This doesn’t happen, sadly, but Althena’s Mirror ends up having an unexpected effect, and yes, I actually laughed out loud typing that. If there is anything unexpected in this game I have yet to see it. Junkie!Lemia emerges from the back of the pack and mumbles, “…Mia…my dear…Mia…” Then, her head clearing more with every passing second, she says, “Do not mourn, my daughter. I am here for you.” Another searing white flash breaks the mask off of the now clean and sober Lemia’s face. Now that we can see her eyes, she looks really haggard, like she needs to take a few dozen long baths and nap for a couple weeks, but her mental faculties are quickly returning to her. She explains, “The gentle light shining forth from Althena’s Mirror has awakened me…and liberated me from the curse of this sorceress!” Yes, that was quite the “gentle light.” It only blinded everyone in the room and me as well. Also, let’s review. Two things helped awaken Lemia’s memories: Gams’s singing voice and Althena’s Mirror. But where everyone was so curious five minutes ago about how Gams had managed to stir these memories within Lemia, no one thinks to bring this up now. These people couldn’t be bigger blockheads if they were made of Legos.
While half the people in the room are picking up their lower jaws from the floor after this cataclysmic shock, and while Faux!Lemia is still insisting that she’s the real deal, Royce is slowly edging to the right side of the room, closer to Faux!Lemia and Fellatio. Oh, I do wonder what that could be about. Faux!Lemia orders Ghaleon to deep-six these pesky teenagers and her look-alike, to which Ghaleon replies, “I think not, ‘Lemia…'” So I guess her fake name is now “Lemia…” instead of “Lemia”–good to know. Ghaleon leaps forward at superhuman speed, pulling Gams away from the evil ladies. “I think you’ve been revealed as the fraudulent witch you are!” he yells at Faux!Lemia, probably thanking his lucky stars everyone here is dumb enough to be fooled by his act.
Sadly, the only one who gets Ghaleon’s ironic statement is Ghaleon.
Ghaleon goes on for a few more dialogue boxes about how wronged he feels and how his trust has been betrayed and on and on, because he’s nothing if not subtle. Jesus. Finally, Faux!Lemia drops the act. “Ha, ha, ha…then the time for revelation has come to pass sooner rather than later!” she bellows melodramatically. Oh, and “revelation”? Bitch, please. You not being Lemia is about as big a revelation as drunk girls taking their tops off during Mardi Gras.
Faux!Lemia’s proclamation sends us into another anime. But I have good news. Relatively speaking, stuff actually happens in this one. By the end, yeah, it’s just talking into the camera. But swirly fire and shit!
Anyway. We get a shot of Faux!Lemia’s eyes glowing red before she, Royce and Fellatio are sucked into a fiery cyclone. When they emerge, Faux!Lemia now is the nearly-naked, honey-blonde woman from the game’s opening anime, Fellatio has ditched the Pippi Longstocking braids for a much more fetching hairstyle, and Royce reveals that, underneath her cloak, she is wearing pasties. All three of them are also covered in all manner of tribal tattoos. Basically, they all got sluttier. Awesome!
Sinister music sets the tone for the scene as Faux!Lemia introduces herself. “I am Xenobia,” she kind of lisps (though the voice is a huge improvement over Lemia’s), “a descendent of the forgotten Vile Tribe–the innocents Althena callously pushed out beyond the wastelands of the Frontier.” One: I thought the Vile Tribe lived on the Frontier, not beyond it. Two: Oh, I am so calling her Xeboobia. The outfit demands it.
SPROING
Royce goes next: “I warned you I could see many things,” she says, while I laugh at her. “Unfortunately I have now foreseen your demise. Too bad you had to get involved.” Even if the Lemia-to-Xeboobia thing was a huge shock, what, we’re supposed to be shocked about Royce? If I didn’t know better, I would say the game designers intended some symbolism here with regard to how obvious each woman’s true nature was: while Xeboobia and Fellatio’s appearances actually change somewhat, Royce just takes off her cloak. SURPRISE!
Last of the three witches is Fellatio, who really does look pretty smokin’ hot now that she’s not dressed like Heidi in a puffy Cinderella dress. But while she does get a saucy new look, she is unfortunately saddled with the old voice actor. Sigh. “We didn’t expect you to get this far, young Alex,” she says in her ear-shredding voice, to remind us, again, that this little strip show is all for Alex’s benefit. “It’s been quite a revelation.” I actually screamed at the screen just now after hearing “revelation” again, so I had to rewind to catch the last of Fellatio’s “intro” speech. She casts a sideways glance at her sisters and adds, “But…you never can tell when luck like yours…will run out.” Looking back at Alex, she smiles sweetly. So…in the same cut scene in which Fellatio reveals herself as one of the bad guys, she begins dropping hints that she is not, in fact, one of the bad guys. Could she try being evil for five minutes before we start getting sledgehammered about Fellatio the Redeemed?
More good news: this is the last of the boring, first-person introductory anime scenes we’ll have to deal with for quite a while. No, not because the game designers came up with a more creative method for introducing us to new characters. It’s just that there won’t be any new characters for several more hours. But hooray!
The anime over, Xeboobia proclaims, “Our plan to seize control of the Guild almost worked. Now, you’ve cut short our glorious plan. You’ll pay dearly for this insurrection!” Fellatio adds that the Magic Emperor is about to enslave mankind anyway, and that the Vile Tribe will soon rule the world under him. Which reminds me. These three ladies are, if Xeboobia is to be believed, members of the Vile Tribe, who have been referred to as not only evil but as foul and, natch, vile creatures. Now, if we were in the woman-fearing worlds of Suikoden or Wind Wanker, I might be inclined to refer to Xeboobia, Royce, and Fellatio with these adjectives, but this is Lunar, and while things around here are not completely hetero, we’re far from Boystown, you know? Far enough that it seems a little strange that the game’s representatives of the Vile Tribe are boobalicious chicks.
Of course, these terms could also be indicative of the no-doubt dozens of sexually transmitted diseases festering in Royce. Fair enough.
After Royce gets her turn to speak, which she wastes with more crap about “predicting” that Alex’s life will turn to shit, the ladies make like Squall in a men’s room and blow. In their wake, they leave four gargoyles that are so awesome in their gargoyle-ness that they’re called Ultragoyles. Extreme!
Because our heroes were on the left side of the room, and the Ultragoyles materialized on the right, this battle is reversed from the norm, but the formations aren’t, which means Mia, Nash and Gams are in the front row and Alex is in the back. Oh, kick ass. Even better, Ghaleon has decided he’s feeling a little evil tired to participate, so he sits in the back with Lemia, not even bothering to zing an effortless spell or two in the direction of the party’s enemies. Thanks, Ghaleon. As long as you’re pretending that your white hair is a white cowboy hat, you could at least help out.
Thankfully, it doesn’t matter, because I was smart enough to conserve Alex’s MP and he alone pretty much wastes the skateboarding, Mountain Dew-guzzling, System of a Down-worshipping Ultragoyles. But while Alex is the one that does all the work and Nash is the one that really needs it, Mia is the one that levels up. Go team.
Again with the irony.
The Ultragoyles dead and a room full of halfwits to con, Ghaleon immediately starts up with the apologies and mea culpas and woe-is-mes. He feels so, so betrayed by those sneaky, clever women–and they must have been, to outsmart and befuddle who I am led to believe is the smartest man in this game’s universe. But Mia isn’t particularly concerned about Ghaleon’s fake feelings of injured pride and naïveté, because her mother still seems a little on the catatonic side. Back to the Magic Guild, then.
In the guild’s main hall, Mia’s concerns for Lemia have apparently gone unheeded, because Ghaleon is still talking about his ordeal as if he’s some kind of victim. He tells how he was instructed to go to the Star Chamber, “as [Xeboobia]…Lemia instructed me to do.” Freudian slip there, Ghaleon? Don’t worry–none of these dolts noticed. “How foolish of me not to realize what was transpiring,” he says solemnly. Funny word choice there, since it seems that it’s still unclear what was going on in that room, and when Mia says she doesn’t get what the Vile Tribe witches were up to, or what they could have gained from taking over the guild or kidnapping Gams, Ghaleon revises that he doesn’t know himself and that he needs more information. He believes, though, that the Vile Tribe is about to declare war on…uh…everyone else, and that Xeboobia, Fellatio, and Royce are spies sent on a reconnaissance mission. Finally, Ghaleon is demonstrating how to create a believable lie: tell as much of the truth as possible. All he really leaves out is that all three of those Vile Tribe espionage artists happen to be on his payroll. A small detail, really.
Ghaleon tells the group that, to get to the bottom of this murky affair, he must leave Vein and embark on a fact-finding mission. He plans to speak with the Four Dragons, starting with our old pal Quark. “Ghaleon wants to visit Quark?” Squeak asks, not only restating what Ghaleon just said but doing so with an obvious degree of disbelief and disapproval when Ghaleon is standing right there. Smart. Ghaleon basically says, “Quark is a bubbling fountain of exposition from which I simply must imbibe,” and asks if Alex will take him to the White Dragon Cave. Of course Alex is just as obtuse as the rest of these mental giants and, therefore, would have no reason to refuse Ghaleon’s request, but Squeak and Gams promptly accept on his behalf, just in case he lets his raging jealousy at Ghaleon and Dyne’s ten-years-past closeness interfere with his decision making. Mia, meanwhile, is to stay here in Vein and serve as interim Guildmaster while her mom gets over being locked away for months in her own jail. Mia asks that Nash stay with her in this trying time, and he eagerly agrees. There must be, like, no hot men in Vein–other than the clearly gay Ghaleon–if Mia is so willing to settle for Nash.
‘Wink.’
With all the arrangements made, Ghaleon takes off ahead of his guides to Meribia, so he can meet with Mel to arrange a boat. Mia thanks Alex eight ways from Sunday, first for helping save her mother, and then for being such a sport and assisting Ghaleon. Squeak and Gams banter to my great irritation for a few more dialogue boxes about Alex helping Mia because she’s cute, and Gams thinking Squeak is the one who likes her, yadda yadda shut up both of you. Mia is cute, Squeak likes cute girls, Gams can’t psychologically handle the idea of Alex even thinking about another woman, and we got all of it ages ago.
The NPC mages in the hall are under the impression that Ghaleon is taking this journey in order to become the new Dragonmaster, which gets the usual reactions from Squeak regarding anyone other than Alex being the Dragonmaster. To one guy, he says, nose upturned, “Ghaleon as the Dragonmaster? What do you think about that, Alex? I know what I think…” WHAT IS THAT, SQUEAK. TELL ME. I AM DYING TO HEAR YOUR OPINION.
Am I the only one creeped out by this?
Mia, Nash, and Lemia are unsurprisingly devoid of any tidbits of wisdom worth repeating (unless you want to hear more about everyone’s shock, SHOCK! at the evil nature of Xeboobia, Royce, and Fellatio, and if you do, you deserve to have your ass kicked), so Alex, Gams, and Squeak depart the Magic City of Vein. But before meeting with Ghaleon in Meribia, Alex first pays a visit to the Shrine of Foreshadowing. I didn’t mention this on the first visit, but Fellatio had a personal assistant at the Shrine, a disgustingly sycophantic purple-haired Althena devotee of undetermined gender. By now, the news of Fellatio’s true nature has gotten back to the people here, and Fellatio’s bootlick now feels like his or her whole life has been a lie. S/he admits to thinking that, “if the Goddess became human, she would be like [Fellatio].” I can only hope, for the sake of all those with auditory sensory organs on this tiny planet, that a human Althena would not have Fellatio’s voice. (We know whose voice she’ll have. But still.) The disillusioned priest(ess) hands Alex Fellatio’s Bromide, being sure to first check it for any telltale sticky stains. This second bromide in Alex’s collection (though he has entrusted Mia’s Bromide 1 to its original owner) is a rather tame picture of Fellatio, in cleavage-revealing Vile Tribe regalia, frolicking with tropical birds in a sunny aviary. The most notable thing in the image, actually, is a giant parrot head in the foreground, beadily eyeing the viewer. Eek. It far outranks Fellatio’s limited T&A in terms of noticeability. But I promise, loyal fanboy readers, that the bromide fare will become more risqué as we progress in the game. Don’t give up hope.
Now that we’re up to date on our porno collection, it’s time to rendezvous with Ghaleon, but that will have to wait for another day. In the next recap, we’re in for even more staggering plot twists and turns than we’ve already encountered! Incredible but true! Get ready to die from shock in part seven!