The party enters the Great Hollow and Hugo is immediately accosted by his mom, who squeezes him half to death and embarrasses him in front of his new friends; and by Luce, who’s all, “You’re here! What wonderful news! Where’s my son that I left in your care? Is he hiding behind your billowing Hammer pants, Hugo? HUGO? WHERE’S MY SWEET BABY LULU, HUGO?” Hugo and Sarge look away uncomfortably while they think of a kind, tactful way of telling Luce what happened.

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Hugo is still at a loss for words, so Duckman simply tells Luce that he’s sorry, and that Lulu was given a proper burial after his idiotic notions of vengeance got his dumb little ass killed. Luce is very sad, of course, but she pretty much agrees that Lulu was a moron. Lucia pats Luce and the scene fades, and hopefully that means Lulu’s name will never be mentioned in my hearing again.

Or not! God, no one liked Lulu, can we move on? We fade back in on Hugo, moping near a waterfall all by his lonesome. His mom comes over to let him know that she gave Luce a cup of tea and some Tylenol PM. Hugo’s all, “That’s nice,” but his Emo Face eventually morphs into his Angry Face. The Angry Face is kind of like watching a kitten try to scare a dog. “Mother,” he says, “I…I’m ashamed. At the village, when we got there, the Sergeant stopped me from–I couldn’t. Not one. Not even one ironhead for Lulu!” Rolling my eyes so hard it hurts over here. Lucia patiently listens to her son whine and bitch some more, before telling him that what he’s feeling is natural, because the Grasslanders, surrounded by hostility as they are, “must fight if [they] are to survive.” It’s yet another stirring rendition of The Cold Truth of War™, so I’m sure you guys won’t mind if I don’t go over every detail. Just know that Lucia gives her son a sweet hug–aww–and admits that she was secretly relieved that it wasn’t Lulu coming back with news of Hugo’s death. You and me both, lady.

Sarge breaks up the mother-son reunion, and of course Hugo’s all mad because his friend saw his mom hugging him. Ew, only babies love their mothers! The duck says that it’s fine if he wants to hug his mommy some more, since Hugo obviously missed her so much and probably wants his binkie and bottle, too. Okay, Sarge is nicer than that, but Hugo’s still glaring daggers at him regardless. Anyway, Sarge hasn’t seen the Three Stooges for a while and is worried that they’re making idiots of themselves somewhere. That’s a good bet. Also, Lilly still owes them money, and God knows 2000 potch is worth the hassle, what with the half a level of blacksmithing for one character that would pay for. Hugo runs off to find them, but Sarge stays behind long enough to tell a worried Lucia, “I don’t intend to make that same mistake twice.” Yeah, he totally fucked up by not letting Lulu kill himself due to his own stupidity earlier. I agree.

Hugo takes the grand tour of the Great Hollow, in case the change in perspectives from Frodo to Hugo makes for any grand and exciting changes. Guess what? It doesn’t. So that was fun.

Fun with meta!

Hugo finds his charges, in fact, making idiots of themselves in front of Well-Endowed Dupa and a handful of his scaly friends. Dupa rather reasonably listens to Lilly accuse his entire clan of hiding the whereabouts of the Flame Champion, since, hey, nothing better to do. The chief reminds us how old this story is: “When I was young, I often asked my father to tell me about the great deeds of the hero Isaac and the Fire Bringer.” And with our first appearance of the name I picked at the very beginning, we’re launched into Flashback Land.

Grasslands, in sepia tone. Isaac, our Flaming Champion, leads a band of Suikoclones in flood pants through some trees. The tinkly background music doubles as “We are ever so sneaky” and “Something is rotten in Denmark.” Isaac tells his men, “The escort is small. Only one squad–an easy haul. We’ll attack on my signal.” As they run in and the scene fades out, Dupa explains that the Grasslands were invaded 50 years ago by the Harmonians, and the Harmonians were so awesome and powerful that all the Grassland clans, including his impressively masculine forebears, submitted to their reign. That is, except for Isaac and his Fire and Appletini Bringers. Now, Dupa makes it sound all awesome, like they were out there fighting the good fight and instilling Obama-like hope in the other clans, except that the second flashback shows them robbing people and planning to use the money to buy back the Grasslands from Harmonia. Nice and all, but hardly as epic as Dupa wants us to believe. Also, one of the Fire Bringer is clearly Jimba. But this was 50 years ago! What kind of supernatural force could possibly be behind someone not aging in 50 years? The pretense suspense is killing me.

Eventually, despite Isaac’s original plans to buy his homeland from invaders with money stolen from them, he ends up leading an army of all the Grassland clans. Probably numbering in the neighborhood of 108 people, just a hunch. The Grasslanders are confident in their victory–we’ve got water fowl and lizards that don’t wear pants, this is in the bag!–but according to Dupa it was a bloodbath and not a clear victory for either side. And Isaac the Flaming Champion disappeared, probably with all that money he said was for the Great Grasslands Bailout Fund. Dupa finishes, eyeing Lilly, “That is why you must give up looking for the Flame Champion. So many tales have been told about the Fire Bringer returning. But they turn out to be fairy tales. Nothing more.” And these Grasslanders are so starved for hope and change that Lilly is somehow being rude by even asking about their likely-dead hero of old.

After everyone listening to Dupa has dispersed, Hugo finds Lilly again. Of course, she didn’t really hear a word Dupa said and is as intent on finding the Fire Bringer as ever. She’s also scowling quite a bit, and nothing Reed or Samus says is making it go away. Sarge rubs it in by asking if she’s ready to acknowledge how right he was before and give up her search. Even Hugo wonders why she cares, since Isaac would be too old to be of much use to her even if he is still alive. At this, Lilly snorts triumphantly. “Ha!” she bellows in his face. “You have no idea, do you? You don’t know why he’s called the ‘Flame Champion,’ do you?” Oh, Lilly, of course he doesn’t–how much do I need to beat the “Hugo is stupid” horse for you to get it?

Lilly asks if they’ve heard of the “27 True Runes.” Stunningly, Hugo has, from his mother. Duckman is also familiar with them, as they have “all kinds of untold powers.” Or, y’know, told powers–I think I know what the True Fire Rune does. Speaking of, this is the very rune Lilly says the Flame Champion possessed. I’ll let Sarge take it from here: “And that’s where ‘Flame’ came from? Not too imaginative.” He’ll be here all night, folks. Lilly goes on as if uninterrupted, saying that she met someone with crazy True Rune powers when she was a kid, but remembers none of it. Did The Count getting all grabby-hands with her bring on a bout of retrograde amnesia? If this game had been made a few years later, Lilly could be bragging about the experience to all her teenage, vampire-crazed friends. He didn’t suck Lilly’s blood because he wanted her to remain pure! OMG!

As usual, I’ve wandered off the point, which is this: True Rune bearers are immortal, so Isaac could very well be alive and still nubile and pretty. Sarge still isn’t buying it, because the idea of the Flame Champion living in secret all this time, only to come out of hiding to rob Tinto merchants, is completely idiotic. I’m paraphrasing instead of quoting him so it won’t look like he’s doing my job for me.

What Sarge actually cares about is getting paid for spending this much time with this flighty broad, and demands the 2000 potch they were supposed to get for making it here. Lilly demands that Reed pay them, but it turns out that Lilly is out of money, and there are no ATMs in the Great Hollow. This is what happens when you pay for hotel rooms you don’t even use. The scene fades out as Sarge and Lilly start arguing with each other–I’m assuming we’re missing out on some flying feathers and hunks of red hair. Pity.

Out at the Great Hollow’s entrance–don’t even ask me why Hugo had to come out here, because there is no reason other than “Walk outside to make the game keep going!”–Hugo and Sarge find Jimba, who himself is only just now returning to the clan. The three of them play catch-up, and yes, this means rehashing Lulu’s death again. Jimba seems to take it in stride, since he and Lulu were not really brothers Lulu was a dumb shithead. Apparently Jimba was first in Chisha before reaching the Great Hollow by way of “Lake Castle.” This both makes no sense geographically (Chisha, you’ll see later, is nowhere near either) and avoids giving me the opportunity to snicker at Buttfuck Castle. Hugo’s all agog at the mention of this Lake Castle and its new diminuitive lord, but Jimba didn’t get enough of a chance to check it out before he was chased off by some ironheads. Hugo escorts Jimba to his mom so the clan chief can hear all this non-information.

Of course, when Jimba gets in front of Lucia, he’s got all kinds of stuff to say about “Zexen, Harmonian troop movement, and the Flame Champion,” as if purposely trying to make me look like an asshole. Fuck you, Jimba. He and Lucia stop talking as they realize Hugo and Sarge are still standing there, Hugo with this dopey grin on his face like he can’t wait to hear every syllable Jimba says. Sarge escorts him away so the grownups can talk.

Over by the waterfall, Hugo and Sarge ponder what they’ve learned thus far, and why Lilly is such a gigantic bitch (she overhears and joins them, of course), until Jimba walks over to ask if Hugo did what he asked him to do. Hugo did, of course, and says so. Not that Jimba is going to provide any more information about that enigmatic errand–that would be way too considerate. Bulling right over Lilly trying to grill him about the Flame Champion, Jimba goes on, “About this other matter…I believe the Zexen Knights have ulterior motives behind their attacks on the Great Hollow.” I don’t know that “kill Grasslanders because they’re ugly and we don’t like them” counts as an ulterior motive. Anyway. Jimba thinks all-out war is on the horizon and wants to gather as many allies as he can in the event it comes. And as part of that, he and Lucia have agreed to send Hugo to scout out “Lake Castle,” both as a nice neutral meeting ground for said allies, and to see if the Fire Bringer are hiding out there. Lilly pretty much accepts the mission for Hugo while Sarge repeats back everything Jimba said in a heroic effort to piss me off.

Thanks, Shion.

Hugo is ready to leave immediately–as is Lilly, whether she’s wanted or not–and Jimba sees them to the Great Hollow entrance, wishing them luck and promising that going to this castle will be way more fun than the cool spy shit he gets to do. Somehow I doubt that, Jimba. And with that, Hugo’s second chapter is at an end. I can look back on this now and know how boring and frustrating Hugo’s end of the story has been, but somehow when I’m done with Geddy and Chris I’ll be like, “Ooh boy! A Hugo chapter! I’ve missed these!” Because I am a sucker and have terrible taste. Next time…oh, I don’t know, probably Chris. She runs away and takes down her hair! And meets some guy from a game most of you have never played! How very exciting!