As the team wanders into town, Ace notes it’s quiet, like they weren’t just told the entire civilian population wasn’t rounded up and sent on a fun, mandatory vacation. “Could be a trap,” Queen adds. This is, of course, true, but it’s not like this place was exactly Bourbon Street before this, either. Joker, while looking away from Franz but somehow pointing his entire face and body at him, says, “We’d better keep an eye on this young man.” His posture is so odd that at first I thought he was indicating Jacques, like it’s their special baby boy’s 21st birthday and he’s going to go hog fucking wild here in the Le Buque Quarter. Hope he likes extremely depressing jazz clubs and milk punch made with mantor venom! Mmmm! Ignoring my flight of stupid fancy, Franz of course gets all offended at Joker’s insinuation, and Joker decides to straight-up say the thing: “We can’t be too careful. Anything’s possible. It’s hard to believe someone as visible as you and your Mantor could escape detection while trying to escape.” Wow, really good point, Joker! It would have been even better if you’d made it at any time before now, when it’s entirely too late to do anything about it! “This guy’s story sure seems fishy! Better follow him halfway across the continent, back to his home turf, where every building houses a giant insect nest perfect for hiding, oh, seven or so human bodies.”
On the other hand, all that travel time was obviously much better spent calling his boyfriend a type A ignorant slut in a loud voice while winking theatrically. My bad, carry on.
Aila decides to put her own senses to work to resolve this conundrum. Facing the village, she kneels and puts her hand to the ground. After focusing a moment, she says, “I don’t sense deception. I think he’s okay.” Deception from Franz? Because she’s literally facing away from him. Possibly deception from the village itself, and she’s checking the vibrations in the earth to see if a bunch of Le Buque residents are hiding out of sight to jump out and scream “Surprise!” You know, for Jacques’s birthday. Clarifying to Ace, who more or less has the same questions I do, Aila adds, “People waiting to secretly attack are usually nervous, so they smell a little like metal.” Well, I have no follow-up questions.
But Aila also sussed out, as I sort of guessed, that there are no humans in the village. This is enough to get the boss eager to move in and check things out. Yes, now that we know there’s no one here, better investigate how there’s no one here! It’s like Hugo is along on this trip in spirit. In the center of town, everyone notes a third time that nobody is fucking here, and Franz shouts for Iku, because he’s a choad. Not even the shop vendors are here, which sucks because Geddy’s inventory is a bit of a nightmare after killing that Twin Snake, but nothing to be done about it except travel back in time and bring Gordon instead of Tuta.
There is, actually, one person remaining in Le Buque: the innkeeper, a lady with a sensible mom bob and a pretty relaxed attitude about her current situation. “Oh, it’s a customer!” she says. “Everyone in the village has been taken away, except for me…and you, it seems! Will you be staying?” Oh, so the game decided to throw me a bone and leave someone who could have my game, but not someone who would exchange all my spare antitoxin and rusted helmets for cash? Thanks for fucking nothing, designers. Geddy decides to stay, though, so I guess thanks for almost nothing.
The team breaks out of Geddy after this afternoon nap-and-save to YET AGAIN discuss the fact that no one is here. The camera focuses on Franz for several long moments before he walks off through the middle of the group, taking his leave of the party. Well, this seems like a solved problem. Back to Buttfuck!
Sigh.
Geddy finds Franz at Iku’s place, bemoaning his inability to save his neighbors who despise him. And, in case we forgot that part, he whines, “How could they call me a child of Harmonia?! They didn’t know how I felt when I was in Crystal Valley!” It’s honestly relatable and human that he can’t let go of this petty shit even now, when all these people who rebuffed him are prisoners, but still, Christ, what a prick this guy is. The 12th Unit members array themselves around Iku’s dining room and stare at him until he opens his mouth again. “The town in Crystal Valley was so secure and peaceful, it drove me crazy,” he says. I…what? What? “I never forgot about Le Buque while I was there.” Seems like everyone in Le Buque wishes you would have! As Franz is clenching his fist like a cartoon anteater in a meme, Queen says, kind of scowling at him, “Then why give up on Le Buque now? Maybe you’re just trying to make us feel sorry for you.” If he was trying to extract sympathy from a group of strangers, I don’t think he could have picked a worse group than this one. “Ha!” he sneers, turning to face Queen. “You think I want your sympathy? Do you think my love for Le Buque is just some kind of show? You’re really something.” Is this entire scene going to be about how much Franz loves a currently empty town that is a shithole on its best day and stem to stern regards him with contempt? I only have so many days left on this Earth, game.
Same energy.
Aila’s entire purpose in this story seems to be to toss wild subject changes at everyone around her to keep them from falling into conversational ruts and/or to drive me batshit up the belfry, and this scene is no exception: she charges through the door and demands everyone follow her back outside. She leads them all to Jacques, who is watching over an injured mantor trainer and his steed, lying on the landing platform. Franz identifies this man as “Rick,” which is a real 3:30 on a Friday afternoon NPC name, and asks poor dying Rick where everyone else is. “Fr-Franz, they are all at the altar of the insect trainers….” says Rick. “They said it was a ritual to obtain a True Rune.” Rick insists he knows no more about it, and that he barely managed to get away, when Geddy’s True Rune-having ears perk up at this.
A black screen sends Rick to a bed, probably to be nursed back to health by the innkeeper, falling in love and eventually having six kids. Queen says the dude’ll be fine, and Aila figures this is a nice lead, but Joker is suspicious again. “Just another ‘lucky’ escapee?” he asks. “Or could he be another lure? One can’t believe everything one hears.” My dude Wang is not wrong, and he even thought to raise these objections in a timely manner this time. I mean, Rick didn’t even pause in his breathless exposition long enough to call Franz a traitorous piece of shit, so something must be up. Geddy hears this, and respects it, but has his own thoughts. “If it is a trap, let us fall into it for once,” he says. Listen to Daddy being all reckless and cavalier. This definitely would have been hot enough back in the day for Isaac to put down his Ayn Rand. “I am developing an interest in what the masked bishop has to say about his ambitions.” He is going to regret saying that. Just a feeling.
Geddy’s proclamation feels like one he’s not going to be talked out of, so Ace skips to whining about his favorite subject, logistics: “Can’t we get Mantors to fly us there? I don’t want to have to walk up that mountain again!” Not even going to make fun. I have been Ace. When it comes to walking up mountains, I am always Ace. Queen asks him, “You think we’ll all fit on the back of that one bug?” Don’t be an asshole, Queen. You have two of them now. It’s only 50 percent as unworkable as you think.
There is literally nothing else to do in Le Buque but watch the precious minutes of their lives plunk into the bottom half of the hourglass, so Geddy climbs down from the landing platform and gets the hell out of town and directly up the mountain, probably dragging a huffing, puffing, and whining Ace. Again, not a judgment. An odd, possibly fetish-driven close-up on Geddy’s and then Franz’s booted feet announces the team’s arrival in the caves of Mt. Senai, after which Franz communicates with Geddy through a series of miraculously silent nods that they should keep going. I have no idea what would have caused Franz to shake his head in signal that they should not continue, or what would have happened if he did, though my money is on Geddy ignoring his irritating ass and moving on without him. As they’re running, Ace and Joker have two brief, meaningless lines of dialogue that pass for civil and even polite, which makes me very concerned they are about to break up. My brain has turned inside out.
Hehehehehe
Skipping past the same random battles this place has had the last three times, the rescue team reaches the back of the cavern and its supposed bug trainer altar. There are, indeed, a bunch of Le Buque civilians milling about with no particular urgency, so Franz makes The Most Urgent Bitchface as he charges toward them. More specifically, he charges toward Iku, who looks like she is catching a glimpse of him out of the corner of her eye and trying very hard to ignore it. Finally, she turns toward him but does not move, while her frown does not slip an inch. She hates him so much, you guys. She also does not warn him that there’s a reason she’s not running toward him beyond the obvious (he sucks, she hates him, et cetera), and instead lets him plow headlong into a forcefield walling off the western side of the room. Sparks fly from the impact with his pointy head in a very satisfying way.
Franz asks, “What is this?” The Le Buque civilians look at him silently, because “a barrier for keeping these prisoners imprisoned, obviously, you dumb fuck” doesn’t need to be said. One of the children casts his eyes to his left, toward the altar, and then people start backing away from that spot. This is because Luc is standing out of view behind a pillar, though this makes no sense, because they definitely knew he was there before Franz charged in demanding they exposit about it. After taking a dramatic beat, Luc steps out of the shadows, with Sarah following suit from behind the pillar she was using as cover. I don’t know why this is even necessary. They’re not exactly getting the drop here. “Welcome, everyone!” Luc says. “I’ve been waiting for you.” Yeah, behind a pillar, possibly jacking it. This all feels extremely rehearsed, down to Sarah pausing to ensure she appears exactly five seconds after her boss, and it is only in the service of drama. That’s fine! It’s not like we don’t know Luc is a messy bitch.