Hugo has one last person to enlist, but it requires a trip home to rearrange. So after dumping off all the scripts he’s collected with Nadir (more on his theatrical pursuits later, because they are spectacularly dumb and I have to decide whose terrible acting I most want to highlight in this space), Hugo makes room in his party for–sigh–Sudit and Ralphie, and has Viki send him over to the Great Hollow.
While Hugo has no interest at this time in advancing the story or doing any dungeoneering–Jesus, look at his party–the game unfortunately can’t compartmentalize between trips to the Great Hollow for business or…less important business. Therefore, as the party approaches the cave entrance, they see Jimba running off to the east toward the Ancient Highway. “That looked like Jimba to me,” Hugo says. Thanks, bud! His party members offer their thoughts, which are entirely useless. Sarge doesn’t get a turn to speak, but I assume he’s just staring daggers at Hugo, like, “Of course it was, you hot idiot.”
Inside, among all the lizards, a familiar, tiny human is wandering around by the waterfall against the back wall. The two worse, male members of the Wanker Trio pull out of Hugo to reunite with their least-bad, female team member. “…Alanis?” Sudit asks. No, it’s some other little girl with perfect curly pigtails and a vintage Chanel dress.
Not now, Hugo.
The children take turns being surprised at each other’s presence in Lizardopolis, and Alanis also gets to be surprised that Hugo, their honorary fourth member, is here. I fucking hate that I had to type that. Clearly the lizards are not including Alanis in their group texts, or she’d already know at least what Hugo has been up to. Hugo says, “Yeah, you said you were moving, but…the Great Hollow?” It’s a fair question. Alanis doesn’t know where to begin, though I am guessing there aren’t that many twists to this story, but she is saved by the arrival of a lizard. “Ah, little one Alanis…” the lizard says. “Are these your friends? Bring them around later. We’ll eat the best Mantikra.” I had to look this up and that is the actual name of the crabs in Kuput Forest. I was worried it was the name of some dish made up of mantor meat, so color me relieved that it’s basically a crab rice bowl. Alanis thanks this lizard, who she calls “Uncle,” for the invite, and he walks off. Of fucking course this is the cue for Sudit and Ralphie to take this absolutely literally: “You’re related to the Lizard Clan?!” Ralphie yelps, like he’s about to start examining her for scales. These little dolts. Alanis finds herself in the fun position of having to explain that sometimes “Uncle” doesn’t refer to a blood relative, even though she’s been alive to figure this shit out the same number of years her friends have. She’s probably rethinking a lot of life choices right now.
Eventually, with the help of a black screen, Alanis gets through her epic story: “We moved, but then the battles broke out. We were screwed.” And then a lizard was nice to her! That is all we get out of Alanis on this. Sudit takes all this in and says, “It’s hard to believe you’re a prisoner of the Lizard Clan,” which AT NO POINT DID ALANIS SAY, but it turns out that’s the truth of it. Way to bury the lede, black screen! She replies, “Yeah, I’m a prisoner, but it’s not that bad. I can go anywhere in the Great Hollow. I was scared of the Lizard Clan at first, but not now. The worst part is that my father can’t run his business.” A BUSINESS, YOU SAY. I like how the game more or less predicts me thinking Alanis is a completely pointless addition to the Fire Bringer, and goes to the trouble of shoehorning in that her dad is a cooper or some shit just so I have a pretext to recruit her. Like, completing the Saint Loa Wanker collection would have been fine, especially since there was no real reason to bring the other two on in the first place either, but no, this is a good opportunity to showcase Hugo’s other serious responsibility as a Job Creator.
Sudit suggests Hugo speak with the Lizard Clan about allowing Alanis’s family to move to Buttfuck, and even tries to lay out a case for why they should agree, like Hugo isn’t basically their boss now. What, are they going to demand a prisoner exchange from their own allies? Come on. A black screen skips past what was surely the shortest negotiation session ever to Uncle Lizard saying goodbye to his brother’s daughter, as he is her uncle and that can only mean one thing to everyone. He tells her, “Don’t eat anything funky.” This is the opposite of Guy Fieri’s advice to us all, and Hugo is subconsciously drawn by his hair to argue with it, but he keeps his mouth shut. Ralphie compliments his friend, “No one can make friends like you can, Alanis,” you know, because she became close WITH A LIZARD, AND THEY ARE SCARY! Whatever, nerd. Hugo defers all thanks for this favor to Uncle Lizard, who spoke on Alanis’s behalf and is clearly the character Hugo should be recruiting right now. He seems great. Accordingly, Alanis is sad about leaving him to spend time with her objectively worse friends, so Sudit says in an effort to cheer her up, “Don’t cry, Silver Maiden Alanis. This isn’t goodbye forever. I know we’ll meet again someday.” Oops. I figure this is a one-off translation issue, but Alanis replies, wiping her eyes, “I’m not crying, Swordsman of Rage [Sudit]! I know I’ll see you again. And I’ll see you too. Right, Swordsman of Wind [Ralphie]?” Yeah, you will? You’re all going to be living together? Ralphie declares for what has to be the eighth time that the three of them will be friends forever, they do their insipid YMCA salute to cap off their touching reunion, and I pour some Bulleit into my coffee.
I just realized they form a giant M, but there’s no M in their name. Perfect.
Uncle Lizard seems a hair concerned that humans are so desperate for fighters that they’ve turned a bunch of children into knights, but not so concerned he’s going to do anything about it. The correct attitude. Alanis runs off to tell her parents the good (???) news, and we know they’re not going to object any more than Uncle Lizard did, since she officially gets the Pokéball sound effect as soon as she’s offscreen. How long will it take her to remember her two friends are blithering idiots? A day? I think a day.
NOT NOW, HUGO.
While Hugo is here anyway, and because I know he won’t have to do anything just yet that would make Sudit and Ralphie true liabilities, he enters the Ancient Highway to see what Jimba is doing. But when the party approaches the Sindar doors at the highway’s midpoint, Jimba is nowhere to be seen, as it is Team Mask once again staring down the doors. “Make sure the door opens this time,” Yuber whines. “We can’t afford further delays.” Sarah gets all mad at Yuber for this accurate complaint, like he just cussed in front of grandma. And the Mask shrugs it off anyway: “Don’t worry. We should be fine now that the True Fire Rune has been unsealed. There’s also the reemergence of the True Lightning Rune and the breaking of the seal kept by Alma Kinan to help us along.” Fine, dude, I believe you, it’ll totally open. Also, was the True Lightning Rune truly hidden away like the True Water Rune was? It’s not like Geddy had to go kill a soothsaying teenager to use his again.
The Mask steps closer to the doors and raises a hand, which glows green presumably from his True Wind Rune. I’m guessing THAT didn’t have to be unsealed, either. The doors, in reply, begin to pulse with dark blue energy that looks like ghosts are flying out from behind it. From their hiding place, Hugo is unhappy to see the Mask again, like he really thought he’d be well shot of that guy by now. As they’re conferencing behind the tall rocks and at least being slightly quieter, the entire hallway begins to rumble. It seems like the structure might come down on all their heads, but the Mask calmly announces, “The door is opening.” Which, sure enough, it does. I don’t care how good their engineering was otherwise, it seems like a bad idea to allow that much seismic distress just from opening the door. The entirety of Team Mask proceeds through the doors, Yuber and Sarah muttering about how it’s about time and Albert getting through this entire scene without speaking once. Wondering what the Mask is up to, Hugo follows the villainous quartet into the darkness.
A cavernous trio of hallways branch out before Hugo and his party, the one on the left featuring a handy save point and indicating I’m in for an afternoon. Hugo wonders what this place is, and I cannot remember if he heard from anybody that it’s a Sindar ruin or not, but even if he did I wouldn’t expect him to remember. From the back, Watari says with more excitement than he’s ever mustered for anything, “We’re going after them, now!” Hahaha, what? No, you and the Baby Hardy Boys are going home to eat ice cream while Hugo and a real party do the work. Don’t be ridiculous.
After a quick stop in Duck Village–where an Alma Kinan woman is seemingly waiting around for the glorious, life-affirming moment she gets to hand Hugo a Silver Hammer–the party returns home, only to find Samwise pacing impatiently like an expectant father. At Hugo’s appearance on the steps, she beckons him over by waving her spear in the air. “A message has arrived from the Lizard Clan, so everyone is gathered in the hall!” she announces. “They were looking for you too, Hugo. Please join them right away!” Don’t worry, Hugo already knows about the prisoner exchange, it’s totally cool.
Flame Champion Hugo is his own man, god dammit, and thus he defiantly spends 25 minutes doing more blacksmithing and equipment management before responding to the summons of his handlers and mother. The same crew as before, plus Frodo, is waiting in the war room for their “leader” to show up. “Perfect timing, Hugo,” Caesar says. Oh, they were 1000 percent bitching about having to wait on him until the second that door opened. Lucia tells her son they received a message from Jimba, and Hugo is quick to note he just saw him at the Great Hollow. Hugo actually knows stuff! Take that, Buttfuck Shadow Council! Caesar says to this news, “So the message is authentic.” Was that in dispute? Wait, who cares. “The problem is how to interpret it: apparently now that the True Fire Rune has been unleashed, the same is about to happen to the True Water Rune. The Rune is at the Ruins of Cyndar at the end of the highway.” Point the first: does the former rune’s awakening actually have anything to do with the latter’s, given that there has been an entire established, if insane, process to the True Water Rune unsealing? And second, is it really in the ruins, as opposed to on the hand of one Wyatt “Jimba” Lightfellow, the notably unaged dude who at one point had it? Wait, still who cares. Let’s go get the fucking thing.
No, guys, I said let’s go get the fucking thing, not “Let’s keep talking until we decide to go get the fucking thing, which is the only decision we will possibly arrive at no matter how much we talk.” Tootie unnecessarily says, “Based on the information we have, we believed that the masked Bishop of Harmonia is Collecting all the True Runes.” That is some Trumpian capitalization, dude. And also, NO SHIT that’s what the Mask is doing. Apple also feels the need to say, “As a national policy, Holy Harmonia is collecting the True Runes. This latest move must be a part of that effort.” Spoiler, she is wrong as hell, but I do think this is the first time in the series it’s been mentioned that Dear Leader Hikusaak is a True Rune hoarder, so at least it’s not a total waste of our time.
Dupa, not unreasonably, wonders what would happen if the Mask did get his hands on the True Water Rune, leading to this absolutely bonkers reply from Lucia: “The 27 True Runes give immortality and strong power to their bearers. I have seen that power executed once. Its effect is beyond all imagination. A human should never be allowed to use it.” I am not helping matters by dragging this shit out, I realize, but COME THE HELL ON, LADY. For one thing, if anybody in this room had bothered talking with Geddy, they would know the Mask already has a True Rune, and therefore this particular concern coming to pass is a non-issue. (Two is worse than one for sure, but is that seriously what they’re worried about?) Second, when did Lucia see this devastating power put to use? I don’t recall her being present for the various uses of the Beast Rune, Barry and Jowy didn’t use either of their runes to much destructive effect, and she definitely is not old enough to have witnessed Isaac blowing the Grasslands to holy hell. Third, humans do nothing but use these things, INCLUDING HER SON, the rune-bearing hero to whom Lucia has hitched her entire tribe’s fortunes. (Hugo, for what it’s worth, does not react to any of this. He’s probably watching a moth flit around a candle flame.) What are we all doing here?
OH COME ON
As I assumed, none of this discussion leads to any course of action other than getting the True Water Rune before the Mask can, which Caesar tasks Hugo with doing. Caesar says the tactical team will be “right behind” Hugo’s party, I guess in case he needs someone to help carry his stuff. “If this involves a True Rune,” Caesar adds, “your True Fire Rune might come in handy.” OH MIGHT IT? I am seriously so turned around on this. I didn’t even give the fucking thing to Hugo with the idea that he would use it much, but then his mom tells him no one should ever use it, and three seconds later Caesar says he should. Is this why Isaac went all Chernobyl? Just to shut everybody up for a minute?
Do I want to know?
Hugo takes full advantage of his latest recruits, putting together a party with Young Viki, Futch, and Bright. He rounds it out with his own favorite mount, and also Fubie. Once everyone’s buffed and polished and kitted with runes I like–and I’ve, of course, wasted 20 more minutes on trading post rounds and collecting grilled fish recipes and other free swag from random yokels–it’s time to navigate some Sindar ruins. I’m sure it will go swimmingly.