Of course, at this point I could return to HoYay Castle, dump Clive off at Leona’s, and never have to spare him a thought again. But true to Barry’s word, he and Clive go immediately to Lakewest and enter the inn, since Clive and I are both convinced that time is of the utmost importance. See, in this little Clive and Elza sidequest, there are certain time limits for reaching each new destination in Clive’s chase. And by my reckoning, the deadline to reach Lakewest was about thirty seconds ago. So we’re in a bit of a goddamn hurry. Clive and Barry bust through the door to the inn and Clive accosts the proprietor, all “Blonde. Scar. Guns. Seen her?!” The innkeeper affirms that Elza was, in fact, here, and that she left a letter for a bloke matching Clive’s description. Clive reads the letter, his spritely face contorting with fury. “What is that woman trying to do?” he wonders, like “get the fuck away from that psycho Clive” isn’t the obvious answer. “Is she mocking me?” Apparently Elza reveals in the letter that she’s now in Forest Village, west of Greenhill. Oh, bummer. I was sure she would be here, too.

Since Barry’s not getting to Forest Village for a while, he makes Clive chill the hell out and they head back to HoYay, sweet HoYay. And now that I actually made this deadline, I do the unthinkable and bother to check GameFAQs for the skinny on the rest of this Clive and Elza Quest business. Well, it turns out that the deadline to reach Lakewest’s inn was the eleven-hour mark, rather than the eight-hour mark. Boy, is my face red. See, people, this is why you shouldn’t mistake VGR for GameFAQs. Because it’s obvious I have no freaking clue what I’m doing.

So as you may have determined from this series of events, I am actually attempting to complete the Clive and Elza quest. Those of you who have attempted this have probably realized that I have no fucking chance whatsoever of making it all the way to the end at my current playing pace, but what the hell, I’m giving it a go, just for you guys. And so Clive can play with his gun in public as much as possible. Barry likes that part of it.

Because no one fucking likes you.

Back to the events at hand: our hero was thoroughly ruffled by my heart-attack-inducing sprint to Lakewest on Clive’s behalf, and the poor dear needs to wind it down a bit, before he continues his search for Jowston’s sexiest studs. So now, finally, Barry’s going to check out his lovely new castle. Other than the Suikoclones and Portrait People hanging around the castle–seemingly with no other purpose than to say hi to Barry and to kiss his ass and call it ice cream–there are currently only two real points of interest. One is a small wooden box on a stand outside of Barry’s tiny bedroom on the second floor (next to Shu’s room, oh baby). This is the Suggestion Box, but it should probably be called the Random, Poorly Translated Mash Notes to Barry Box. On this inaugural check of the Random Notes Box Barry finds two such slips of paper: one from Tuta, explaining how he’d love to be Dr. Huan’s boy candy just like Dr. Huan someday, and one from Muku Ranger Red, reading, and I quote, “Mu-Mu! Mu-Mu-Mu!!! Mu-Mu-Mu-Mu-Mu!!!!! MUUUUU!!!!!” This very well could be some kind of suggestion, but I’m guessing he’s pissed off because I haven’t recruited any of his boyfriends yet.

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The other location of note is an outdoor area at the back of the castle, on a cliff overlooking the lake. Millie and her psychotic pet are hanging out here, but there’s also a random Yaoi Army clone. “Oh, Mr Barry,” he under-punctuates. “Wanna play with me awhile?” Barry gives Ace a once-over and decides he is attractive enough to put his hands on the Hero of the Yaoi Army. As it turns out, however, Ace meant “play” in the literal sense, and propositions Barry for a mini-game involving climbing a rope.

Well, hey, that can be fun, too.

There are three options available in the rope climbing mini-game: each “league” costs money, and the more potch Barry shells out, the cooler the prizes. While the “Twin Heaven Fang League” and the “Barry League” both sound…uh…intriguing, Barry is miraculously already really good at this game, so he enters the 10,000 Potch “HoYay League” in order to win a fabulous Goldlet. Yay for accessories!

Onto the game itself. Barry figured he would be competing against Ace, but instead his opponents are two palette-swapped versions of himself, providing that extra-kinky tripletcest action that was so lacking in this game. Basically, Barry and his dopplegangers each roll a six-sided die to climb up their respective ropes. Whatever they roll indicates the number of spaces they move up the cliff, except if they roll a 1, which sends them careening to their last stopping point. As much as Barry would like to experience that sliding-down-the-rope sensation, he doesn’t fall once, since I long ago figured out how to time it so Barry would roll a 5 on every turn. Being able to do this obviously makes me the best gamer in the entire universe, and I have this incredibly tacky Goldlet to prove it!

Once Barry’s had his fill of R&R and Talking to Everyone, he rounds up the requisite items and party members to make his recruitment tour take as little time as possible. The first stop is South Window. Yes, I know I should have done this when I got Clive. Quiet, you.

At the South Window Inn, Barry finds a couple more familiar faces: it turns out that Hilda and Lloyd Christmas (and son Pete) had to flee their shitty inn after the kerfuffle in Muse, and now they’re here, conveniently looking for work. But first, they need to settle a bet. “Barry, I heard that the leader of the Yaoi Army is also named Barry. Could that be you?!” Lloyd asks. “Hilda says you’re one and the same, but it’s not true, is it?” I can somewhat understand Lloyd’s incredulity here, even given the RPG No Duplicate Names Rule. But Hilda is sure that Yaoi Army Barry and Tiara Barry are totally the same guy, because of his eyes. “The first time I saw Barry’s beautiful eyes, I knew it,” she squees after Barry confirms that he is indeed the head honcho at HoYay Castle. “I knew he would touch the lives of a lot of people.” Lloyd gets all mopey, whining that Hilda is hitting on Barry, like, right in front of him. But Hilda brushes him off, and reminds him that they did have a bet, and since she won Lloyd has to do whatever she asks. Kind of a dumb bet for him to make, but I wouldn’t have named him Lloyd Christmas if he were even remotely smart. At any rate, Hilda’s wish is for all of them to join Barry’s volunteer band of hot available men. Yeah, they’re a married hetero couple with a kid, so they’re not exactly fitting my theme here, but I would rather like an inn and an item shop in the castle, so what the hell, they’re in.

Leaving the Christmas family behind, Barry next walks to a small house in the middle of the city. An old man with a graying Salon Jhee-esque pointy coif barks, “What do you want!” when Barry interrupts his cooking. When Barry asks him to join up with the Yaoi Army, he impatiently responds, “I don’t care about that. I need a ‘Sacrificial Jizo’. Hurry and bring me one!” Luckily, Barry happens to have one that he yoinked off Andre. But when he hands it over, the old man snits that he didn’t want this stupid thing, and that he actually needs a Wooden Shield. Well, thanks to pilfering Gengen’s equipment (ew), Barry has one of those, too. “What!!!” the old dude freaks. “What am I supposed to do with this piece of junk? Anyway, where’s that ‘Wind Crystal’ that I told you to get!?” Even though Barry has had to do no running around whatsoever for this guy, in what could have become a rather annoying fetch quest, he’s getting mighty fucking pissed at his snotty attitude, and so Barry chucks the Wind Rune, which he bought at the South Window Rune shop, right at the senile asshole’s stupid pointy head.

The old bastard stands there stunned for a moment, and then bursts out laughing. What a fucking loon. “Good man, Barry!!!!!! It’s good to stand up for yourself! Well, I’ll see you at HoYay Castle!!!!!” Barry celebrates the addition of the crazy old geezer, named Adlai, to his already frightening collection of vagrants and social pariahs. Adlai tells Barry that they need to get a move on back to the castle. Flash forward, and the professor is standing next to a brand-new elevator on the first floor. “Look at this!” he tells Barry. “I call this invention an ‘Elevator’!!! It’s Adlai’s greatest work!!! Use it carefully!!!” Okay, a few things about this scene:

1) I will be calling Adlai “Professor Shaftley” from now on, so at least he can fit into the grand HoYay theme;
2) I like how we have two people in the Suikoden universe who invented the elevator independently of each other;
3) Professor Shaftley had better watch out, or he’s going to get the Suikoden II Gross Abuse of Punctuation Award, and I already engraved Nanami’s name on the trophy, dammit.

Also, take note that this is the only Suikoden game in which the elevator interface doesn’t suck–unlike in I and III, in II I don’t have to enter a separate screen and wait for a year to make my floor selection, to the point where I should have just saved precious seconds and taken the fucking stairs. So Barry takes the elevator a lot and doesn’t take the opportunity to tone his twiggy little calves. Shucks.