [Gams] is lost, so is our world…” Okay, either this lady is Gams’s heretofore unknown BFF and is going to throw herself off a bridge if anything happens to her, or she knows some shit. Does every random hick in this town know Gams’s deepest secret, of which even she is unaware? How hard has Alex had to try not to know about this?

Well, he has gotten really good at digging.

But lest the naïve idiocy and dewy-eyed Gams worship of this town make me vomit while rolling my eyes so hard I turn literally turn inside out and die, there is at least one smart person in Burg. A young boy tells our hero, “Hey, Alex! Now that you’re so strong, you should try to pull the sword out of Dyne’s Monument!” Goddamn, my dude, is that a great idea. Alex will get right on that…several hours from now. I mean, it’s important, but there is porn to collect. Dragonmasters have to prioritize their time.

This man should put Royce out of business.

Let’s skip ahead to Lann, since Saith is boring and everyone in Meribia’s Black Rose Street just wants to yell about Nash being a traitor and a world-class douchebag, which is not new information and is also making Mia look constipated and make abuse victim-esque excuses for him. We can all do without that. I only had the gang check on Lann’s singer last time, but there’s some other stuff going on here, and not just more people insisting they JUST KNEW Nash was shady, or others wondering where, oh where, the goddess has been lately. (It’s a mystery!)

After checking in with the town elders, who have decided Alex is an honorary citizen of Lann approximately a million years after he saved their bacon from the fake Dragonmaster, the kids head down to the docks to talk to the man from whom they once “borrowed” a rowboat. I didn’t recap this back then, but Jessica went so bonkers on this dude that he sped right through being terrified and came full circle to being in love with her. Sure. So he is now less than pleased to see her in the company of the new Dragonmaster, plus some other dude, minus that other, less threatening dude. “Oh, I get it,” he moans. “Only the Dragonmaster is good enough ta be your boyfriend…” Alex is opening his mouth to issue a four- or five-point rejoinder to this insane assumption, when the fisherman sighs and adjusts his imaginary trilby hat. “No, it’s cool. I understand! Really! I was stupid to think I had a shot…” Sassy priestess babes always want the jock in the earflap hat, not the nice, normal, one-eyed, potbellied, fish-stank guys like him! Squeak manages to communicate that Alex is not plowing Jessica, and the man perks up. “So you’re saying I still have a chance!” he says. At no point does Jess bother disabusing him of this notion–the entire scene is the men talking, including Kyle noting that he wouldn’t be so happy about having a shot with Jess if he got to know her. True love! It’s practically lighting the air on fire between these two soulmates.

“Between Jessica and the Dragonmaster,” the sad sack goes on, “we have nothing ta worry about! In fact, I’ll tell ya what. I’ll lend ya one of my most prized possessions. Here ya go…” And he hands over Jess’s Bromide 2. Jessica is now apparently so used to the prospect of random men all over the world having exploitative paparazzi photos of her that she does not react to this at all, nor do any of the others. The title of this piece is “Jessica Gets Wet,” naturally. This is a classy production. Jess, in a rather modest swimsuit, is being splashed in the ocean by some unseen person–probably Kyle, buck naked. But do I get that as a bromide? Fuck and no, I do not.

Is that a priestess-issue swimsuit?

I wish I could say we’re done filling the ol’ spank bank for this recap, but I’m not a liar. Nor am I in the target demo for this game, it turns out. Next, the teens warp on over to Iluk, you’d think to get going on this whole “fix the airship” thing, but that will have to wait. Fuck off, Gams! Alex instead decides on a whim to check in on the editor of Lunar’s seediest publication, Hot Girl News. (I think, in retrospect, he’s just an avid reader, and I’m not sure where I ever got editor. But fuck it, that’s what he is now.) He enthusiastically shares directly with Mia, “A friend of mine at ‘Hot Girl News’ sent me the best picture ever taken of you, Mia…now he’s my best friend!” His best friend up to this point was his right hand, so that wasn’t a high bar to clear. Worse, he goes on, “I’m just curious how you failed to notice whoever took this photo. I mean, if he was any closer to you, the camera would have spontaneously combusted from your intense heat!” Gross! GROSS. I wish Nash were here, because this pervert’s house would now be a crater. I mean, at least his picture of Mia features her fully clothed, and was at least plausibly taken with her knowledge.

While Mia pleads with Larry Butz to stop leering at her, if nothing else, Jess admirably stands in for Nash and wrestles the picture from Larry’s sticky fingers, landing Mia’s Bromide 4 in Alex’s inventory. “No! Oh, no!!” he sobs. “Please don’t take my pretty picture away from me! Don’t take away my reason for living!” Mia sternly and silently stares him down until he relents, albeit in the most manipulative way possible. “Alright, take it,” he says. “But know that you could have saved my life today…” Blow it out your ass, fuckboy. Maybe now that all the blood isn’t constantly rushing to the wrong head, you’ll figure out how to turn your bed the proper direction.

I know I’ve made a point of screencapping all of these bromides, but I feel weirdly shitty about this one.

This bromide, as Larry indicated, was clearly not taken with Mia’s consent. “Clean Yet Obscene,” it’s titled, because it displays Mia toweling off just so after a nice hot bath. That is to say, the towel tassels are concealing her tits and buttcrack, barely. Her cheeks are all flushed, too, because I’ve stumbled into the world’s tamest hentai sim and it took me 15 hours to notice. Once upon a time I read a fanfic that was the origin story of this bromide, and starred two horny freshmen in Vein’s Magic Guild, Porky’s style, complete with wacky hijinks. I haven’t been able to find it since, which is probably for the best, since I would be way less inclined to find it amusing now. How droll! They’re spying on Mia through a peephole! She’s going to sue them for 55 million silver!

This makes me feel the passage of time in a way I never thought PG13 anime pinups would, but life is a rich tapestry that way. With the softcore taken care of, it’s time to go to Reza, the last known whereabouts of Shira’s balloon. It’s sitting right where they last saw it, in the thieves’ bazaar. Another bald NPC is willing to sell it for 30,000 silver, but I’m just grateful he doesn’t want to trade it for one of Jess’s boudoir photos. The kids comfortably have the money, but that’s still highway robbery and they’re not about to pay it when they could just pull this guy’s underwear up over his head and take what’s theirs in the first place.

…Wait. This feels familiar.

So help me God, if this turns into another continent-wide fetch quest inception, I am writing such a sternly worded letter. But all they have to do this time, to my immense relief, is talk to the head of the Thieves’ Guild, who is so thankful to have Lily back that he’ll help them out, even after they confess they didn’t actually rescue her. Now, once again, I thought it was not kosher to steal from fellow guild members, which the dickbucket in possession of the balloon most certainly did, and here the guild master is acting like he’s doing them this huge favor by enforcing his own, and only, rule. I have about had it with this guy.

The rake in the bazaar hands over the balloon, gratis, though he’s super sore about it. And when Kyle tries to gloat about this being his just desserts for stealing from them, he replies, “Oh, hush up! You kids are thieves too, remember?” Which he apparently knew, and still stole from them! Christ almighty. I wish I could tie up this town in a burlap sack and throw it into the river.

Back to Fartnoise’s Tower. After learning from his elven assistant that Shira used to be Fartnoise’s apprentice–SURPRISE–they hand over the engine to the man himself. He admits that it’s good work, “not as good as mine, I assure you!” That shit is gone, man. Move on. “Bah!” Fartnoise says of Shira. “He could have been a great inventor with more training…but never mind that now!” So Shira and Fartnoise are basically Shu and Mathiu, but not hot. Pass. Fartnoise and his assistant are barely out the door to install the replacement engine when Laike shows up, surprised they’re not on the Frontier already. Was he seriously here to shoot the shit with Fartnoise if he thought Alex would be gone by now? Does he hate himself?

Try not to look so fucking pleased about it, Squeak.

Once Laike has been briefed on the situation, the group breaks up into chunks not unlike their split before Nash screwed them over. So yes, Mia is standing all alone while Kyle and Jess stand together across the room, gossiping about her. Which is exactly what they’re doing. “I’m gonna claw Nash’s eyes out the next time I see him!” Jess is in the middle of shouting, but not loudly enough for Mia to hear. “It’s not just what he’s done to us, it’s what he’s done to Mia!” Kyle is in snarl-face mode as well. “Nash is an idiot! How could he not understand the grief he’s causing Mia? He should’ve thought about the consequences of his actions!” It is a testament to how united they are in their rage that Jessica has no comment at all about a) Kyle suddenly acquiring enough emotional intelligence to feel for Mia, and b) Kyle being all concerned about the heartache a dude is causing his lady, COUGH COUGH.

Mia, meanwhile, is gonna die on this “Nash is just not himself right now!” hill. “Alex, you have to understand that Nash was thinking with his heart,” she says. “In his mind, he didn’t believe he was betraying us…he was protecting us from harm!” Oh. Oh, girl. No. Like, at best he was betraying Alex, Jessica, and Kyle to protect Mia and Mia alone. But really, Mia is also smart enough to know that she’s talking herself into this. “I believe in Nash,” she goes on. “I have to believe in him… Because it would hurt me too much inside if I couldn’t.” Well…that’s what you’ve gotta do, then. Relax. Have some cocoa.

And then there’s Laike, who says to the new Dragonmaster, “The Frontier is a cursed land. I don’t know what’s out there, Alex…no one does.” I feel like someone probably does, and that someone is probably lying-ass Laike, but I’m just looking for nits to pick. Worse, though, Laike asks, “Are you certain you are ready to venture there?” Again, he showed up here thinking Alex was already gone. Maybe you should have asked that question at any point before now, beardo. The second Alex is like, “Of course I’m ready, and I was ready yesterday,” Fartnoise appears to announce the airship is ready to go again. “Come upstairs and have a look at aerodynamic perfection!” They did, yesterday, when they saw it the first time. This guy.

Nope!

The party heads upstairs, and Alex talks to Fartnoise to get this show on the road before any of his other friends decide to sabotage him. Once Fartnoise is done harrumphing about how he could have done so much better if he hadn’t been pressed for time–he literally called this ship “aerodynamic perfection” five seconds ago–the kids board the ship in single file, each with a little quip on the way up the ladder to outline how they’re all feeling. In order: Kyle is going to shove his boot up so far up Ghaleon’s ass he’ll be coughing up faux fur hairballs, Jessica is excited because Kyle’s excited and she makes me sad, and Mia is annoyed with both of them for being excited when life is meaningless darkness and suffering. Mia’s turned a bit of a corner in the last two minutes.

Finally Alex boards, with Squeak burbling for them both, “Don’t worry, [Gams]…we’re finally coming!” Phrasing. Laike climbs to the rooftop just to tell Alex to do his best and to give him a peck on the cheek. And then he and Fartnoise watch as the airship fires to life, the decorative balls on its front and sides glowing in all the colors of the rainbow as a Double Dragon II “We’re going to avenge our dead girlfriend” tune whisks our heroes into the skies. As the ship flies away, Fartnoise mutters, “Quite an amazing resemblance…” Laike plays dumb, so Fartnoise elaborates, “The one between that Alex kid, and you at that age.” HMMMMMMMMMMMMMM, WHAT COULD THAT MEAN. Then Fartnoise makes fun of Laike’s beret and says he should burn it, and it’s the only good thing that’s ever come out of his mouth. Laike says, mostly to himself, “I’m sorry, Alex. I’m sorry you must undo what I have done…good luck and Godspeed, friend.” Friend? Ouch. Also, what does Laike have to do with Alex’s current predicament? Wasn’t it Dyne who did something or other in the White Dragon Cave the day Gams was born? Why, Laike was only there to deliver the baby to Alex’s parents! Somehow! Mysteries upon mysteries! This is like an enigma Napoleon.