As the ’80s adventure music continues, the camera follows the zeppelin from overhead as the life gradually disappears from the ground below. I’m pretty sure I never bothered mentioning this before, but one of the books in the Magic Guild library explained that the Frontier comprises the furthest reaches of Lunar, where Althena’s magic could not touch it to make it green and vibrant. How shitty of a deity is Althena if she couldn’t even get her magic hands all the way around one tiny planetoid? As the kids fly north, the desert at the edge of the Stadius Zone gradually gives way to, well, the moon. “What a horrid place!” Mia says, now permanently affixed with sad face. “No trees, no grass, no…life.” And no wifi! Terrifying. Kyle is literally looking out the window for the Magic Emperor, and I’m about to call him a pud, when the airship rises over a cratered ridge and the game abruptly switches to an anime cutscene. In the distance, our heroes spot a massive fortress, crawling with wires and machinery and beaming spotlights into the night sky. A phallic spire covered with metal crenellations rests in the center, practically thrusting erotically at the stars. In case we don’t get that this is THE GRINDERY, the Magic Emperor’s theme music is even playing. Well, Kyle, I apologize. “Alex…” Squeak breathes. “Look at the size of that tower. Is [Gams] really in there?” I mean, maybe she isn’t. Maybe Ghaleon has her sequestered on some tropical island. “She’s in there,” Alex says with solemn certainty. “And so is Ghaleon.” Okay, then!
Looks like THE GRINDERY is having a one-night-only new and used RV sale.
Out of the cutscene, since what follows would have been too exciting and dramatic to show in an animation, Jess grits her teeth and gets ready to fly over the lip of the crater in which THE GRINDERY resides. But the ship, er, grinds against a forcefield doming the entire crater, and Squeak begs Jess to land the ship before they crash this one too. Unlike Mia and Squeak, Kyle seems all too happy to just rub up against this forcefield until it magically lets him enter, but Jess spots a town just outside the crater, and figures they might be able to find another way in. There’s no reason to think this is true, but surprise! It is. I guess it makes sense, since Ghaleon isn’t about to invite Alex to THE GRINDERY and then not answer the door.
Don’t be scared, Alex! Just slide on in!
Jess brings down the airship just outside this “town,” which on the map looks more like a diagram of a vaginal canal made of green stone. But when the party enters, the place, called Talon, turns out to be a small settlement, complete with its own Vile Tribe town greeter. It turns out that the Slag Sisters are something of an exception to the appearance of your typical Vile Triber, since the rest of them resemble pointy-eared, green or purple goblins. How the former sprang from the gene pool of the latter is 100 percent beyond me, but I’m not the moon’s version of Gregor Mendel, holed up in my shack in Iluk, trying to make trolls sprout hot lady blossoms.
Loading ...The greeter figures these folks must be “the new miners,” though he wonders, “Say…has anyone told you how much you look like…like humans?” He immediately apologizes, because, “Well, you DO! I don’t make ugly mugs, I just call ’em!” So, wait, does this mean the Slag Sisters are considered incredibly ugly in their tribe? What is even happening? The greeter also helpfully lets them know there are already “rumors” about humans being on the Frontier. Probably because Ghaleon has been throwing flyers into the mines advertising the Summit for Peace Festival he’s holding with Dragonmaster Alex at THE GRINDERY. Gams is even performing a free concert! Attendance is mandatory.
It only takes a few conversations with the Vile Tribe NPCs scattered around Talon to see what’s going on here. Ghaleon has apparently conscripted the entire tribe to mine for and construct THE GRINDERY, as part of his grand plan to wrest control of the world from Althena and her beloved humans and hand it over to the Vile Tribe. Everyone in the settlement and the mine is somewhere on the spectrum ranging from still believing this bald-faced lie to being totally fucking over it. And even those who are still hanging onto hope are exhausted and downtrodden from long work hours and abusive mine guards. The point is, this is a cheery, productive workplace. The miners are, to a man, so beaten down in body and spirit that they barely even comment on the presence of these human-looking motherfuckers, let alone do anything about it. The guards who theoretically should be hunting Alex down, meanwhile, are busy getting shitfaced in the underground tavern, and honestly seem just as miserable as the miners they’re subjugating. Everyone’s happy!
With no other options, the gang enters the mine. Yeah, it’s ridiculous to think that they’ll just find another exit taking them where they need to go if they plunge deep enough underground, like they’re digging to China, but we know that’s exactly how this is going to go. The mine itself is, to my defective brain, a labyrinthine mindfuck of doorways, rock arches, and rickety wooden plank bridges, and is overall an indecipherable mess of blended-together gray and brown. I feel like I’m trapped in the world’s ugliest magic eye book. This is not new, but without a map, I would have no prayer of traversing it and finding all the swag it, for some inexplicable reason, contains. Yeah, a lot of the treasure chests here contain healing items, but plenty don’t, and I really do not see the upside of the guards keeping a bunch of magical protective gear around these miners they’re constantly beating up and mistreating. It’s not as dumb as keeping weapons in the chests, so I guess it’s lucky everybody in the party pretty recently got an upgrade in that department.
For once, the monsters in a Lunar dungeon almost make sense. Probably half of them are some form of Vile Tribe guard, though one type–wearing bucket helmets with flaming tassels, and wielding iron flails that allow me to say Mia is getting slapped in the face with a lot of balls–is called Groper, aka the worst character idea Children’s Television Workshop has ever had. The guards with all-red plate armor and boring swords and shields, meanwhile, are Stalkers. Poor Mia–she’s getting all these balls slammed into her face and having to deal with stalkers. Are they trying to remind her of what she’s just lost?!
About halfway through the mine, a Groper smacks Alex in the face with his ball so hard that he becomes confused–sexually, I am contractually obligated to assume–and he lights up both Jessica and Kyle with Sword Dance. And then Jess becomes a corpse, and he’s even more confused! The only person more confused, in fact, is me, since it’s around this time that I become so hopelessly lost that I have to backtrack all the way to the beginning of the fucking mine just to get my point of reference back. Maybe if I get a big metal ball to the chin I’ll suddenly understand directions.
Gotta say, tank treads would have made it easier for R2-D2 to get around Tatooine.
Easily half an hour later, after I’ve walked Alex through the same jagged corridor with an empty chest at least eight times and started to think I’ve gone insane, the party enters an area with some Vile Tribe miners hard at work. One green goblin man shrieks when Alex approaches him, “Okay, I’m digging, I’m digging! You don’t have to jab me in the butt with your sword again, really!” And just to make sure we get it, he goes on, “Hey, you’re not a guard! Sorry about that little outburst. These days, I just kind of expect the steel spanking when someone sneaks up behind me…” Wait, is the sword smacking him on the butt or poking him in the butt? Working Designs, these are not the same things. But this guy has to provide some “comic relief,” because another of his brethren, a purple Vile Triber in a corner of the cave, tells the group, “We dig and dig until we choke on the dust and dirt…but it never stops. The digging never stops… I envy the ones who died. I envy them because they don’t have to dig…” So far, the teens have not had a single thing to say in response to these abused miners, which makes them seem a bit aloof about the whole thing, but it’s possible their privilege is being so thoroughly checked that it’s knocked the wind out of them.
No sooner have they escaped the room of sad miners when they hear a loud rumble and a cry for help from that same room. Mia realizes that one of the mine tunnels must have collapsed. She and Jess are eager to go back and help, but Kyle reminds them, “We can’t go back there, Jess! Are you forgetting that we’re sneaking around this place?” Well, maybe she didn’t, but I did, because they’re doing a terrible job of it. They’ve literally talked to every Vile Tribe NPC they’ve found, including the guards. I’m basically providing Jess a counterargument here, but she decides instead to yell, “REAL compassionate, Mr. Nice Guy! Comments like that make me ashamed to know you!” Wasn’t Jess the one who had to be browbeaten into healing a guy in Damon’s Spire, when there wasn’t even a compelling reason not to help? Is rank hypocrisy what passes for character growth around here?
Kyle, possibly speaking of character growth, is too exhausted to argue about this further, and appeals to Alex to make the call. Alex chooses to go back, but has some, uh, choice words as to why: “We must try to help them, even if what they’re doing is wrong…” Alex. Buddy. Nobody said one word about the Vile Tribers being undeserving of help because of their actions, because they are, you know, literally fucking slaves being forced to work here, so that would be bonkers. Was he even listening to Kyle and Jess? Not that I would blame him if he’s long since tuned them out. Mia adds, “Because if we don’t, we’re just the same as the Magic Emperor!” Sure. Totally the same. But way, way less fashionable. Kyle decides they’re all idiots, but clearly wanted to be convinced to help because he’s a hooker with a heart of gold. So they’re off!
Back in the last room, a rockslide has trapped the miner who was just fantasizing of his own death freeing him from his eternal hard labor. I’m sure he would not have chosen to go out this way, but he was literally asking for it. The other miner nearest the rocks refuses to help them, as he will get it from the guards if he stops working for any reason, so the kids approach the rubble themselves. The four of them use teamwork to hump the three largest boulders pinning the miner, though Kyle’s sprite has the easiest time erotically heaving the debris out of the way, and Mia kind of stays out of the way until most of the work is done. Just like in battle!
I am hypnotized by Kyle’s sprite ass.
Once the miner is free and Jessica has healed him up, the shithead who refused to help comes over, shocked that these fug humans actually saved his coworker. And that’s the cue for a line of guards to jog in, their leader shrieking, “What the hell is going on here?! You all know you’re not supposed to stop working for any reason! Leave this fool to die and get back to work before we decide to execute the lot of you!” That really feels like an empty threat–if they are so hard up for materials that the miners aren’t allowed to stop working at all, executing a bunch of them seems counterproductive. But they’re not going to have time to explain it to me, because it dawns on them that they are face to face with the humans they’ve been told to look for, so now they all have to die.
Because those guys are the fucking Green Berets, right?
Once the single Groper and three Stalkers have been permanently retired from ball-swinging and up-a-tree-peeping, Kyle is barely allowed a moment to crow about their victory before Jess decides they should move on, lest any more guards cotton onto their presence. So, suddenly he’s feeling the rush of good samaritanship and she’s worried about being caught? Remember how I said Jess and Kyle are never on the same page? Yeah. The second they head through the door, though, Fellatio teleports in. The other Vile Tribers do not even blink at her sudden appearance, so I guess she’s not regularly plonking them with sacks full of doorknobs. “Hmmm. How interesting…” she says to herself. “They saved that miner’s life, even knowing the danger they faced in doing so… With such selfless bravery in their hearts, they might yet defeat the Magic Emperor…” Jesus please us, we get it. Their hearts believe! I mean, Alex’s heart near literally exploded with sunlight last time, and Damon even checked Buzzfeed to make sure they’d all be in Gryffindor based on their favorite pizza toppings, but no, let’s keep belaboring the point. These hot teens are super amazing people.
Which conditions? Asking for a friend.
The party continues to plumb the depths of the mine, mostly uneventfully, until they enter a cavern filled with wooden stakes driven into the ground. Squeak is dumb, so Mia has to explain to him, frowning, “These look like markers, [Squeak]…grave markers. This must be where the miners are buried…” Kyle deems this incredibly sad grave site “pathetic,” like even if the miners themselves wanted to, they’d be allowed the time or resources to chisel out hundreds of marble headstones and carpet the cave with a perfect green lawn. Dick. Jess says they should “petition Althena” to watch over these dead, when the whole Gams-damned point of this place is that Althena’s divine hand doesn’t extend this far. But lo! What’s up ahead, but a total flouting of that entire premise! In the middle of the graves stands a statue of Althena. Of course, the kids wonder if this means the dirty heathen Vile Tribe actually believes in the goddess, and spare no thought for why this statue would have any effect out here. Of course they don’t. Standing behind the statue is the purple miner they rescued earlier. He thanks them, since he didn’t have the chance to before, and waves away how he arrived here before they did with some nonsense about super-secret passages known only to the miners. (The real answer is that he didn’t have to fight a dozen battles with R2-D2 tanks and giant scorpions. Honestly, these kids.)
‘Take me, Kyle! Jessica won’t even notice!’
Jess the seminary dropout, as the group’s foremost expert on religious hypocrisy, asks Grape Goblin what the statue is doing here. “I thought the Vile Tribe hated the Goddess…” she adds. Jesus, wouldn’t you? You’ve seen this place. Grape Goblin admits that they very much do hate her, but adds, and this should make everyone here feel like garbage, “But the only way we can survive here with such weak magic is to look to the very Goddess we hate.” Jessica de Alkirk, Fifth Year Senior Priest of Althena and Compassionate Beast Lady, responds to this with an unmistakable smirk, “What irony…” I know, right? So dramatically intriguing how these people are forced to live in Bumfuck Egypt, in literal slavery besides, because of something their distant ancestors did, and as a result they are forced to pray to the deity who did the banishing just to stay alive, no doubt adding psychological torment to their physical torment. It’s like ten thousand spoons when all you need is to eke out a meager existence in a desolate crater!
Shut up, Jess.
Grape Goblin, before walking away, reminds them that the other members of the Vile Tribe aren’t operating on the benefit of having their lives saved by humans, so they should watch out. But fear not, because Squeak has “a good feeling” they are close to finding Gams! Well, thank goodness for that. I don’t know what I would have done if Gams weren’t nearby. After using this statue that somehow fucking works and doesn’t just fart out like 5 HP worth of healing before crumbling to dust, the kids proceed upstairs for a couple of screens, when the music temporarily dies. Kyle correctly notes that it getting “quiet” in here means some shit is about to go down, causing me to wonder for the second time if people in this game can actually hear the background music. As they walk forward, the cave is plunged into pitch black. “Alex! Alex, I’m blind!!” Kyle shouts. “I can’t believe this…I always thought that saying was just a myth!” No, dude, it’s totally true. If you shout “CHICKS!!!” enough times into an empty, uncaring room, you will totally lose your eyesight. It’s why Larry Butz is going to reveal his next career as a blind oracle in Anal Attorney 6. You heard it here first.
After Squeak is done not getting Kyle’s jerking off joke and Jessica is done rolling her eyes, she notes they are in trouble right before they hear something that sounds like firecrackers whistling into the sky, and both girls scream. When the lights come back on, the boys and Squeak see Xeboobia on a nearby ledge, holding Mia and Jessica captive inside the sprite models of those creepy moaning face balls from the Black Dragon Fortress for Broing Down. And judging from Mia’s pained screaming, they’re clamping down on the girls like egg avatar boa constrictors. Kyle demands Xeboobia let the ladies go, and Xeboobia takes at least twice as many words as is necessary to deny his request, but comes up with a stipulation: “I’ve just the ticket! A fight…Kyle versus Alex…to save their dear friends. Should you fail to cooperate, you’ll be witness to an…uncomfortable…execution!” Why doesn’t she just kill them? I know I’m asking a Villains 101 question here, but seriously, just fucking kill them. What is her game plan, to force Kyle to kill the Dragonmaster so she doesn’t have to? Why didn’t she trap Alex in the Orgasm Face Superball? Just like a real Twitter egg, does it only know how to attack women?