So they have to take the engine to Rikon. “Take good care of this machine. It’s fragile,” Kamandol orders. Bear, Gremio, and Flik freak out when they realize that they’re going to have to lug the huge-ass thing over to Rikon. “Of course. You plan on letting a frail old man carry this?” Kamandol guilts them. See, it’s funny because he doesn’t like being called old, but he’ll still use his age to his advantage. Well, he does have a point — these are young, burly men. Well, okay, Bear’s burly. But it’s not like the rest of the group are a bunch of flabby wusses. Maybe Gremio’s just afraid he’ll break a nail or something.

As before, I’m forced to jettison a party member so that Kamandol can join. Well, there goes Pahn and his studly weapons and armor. Stupid Konami. PUGGY!!! absorbs the engine into his sprite form and off they go!

You don’t have to tell these guys twice.

Five seconds after leaving the village, the group reaches Rikon. At the dock, we get another thrilling cut scene. When Kamandol orders them to “unload the equipment” (hee), Flik walks over and deposits the engine — as tall as he is, for the record — next to the dock. “Thank god I can bid this load farewell,” Bear says with a straight face. That sound you hear is me giggling like a 12-year-old. Which is what I am. Since I’m not getting any due to my microscopic schlong, I have to get my titillation from somewhere. “It was pretty tough fighting with this on my back,” Flik makes sure to tell us. Okay — from this conversation, we can deduce that it took at least Flik and Bear to carry this thing. Fair enough. But Flik’s statement makes no sense. The party didn’t fight any battles at all. And even if they had, I would be willing to bet that the engine would not have appeared on the battle screen, nor would any of the party members have been affected by the invisible heavy object they were supposed to be carrying. Shut up, Flik.

What — Bear?

Gen and Kamandol bicker some more regarding getting to work on the boat. Jesus, guys, just go have the buttsex already. Preferably not while I’m watching. “PUGGY!!!, you’re all getting in the way, so why don’t you go to the inn or something,” Gen suggests pointedly. PUGGY!!!, getting the hint and feeling the same way about it as I do, skedaddles on out of there so these two unfabulous dudes can relieve their sexual tension.

Heeeee.

At the inn entrance, the four hot members of the party have a little huddle. “Damn that old man. Making me carry such a heavy load,” Flik continues to bitch, not making himself look at all studly to PUGGY!!!. By the way, I’d just like to say that I’m still giggling every time I read the word “load.” Oh, but then the rest of the group’s conversation makes me realize what’s really going on here. I should have seen this, but the guys are all bitching about their exhaustion in order to make it “an early night.” God, I’m so naïve sometimes. The camera fades out as the four of them enter the inn, and I am left cursing the game designers as they once again screw me (no pun intended) out of another sprite orgy. Damn it.

We rejoin the guys afterward, as each of them is nestled in his own bed. Stupid one-person inn beds, makes it so hard to have a good foursome. Heh, I said “hard.” As PUGGY!!!, Bear, and Flik sleep off their buttsex-induced exhaustion, Gremio finds himself unable to drift off. He’s probably all stressed out and jealous because he didn’t end up in the bed next to PUGGY!!!’s. Strangely enough, he’s fully dressed when he leaves the bed. As the “Suikoden Nighttime Romantic Conversation Theme” plays in the background, Gremio walks over to stand next to a sleeping PUGGY!!! and proceeds to pour out his soul. Hoo boy.

“Young Master…” he begins. “I, Gremio, have taken care of you since you were tiny. Sometimes I feel as if you were my little brother…no, my son, even.” Holy shit, this game just turned really, really fucking wrong. I guess this is what we call “character development” — now we know that Gremio has a strange incest fetish, even though we all would have been a lot happier to never find that out. Christ. Damn Teo and his House of the Wrong Kind of Brotherly Love. “Initially I wanted to repay my debt to Master Teo, but now… Perhaps you no longer need me to protect you.” Speaking of character development, it would have been nice to know exactly what event during the orgy triggered this strange feeling of inadequacy and hopelessness in Gremio, not because I’m a sick voyeur or anything. Thanks a lot, game designers. Incidentally, I don’t know if any of you have noticed a sore feeling in the vicinity of your ass, but we’ve all just been violated with the “Gremio is Going to DIE!!!!!” Plot Mallet. Thought you’d like to know.

‘That tends to happen to a guy in the morning, dumbass.’

The next morning, PUGGY!!! wakes up to find the other three guys standing there ogling his bod. He’s used to this. Their nighttime adventures over, they decide to see how Gen and Kamandol are doing. And hopefully they’re not still doing…that. Back at the docks, Gen says, “Take a look. We worked all through the night.” PUGGY!!! chokes back the nausea that this image induces. “Making an old man work like this. For shame,” Kamandol winks. Ew.

Switching the subject to the boat, Gen wonders if they should have a “launching ceremony.” And we all know what that means. PUGGY!!! recoils, thinking that this guy was so lying when he expressed disinterest in the ways of the Lubrication Army. So with the launching ceremony denied, PUGGY!!! proceeds to examine this spiffy new boat. Walking to the end of the dock, he finds…the exact same God damn boat as before. Well, shit. The obvious explanation is that Gen and Kamandol got too caught up in their…escapades the night before to actually do any of the boat work. But in actuality, this is the new and improved boat. Apparently Rikon’s boat is just community property or something. As for the six-foot-tall engine, it’s just…well, it’s…somewhere. You guys get to decide where it is!

 Loading ...

We’re not going to make much more sense of this, so let’s just move on. PUGGY!!! launches the boat. But instead of using it for its intended purpose, PUGGY!!! uses the blinking mirror to return to Wang Sweet Wang.

I’m going to warn you, I’m about to do something stupid. And to my credit, I realized at the time I was recording this that it was stupid. But I’m trying to follow the recruitment order of the GameFAQs walkthrough as closely as possible so I don’t accidentally miss anyone — I don’t have the freaking game memorized and I’m extremely paranoid. The walkthrough said to do this part now, so I thought I should at least give it a try.

See, there are some pirates that live on an island in the middle of the same lake as Penis Castle. PUGGY!!! must recruit these pirates for some unknown reason. However, in order to do so, he must have Tai Ho and Yam Koo in the party and the party must beat the three pirates in five turns or less. I think you see what’s wrong with this picture.

At this time, Gremio, Bear, and Flik are required members of the party. Tai Ho and Yam Koo simply suck a ton of rotting baboon ass. I don’t have the funds to improve anyone’s weapons or armor, nor am I able to put a kick-ass magic user in my party. PUGGY!!!’s Soul Eater Rune is currently more useless than Rinoa in a boss-type battle. On top of all of that, I don’t feel like running around fighting random battles to earn money and upgrade everyone at this point. I could sooner get Squall and Link to fight over me than I could win this battle right now. But what the heck, you never know.

PUGGY!!! heads over to the creatively-named Pirates’ Fortress with those bathrobed asshats Tai Ho and Yam Koo in the group. They’re able to walk right in the front door, where the three pirate sprites just stand around with their thumbs up their butts. Obviously they’ve put a lot of effort into defending their “fortress.” “Hey Anji, you’re just wasting away. Why don’t you give us a hand?” Tai Ho invites. Oh great, let the most repulsive member of the party be the spokesperson. Naturally, Anji — a goofy looking guy with a headband and haystack hair — takes offense and orders his friends Leonardo and Kanak to help him whup the shit out of these wusses.

This is the part where I get my ass kicked. Well, I don’t really, but I am unable to defeat all three of the pirates in five rounds. I have a feeling that this is one of those situations where these pirate dudes lose their insane number of HP as soon as they join my cause, and that just makes me bitterer.

After his defeat, PUGGY!!! slinks back to Penis Castle and takes an obscene amount of pleasure in ridding himself of Tai Rimjobber Ho and Yam Monkeyfucker Koo. He replaces them with Pahn and Cleo, of course. Meanwhile, the castle has been upgraded so that I have to relearn where the hell everyone’s located now. There’ll be time for that later. For now, it’s back to Rikon to pick up where we left off. Let us never speak of this mishap again.

Near Liukan’s place, the boat can now traverse the whirlpool with ease. Their destination — properly titled “Liukan’s hermitage” — appears to be located in the hills, just as the NPC said. Well, they have to climb a set of stairs to reach it and it’s sort of nestled in a rocky area. That’s as close as you’re going to get to hills in this game. An old man complete with white beard and cane (he must be about 30) stands outside the miniscule shack, just chillin’. A universal “item shop” sign is nearby as well. It looks like we ended up at the right place and not, say, the miniscule shack belonging to the crazed and useless mountain man who likes to rape boys.

When PUGGY!!! attempts to talk to Liukan, the old geezer gripes, “So, it appears I tried to isolate myself to no avail.” I like how it’s pretty much been shoved down my throat that this guy wants to be a hermit, but he still put out a shop sign for some reason. Mixed signals here. “What do you mean?” Gremio duhs, probably unable to understand the concept of isolating oneself. I mean, not wanting to surround himself with a plethora of pretty men is not something Gremio could ever comprehend.

Liukan explains in tiny words that he doesn’t want to make medicine for ungrateful whiny asshats, a.k.a. people, anymore. “Please, sir. We must have an antidote to the poisonous flowers of Milich’  scastle,” Gremio pleads. Before Liukan can ask for the definition of “scastle,” an offscreen voice lisps, “That kind of antidote would be very inconvenient.” Bear is unable to identify this particular effeminate voice among the many other undoubtedly feminine voices in the Suikoden universe.