“Relying solely on the Royal Fleet made me uneasy,” Lido is explaining, “so I had it built in secret, never thinking we would have to use it so soon…” That’s really not much of an explanation. “I didn’t like the boats I had, so I built a top secret really big boat.” Whatever. Lido says they all need to get ready to get out of there, as he plans to courageously peace out on Obel before he gets captured by the Kooluk. “We may be criticized for fleeing, but it cannot be helped,” Lido says, probably trying to convince himself more than anything. Finally, he asks Marvy, probably the one person who shouldn’t be out in the open right now, to quickly scour the island for anyone useful for their voyage. Flarey Sue volunteers to accompany him. Yay. Lido pretends to be concerned for her well-being for about three seconds before telling her they’re to find anyone who can’t be left behind, and specifically a doctor. “Oh, and one more thing…” he tells Marvy. “Do not use that left hand of yours under any circumstances, you hear?” You know, there’s an easy way to make sure Marvy is not put in that situation. It’s called sending someone else.
But that’s his, er, uh, writing hand. Yeah, that’s it.
Of course, Lido is not listening to me, and after a black screen, Flarey Sue has wiggled into his party and the room has cleared out. Marvy’s immediate concern is not being stuck alone with her, so he first talks to Desmond to add some testosterone to the party. No can do, though, because some asshole at Konami decided that this is to be a romantic mission for two, and no one else is allowed to come. He even tries Louise, but she too blocks him from adding anyone else. Now desperate, he does a quick round of Talk to Everyone, stopping to talk to Rita last. But instead of inviting him to a quick game, she just chirps, “Be sure to help lots of people! I’ll see you later!” BITCH YOU SLAP THOSE TILES ON THE FELT NOW. NOW!!!!!!
RITAAAAAA!!!
Sigh. Well, Marvy is not getting out of this. May as well get it over with. But as soon as he walks out, we cut to one of the Kooluk ships, where Old Man River is talking to one of his men. Kooluk soldiers, incidentally, wear oversized iron Darth Vader helmets, which seems like smart open ocean wear. And fitting, since they also have Cristo Redeathstar. OMR is apparently advised by a superior to turn his ships around, and so he does, while Marvy watches from the cliffs with his thumb up his ass.
Since they’re standing right here, Marvy first checks with Waluigi and his wife Ema to see if they’d like to get the fuck off this island, like any right-thinking people would. “No, we just got here, and I plan on staying put,” Waluigi insists. “We will stay here and protect the citizens. After all, we owe them a great deal.” Do they really? Did Nabokov the appraiser help them get their RV septic pump hooked up? I won’t even ask how these two are going to protect themselves, let alone everyone on the island. If they don’t want to come, that ain’t Marvy’s problem.
Downhill from the palace, Marvy manages to recruit a single Suikoclone for his big gay boat ride–big whoop–before the scene cuts back to Molesley and Desmond having a walk-and-talk in the hallways of the ship. Portrait People and Suikoclones alike mill around with purpose in the background. Akaghi has a Super Serious Conversation in hushed tones with Louise, while he affects a Squally Stance. Marvy is going to be so pissed if they leave without him. Nothing these people could do would surprise him at this point.
Even Squally would not be caught dead in this outfit.
After a quick cut to the Kooluk ships on the move, we return to Marvy for the five seconds he needs to convince the gabby washerwomen to hop on board his ship of dreams. Then it’s back to some weapons room inside the ship, where various characters and NPCs are hauling rune cannonballs up to a storage area that looks like a pipe organ, presided over by an unnamed Portrait Person with blond hair, a dapper navy blue vest, and an unfortunate nose.
And those Kooluk ships are still moving through the water in an unspecified direction! Faaaascinating.
Back to Marvy again. This is giving me whiplash. At the lowest level of the village, Marvy spots a vaguely familiar face in front of the trading post. It’s Adrienne, the incredibly butch apprentice blacksmith he met in Middleport. She explains that she was here to buy gold, like Glenn Beck and Dr. Yueh instructed her to on their podcast, but now she’s stuck on Podunk Island because of the Kooluk ships. “What? What’s that? A ship?” she asks excitedly. “You’ll take me with you?” Marvy’s not thrilled that his lone recruit so far is a girl, but at least she has a clear and useful function. Welcome to the Love Boat, Adrienne!
Nobody else on the island seems inclined to leave, for reasons I frankly do not understand in the slightest, so Marvy finally talks to Dr. Yueh. To his credit, he agrees to help immediately and doesn’t even throw a bunch of sass in Marvy’s face about his sky-high med school debt. And now that they have a doctor to treat their scurvy and any sexually transmitted infections, Marvy has done his due diligence. He collects one more Suikoclone from the docks, which is enough to satisfy Flarey Sue’s mother hen instincts. Back to the cave!
But halfway up the path, Flarey Sue stops. “You know…” she tells Marvy, who doesn’t care, “I’m going to remain on the island. The people here need me. It’s important.” Two of those three sentences are not true. Marvy makes no move to stop her, even though he suspects Lido will not be thrilled with him letting her run off. “Please tell my father for me, okay!” she yells as she turns around to return to the village. Marvy watches her go, as fireworks explode in his mind, but he keeps it cool and doesn’t start tap dancing. Flarey Sue turns around once more in the distance, waves at him desperately, and shouts into cupped hands, “Don’t worry! I’ll be fine! Hurry on inside!” Don’t have to tell him twice.
Congratulations, you are now on Marvy’s list of ‘People to eat first if we run out of food.’
When Marvy enters the war room, Lido immediately figures out that his daughter, what with her headstrong and brave personality and inspiring singing voice, decided to stay on Obel. Molesley goes, “Wh-What?! Why didn’t you try to stop her?” Hi, this is Marvy. Have you two met? Lido isn’t exactly thrilled, but he tells Molesley to calm down, since someone representing the Obel government probably needed to stay or the “THANKS LIDO” meme posters would be plastered on every surface on the island.
Then something wonderful happens: Molesley, overcome with concern for Flarey Sue, announces, “Th-Then I shall also go outside. Make sure everything’s okay. Everyone, please look after His Majesty!” Fucking nice. Can he get Chiepoo, Paula, and like half the other recruits off the ship before it leaves too? That’d be great. Lido calls out Molesley’s name, and he turns around, obviously half-hoping that his liege lord will try to convince him to stay, but he simply asks, “Please take good care of [Flarey Sue] for me.” I have a feeling Flarey Sue will be the one taking care of him. “Also,” Lido asks, “tell the remaining citizens…to just hang in there for now, okay?” I really hope Molesley comes up with more invigorating language than that. Everyone on Obel will come to hate their king’s guts in the next five minutes.
THANKS LIDO
Okay, now that Lido has ensured his citizens will overthrow him if he ever returns, it’s finally time to get the hell out of here. Marvy selects, “Let’s go!” to get the show on the road. But first, it’s back to the Kooluk ships, with Joe Bishounen this time. A Kooluk Dark Helmet informs him that the residents of Obel are gathering at the wharf, which Joe decides he must check out for himself. It’s probably just his fan club.
Outside, Molesley is taking his sweet time returning to the island center when he spots a Kooluk ship headed straight for the cliff. Even though he’s like a hundred yards from the mouth of the cave, and everyone else is inside the fucking ship, he shouts back as if anyone will hear, “Hurrrrryyyy!!! Hurry up and escape! I will take care of this!” And then…and then. Molesley shouts even more futilely at the oncoming ship, “Hey, there!! Over here!! I’m over here!! Right here guys!! Do you need a target to aim for? Okay! I’ve got one! Aim for this!!” And with that, he turns around and shakes his derrière in their ugly Kooluk faces. I would say there’s no way this would work, and I’m not even sure what the goal of it is–does he think they would keep looking at his ass for even a second if a giant ship burst out of its trap door on the island? But Joe Bishounen and his Dark Helmets basically go, “Look! That distracting man is mooning us! Let’s watch him some more!” Joe does immediately figure out that something must be hidden nearby for this guy to be rump-shaking at them. Either that, or he wants Joe to spray a bottle of Cristal all over him.
‘Quick, get me a gerbil with a tiny flashlight.’
As Joe’s ship powers toward Molesley and he spends more precious seconds yelling at no one, inside the ship, Tov informs Lido that they are ready to go. “Good! This is it,” he tells Marvy. “We’ve got only one chance at this. You’re in charge here. When you are ready, give the order to set sail!” Of course, those orders were already set in motion when Marvy was last given a choice, so this time he literally has only one option: “Set sail!” Whoo, we are finally getting the fuck out of here, and on a craft that isn’t adrift!
Molesley is still standing outside the cave like a fucking lump when Tov shouts, “Bring down the cliff!!” And with an impressive display of pyrotechnics (for this game), rumbling earth and controller vibration, an entire section of the cliffside north of the cave mouth crumbles into the ocean. “Whoa! Whoa!! Whoa!!!” Molesley cries, probably at full mast right now. The incredible amount of noise alerts Joe that something might be happening. It might help if he’d go out on the deck of his ship instead of watching through a tiny window or a telescope. A Dark Helmet informs him that “the wharf has collapsed.” I assumed before that the wharf was referring to the harbor at the front of the island, but apparently they meant the faceless hunk of rock at the back? What kind of usage of “wharf” is that? But Joe cuts through the confusion and bullshit and automatically intuits, without even looking at it, that something must be hidden behind that wall, so he orders his men to fire their rune cannons at it. His intelligence and instincts seem a bit unearned at this point, like the writers were afraid players would find him completely unimpressive and boring unless he magically figured out all of Marvy and Lido’s plans. Too bad I find him unimpressive and boring anyway.
The music gets all urgent and tense and percussion-filled as a truly enormous ship lurches out of the hole in the island. In the control room, Lido urges someone to steer “hard to port,” and the camera spins over to a handsome young man in a hair bun and bathrobe rotating two large, heavy-looking, parallel steering wheels with his no-doubt muscular arms. More on Marvy’s new boyfriend later–for now, his determined windmilling U-turns them away from Joe’s ship, just in time to avoid the incoming rune cannonballs. The second one, however, hits the cliff directly above the cave opening, showering Molesley with rubble. But don’t worry, he’s fine. Marvy doesn’t get that kind of good news.
With Marvy’s luck, this will end up being a woman.
As Marvy’s new boat sails into the distance, Joe opts to let them leave so he can dock at Obel as planned. Aboard their new ship, Ramada notes to Marvy and Lido that they stand no chance whatsoever against the Kooluk navy, even with this one totally badass vessel. Lido apologizes meaninglessly to Flarey Sue, Molesley, and all his poor subjects, and promises equally meaninglessly to return. Meanwhile, Joe is addressing those exact people from the steps of the Obel royal palace. He tells them they are now under the rule of an “interim Kooluk government,” which already is probably better organized than whatever shitshow Lido, Flarey Sue, and their two butlers managed. “This will benefit not only Kooluk, but everyone on the island!” he announces. His own soldiers cheer for him like the APPLAUSE sign just turned on, while Flarey Sue and the others, including Waluigi and Ema, hang their heads and sulk. Flarey Sue clutches her stomach, possibly to inspire hope in her subjects by making them think she is carrying Sir Marvy’s love child.
Back to Marvy and his new ride. Keneth shouts out that they’re being approached by another ship, namely the dicknose prow of Lady Kika. “If it is Kika,” Lido says to calm down Keneth and Chiepoo, “I don’t think she’d be looking for trouble…” Jesus, is there a single adult man in this entire ocean who doesn’t know her? Anyway, Kika’s ship slides up beside theirs, and Kika and her prettyboys greet Marvy and Lido. Kika tells them she was watching their battle, and Lido laughs and replies, “You call that a battle? It’s more like we just ran away.” Indeed it was. Lido abandoned his people five minutes ago and he already considers it a joking matter. But Kika, all business, shouts back, “We are about to return home. You should come with us.” Go to Sigurd and Hervey’s house and maybe make out at the tip of Kika’s penis ship? Sounds like a plan.
Marvy can now see a new island on his chart, called the Nest of Pirates, southwest of Obel. It’s a bit of a sail, so Marvy decides for now to head to his cabin with Cedric and Ornan and deal with Kika later. Next time, Marvy will explore this massive new ship and the fresh pile of Portrait People that were dumped on him without his permission. Also, he’ll visit Kika’s sexy pirate crib and do a shitload more recruiting. Until part 6!