Holy crap.
A flapping sound effect and some ominous music signal something dire, and the entire six-person party steps back in unison to avoid getting crushed by the big black dragon carrying Milich Oppenheimer on its back. Yes, the Flower General just showed up on a God damn dragon. Well, I wasn’t really expecting that. Milich hops off the dragon and faces the party. The music immediately changes from evil to fruitily gay — a waltz played by an accordion. Suikoden fans will recognize it as the theme reserved for the most flamboyantly gay characters in the series. Because that’s truly a feat to celebrate in a game such as this.
“How do you do,” Milich trills. “I am the most renowned of the Five Great Imperial Generals, Milich Oppenheimer, the Flower General.” Oh, that’s who he is. Gremio is all, “Oh, no you di’in’t, beeyotch! Teo is my babydaddy!” This resounding endorsement of General Teo causes Milich to deduce, “Oh my, this must be Teo’s lowly servant. And this here is PUGGY!!! McDohl.” Gremio does the “talk to the hand” motion over this diss, as Milich lays a premium guilt trip on PUGGY!!! for disappointing his dad. “Hey, you! Peacock Man. What’s your business here?” Bear sadly tries to insult Milich.
Yes, I’m sure Teo is crying his eyes out into his pillow right about now.
This breaks into Milich’s ogling of that fine young McDohl dish, causing him to suddenly remember his mission. “It just won’t do to have you render my sweet flower’s poison useless,” Milich flutters. “I shall invite Dr. Liukan over to my impenetrable Soniere Prison.” Hee — “impenetrable.” Liukan resists, not being the type of guy to just hop on some guy’s dragon and fulfill all his prison fantasies on the first date. Seriously, Milich even tells him not to be shy. I don’t know why the Flower General is hitting on this old codger when he has all those other delectable young men right there, but unlike PUGGY!!!, he must be into older men. It happens.
“PUGGY!!!, I’m not a sissy like [Kwanzaa], you know. Well then, goodbye everybody,” Milich says, blowing them all a kiss. He then walks over to Liukan, leads him onto the dragon without so much as a struggle, then flies off, complete with elephant dragon sound effect. Whew, that was exhilarating.
Heh, Flik said ‘snatch.’
The party stands there all WTF for a moment, because that’s all that they really can do after that sequence. I’m kind of feeling the same way. Finally, Flik expresses embarrassment that some fruitcake waltzed in and seduced the reclusive pharmacist out from under them. Bear responds that Soniere Prison isn’t like all those other easily accessible RPG prisons — it seems that Milich guards his love slaves quite closely. Without any further bright ideas, Gremio suggests that they consult their strategist. “For the time being, let’s return to Penis Castle,” he adds, like the others can’t fucking figure out where Mathiu is.
PUGGY!!! pilfers some black paint out of Liukan’s house before leaving, slightly bitter that Milich passed him over for that geezer, even though he’s still mad at the guy for poisoning his ass. Back at Penis Castle, PUGGY!!! finds Mathiu hanging out in the large, empty room as usual. Man, that has to be boring. No sooner does the rest of the party emerge from PUGGY!!! than they’ve managed to telepathically communicate the entire situation to Mathiu. Immediately, he has a solution to their dilemma, but he needs the group to hold on for a second, he’ll be right back. One Black Screen of Passing Time later, Mathiu returns. According to him, the town of Antei, located near Teien and Rikon, is the home of Kimberly, an apparently superb counterfeiter. “Let’s get her and a scrivener named Tesla to join us,” Mathiu suggests. The reason he left a moment ago is so he could write a letter to Kimberly, who he already knows. Possibly in that way. I love how he made the whole group stand there so he could go off and write a letter. Ass.
Mathiu assures them that Kimberly will be happy to help them out. Skeptical that this might involve some hetero action with an icky girl, Gremio demands to know just what this Kimberly person will be doing. “Let’s save that pleasure for later. For the moment, please go and find Kimberly and Tesla,” Mathiu puts them off, further cementing Gremio’s suspicions.
PUGGY!!! doesn’t like saving pleasure for later.
The town of Antei is located west of Teien, so with letter in hand, the party teleports to Teien in order to make the trek. See, there’s this totally unfair rule that I have to actually visit a town the legitimate way in order to be able to teleport to it later. Not that I’m bitter.
The first person PUGGY!!! meets in Antei is a young feminine boy in a red hat. The boy, Qlon, welcomes him to the recently renamed Bier Blanche. This may not seem like a big deal, but Qlon has a character portrait. This portends great things. Or not. There is nothing else to do about this boy for now — not just because he’s underage — so PUGGY!!! heads over to the local armor shop. Inside, the owner also has a character portrait, meaning that PUGGY!!! has at last found his own armorer. The dude, Chapman, may or may not be hot — his character art is way too shitty ambiguous to tell. But he does recognize PUGGY!!! as the leader of the Lubrication Army, and that’s always flattering. PUGGY!!! approves.
Unlike some other jerkheads who require jumping through hoops or achieving the impossible in order to recruit them, Chapman totally begs PUGGY!!! to let him join the Lubrication Army. I flipped through one screen of dialogue too fast and therefore missed what Chapman’s reasoning was for this eagerness, so I will make up something. Chapman has always dreamed of a place with many buff men to whom he can market his fabulous and yet functional armor designs. He believes in accenting the usual boring utilitarian armor with flowery metalwork, bright colors, and even lace! Yes, his armor is for the man’s man, and by that I mean a man who likes to have buttsex with other men. And Penis Castle is full of his target market.
PUGGY!!! finds this acceptable, so it’s off to Penis Castle for Chapman. After that, PUGGY!!! stops at the inn for a good old rest ‘n’ save. Over in the corner, he spots a bunch of drooling horny bastards staring at someone dancing up on a miniature stage. From this distance he can’t tell whether it’s a man or woman, and in this game, getting closer isn’t going to make much difference either. But what the heck. PUGGY!!! strolls right up onto the stage to talk to the dancer only to find out that ew! It’s a girl! The boobs were the giveaway here, in case you were wondering.
The dancer’s name is Mina. Those of you who have been following along might remember that Mina is also the name of Lotte’s cat. There’s another pussy joke just begging to be made in there somewhere. Or if you’re not into the dirty jokes, you can just go write a fanfiction about why Lotte’s cat is named after a dancer or vice versa. Don’t let me stop you.
“Oh, aren’t you PUGGY!!!? I know you. You’re quite famous,” Mina squeals. I love how some people can recognize PUGGY!!! on sight whereas others in the same dinky town have never even heard of the Lubrication Army. Whatever. Of course a dancer is just as essential to the army as a gossipmonger and a dice game guy, so PUGGY!!! must recruit her. PUGGY!!! sighs in resignation. Not another girl.
To add insult to injury, PUGGY!!! has to do more than just reluctantly invite her to Penis Castle — he has to fucking dance with her. Now that’s going too far. He has a reputation to protect. And I’m not saying that the dancing itself is the issue — I’m sure PUGGY!!! has more than his share of smooth moves. Nope, he doesn’t want his male friends to see him on stage performing with a woman. They might start to think he’s straight. Ewwwwwww.
The Black Screen of Performance Set-Up brings a few more men to the audience as an ethnic-sounding number is piped in from some invisible accordion band. Mina’s sprite has several impressive moves, including “spin,” “spin some more,” “strike a pose,” and “give move head.” During this sequence, PUGGY!!! stands there with all the enthusiasm of a junior high student facing the hell known as the pair dancing unit in gym class. Heh — “unit.” He turns around slowly a couple of times with a couple of very halfhearted hops thrown in. Meanwhile, the men in the audience all hoot and clap along with the music. It seems that yellow pants and pointy shoes can inspire excitement among the male population even when the performance is not up to par.
A wild cheer greets the end of PUGGY!!!’s dance number, and Mina bows as if it’s for her. “I guess you’re trustworthy. I can tell because we danced together. After all, I’m a pro,” Mina informs PUGGY!!!. Being the well-mannered son of an important person, PUGGY!!! manages to choke back his derisive snort. Another Black Screen brings PUGGY!!! and Mina outside, and it is with great relief that PUGGY!!! finally sees her off to Penis Castle. Good riddance.
There’s also a rune shop in town. PUGGY!!! hasn’t seen one of those for a while, so he decides to stop in. The runemistress is a hot ponytailed chick with silver hair and an undoubtedly revealing pink dress. More importantly, she’s a Suikoden series fixture. More importantly than that, her name is Jeane, which you might recognize as very similar to my own name. Or at least you should make that connection. It’s only one letter off, you Einsteins. Now, I haven’t ever been in a Suikoden game, I’m not ageless, I don’t have silver hair, and I’m certainly not a boobalicious babe. But I do have numerous bad memories of receiving elementary school valentines addressed to “Jeane.” So I am going to be a narcissistic butthole and correct this situation by renaming her Jeanne. Shut up.
Now PUGGY!!! still doesn’t want to have sex with any vaginas. But Jeanne is more useful than 95% of the chicks in his army so far, so he’s happy to invite her to his Penis. Yay, PUGGY!!! caught a runemistress!
The bad news is we’ve reached the end of our adventure for this recap. The good news is that’s only because I had to split an extra long recap in half. That’s right, you still have a whole buttload to read. So continue on for more hijinks and prison adventures!