Jet tries to make tracks, but Kovahn has noted the bullet belt around his waist: “Young man…might you be a Drifter?” Jet sighs like a little brat, and confirms that he is. Kovahn does the whole “woe is me” thing, asking if Jet will venture deeper into the ruins to find Pike. Jet attempts to brush off his request, protesting that he’s only here for the “Crystal Flower”, but he suddenly becomes interested in Pike’s plight when Kovahn mentions a monetary reward. Of course, he wants to know how much they’re willing to pay before he makes any commitment. Goodwin and Kovahn exchange a furtive glance before offering 200 Gella. Jet basically says that he wouldn’t even get out of bed for that amount, and as much as I hate him, I’d be inclined to agree — that shit will barely buy you a rotting Heal Berry in this expensive game. “That amount isn’t even worth my time to negotiate,” Jet says dismissively. “Sorry, but find yourself a good Samaritan.” The cutscene abruptly ends, and despite their negotiations ending on a somewhat acrimonious note, Jet decides to have an impromptu game of Talk To Everyone with the group of explorers anyway. Goodwin, first on the list, reveals that Pike is due to leave for another village soon, so that he can work and send money back for the others. I guess it’s nice to be able to rely on someone else sending you their hard-earned wages on a regular basis so that you don’t have to worry about going out and looking for a fucking job yourself. I think I’m starting to realise why these guys are so desperate for someone to find Pike — what on Feelgayer would they do without their green-clad meal ticket?!

I’ve just come to the conclusion that I hate every single person in this game so far, with the exception of Vagina. This does not bode well for the future.

Only marginally less annoying than the others is Annette, the young girl travelling with the group. With her brown hair, glasses, and know-it-all nature, she reminds me of a younger Apple. I would be tempted to rename her Applette, if I didn’t already know that she has about as much impact on the plot as Shion at a MENSA conference. All she does is make some redundant statements about the ruins being dangerous and chock-a-block with all manner of monsters, but she doesn’t make me want to kill her, so I guess I should be thankful for her presence in this fetid sea of wankers. Wanting to get as far away from these guys as possible (like he’s any less annoying), Jet makes a sharp exit through the only other door in the room. Even though he’s decided to leave Pike to his fate, what are the chances that he’ll end up running into the guy anyway? Oh, right, that would be totally predictable and lazy writing. Just ignore me.

I’m sure the doctor can give you some cream for that.

Jet ventures deeper into the vestige, contending with, among other things, more ass-reaming spikes and a rather…interesting random battle monster. Now, I know videogames in general are no stranger to phallic monsters. However, it’s not every day that one has the pleasure of fighting something that looks like a penis afflicted with a particularly virulent STD. The infected schlong even tries to spread its disease, attacking with something called “Hard Touch”. Fortunately, Jet manages to vanquish it with his own PENIS (I hope for his sake he didn’t get too close).

Don’t be so rude, young man. What did that floor ever do to you?

Disease-ridden members a not-so-distant memory, Jet ransacks a few chests for their crappy contents before descending a staircase into a small chamber where — get ready for this shocker — young Pike is currently holed up. I’m not quite sure what he’s doing, but he appears to be rather pissed off with the floor of the room, seeing as how he’s giving it the cel-shaded middle finger. He really should be doing that to Jet, if anything. Speaking of King Douche himself, Jet’s sudden entrance causes Pike to jump up in fright. “You scared me…I thought you were a monster!” Given the choice, I think I’d sooner take my chances with one of the infected cock monsters. Pike asks if Jet was sent to bring him back, in which case he’s “here a little too early”. Jet is quick to set him straight — so to speak — and tells him he’s “just here for the treasure”. The “treasure” in question, of course, being the totally masculine Crystal Flower. Jet starts to rummage through the room in search of the artefact, while Pike tries to get his attention. “I thought I already told you I’m just here for the treasure,” is Jet’s charming response to Pike’s polite questioning. I keep hoping he’ll go and fall on a spike — but I’ve just remembered that he was already violated by three of them earlier. So he can go fall on an even bigger spike. As soon as Pike mentions the words “Crystal Flower”, Jet’s all “OMG tell me what you know!!!”, when he barely acknowledged the guy’s existence two seconds ago. Fucker.

No, just a wanker.

Pike reveals that the Crystal Flower is well-known around these parts, and that a Drifter girl apparently came and took it just the other day. As you can imagine, this does not go down well with my favourite character. “Maybe I was duped by my informant…” he scowls. I’m sure nobody would ever think of doing that, given that he’s such a likeable guy and all. Pike is clearly thinking along the same lines as me, as he basically tells Jet to get the fuck out of the ruins. Yeah, he uses the excuse that there’s nothing worthwhile left and the place is crawling with monsters, but it’s totally obvious he just wants the scrawny little brat as far away from him as possible. But Jet isn’t taking the hint. “Then let me ask you…what are you doing here, if you know how dangerous this place is?” he wanks. Pike replies that he’s here for treasure, too, but it’s a treasure only he knows about. What, his hidden drugs stash?

We cut to a scene of Pike hacking away at the ground with a pickaxe, while Jet stands around looking moody and holding his PENIS aloft. “Yo, I think something’s coming,” he warns. But Pike is preoccupied with the treasure he’s on the verge of digging up. “This isn’t the time! Either you help me out, or run away! Now, which is it?!” Jet screeches, his character portrait unattractively surly. Pike unfortunately doesn’t lodge his pickaxe in Jet’s skull, and is content to carry on digging: “I’ve come here for my treasure and I’m not leaving without it!” he whines, attempting to break Jet’s record on the Annoyance Scale. “I won’t be able to survive in a faraway place if I don’t take this with me! It’s a sentimental treasure that reminds me of this land — where I grew up!” Uh, that’s nice, but I don’t think a cramped chamber in the middle of a labyrinthine ruin with only an annoying teenager and an approaching monster for company is the best possible place to start reminiscing about your childhood. Jet basically reiterates this, which means I agree with him on something. I might as well just shoot myself now.

Speaking of shooting, Jet is now dropped into a boss battle against the previously-unseen monster, named Tatzelwurm. I soon discover that this is another of those gimmick battles which I’m unable to win, despite being ridiculously overpowered, until the game designers have indulged their ever-increasing tutorial obsession and told me about a gameplay mechanic I already knew about. In this case, the Tatzelwurm regenerates at the beginning of every turn, undoing any damage Jet managed to do to it previously. He must, I’m told, use his Accelerator ability, which “raises [his] metabolism temporarily”. In gamer terms, this means he’s always able to act before the enemy, provided his FP is at the required level. It pains me to admit it, but that’s going to be kinda useful. I guess the game designers had to think of some way to justify Jet’s presence in my party. Whatever, I can allow myself to appreciate his helpful ability while still despising him for being such a douchecanoe. Tutorial over, it only takes one more attack to send the Tatzelwurm back to wherever the hell it came from. After the battle, Pike has finally managed to retrieve his sentimental treasure, and thanks Jet for helping him out. “I doubt there’ll be any more monsters of that size, but we’d better get out of here fast,” he continues. He seems to think the ceiling could collapse at any moment, but Jet is unconvinced. Well, far be it from me to intervene — I think I’ll just let nature take its course.

I’m tempted to leave the game running for a few days, just to see what happens.

It appears Pike is more of a prophet than Jet gave him credit for — the screen judders furiously, signifying a miniature earthquake. Faced with imminent death, Jet deems it appropriate to stamp his foot like a spoiled brat: “All this trouble, and yet I’m gettin’ nothing out of it!” Yes, game designers, he’s a cold-blooded mercenary (or rather, a petulant child pretending to be a cold-blooded mercenary) who only cares about his own hide. We. Freaking. Get. It. As I make a few more head-shaped dents in my desk, Pike comes running up, crumbling treasure chest under his arm. For some ungodly reason, he seems to be concerned about Jet: “Hey, are you alright? That last battle must have shaken things up a bit!” Jet shrugs off his concern, asking him what’s in the box. Pike eagerly offers him the chest, and we see it contains such rare and valuable relics as a slingshot, a baseball, and an old diary. You know what? Words fail me. What with this veritable treasure trove of untold riches, along with Boot Hill’s priceless valuables consisting of an old photo and some over-ripe berries, I’ve clearly had it wrong all along — forget gold, silver and precious gemstones, the real definition of ‘treasure’ is obviously ‘any old junk you can find hiding in the back of a cupboard’. According to this revelation, I must be a god-damn billionaire, and I didn’t even know!

Jet is unimpressed by Pike’s bounty, and declares it to be “all junk”, and “not something to risk your life over”. It slowly dawns on me that I’m agreeing with him for the second time in five minutes. That can’t be right. “These are all toys from my childhood,” Pike explains. “They’re my fond memories of growing up here. We used to play in this ruin before it got infested by monsters.” Presumably, the ass-raping spikes and collapsing floors didn’t bother him and his friends at all. He only has one week left before he leaves for his new job in the big city, he continues, and therefore wanted to relive part of his childhood one last time. “That’s something I’ll never understand,” Jet retorts dismissively. “I don’t have any memories I want to hold onto. That’s why I’m a Drifter. I have no worries. Maybe except for my income.” Oops, there goes the Character Trait Mallet again. I have way too many knots on my head from that thing. Also, I’m wondering why the hell Pike and his motley crew ended up here in the first place — were they going to explore the ruin anyway, and it just happened to be the very same one he buried all his childhood crap in (which would be a coincidence of ridiculous proportions, meaning it’s probably the correct assumption), or did they all just come along to help him recall his youth for half an hour? I suppose we’ll never know, but I’m not exactly going to be losing sleep over it.

Pike tells Jet he can’t give him any money in return for helping him, but he can help them both get out of here. “You know this ruin well?” Jet asks, apparently having not been listening for the duration of this tedious scene. In response, Pike ambles over to the wall and pushes a hidden button, opening up a secret passage. “I told you I used to play here,” he snits. “It’s a bit dangerous, but we can make it out through this door.” And there was me thinking it was just for decoration. We return to regular gameplay mode, and to my eternal joy, I am back in control of Jet. Weirdly, Pike has completely vanished. I could possibly accept the theory that he may have gone on ahead, but I doubt he would have made it up the ladders in the next room while still carrying his chest o’ junk. Let’s just assume he stumbled upon some magical teleportation device that Jet overlooked — maybe then the vein in my temple will stop throbbing so violently.

After ascending countless ladders, monkey-swinging along horizontal grates, and tripping more ball switches with his boomerang — all of which would be undeniably impossible while carrying a heavy chest under one arm — Jet climbs up into another nondescript room. We suddenly switch to cutscene mode, and in the blink of an eye, Pike is back. What’s more, he’s actually ahead of Jet. This is bullshit, to make a massive understatement, but as I’m heartily sick of Jet, Pike and this entire scenario already, I’m just going to stick with the teleportation device theory. Feel free to come to your own conclusions, however.

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“Sounds like it settled down,” Pike opines, regarding the ruin’s instability. “It wouldn’t do me any good if I died here, even if I did find my memories.” No, but it would probably do me a world of good. Meanwhile, Jet closes his eyes in disgust and internally monologues: “Just like this ruin, don’t memories eventually crumble and fade away? Why’s he so passionate about it?” Just because he has no memories, he doesn’t think anyone else should be able to enjoy them, either. And there we have a shining example of Jet’s charming and totally non-annoying character.

Pike tells Jet to snap out of his one-way conversation and hurry up, as he’s afraid he’s going to miss his train. If he had such a tight fucking schedule, maybe this whole excursion wasn’t the best idea in the world. Jet replies that he didn’t know there was a train station around here. “There isn’t one,” Pike reveals. “The closest station from here would probably take me about five days on foot. That’s why I don’t have time.” Jet, suddenly a master conversationalist, asks why he doesn’t just catch a later train, but Pike cuts him off with “Speaking of trains…there’s supposedly one transporting a great treasure.” Wait, what’s that I smell? Oh, just some bad exposition. Apparently, due to the top-secret nature of the treasure on board the train, all passengers are being screened, meaning that tickets are hard to come by. Lord knows how a random green-haired wanker living in the past was deemed important enough to receive one. Whatever the explanation, a seed has been planted in Jet’s mind — I guess it’ll have lots of room to grow.

When the duo reaches another brick wall, Pike does his ol’ hidden switch thing and opens up yet another secret door, this time leading to the main hall. Thank every deity out there that this dungeon is almost over. “By the way, can you tell me more about that train in detail — the one transporting the treasure?” Jet asks, in what he probably hopes is a casual manner. In reality, the Gella signs in his eyes are probably visible from space right now. Pike is happy to tell him what he knows, but doesn’t see the point, as there’s no way Jet’ll be able to get a ticket. Jet says he’ll “think of something”, and Pike’s all “OMG this has been the best day ever! We’ll share this memory forever!!” See, it’s ironic and shit because Jet DOESN’T HAVE ANY MEMORIES and now he’s going to share one with some annoying twat he found fucking around in a random ruin. After what I’ve been exposed to in the past fifteen endless minutes of my life, I’m in no mood for ‘cute’ little moments like this. Just end this fucking scene already.

I can hardly believe it myself, but it seems my prayers have been answered — Jet and Pike appear in the main hall, right in front of Kovahn, Applette and the other two nonentities in their group. Stranger still, I don’t even have to suffer through a drawn-out reunion scene — as in Vagina’s closing scene, everything turns sepia and the PTG covers the bottom of the screen with graffiti: “Afterwards, Jet looked into that train Pike talked about. He managed to jump onboard and waited for an opportunity to infiltrate…a sudden impact and the chaos that ensued gave him the perfect chance to break in. With the treasure in plain sight, this was where he would encounter three strangers.” And aren’t they the lucky ones? “The darkness that opened up before him seemed endless, as if obscured by the world’s future,” the PTG continues pretentiously (I’ve reread that line a dozen times and it still doesn’t make sense). “The train Jet had boarded was still making its way through the long, endless tunnel.” I think I know how it feels.

One quick save later, I’m unceremoniously dumped back on the Character Select screen. With only two more characters to choose from, I pick “A Suspicious Intruder”, otherwise known as the Native Feelgayan in the headache-inducing yellow outfit. His name is Gallows, and I briefly wonder who the hell would name their child after an instrument of execution, until I remember this is a world in which people give their offspring names such as “Pike”, “Jet”, and “Armengard”. With no suitable nicknames springing to mind, I once again stick with his original name. Keeping with the long-held VGR tradition of flaming male heroes, I could have renamed him “Gaylows”, “Swallows”, or something equally suggestive, but as we’ll soon realise, young Gallows isn’t the biggest piece of fruit on his family tree.

“Five days before the fateful encounter”, we fade in on Gallows reading a newspaper inside what I assume to be an inn of some sort — it isn’t exactly a saloon, since there’s only one table in the entire place. Also, Gallows seems to be the only patron, which indicates this place isn’t exactly doing a roaring trade. Late afternoon sunlight pours in through the windows as the PTG introduces us to the latest addition to our Posse of Heroes: “Gallows Carradine, age twenty-four. He has turned his back on his lineage and destiny, and recently took to the wasteland as a Drifter. Yearning to escape his fate, he harnesses his inherent strength, so that he may live freely.” This kinda sounds like what I attempted to do once I finished college. Well, without the “inherent strength” part. The PTG rambles on incessantly, claiming that Gallows “has yet to realize the true meaning of his actions” and does not know that “it is his very lineage and destiny that give him such strength…” Obviously Gallows has never played an RPG before, or he would surely know that trying to escape one’s heroic destiny is as futile as Rinoa attempting to give Squall a Valentine’s Day present.