After a while, Gams starts to spill her guts about what she thought their future would be like. Apparently her version didn’t include Alex with a sword, kicking ass and taking names. She wanted the house, the white picket fence, the 2.3 children, and a smart-assed flying cat for a pet. Alex is either listening silently or he’s fallen asleep on his feet. But now Gams is afraid of what may happen to them. Wah. Alex asks “What’s wrong” because I was right and he hasn’t been listening. Gams chalks up her fear to the “bad dream” she had–am I the only one who thought it was more cryptic than creepy?–and assures herself that they’re going to have fun on the road. Gams feels a lot better now that she talked to herself for five minutes and bids Alex goodnight. And reminds him to get to bed and to make sure to brush his teeth. Her “Mother knows best” attitude is much, much creepier than that dream could ever hope to be, y’know.

I don’t even want to know how she knows that.

The next morning, Alex’s parents are out on the doorstep to give Alex, Gams and Squeak a good send-off. They each advise Gams to “take care” of Alex and Squeak to keep his damn mouth shut lest he get everyone into hot water. Alex gets the you’re-a-man-now-watch-over-Gams-and-we-love-you talk, again. It’s like they got one of those books on how to talk to your kids, but only read one chapter over and over. Bye-bye to Mommy and Daddy, and to the front gate of Burg, where Ram-It is waiting. He’s not at all surprised that Gams is with them, and I for one am thrilled that someone actually noticed how predictable Gams’s behavior is. At long last, the kids leave Burg and try their luck again with the Weird Woods.

It’s foggier than ever, of course. Ram-It whinges some more, but before they can all run back home again, Gams tells them she’d like to try something. Squeak is skeptical. I mean, her songs can fucking heal, but there’s no way she has any power of her own! Dipshit. Gams lets loose with the “la la la”-ing and after a moment the fog magically clears. Squeak continues to act like this is a gigantic shock, and Ram-It says, “Your voice, [Gams]…it’s magic!” NO, REALLY?!?!?! Gams again puts on her Angsty Face. She explains that she didn’t even know what she was doing until she was doing it. It’s like…I don’t know…magic or something.

These people are all MORONS.

Tra la la, through the Weird Woods we go. The gang encounters a number of new monsters in here, and a gold star to anyone who correctly guessed they’re poisonous plant monsters. Just once I’d like to see a forest full of ice creatures. Without it being an ice forest. Ram-It continues to gain weight instead of attack power, and it’s in here that Gams actually eclipses him in the latter. When the game’s eventual damsel in distress can do more damage than you, you know you’re wasting precious oxygen. There are treasure chests scattered to and fro, every one of which contains an antidote. Given the nature of this place I would be thankful for that, except that poison wears off after battle and it’s a waste of time to use them in battle, as the monsters will just re-poison our heroes anyway. So now I have 10 antidotes I don’t need. Thanks so much, game designers.

We continue through the woods and make it to a large clearing. There’s an orange treasure chest hidden nearby, which turns out to be locked. I start to wonder just who would leave all these damn treasure chests, locked or no, out in the middle of nowhere. And what’s the point of sticking herbs and antidotes in a chest? Aren’t they all over the forest anyway? I suppose I’ll never know. Anyhoo, Alex barely reaches the exit when the “We’re About to Be Beaten Like Red-Headed Stepchildren” music kicks in. Out of the trees four or five monsters appear and surround our heroes. That number doesn’t sound bad, but each of the monsters onscreen represents about eight actual monsters. Ruh-roh, Raggy! They prepare for the inevitable clobbering, but before it can happen a bearded weirdo in a red beret appears out of nowhere and offers his assistance. Alex is immediately suspicious of anyone who owns a weirder hat than his, and decides he can kill the baddies just fine on his own. Beard ‘n’ Beret stands back to see what our green-eyed boy can do. Now that Gams has her Tranquil Song, which heals the whole party, and Alex has his Explosion Staff (*snicker*), which targets groups of enemies, and Ram-It has…well, nothing of use at all, it’s not too hard a battle. But after several of these encounters, their MP is spent and I’m forced to allow the shaggy mystery man to help. I’m sure none of you could have possibly guessed that he’s a badass. Like Ram-It he has no magic power, but very much unlike Ram-It he has a positively sick level of physical strength, and in no time at all the monsters are vanquished.

Since when do RPG intros need to be timely?

Squeak celebrates their victory, and then remembers his earlier question–that is, who the hell is this guy? We get another anime scene to answer that. The camera pans up on Blackbeard as he sweeps back his beige cape. He calls them a “hapless bunch” and wonders if they’re out in the middle of the Weird Woods for a picnic, or if they’re just lost. When they reply offscreen (yet we can’t hear them) that they’re on an adventure, Blackbeard’s jaw drops, and then he starts laughing maniacally. He looks for all the world like Saddam Hussein from a parallel dimension. Okay, so I lied–this cutscene didn’t at all tell us who he was. Other than Bizarro Saddam. After the cut scene he tells them he’ll whip up a fire so they can sit down and tell him all about their (ha ha!) “adventure.”

Cut to nighttime. The group is gathered around a merry campfire. Bizarro Saddam tells them he’s burning herbs in the fire, which will keep the monsters away. All right, if you say so. Squeak is impressed, though for all we know this guy could be full of shit and there are monsters on their way to ambush them as we speak. Saddam finally realizes he hasn’t told them his name–even though he had all that time from daytime until now to at least mention it in passing–and introduces himself as Laike. Introductions all around, but when we get to Gams, Laike says, “Hmm…[Gams]…” and then adds, when he sees Gams’s confused face, “That’s just a name I’ve not heard in a long time.” Of course it is. We all know that whenever he last heard her name it had to be the same girl, because duplicate names don’t ever happen in RPGs. So counting when Quark stumbled over her name, that’s two for our Gams Recognition Count (GRC). Gams says they’re all from Burg, making Laike ask if that’s the birthplace of Dyne. Alex immediately goes into burbling fanboy mode. Laike encourages Alex’s dreams of Dragonmastery, like we didn’t get enough of that “You can do anything if you just BELIEVE!” crap from Alex’s dad. Guh. I’m sure Alex wants to stay up late and challenge Laike to a game of Travel-Size Dragonmaster Dyne Trivia Challenge! but the older man shoos them all off to sleep. Once left alone to his thoughts Laike murmurs, “He has the green eyes…I wonder if…” I hope the next person who mentions those fucking green eyes gets an anvil to their head, so they know how it feels.

The next morning everyone wakes up only to find Laike has already gone. These kids are so trusting–how funny would it be if he had robbed them in their sleep? Alas, it seems like RPG characters never get called on how oblivious they are. Squeak and Gams gush about Laike being rilly rilly KEWL and strong, and Gams feels it necessary to point out Alex’s relative ineptitude when it comes to swordsmanship. Since Alex hadn’t been doing 95 percent of the monster killing up until the night before. And since Gams, Ram-It, and Squeak hadn’t been standing around behind him eating popcorn. I don’t want to encourage domestic violence, but would someone please SMACK HER, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.

…or a nimrod.

Exposition!Ram-It says they have to leave the forest and go to the port town of Saith. Alex and Pals kill off the last remaining monsters in the forest, and in the process destroy the fragile ecosystem of the Weird Woods. Way to go, kids. Finally out of the gloomy forest, they travel southeast to Saith. As soon as they set foot in town Squeak’s salivary glands kick into overdrive, as the whole town smells of fish. As you will soon see, nearly every town in Lunar smells of fish. You can make your own dirty joke about that, ’cause I’m not going there. After speaking to the local NPCs we discover that this town doesn’t really give a crap about Dyne–it’s Hell Mel, the axe-wielding beastman of the Four Heroes, who everyone in Saith is dying to meet. Alex, meanwhile, is hit on by no less than three different girls. Gams, of course, eliminates off the competition with her Death Glare, but it’s not like Alex has eyes for anyone who isn’t six feet under, so she’s kinda wasting her energy.

I swear, if Squeak says one more word about fish I will stab myself to death with a ballpoint pen.

Saith is pretty boring, so after buying everyone all manner of leather armor, the gang hits the building nearest the port to gain passage to Meribia. The dockmaster tells them that getting on board the Hispaniola isn’t going to happen, but won’t elaborate as to why. Alex speaks to the ship’s captain, who admits that he gambled away his sea chart and therefore can’t navigate the sea between Saith and Meribia. Hoser. The dockmaster tells them that the gambler who won it is a guy named Brett who hangs down at the pub. And that he never loses. Yeah, well, that’s before he met a bunch of teenagers who’ve never gambled before! How do you like them apples?