With all of that taken care of as well, and another 90 minutes of my life forever in the wind, Hugo returns to his room and accepts his warm Ovaltine and bedtime story from Cogs, who has been really patient this entire time. And as tends to happen in this crazy world, when Hugo goes to sleep, other people plot. Thankfully, the circumstances around here at least protect Hugo from watching helplessly as Sarge marries Chris and they have a terse wedding reception over Lulu’s corpse in his burned village.
Oh, I don’t know, Kidd, do you have any further details? Or perhaps photos? For, you know, research.
As the music tinkles in a sinister way–yes, it can, trust me, I think there are piccolos involved–we open on a brand-new location to the game: a circular chamber of white marble floors and blue quartz walls, with what could be a rune shining in midair at the top of the dais. It shines its creepy, snooping light down on Sasarai and a kneeling Nash. I am quite sure Nash was in Buttfuck Castle not 30 seconds ago, so this is an interesting development. I can only conclude Nash is a wizard, because as we know, all cutaways while the hero is sleeping are happening in real time during that nap, and I will go down in a bloody blaze of glory on this hill. Nash is debriefing his boss on the Mask: “Yes, it appears he is after the Five Elemental Runes for his own personal gain, and not for the benefit of Harmonia.” Well, I never! Doesn’t he know hunting down True Runes is good when it’s for imperialism, and at no other time?! He goes on that the Mask and his cronies “likely” instigated the situations at Karaya Village and Great Hollow, and I would think Ramen Hair here would have better intel than that to pass on by now, unless he’s withholding from Daddy for some reason, and I don’t think we’re supposed to think that.
Sasarai is just about to pronounce what their next plans should be when his head snaps up. Well, it would, if people in this game didn’t have all their movements animated as if they were submerged in maple syrup. “Wha-? Who’s there?” he asks, looking past Nash to spot a very obvious Luc peeking out from behind a crystalline stalagmite pillar in the hallway. This place looks like the last thing Superman did before creating the Fortress of Solitude was visit a mall Swarovski store. “It took you long enough to notice me,” Luc says. Ha. It did. “You should be more careful.” Confronted with these two twinks reenacting the Spiderman Pointing at Spiderman meme, Nash is on his way toward putting together that Luc is Sasarai’s…something or other, but he’s stopped from saying “twin” or “clone” or “VERY GOOD FRIEND” by Sasarai saying he hasn’t seen Luc since they were sniping at each other across a 2D battlefield in Jowston 15 years ago. Luc concurs with this assessment, calling Sasarai “brother” just so Nash has the right of it, or does he, who cares. I’m more stuck on them insisting they haven’t seen each other, but somehow Luc has been swanning around, albeit in a mask, as a Harmonian bishop this entire time, with the apparent approval of some higher up. I mean, it took Nash all this time just to conclude Luc wasn’t conquering the world for The Glory of Father Hikusaak, May He Reign Forever. Seems unlikely that Luc and Sasarai were never once at the same cocktail party, is all I’m saying. While the brotherlovers are staring cloneicide at each other, Nash says to the Luc, “I ordered everyone to leave the room. Do you intend to defy temple traditions?” Ohhhhh noooooo, not temple traditions! IS CIVILITY DEAD?
Shut up, Nash.
Come on, man, we definitely just went over this.
Luc is forced to point out that he doesn’t care about proper fucking temple etiquette, as he is here for Sasarai’s True Earth Rune. “I thought I could leave this for the end,” he adds, “but my plan has somehow gone awry.” I don’t know what he’s talking about, but it warms me to my foeyay-loving pervert core that Luc was saving Sasarai for last, for dramatic and romantic effect. And now that honor has to be reserved for Hugo? Ugh. When Sasarai asks, I hope rhetorically, just who Luc thinks he is, Luc is about to unload on who they both are, so I can take notes and Nash can steal them and pretend he took them, when the scene ends and we’re back to Hugo. Aww! I was all ready for more exposition, too!
Nash is not creeping in the hallway outside Hugo’s room when our hero emerges again, so it’s possible he wasn’t there before Hugo’s nap either, but going back to check my footage smacks of effort. Let’s move on to characters I love and care for deeply: Hugo makes the rounds again and heads for the entrance to the grounds, where Samwise is standing over…fucking Franz? God dammit.
‘Finally, a True Rune bearer we can believe in’
Samwise reports that this wretched intruder, who is kneeling next to a mantor, “collapsed upon his arrival,” and I assume she was content to let him rot here until Hugo ordered otherwise. But Franz, unsurprisingly, still has enough energy to open his fat mouth: “I came…because I heard the Flame Champion is stationed here. Please…could I see him?” By the time Hugo has blinked slowly at him several times and managed to get out, “Durrrrrrrr, the Flaaaaaaame Chaaaaaaammmmmpionnnnn?” (paraphrasing) Franz passes clean out on the ground. “Just get him inside,” Hugo tells Samwise. Into the bathtub of hydrofluoric acid, I assume. Just make sure it’s not ceramic!
Instead, Samwise joins the party and Franz’s near-corpse joins as a guest. Great. But the alternative would be Hugo and Samwise slowly dragging him up the steps to the manor in real time, I suppose. They dump him on the runner carpet in the foyer as Frodo and Cogs jog down the steps toward them. “He was going to do something here, but he collapsed before I could question him,” says Hugo. That’s not not true. “We’ll find out when he wakes up.” I should note that Franz is not lying on the carpet but is kneeling as he was when Hugo came upon him. Can you kneel, unsupported, when you’re unconscious? Who cares? He’s Frodo’s problem now!
A black screen brings together the Buttfuck War Council to discuss their new houseguest. Lucia asks her son, “Do you mean to say that he came here riding on the back of a large insect? How is that possible?” People younger and less immersed in regional history than Lucia seem to be aware of the mantor trainers, so this strikes me as ridiculous, but here we are. Geddy, the person in the room who actually traveled to Le Buque and didn’t just…uh…see the mantor trainers in battle several times since then, explains their deal, including the unfortunate history of their clan. This leads Chris to believe there must be something “brewing in Harmonia” to send Franz’s dumb ass all the way here. Man, good call. I wonder if they’re about to keep waging war on you.
This seems like a great time to just throw a bucket of ice water on Franz and ask him what’s up, but Apple and Tootie instead speculate he might be here due to a “rumor” they’ve heard: “Supposedly, one of the bishops is missing.” So they think Franz came all the way here because he was really distressed about the well-being of the Mask, is that it? Before this brain trust can conjure up even more unlikely reasons for Franz’s presence, Samwise knocks and then escorts him into the room for a requested audience with Hugo. I mean, with the Flame Champion: whatever Samwise says, I doubt he requested Hugo personally. Franz introduces himself, and gets right to it: “I traveled here because I heard that the Flame Champion has reappeared. Might I meet with him, please?” Like I said.
Hugo steps forward and calls himself “the successor to the Flame Champion’s rune,” which is both perfectly accurate and also bizarrely clumsy. Suikoden III, everybody! I expect Franz to get hung up on the Flame Champion metaphysics, but he breezes right by any confusion with his straightforward request, delivered on bended knee: to save Le Buque. “The people of Le Buque worked hard for the Harmonian army, thinking it would eventually lead to our freedom,” Franz explains. “Harmonia treats us like third class citizens and imposes heavy taxes; we can’t leave our village nor marry without their consent. I fought for Harmonia, believing their promise to upgrade us to second class citizens for our wartime service, but…” Caesar correctly finishes for him that that was all a lie, though this hardly takes Sherlock Holmes-level deductive prowess. Caesar adds, “They grant freedom only when it serves them. When circumstances change, they take it away.” It sounds like they never gave it in the first place! Franz goes on, “Yes, the Harmonian army suddenly accused us of secretly siding with the Fire Bringer…and threatened to take the villagers to the Crystal Valley as hostages.” I don’t want to criticize Franz’s methods here–clearly every decision he’s ever made has been a right one, yes indeed–but if the Harmonians are suspicious of you collaborating with their enemies and are threatening to kidnap a bunch of civilians in retaliation, maybe the move is not to immediately seek out collaboration with their enemies?
Maybe I just don’t understand strategy!
*gestures vaguely at rest of game*
Tootie, while sympathetic judging from the same concerned frown he wears at all times, is worried about “moving the allies now, when they are just now organizing into troops.” It’s true: if you disrupt the ally cocooning process, the troop will never emerge. Lucia counters this, not with “What the hell are you talking about?” but with, “But if we desert Le Buque now, we could lose the trust of other Grassland clans. Le Buque was once one of us, you know.” Look who’s suddenly a fucking Le Buque expert!
Caesar is struggling with this dilemma when Geddy presents a compromise solution, aka the only solution ever provided in these situations: he’ll take his own crew to Le Buque. It’s a good thing the only military problems that exist in Suikoland require either an entire army or no more than six people. Sometimes 18 people in groups of six, if we’re really going fucking nuts. Over Apple’s dumb protests, Geddy says to Caesar, “Remember, I was once at the Flame Champion’s side. Now, I bear the True Rune in my right hand. That should be good enough.” This super implies he is bearing the True Fire Rune, making me wonder how much of the dialogue was cut and pasted across the three iterations of the post-chapter 4 storyline. I feel like everybody in the room–except Apple, but who cares–was already convinced, but he goes on, “The former Flame Champion knew what it meant to be a hero. [That’s shade on you, Hugo, buddy.] A hero’s title is just an illusion. What matters is living up to that name. Even if it’s dangerous.” Caesar more or less agrees to this because he doesn’t have any other ideas. Whatever Hugo is paying this guy, it’s probably too much.
A black screen transports us to the entrance to the grounds, where Geddy has gathered the 12th Unit, minus Aila, plus Franz. This is not an upgrade. “So much for rest and relaxation,” Ace is saying. He knows he’s been conscripted into a war, right? I’m really asking. I hope someone told him. Joker takes issue with this attitude, as he takes issue with everything Ace says as part of whatever advanced frenemy roleplay level they’re on. I mean, the sex must be fucking phenomenal to have to carry on like this all the time. Queen ignores them–everyone is on-brand here–and says to Geddy, “So, our mission is to sneak into Le Buque to scout and block the Harmonian army. Is that right?” Geddy’s like, sure, that’s a way shorter version of the last scene. Queen should do all the exposition. Franz thanks them all for the help, Ace and Joker pause in their interminable sex dance of words, and they get on their way, Jacques alone pausing before leaving to see if maybe anybody else would like to join them. And only once he too has left does Aila storm after them, back in her normal Karaya clothing, a “THOSE SONS OF BITCHES” scowl on her face, also as usual. “They’re not leaving me behind!” she shouts at no one. I’m not sure why they would want to–she’s easily the most useful person in their party. She isn’t wearing a fucking Tusk Rune.
Geddy is dumped into my control on the world map, which I should take as a sign of some bullshit to come, but I don’t. Instead, with hope in my heart, I return him to Buttfuck to pick up Tuta before teleporting to Le Buque. The Tuta part goes fine, it’s not like his unsettlingly fine ass has anything better to do. But Viki is being uncooperative. “YAAWWWN!… I’m so sleepy….” she says. Well, fuck you, lady, you can sleep when Geddy is dead! But no matter how many times Geddy approaches her and stares at her in surly silence, Viki is just too goddamn drowsy to do her one job, and Geddy can’t even appeal to the other Viki for some help, because that little bitch don’t care. Stymied, Geddy returns to the Yaza Plain and starts walking, like some kind of fucking non-teleport-having peasant. He’s suddenly glad neither of his boyfriends is alive to see him humiliated like this.
Not one goddamn thing of interest happens in the 25 minutes it takes the 12th Unit to get from headquarters to the top of the mountain pass, mostly because, unlike Dog Squad, all of these guys can wear armor and have enough levels to withstand immolation from packs of Blue Dragonites. There is a Twin Snake treasure boss blocking the way to the Le Buque turnoff. I have no recollection whether I’ve gone over this particular boss before, so just to cover my bases, and because at least it’s something to talk about in this recap of nothing I’ve got going, it’s yet another penis-headed abomination with a fire-breathing penis head and an ice-breathing penis head, though this version has separately attackable component parts and is actually capable of doing real damage to a party less buff than this one. It takes Geddy a tantalizing six clicks to get through the lock on this particular loot hoard, though the only interesting thing inside, non-potch category, is a recipe for a “Chinese Banquet.” That seems like it would be multiple recipes! Good value! Bad world-building!
Its ass also has a penis head.
Moments later, the party is standing again at the outskirts of Le Buque, though this time they are in the company of Franz and his dumb puffy pants instead of facing off against him. Ace asks some boring and unnecessary tactical questions, given that they’re infiltrating a cliffside village with only one way in or out, and Franz did not bring his minivan-class mantor to fly seven other people in there from another angle. Joker, still invested in wasting my time but in a slightly less insulting way, asks Franz to fill them in on “the happenings in Le Buque.” In the Grasslands this is an extremely low bar to limbo under, but this might be the least happening place in the whole game. Like, apartheid state aside, I’m guessing the most that happens here day to day is a bug expels some larva from its thorax, or a fellow mantor rider too-forcefully denies having sex with Franz. He may be socially radioactive, but he’s still easily the hottest person in this village. But no matter, because quite a lot has been happening: Franz explains that the women and children were separated from the soldiers and rounded up to go, uh, somewhere. “I barely escaped, but I had to leave my Ruby behind,” he says. Concentration camps might be in play, but OH NO MY POOR BUG MISSES ME. Aila decides this is a “cute” name for a mantor, while Queen, the only person here other than silent Geddy with her eyes on the prize, says they should get going and worry about strategy “later.” Or “never,” as I’m sure will end up being the case.