Update again.
I am SO far behind in these...
I am SO far behind in these...
Let's see...my last update left off right after we were dumped back into Sylvarant. -scratches cheek- Okay. Mithos had followed us through (as I'm sure I mentioned) so Raine suggested we leave him with the trustworthy Palmacosta government. The young blond didn't seem to mind being left behind, so we took him into town and went to visit Neil.
*cheers for the new Governor-General*
The new military leader was very happy to see us and of course asked how the Journey of Regeneration was going. emotion_sweatdrop Ooh...the journey! I-it's going fine. Yes. The whole group gave a hurried reassurance and told him it was almost done.
I felt slightly bad for lying to the poor sucker, but you can't really tell him we quit now can you? Neil told us that Desians had again been sighted around the destroyed Palmacosta ranch. Having that horror reconstructed and back in business was the LAST thing we needed. Lloyd immediately insisted that we go check it out, so we hightailed it out of Palmacosta and lit out for the ranch ruins. It's not far walking, and it takes even less time on Noishe. But I..l'm addicted the Rheairds. I ADMIT IT!! I'll take those from Iselia to the halfway Salvation house near Triet if I can. And that journey takes about 2 minutes, tops.
RIGHT, right. Okay, so we flew down to the shattered remains of Magnius' home base and who should we find there but the RENEGADES. Someone snapped their finger and realized that those were what the people of the town must have seen. They do dress just like the Desians after all, it's a very easy mistake to make. Lloyd spotted Yuan at once and immediately went on his guard. After what Blue-jay did to us, you can't really blame the brunette. Yuan told Lloyd put put his swords down (while rolling his eyes. You can't see it because of the game graphics, BUT HE DID IT.) The dual swordsman huffed angrily. Lower his swords in the presence of an enemy...because THAT makes a whole lot of sense. Botta came forward then and said that we had more important things to focus on, such as joining forces.
Say WHAAAAAAAT?! You want to join us? What on earth for? I forget the exact words (again) but I know we needed go to the Remote Island Human Ranch and, what was it...we were going to shut down a reactor? I think that may have been it.
-checks her favorite walkthrough- Nope, we needed the Mana Cannon. Which is curious, because it wasn't actually USED till way later. Anyway, Botta told us to come to him when we were ready to leave because we weren't going to be able to get there on our own.
That's asinine...why was there an island we couldn't land on? I understand an island that doesn't have a long-range landmark or a chest...but an island you can't LAND on? That's ridiculous!
-yawns sleepily- I checked my item stock, debated going back to Palmacosta for some last-minute shopping (I didn't need it, but...) and told Botta we were ready to go. The screen blacked out and my group then found themselves on the tiny above-water entrance to Rodyle's Ranch. We went in, whereupon I proceeded to geek out over the closest thing I'd seen to an aquarium since I was 14. I thought that ranch was the coolest place, and it wasn't even that hard!! I ran about, exploring and checking for chests (killed a few Desians along the way) and found the elevator. Raine suggested we have the captives start a riot in order for the resident half-elves to make the elevator go up. Sheena thought it was a dirty plan, but Lloyd agreed and said we really didn't have much of a choice. We went further in, found the cages (all stacked in a Japanese-esque tower...hehe) and freed the poor people. They hopped out, we gathered some neat items from the corner chests, and then went on to some puzzles that would have been the death of me were it not for Gamespot.
-yawns again- I might take a catnap after this...
The first block puzzle something I probably could have figured out on my own, but it's hard to ignore a detailed step-by-step solution sitting a foot from you. The one after really would have tripped me up, but I got past that too.
Course then I had to make good use of the Sorcerer's Ring and go up agonizing levels of lasers to reach the next doorway. emotion_donotwant NEVER AGAIN!!
AND THEN, then we came across the warp puzzle. The one I had to go through twice because I missed a lock. -foams at the mouth- I made some very shrill noises of anger, beat on my kiddie couch-turned game seat, kicked the floor once or twice, and went back to the beginning. The next time through, I explored more thoroughly and found the missing lock. Then I got to go fight Rodyle. Whoopee.
The spiky-haired half-elf (who needs to STOP TALKING THROUGH HIS NOSE) accused of wanting to shut down his Mana Cannon (uuh...no actually. We want to use it) and snapped that we wouldn't get our inferior hands on it. Then the scum pulled up a projector that showed Botta and the two Renegades who'd come with him leading the captives away. Bless you Botta...bless you. The room they were in was filling up with water. Colette screamed at him to let the captives go, which of course he didn't do. The screen flipped off, Rodyle used a malformed crystal to transform himself into one ugly monster, and we went deep into a difficult battle.
No really, that battle was insanely hard. The wannabe exbelua (however you spell it) threw us repeatedly into the air and I didn't always press X in time to land on my feet. But we did eventually win. Rodyle hit the self-destruct controls in a last-ditch effort to take us down, and then came the Renegades. Botta and the two grunts swiftly went to work deactivating the system. The brunette second-in-command told us to escape through the hatch, the water wouldn't come in there. We did, assuming they'd follow after.
They didn't.
Botta told us to pass on a message to Yuan, to tell him that they'd succeeded in their mission to activate the ranch reactor. (We later found out why they'd been doing this). A-and then...he lowered a shield so we couldn't see him anymore. Everyone knew there was no other means of escape (stupid brunette half-elf locked the door after us), we knew he wasn't going to make it, but there wasn't really time to mourn him. A couple of Rodyle's pet dragons had come out of their cages so we had to take those down.
I despise those dragons...they remind me of the horrid time fighting them in the Dragon's Nest.
Of course, like, 8 more showed up as soon as we were done. The ranch was filling up with water, the air in the room wasn't gonna last forever, WE WERE IN SO MUCH TROUBLE. Faced with no other option, Genis pulled Mithos' panpipes (did I forget to mention he gave those to us...?) and played a rather pretty tune. A marvelous golden two-headed bird broke the dome roof and Mithos came into view on a Rheaird.
"Get on!" he shouted. A rope or something must have been lowered because the next thing I knew, the party was flying with our blond friend back to Palmacosta. Genis asked him how he'd found us. The other half-elf said he'd heard Genis' voice crying out for help, he borrowed a Rheaird (or 8 ) from the Renegades, and came to our aid. He didn't know what had happened, but a mysterious golden bird appeared from nowhere and helped him!
Sheena and Raine pretty much figured the bird must've been Aska, but why? He didn't have a valid pact with anyone, right...?
We made it back to the seaside city and Mithos went back to apologize to Neil for leaving without his permission. The older male was relieved and said he was just glad the boy hadn't been hurt. Then, the teen said he wished to return the Rheaird he'd borrowed so we hopped back on our mini planes and booked it to Triet. Inside, Yuan was regretfully informed of Botta's fate.
"Yuan" Lloyd said, his voice trembling. "Botta, he..."
"He died" Yuan said simply. The brunette lowered his head. "I see."
Lloyd snapped his head up. "How can you!?" he began. "Botta sacrificed his life and you just-!" Zelos lay his hand on the boy's shoulder.
"Calm down bud" he said. "Yuan's been with Botta a long time, just let him be." The dual swordsman stepped back regretfully and the group left. Raine stepped forward, holding a wingpack out.
"One of our companions borrowed a Rheaird from you" she said smoothly. "We're returning it on his behalf." Yuan gave the pack a puzzled look.
"What? But our rhe- No, never mind. We'll take it, thank you." The healer gave it to him (along with a slightly puzzled look) and left. Yuan inspected the pack in his hands.
"All our Rheairds were in the hangar..."
I'm pretty sure the accursed Temple of Darkness was next, so I'll write about that later. But for now, a snippet from a collection I'm writing.
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“We don’t have time for this…” Raine said halfheartedly, watching her pupil scratch away at a large rock.
“Botta and those Renegades sacrificed themselves for us” Lloyd snapped, working doggedly to make a decent gravestone. “This is the least I can do for them.”
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"The new military leader was very happy to see us and of course asked how the Journey of Regeneration was going. emotion_sweatdrop Ooh...the journey! I-it's going fine. Yes. The whole group gave a hurried reassurance and told him it was almost done."
xD Anyways, keep the updates coming, Rahna!! C: