Still at night, Barry returns to the tavern, where Nanami and Lassie are waiting for him. It’s time for Barry and Nanami to go visit Anabelle. Foreshadowing!Nanami mentions that she hasn’t seen Jowy for a while, while Barry says nothing about Jowy making out with a ninja this afternoon. The siblings go to City Hall and speak with the guard in the hallway, who tells them that Anabelle is expecting them, and “[their] friend is already back there.” Nanami’s all, “Hurr?” and the scene shifts to Anabelle’s room again.
Another knock, but this time she’s expecting Barry and Nanami, so there’s no comment about rude late-night visitors. So she wasn’t expecting them before, and thought Bear was rude for coming so late (hehe), but it’s even later now and she’s waiting up? Anabelle confuses me. But of course, it’s not Barry and Nanami at the door. It’s Jowy! (Dun dun DUN!!!) “But Jowy,” Anabelle asks, “what do you want at this hour?” Jowy, pulling out a knife, says the line that he’s probably been practicing for hours upon hours: “Your life…..I came to take it.” (DUN!!!) Jowy’s avatar has now changed, so he looks even prettier, but more sinister. Anabelle asks Evil!Jowy if he really has the cajones to go through with killing her. He says he does, but he still doesn’t seem too gung-ho about his task. Anabelle wisely notes that even if she screams, she won’t be able to stop Evil!Jowy’s knife. “Would you at least let me finish this glass?” she asks. “It’s from a close friend….It would be sad to waste it.” Even on the verge of death, she only thinks of Bear as a “close friend.” Poor guy. Evil!Jowy drops his guard, and–what a wiener–apologizes to Anabelle for having to do this. Of course, Anabelle, being the saucy broad she is, uses this moment to lunge at him with her now-broken wine glass. But Evil!Jowy recovers quickly and makes with the stabbity.
Back to Barry and Nanami. They walk down the hallway and enter Anabelle’s room, just in time to see Evil!Jowy standing over Anabelle’s bleeding body. I can’t imagine Evil!Jowy expected things to go like this, but then maybe he should have planned his murder for a time when there wouldn’t be people walking in to snitch on him. Nanami, predictably, hops around and stutters incoherently. Barry says, “Jowy….you didn’t…….” Oh, but he did! And he’s cheating on you with a ninja! Evil!Jowy begs Barry’s forgiveness and escapes through the back of the room.
Amazingly, Anabelle is still alive. Barry and Nanami kneel down to check on her, right when Jess runs in. Oh, shit. Jess announces that the Highland Army has made a sneak attack, and then he notices that Anabelle isn’t in any kind of condition to pay attention to him. Don’t be shocked or anything, but Jess thinks it was Barry who attacked his precioussssss Anabelle. “You!!!” he cries. “What have you done!! What the hell have you done!! Explain yourself!!!!” If he isn’t careful, he’s going to take Nanami’s Biggest Punctuation Abuser of the Recap Award. Before Barry can say anything, a Muse soldier runs in to tell Jess that the Highlanders have entered the city–it appears that someone opened the gates for them from the inside. (DUN!!!) So now Jowy is a Highland spy, who’s originally from Highland, then became a fugitive from Highland, and spied on Highland for the City-State? People, if irony were strawberries, we’d all be drinking a lot of smoothies right now.
Jess tells Barry and Nanami to stay where they are, and leaves with the soldier to get a doctor for Anabelle. Speaking of her, she’s still not dead. She says that Jess needn’t fetch a doctor, because she’s…dying. (DUH!!! I mean, DUN!!!) But in the five years or so before she actually expires, she has some things to say to Barry and Nanami. First, she apologizes for whatever it is that the City-State did to Genkaku. Then, she asks, “Barry…..Nanami…..Did you…..were you…were you happy…..with your life with Genkaku?” All this period-tapping is killing my right-hand ring finger, let me tell you. Nanami tells her yes, of course they were happy, which seems to make Anabelle feel better. Except she’s still hurting from the gaping knife wound. And now, Anabelle has a final request: “Don’t….die….Barry………Nanami……..Live…….” And now she’s……….wait for it…………almost………..dead. Barry and Nanami run for it.
Oh, but she’s not dead! (Jesus Christ, what is the holdup?!) Once they’re gone, Anabelle says to herself, “Barry….you…..I think….it was…..fate……….I think…..fate….sent….you….here….” Now she’s dead. She just had to get in her obligatory mention of “fate” first.
Barry and Nanami make it outside City Hall and are about to flee the city, when Nanami remembers that Lassie is waiting for them back at Leona’s. GOD. DAMMIT. The kids run through the streets of Muse, fighting a minimal number of Highland soldiers, and reach the tavern. Leona and Lassie are the only ones still there. Leona tells them to get to Coronet, and to get on a boat across the lake. The gang is going to meet up again in South Window. Of course, Leona could take Lassie with her, but then I would be free of her stupid ass, and we can’t have that. The three of them leave the tavern and run out of the city gates. But before they can get too far, Lassie tries to run back inside. She wants her Jowy. Well, Barry wants his Jowy too, but you don’t see him trying to run back in there and get himself killed. Stupid brat. Nanami drags Lassie with them away from Muse.
‘I mean, Jowy, gay? You’re totally making that up!’
Some time later (though still at night), the kids are sitting under a large tree. Lassie is asleep in Nanami’s lap. If I didn’t hate her so much I would say that’s just adorable. Nanami doesn’t believe that her Jowy is really Evil!Jowy. I know I’m shocked by this revelation. Even more shocking is Nanami’s desire to just run away and pretend none of this is happening, ’cause man, we haven’t heard about that yet. Barry humors her, but she knows he doesn’t mean it. She stows away her bitterness for the time being and she and Barry go to sleep. The next morning, they set off again for Coronet.
When they reach the fishing village of Coronet, south of Muse, Nanami explains that they can get on a boat to Kuskus from there and then travel to South Window. “A cute young mapmaker I met told me that.” Lord only knows how she had time to have a private chat with a cute young mapmaker, what with all the fleeing imminent danger. Further exploration into Coronet reveals that Highland has taken over the town, and more importantly, the port. Prince Adolf has ordered all ships to stay docked. Well, crap. How is Barry going to find a ship?
…This situation seems frighteningly familiar.
Barry soon finds that getting out of Coronet won’t be easy, and so he returns to the town’s inn in defeat. There, he runs into some “old friends.” It’s Eilie, Rina, and Andre, from part 1! Eilie takes one look at Barry and bolts to him, knocking Nanami out of the way. She introduces herself as “the person who saved Barry’s life.” …The hell? Barry doesn’t think much of this, either, but Eilie brushes it off. Downstairs, everyone catches up, via the Exposition!Blackout Screen. Rina finishes their story by saying they, too, are going to South Window. (DUN!!! Okay, that’s the last time, I swear.) She asks Barry how long he’s been traveling with his girlfriend, and Nanami corrects her with marked embarrassment. Rina’s all, “That’s good, ’cause Eilie wants Barry’s hawt teenage body,” and Eilie’s all, “Shut up!” Barry stays silent during this exchange, probably thinking about how much he wants and misses Jowy’s hawt teenage body.
So everyone’s stuck with the same problem: how to get to South Window? Barry, Nanami, and Lassie walk around town some more, trying to think of a solution. During their walk, they come across a small cabin east of the village proper. As they approach it a woman with short blonde hair walks out. Hey, my bad, it’s a guy. It’s Sheena, Lepant’s good-for-nothing horndog son. He’s shouting in the direction of the cabin about a “boat” and “Tai Ho” and “dice.”
Oh, no. Oh, no.
With only a few tears of despair, I resign myself to the fate that is The Game That Shall Not Be Named and have Barry enter Tai Ho’s cabin. Sure enough, he’s sitting there in his stupid bathrobe with his stupid bathrobed, mop-headed brother, Yam Koo. It’s funny how just the sight of two sprites sitting at a table can unleash such hatred and fear in a Suikoden fan. Since he’s not watching the door, Tai Ho assumes it’s Sheena again, and tells him to get lost. Yam Koo points out that Sheena isn’t a brunette in a tiara and black spandex. Nanami quickly asks Tai Ho if he’ll take his boat out on the lake. He just as quickly tells her no way, but Barry insists. Tai Ho pauses, perhaps to give me time to think about how much I hate him and I want him to die, and then asks Barry to come closer. He looks our hero over, notes that Barry too is wearing a bathrobe, and decides to give him a chance. I plead with Barry to not accept the bad man’s offer, because The Game That Shall Not Be Named is played at the cost of one’s soul. But of course he can’t hear me, and so the game is on. Kill me now.
By now you all should have read Jeanne’s Suikoden recaps, and thus an explanation of The Game That Shall Not Be Named is unnecessary. But I’ll give a short one anyway. Basically, Tai Ho rolls three dice. The object is to roll two dice of the same number, and have that number be higher than whatever number Tai Ho gets (if any). There are a bunch of combos that automatically win double or triple (only Tai Ho gets these) or automatically lose double or triple (these combos, obviously, are reserved for Barry). I’m not going to recap how long it takes for Barry to win, or how much money he loses in the process. Having to discuss the matter in detail will only exacerbate my pain. All you need to know is that he does eventually win, seemingly against the will of God and Man. Because he’s (*snort*) a man of his word, Tai Ho gets off his flabby ass and gets ready to sail to Kuskus. Yam Koo whines extensively about the dangers of getting caught by the Highlanders. Shut up, you fucking pussy. If I had to endure TGTSNBN, you can handle a little trip across the lake.
Loading ...Before taking off, Barry and Nanami go back to the inn to fetch Eilie, Rina, and Andre. Eilie–you’ll never guess–is so impressed with Barry for getting them safe passage to Kuskus. When the party of six returns to Tai Ho’s, he’s even happier to take them across, since there are all kinds of beautiful ladies in tow. Man, maybe if I had brought Rina and Eilie along in the first place, I wouldn’t have had to play TGTSNBN at all. DAMMIT DAMMIT DAMMIT.
Once the boat leaves port, we see Sheena running back to the cabin to beg Tai Ho for use of his boat once more. He sees the boat leaving, so he throws a sissy little tantrum on the shore. Ha.
Well, that makes one of us.
The boat quickly arrives in Kuskus, and Tai Ho and Yam Koo thankfully take their leave. I don’t know how I would have coped if I had gotten stuck with them in the party, too. After clarifying that South Window is, oh my God, SOUTH of here, the party prepares to leave. Eilie says, “Let’s go, Barry….” and starts inching toward him all horny-like, which pisses off Nanami to no end. I don’t know why–if Eilie wants to waste her time hitting on a gay man, that’s her business. Barry wanders around Kuskus, buys shit, upgrades weapons (well, a little, considering TAI HO TOOK ALL HIS FUCKING MONEY), and finds an inn, which is where this recap will end.
Next time, we get vampires, vampire slayers, talking swords, and you know it, more death, depravity, and opportunities for buttsex jokes.