There’s nothing left to do at the Great Seal for now, and the group heads back to the ship to prepare for their possible deaths. It’s time for another God damn cutscene aboard the Little Jack. Here, Drachma decides that they need to be well-rested before going off to fight a gigantic flying whale. That’s nice of him and all, but ten seconds ago he acted like it was a matter of extreme urgency. The fog is the key for finding Rhaknam, Drachma tells them — the whale always has a thick wall of it around him, like a haze of farts. I hope that’s not what it really is. This fog prevents ships from being able to see the big fucking whale coming their way, and suddenly they’re dead. Drachma has such specific knowledge on the matter — I sure hope we find out more of what that’s about.

*porno guitar*

The ship slowly moves into another area where it stops and waits. Drachma narrates, “We’ll hide in this canyon and ambush him at the first sign of fog. Tonight we sleep here. Drop anchor, boy.” Whoa. Oh, he means to literally drop the ship’s anchor. Thank goodness. My relief is short-lived, unfortunately. Something even worse than a Drachma/Vyse love scene appears on the screen as Vyse experiences another uncontrollable bout of Wankese: “Later that night… My heart was racing with excitement. I was too anxious to get even a wink of sleep.” This text is over a black screen, so it’s quite easy to take it out of context. “Rhaknam is nearby… That’s all I could think as I lie there, trying to sleep,” Vyse finishes. So he’s overly excited by a big purple arcwhale, and it’s keeping him up? I don’t want to think about the implications of that.

Of course there aren’t really any perverted overtones to this Wankese (I hope) — Vyse’s sudden overinvestment in the Rhaknam situation is just a way for him to be awake in the middle of the night so he can have a heart-to-heart with Drachma. First, he explores the bowels of the ship for a while (read: I run about aimlessly looking for the correct door) before finding Drachma sitting on a wooden crate on the deck, angsting his crochety old heart out. He stares out into the night sky with only a single lantern for light. It’s all very lonely and sad. It’s also the perfect setup for a romantic moonlight talk, even though I really, really don’t want to interpret it that way. I know I’m a total hypocrite — if this scene took place between two male characters I wanted to see together in the bone zone, I’d be all over that shit. Still, I’m the recapper, and I’m going to consider this scene 100% platonic.

Drachma wonders why Vyse is still awake. “I couldn’t sleep. I needed to see you, Captain,” Vyse says, sliding up against Drachma in a sexy way. Damn it! Okay, I already blew it. I mean I already fucked it up. Shit! Vyse points out that he was just going to ask Drachma the same thing. “It’s the middle of the night,” Vyse points out, like Drachma can’t see that the sky is pitch black and everyone else is asleep. Drachma’s blocky hand is cradling a blocky block-like object, and Vyse asks what the hell it is. For once, Drachma doesn’t go apeshit over being asked a personal question. He’s in a pensive mood, and has possibly been drinking. Or he’s trying to lure Vyse in by being nice to him. I mean, no! That’s not what’s going on! Cripes. Drachma holds out the item, a box, to Vyse and tells him to open it, which is not in any way a sexual metaphor. Vyse complies, discovering that the box is full of colorful feathers. The Electronic Piano of Tragic Angst stealthily works its way into the scene so that we know how we’re supposed to be feeling about this discussion.

“…My son collects… used to collect those,” Drachma amends, because his son is dead. He hasn’t technically revealed that yet, but come on. We all know where this is going. Also, this might be an inappropriate time to giggle at Drachma’s son’s interest in flamboyantly fabulous feathers. Sam pointed out that it’s entirely possible he is — was! — Hoskit’s girlfriend from Wind Wanker. Or maybe even Kiyance. Either way, I’m going to assume he was planning to assemble his collection into the world’s most stunning feather boa for his drag debut. Vyse holds a red feather up to examine it, and as soon as Drachma finishes his statement, Vyse stares at him with a gaping blowjob mouth. “You had a son?” he asks, completely gobsmacked. Oh, for fuck’s sake. It hasn’t even been a full hour of game time since Gordo revealed this bit of gossip loudly enough for everyone to hear. Drachma continues his story for his captivated and stupid audience. I don’t know why he’s bothering — it’s not like Vyse will remember this shit in an hour anyway. Of course, maybe that’s why Drachma isn’t bothering to keep it a secret anymore.

Death by whale jizz.

Anyway, once upon a time, way before Drachma got mixed up with the world’s dumbest Ass Pirates, he had a son the same age as Vyse, and the two of them worked as fishermen in the North Ocean. While telling the story, Drachma ends up using some unintentionally hilarious wording that furthers my suspicions about the, um, preferences of his son. I will bold the appropriate words and phrases, just to help you out: “My son was learnin’ to be a sailor. He used to come out with us. His name was… Jack.” Since Jack was small in stature, his nickname among the sailors was Little Jack. Hey, wait a minute! Why would Drachma name his beloved son after his rickety old boat? That’s not very nice. Also, I doubt poor Jack appreciated what that nickname did for his reputation among the men, if you follow me.

One day, Jack and his dad were just fishing for men, minding their own business, when all of a sudden, Rhaknam showed up to put a damper on their plans. “We didn’t know how powerful Rhaknam was, and we tried to fight him,” Drachma explains. Yes, I can see how a ginormous whale would seem like an easy target. Rhaknam proceeded to royally fuck their shit up, leaving Drachma the only survivor. “Last time I saw Jack, he was clutching some feathers as he fell… like they’d stop him from falling.” Holy shit. After this depressing reveal, the camera focuses on the Yellow Moon overhead, panning down to show Vyse and Drachma staring upward as a shooting star arcs through the night sky. So romantic. Adding to the atmosphere, Drachma finishes, “I can still hear my son scream as he fell…” Wow. That’s just fucking depressing. I’m not sure how to follow that without feeling like a total dick. Poor Drachma — no wonder he’s traumatized by that shit. And now he has to deal with three of the dumbest idiots in the world, like his life didn’t suck enough.

So that’s the backstory on why Drachma hates the whale, and why he’s so determined to have his revenge. Of course, we all know that killing Rhaknam won’t bring back his dead gay son, and someday Drachma will probably figure that out too. But that moment hasn’t yet arrived, so for now it’s all explosive anger and hook hands in buttholes and harpoon poking. Embarrassed over dumping his tragic life story on Vyse, Drachma unnecessarily tells him to forget about it, it’s his problem and not Vyse’s, and so on. But that’s not the way Vyse works — he’s there to save the world from injustices and depressed people from themselves! Vyse intelligently (!) keeps his mouth shut for now, however.

On cue, Vyse notices some thick fog rolling in. I’ll take his word for it, since there is no fog visible on screen. Drachma gets to his feet, announcing that Rhaknam has arrived. It would be anticlimactic if Drachma was wrong, and it was just average, everyday fog, so luckily for him, it’s actually Rhaknam. I have control of the Little Jack now, and sometime during the Black Screen, the game designers added some fog to the area, making me look like a lying asshole. Vyse has no clue where he’s going, so he just flies randomly through the fog, trying to find the invisible sky whale. During this part, a really freaky intermittent sound plays in the background. It’s supposed to be a digitized whale song, but it sounds more like something out of a horror film. More nightmare fodder for me — just what I needed after imagining Vyse and Drachma going at it.

I fast forward to the point where I steer the Little Jack into a dead end and trigger another cutscene. I appreciate them giving me a chance to save on the overworld screen before forcing me into battle, but I’m feeling a little bit jerked around with the fifteen whole seconds of gameplay between cutscenes. This isn’t Xenosaga, last I checked. On the bridge of the Little Jack, Vyse still has his blowjob mouth plastered firmly in place. He’s spent so much of this recap with that particular expression on his face, I think it may have gotten stuck that way. I’m sure that would be super convenient for Drachma if Vyse was a character in the Anal Attorney series. “…What’s that sound?” Vyse durrs, clearly hearing me banging my head against the wall. Drachma is standing right behind Vyse, and this would be the perfect opportunity for him to smack Vyse across the back of his head.

PENIS!

Then it turns out that I’m the real dummy here — I was assuming that Vyse was asking about the terrifying whale wail, when he was actually asking about the sound of nearby cannon fire. I never said I was never a fucking moron. Drachma notices something straight ahead that Vyse apparently missed. The camera switches to an outside view of the Little Jack, where some urgent music accompanies the arrival of a dark, whale-like shape moving through the fog. I wonder what that could be. “It’s him!” Drachma states. I’m not sure that statement, combined with the huge motherfucking whale heading right for them, is specific enough for Vyse. Rhaknam’s silhouette gets closer and closer, and when he reaches the camera, the designs on his purple body come into view. I didn’t notice this before, but the, um, tip of Rhaknam’s head (or nose — I’m not really familiar with whale anatomy) has a single purple dot in the center, surrounded by six more purple dots and holes. Even with the extraneous holes, it still makes the phallic purple whale even more phallic.

Rhaknam’s entire outer surface is also quite decorative. It’s not so much skin as it is purple plates with ornate carvings and glowing yellow spaces in between. But I’m sure he’s totally a regular giant whale and not something else. It’s not like we’ve seen anything else in this game that is big, destructive, kind of technological looking, and matches the color of one of the world’s moons. Of course, if Rhaknam were, say, something created by an ancient civilization to be used as a weapon, I’m sure Fina would know all about it and warn us accordingly. She’s not that dumb, right?

*porno guitar*

Back on the bridge, the four good guys stare at Rhaknam’s huge red eyeball filling the entire front windshield. Pippi makes the astute observation that the whale is motherfucking gigantic. But Vyse is desensitized by all the massive phallic flying things he’s seen recently, so something on the other side of the whale captures his attention instead. Of course, in a stunning turn of events, that also turns out to be a phallic flying object. Or three phallic flying objects, rather. I’m not sure how Vyse managed to see them, considering the gigantic motherfucking whale blocking the way, but maybe it’s his magical eyepatch again. Once Rhaknam passes by, I can see the ships as well — one is big and black with a red bottom and an erect protrusion out the front. The other two are simply drab gray ships that cannot hope to approach the penisy majesty of their leader. This turns out to be Squeifer’s ship, the Monoceros. I don’t know what the fuck that means, but I want to come up with a suitable nickname, so with the help of Google I find out that it’s a fancy Greek way of saying “unicorn.” Or, you know, a single horn.