Crush! Kill! Destroy!

Thaaat's probably not what a holy land is supposed to look like. Maybe the sacred Lands of Punching, but not this one. Surely not.

Dead witches.

Dead ninjas.

...Dead beastmen.

"Wait, wait, wait," I said, dismounting Flammie. "They were all making a grab for power? Not just Altena? I thought it was just a /grudge/ against the ninjas, and... all three of them? Shouldn't I have been there for some exposition?"

"I remember it," said Angela, eyebrow raised in quite a persuasive you-suck manner. "What, weren't you paying attention?"

"C-can't afford it," I said. "Haven't been attention farming recently."

And, without further ado, we found the Mana Sword sticking out of the root of a giant tree. Feeling the need to say something profound, I yelled, "Woo-hoo!" reached up, and yanked with all my might.

And promptly let go. "Ow! Geez!"* The thing had shocked me and I wasn't about to blame it on static electricity.

"Wait!" said Faerie. "Calm down."

Then some dramatic irony happened and I won't write about it because I shouldn't know what happened. Though... honestly I'm not sure what happened either way.

I closed my eyes and focused, thinking back to the class change two posts ago. And then thinking maybe I should think about something else because this was a bit different. And then thinking maybe I shouldn't think about thinking about something else, but think of something completely different. And then thinking wait I think I just did something.

I opened them. In my hand was the sword. "I... I did it!" I said, twirling it around for emphasis.

The sound of nothing emanating from the tree caught my attention. I turned around to see... that looked a lot like the statues of HP restoration... the Mana Goddess herself? Maybe I should capitalize that. The Mana Goddess Herself?

...I was too focused on the fact that gee, the Mana Goddess was giving me personally a message to listen to the message itself. I realized this on her conclusion, when she told me to use her gift wisely, leaving a treasure chest in front of me and fading from view. I yelled "Aw, crap!" and refused to tell my teammates why.

Anyway, inside the chest was a fancy party favor. You know, like one of those ball paddles, but with two balls? And also different. I... should definitely amend at least that much to avoid blaspheming. From everyone's reactions, it had no use we'd already heard. I twirled it around. It made some loud, echoing banging, but nothing else happened. Maybe I'd try it later. Hoping Flammie was still waiting for us, we headed back the way we came.

We first came across that Koren guy and that black knight. They explained how Altena had been invaded in their absence and promptly died, leaving Duran a little crestfallen and missing his motivation for this quest in the first place. "But," he said, "the world's still in danger if the other two factions survived. I'm staying with you."

Then came a very strange, pale, creepy jester guy. He introduced himself as the Deathjester, said the Beast Kingdom was destroyed too, and that he had a message from the ninja lady with the fancy name. The message being that if I wanted to ever see my brother and the faerie again, I would bring the Mana Sword to Navarre.

Even with Admiral Ackbar's immortal words echoing in my head, cutscene stupidity said I had to go.

Aaand Flammie was gone.

"Wait," said Angela, "Maybe the drum is like the flute."

The Flute of Turtle Summon? I had put that in storage to make room for the drum. Drum was a good word for it, now that I'm thinking of it. Sounded perfectly reverent. Well... rather reverent. I didn't see it being used in a religious service any time soon. And by that I mean the drum, not the word.

I mean, it was worth a shot. I twirled it around.

Instantly Flammie swooped down out of nowhere, looking confused when it rose again.

"What, does she want us to jump on?" I said in shock.

She was coming down again, this time straight at us. It was clear I had a choice to move it or to lose it, and I opted for the former.

It wasn't any more comforting to be on her back. I was almost relieved to find myself behind enemy lines, if it meant I was on something solid.

Hard-To-Spell was there with a vampire guy I think I mentioned once, and she again demanded the sword. Again, cutscene stupidity said I handed it over. I had been shocked before, but it really zapped Vampire Guy. Jagan, his text box said. That's a lot shorter; let's go with that.

"Ha!" I said. "Full of holy energy! Now, if you'll just hand that back--"

"Fool!" said She Who Can Not Be Spelled. "Don't you think we planned for this?" She shot Jagan with some black magic thing, and he slowly rose back to his feet, sword clenched in his fist. "The sword is merely a reflection of one's soul."

"Well, now it is," I mumbled. Well, geez. Did we really stand a chance against folks who can contaminate a holy artifact? Before I had time to decide, though, they disappeared, as they were wont to do. Darn, I was prepared for a boss fight.

True to a couple of their words, they left Faerie behind. But not Elliot. Of course not, then I might lose my lust for revenge and /not/ try to defeat them. In fact, giving back Faerie only made it worse for them.

Anyway, she regained consciousness quickly. "The mana stones have been destroyed," she choked.

Wait wait wait. But... didn't I still need another class change? How was I supposed to do it now?

Angela realized the worse implications. "That doesn't mean--the God-Beasts...?"

What? how was I supposed to fight friggin' gods without a second class change?

Faerie nodded. "They grow stronger even as we speak. Hurry, while they're still vulnerable!"

Oh. I would imagine that's how.

STRING OF SEVEN BOSS FIGHTS

FIRE
It was really hard to tell what to target, after one of Angela's spells gave an option. A fireplace barely in reach, or the beast itself. Even now, I'm not sure what we were meant to do.

WATER
What a guy! Hiding under the ice, completely out of reach by any sane method. It was rather thin ice. You might even say very thin ice. Very thin ice. Very thin ice.

EARTH
This guy had a plan. Angela's plan, as a matter of fact. Spam spells. Couple that with the fact that we stumbled upon it before we were done level farming, and it made for a really stressful boss fight.

WIND
This guy also had a plan. Fly through the air out of reach. It didn't count on Flammie. That was... well, an exciting fight. Again with the sprite problems, with Duran stabbing the ground at the end of his spellcasting animation. The ground being whatever he's standing on. Flammie's head. And now I think of it, this may have been a problem on the very thin ice.

MOON
That's totally an element. Who could be the boss of the kung fu werewolf forest but a giant super saiyan werewolf? Let me just say I'm glad we didn't let this one get any stronger than it was.

WOOD
Heh heh. I mean, yeah. It was obsessed with pumpkins. Its head even looked like a jack-o-lantern. It threw weird pumpkin bombs. I'm pretty sure we were something like four levels under where we should have been, but it was a pushover. This was a destroyer of worlds?

LIGHT
This ball of unsightly grossness introduced us to another new status effect! Moogling. Exactly what it says on the tin, it had a move that turned us into worthless weakling moogles. Lucky the Chibikko Hammer thinks there's no such thing as a tiny moogle. And works both ways.

DARK
...Wait a minute. Back on the ghost ship, Shade had said something about how the mana stone of darkness was completely lost or something. And if /he/ didn't know, who would?

*You know, come to think of it, considering the theology around here, that's really an odd expletive.

Under the Mode 7 Ocean, Through the Mode 7 Skies

So, yeah. Spirit collection didn't get any more exciting than that. A few other characters showed up with stories I can't be bothered to retell. I'm not interested unless you're in my party, and even then I only feign interest. So, as the kids say, screw that noise.

Quest summary: Retrieve the Mana Sword.
Current goal: Retrieve the friggin' sword, okay?

...You didn't really think I would skip that, did you? I meant more like skim.

It was off to the desert, where everyone's favorite two guys who are one guy who is now two guys who are both of them were/was the boss. I couldn't tell if they were really dead this time or what, but my level up told me they were.

They guarded the entrance to the Valley of Where It's Really Quite Hot or something like that, and, no, the hotness did not refer to chicks. It referred to the flaming pits everywhere. And the pits did not refer to armpits. That's just gross. You have problems.

Anyway, inside we found the ninja queen (I think) whose name is hard to spell (/everyone/ thinks), dragging a hot chick across a bridge in the direction of the Mana Stone. Oh. Well. The best of both worlds. But which two worlds am I referring to? OOOoooOOoo a mystery that you must solve! Obviously, I threatened her for the girl. She responded by threatening me with the girl. "One more step and she goes into the flames!"

Just then a dart whizzed overhead directly into her face. She pulled it out with the greatest of glares. But it convinced her her HP was low enough for her to make a run for it.

"Jessica!" That Hawk guy I probably mentioned before rushed in, to the fallen girl's side. Dang it, why does every girl have a boyfriend already? Well, not in Amazon Fortress, but it's not like I didn't still want maximum smooches wherever I went. And I didn't want Angela because she had a habit of using sexiness offensively. Nobody likes the painful smooches.

Hawk said he was going to take her somewhere safe, and I let him. I had a ninja to whack, after all.

And, as usual, we were too late. The juice was already draining from the Mana Stone, and she was busy teleporting away before I managed to draw any kind of weapon. Salamando got SO MAD about this and joined us.

SALAMANDO GET

Next came the Forest of Kung Fu Werewolves. It's definitely called that. This beastwolfmanguy beat us to the boss, and was just lying unconscious by the time we got there. Guess who the boss was? A kung fu werewolf. He was friggin' insaaane. Luna took pity on him when he started dying and discussing his dramatic past with the beastwolfmanguy. And she revived him as a baby who promptly disappeared into the woods. Beastwolfmanguy dismissed it. "Eh. Common for beastmen." Then he ran off, saying in incredibly broken English that he would guard the entrance.

I don't know why we bothered. We had the spirit.

LUNA GET

Then off to the Forest of Racism. So named because of the hidden elf village. And it was definitely named that!

The little girl from that one Cave of Waterfalls turned up, telling us off. And as we traveled, she told us off again and again for leaving her behind. I thought she was following!

The King of All Elf-Type Stuff said something that broke her heart, and she left, probably never to be seen again but I wouldn't count on it. Faerie convinced him to tell us where to find the spirit here, and we were off to whack a plant-type boss who spat giant sleep nuts at our heads.

WHATS-HER-NAME GET

Aaand off to the Isle of Oblivion! I think there was supposed to be something special about this place, but I forgot. Faerie, with the help of all the spirits, made a rainbow sphere in midair. It slowly grew. And then it quickly shrank into nothing.

We convinced her to try again. Of course, she probably would anyway. She said a quick prayer and did her spellcasting spin. Her rainbow sphere grew slowly. Then shrank quickly.

Then grew to enormous size and floated into the air.

Faerie interrupted our victory dances. "One, that's not supposed to happen, two, how are we supposed to get up there?"

I looked up at the sound of an air raid siren. Well, judging by the airship, the Altenians had a good idea of what to

DOOM.


I don't know how much later it was when Faerie woke us up in the same place. I was a little surprised nobody had kidnapped us, honestly. But then, the bad guys were in the Holyland.

"Not to be redundant," said Faerie, "but how do we get up there?"

"Father of the Winged Ones," my mouth said without my permission.

"What's that?"

"The Father of the Winged Ones." Memories inserted themselves into my mind. "Yeah, on top of that Rolante mountain place, there is some... something. With wings, I guess."

"Worth a shot," said Faerie. So, once again, we were off on the back of the giant turtle. If we got lucky, perhaps for the last time.

An amazon greeted me at the gates to the castle. I forgot to flirt and got straight to the point. She nodded, and knocked down a wall so we could climb to the peak. Man, that was hot, I realized much too late.

Yes, hovering next to the peak was some kind of flapping furry flying thing. Argh, I ruined my x3 alliteration combo. Faerie insisted she would handle this. And, given her record, we were forced to agree.

"He looks a little young to a father, though," said Faerie, a hand on her chin. "Maybe... son, we need your help to get to the—"

It growled.

"My turn!" I said. "Lessee... my female radar is going wild, so–" At this point I remembered Angela– "er, wilder than usual. So you're a girl?"

"Yeah, of course!" said Duran. "You're just reeking with feminine beauty!"

I elbowed him in the ribs, uttering, "/My/ turn."

The beast made a noise that I could only guess was appreciative. It definitely wasn't a growl; we knew what that was. I cleared my throat. "So... so you need a cute name, right? Like Sexy Mc–"

It was my turn to be elbowed in the ribs. "Flammie." Angela was pretty good at growling too.

She made another of those appreciative noises, landing next to us and crouching to let us on. I guessed I should save the name for a more appropriate occasion anyway, clambering on.

I remembered something important that day, about when Flammie took off. I hate heights.

Evolution Revolution

That poor ghost ship boss fellow. His name will never be remembered.

Quest summary: Four more spirits, one more divine blade.
Current goal: Uhh, I guess it'd still be get to Forcena.

It's an unpleasant feeling to wake up with your lungs full of seawater. Take my word for it. At least it meant we were alive. As we all know, you can only recover from a death in battle, and not one in a cutscene.

So I added a few gallons of water back to the sea and woke the other two, who basically did the same thing. Except an earthquake happened when Duran puked.

I figured out in record time (Faerie's note: a few minutes) that there was no connection. Turns out the beach we had washed up on was the volcanic isle Bucca! I had been preparing all my life what would be the only fast food restaurant I could have, and our unexpected arrival had made it all come to naught.

Not that it would last long, anyway, because the volcano seemed pretty fit to burst and all.

I took off, the rest of my team trailing behind. Maybe there was a friendly village full of people who loved to make boats! Or some stranded airship pilot who needed twenty bear bottoms to refuel! Or... or...

A teenage mutant ninja turtle was not on the list.

Okay, I really had no way of knowing how old it was, really. And it didn't look very ninja, either. It was basically just a mutant turtle. And it swam past before it could offer any quests. Well, that little appearance stuck straight out. Either some god's inside joke or the turtle would become important later. Or maybe it only made sense in Japan. I don't know. Am I supposed to be some turtle expert? Not unless they're teenage, mutant, and perhaps ninja.

We did find that friendly village I mentioned. But they didn't make ships. "It's not our place to defy nature!" one said. They had no means of leaving, and they didn't really care. They did have one thing we needed, though, and that was a God of HP Restoration who apparently accepted temporary worshipers. Because our regular god didn't have any graven images nearby to pray at.

Oh, and another thing we needed, I guess. Information. When I described the turtle to one of the funny floating villagers, he/she/it because it was really hard to tell said something about it living in a cave nearby. But a boulder had fallen in front of the entrance. Aha, I knew it would become important later! That thing was our ticket out of here.

I checked the first boulder we came across, and guess what? Gnome popped out of my head and found a cave. A cave full of horrifying monstrosities. Another timeline ended in tragedy before we managed to make it through alive.

All of us tired, panting, barely alive, we came across a watery room of some kind containing what must have been the boss. Oh, just what we needed. He was humanoid, so, as I was wont to do, I accused him of kidnapping Elliot. And then /he/ disappeared. Nobody with an above animal intelligence wants to confront me. Not that I blame them.

Before he went, he was sure to reassure us the volcano was about to blow. As if on cue, rocks started falling from the ceiling. Cries of "Craaap!" seemed in vain, when suddenly! The teenage mutant ninja turtle took us on a tour of the world. I mean, not teenage or ninja.

From where we dropped us off, it was only one cannon trip to Forcena. I threatened Bon Jour until he made some adjustments, and he sent us on our merry way. In hindsight, maybe we should have just stuck with the soft landing.

Kingson described the location of four more Mana Stones. Why he didn't give us this information earlier, the world will never know. And when our exposition faerie mentioned the turtle, he got this shocked look on his face, all, "Oh, I ushed to get losht for daysh on the back of a giant turtle, too! Here, take thish Flute of Shummoning Turtle!"

So we did. Found a beach. Decided to check out the ice land first.

HORRIFYING MONSTROSITIES. But there was no way I was choosing a different order. On we trudged through the snow that Angela had nearly frozen to death in before, and was happily whacking monsters in without anything more on now.

Level 18 seemed like a pretty safe level. Plus, honestly, I was getting pretty tired of this farming business. We took off for the boss.

Hey, wasn't that the black knight from Puzzle Mountain Cave who had undone all the puzzles before reaching the spirit? "Blah blah Dragon Emperor," he said.

"What?" said Duran. "But my father died to defeat the Dragon Emperor years ago!"

"I don't remember that part of your backstory," I said. But then I walked forward and the black knight had no choice but to run for it, leaving a few of those Machine Golems like the ones from the bridge behind.

Now, this... this was quite a battle. Angela, for one, was eating healing items like the candy they were. We all flailed around desperately for a few consecutive minutes. Remember this, dear readers. Robots are weak to flailing.

Duran was fine HP-wise. Why was he falling to his knees? "If the Dragon Emperor's alive," he said, "My father died for nothing."

Oh.

Good thing I was so great at words of comfort. "All right, just add 'im to our hit list," I said. "We're not gonna let anyone die in vain. So, what, that's two dads dead now? And my kidnapped brother."

"And my mom grabbing for power," said Angela.

"Speaking of," said the Exposition Faerie. "We better go find that Mana Stone and make sure nobody's released the energy or anything."

That... that was energy being released if I ever saw it. "Dang it!" I said, sparing no nasty words. "Friggin' Altena, showing us up all the time."

Sounds of crying came from nowhere, and a fishy spirit thing phased into existence, blubbering about what a story and she was moved to tears.

"What, that story?" I said.

"No, no, his." She pointed at Duran. "I... I just summoned myself late."

UNDINE GET

A thought struck me with its blunt end. I looked at the Mana Stone. Then at my level. A wide grin spread across my face as I realized the implications. "Class change time!"

"Wait, that was my idea the whole time!" said Duran.

And so we each posed in front of the stone, focusing on all our memories and experiences farming. Duran's choice of class change was easy. Knight or gladiator? What he had been trying to earn the whole time or some sort of brutal ancient Roman fighter? Or was it Greek. Angela's was pretty easy, too. Sorceress or whatever the heck that word was. Mine...? Okay, it was easy. Valkyrie (roughly translating to awesome) or something with "maiden" in it.

Even the cosmos is doing it now.

And so we changed our color palettes and gained stats accordingly.

Take Two

That Genova fellow (the evil fireplace, remember?), perhaps furious from its defeat in another timeline I actually don't know about was a huge pain in the butt this time, spamming traps like Angela spammed Holy Whateverspell. So we ran out of Revive-O-Grails right quick. And there was still one more boss fight to go.

Billandben knocked me out almost right away, leaving Duran and Angela to shove chocos down their throats pretty much every time they were hit. They couldn't take any chances, after all. Of course, I couldn't let them think it was okay to eat my chocolate without my permission, so I made sure to give them a piece of my mind once they woke me up. And all that was left for healing... I love sugar and similar sweeteners as much as the next guy, but having to chug a flask of honey... ugh. But then, It sure beat actual healing potions, especially that Tide brand. And then I just take a few dozen points of puking damage and need another heal.

Anyway, turns out the town at the bottom of the mountain looted some great weapons and armor from the ninjas. Even though they only used knives, the armory had all of our weapons of choice. And, yes, armors in our exact fit. Frankly, I don't remember seeing any ninjas with my stature, but there you go. While I'm thinking of it, I don't remember when I started wearing armor, either.

Guess what else went better in this timeline? I found an item shop on the ghost ship. Run by... geez, I don't know what to call it. Some kind of zombie-ghost-zombie. I mean, wait. What timeline am I comparing this one to?

So. A room with a suspicious dead end. A note on the wall giving a list of books. Books whose titles were in the suspicious dead end room. I took the note and took a closer look at the books in question.

Why was one book listed twice, I tried to ask when I realized I had pulled out a book a second time, but then the wall to the right completely disappeared. I chose to stay still, all bemused. Duran decided to act the brains and walk right into the trap, picking up the book on the table. He read aloud. "Captain's log: Die die die die die die die... die... hm."

Suddenly a ghost appeared, apparently excited about the fact. "Hey guys I'm a /ghost!/" Well, I was genre savvy enough for this. He was either a creepy creep who was going to try to kill us, or--

"I found the ghost ship! Isn't this great? But I think I want to leave now. So here's a curse. Bye!"

And Duran promptly turned transparent, the ghost man vanishing without a trace. I glanced at a Revive-O-Grail, but decided it wasn't worth it.

Just then, the Exposition Faerie appeared. "Looks like you can't leave while the curse is on you."

"All right," I said. "No problem, then. All we need to do is whack the boss in charge, right? Of course, that seems a little redundant."

"All right," said Duran. "Can't I just pass it on to someone else like the last guy?"

I laughed. "Yyyeah, bye." Angela in tow, I took off for the door we hadn't farmed past yet.

Wouldn't you know it.

BOSS FIGHT
VERSUS... OH GEEZ. UM, IT STARTED WITH A G, I THINK. MAYBE WITH A V IN IT.

This man liked to stay tantalizingly out of reach. Of course, the response to that is to cast Holy Ball, which Angela was spamming anyway. Of course, then he revealed some new attacks. Silence! That was a new status effect. Honestly, I was too stingy to ever buy status healers, and Angela was too frail to switch to melee, but I did think of a way around it. I simply stopped tossing her heal candies. She couldn't argue; she was silenced. I don't think she caught on to my tactics until the holy grail revived her to perfect condition.

So, yeah, with those extra mana points, he went down kind of disappointingly.

VICTORY

Duran ran up the stairs to meet us, and in unrelated news, a vaguely bat-shaped shadow flew out of nowhere, yelling, "I'm free!"

"Shade!" said Faerie. "So you're on the ghost ship? Lucky we met up. Is the Mana Stone of Darkness here, then?"

"Oh. Uh, no," said the bat signal. "That was destroyed in that ancient struggle for control of the Mana Stones."

"Oh no," said Angela. "You don't mean--"

"I do. The Mana Beast of Darkness ravaged the lands before suddenly disappearing and nobody knows where it ended up."

"Gosh," I said, knocked on my behind from the sheer shock. "When did the plot show up?"

"Weren't you there when we talked to the Priest of Light?" said Duran.

"Oh, yeah."

"Speaking of oh, yeah," said Shade. "Now that I'm free, the entire ship is gonna blow."

"Say wha--"

DOOM.


SHADE GET

Clichéstorm: Or did I?

Quest summary: Five more spirits, one more sword, one more little brother.

Current goal: Take Rolante back!

I guess I forgot to mention JINN GET, but it was implied, wasn't it? Anyway, after setting up a few troops near our target, we did what Don Perignon said. Y'know, with the sleep poppies blowing through the castle full of ninjas. And then we went too, to deliver each one a coup de grace. Or a fair fight (well, as fair as a fight against me can get) if they managed to inject themselves with caffeine in time or something.

There were a lot more fair fights than we expected. Turns out Jinn hadn't quite managed to blow the flowers through the castle; we just knocked out everybody on the outside. On top of that, the ninjas had trained a bunch of monsters with the Insomniac ability. But, in any case, we were here to assassinate the Queen of Ninjas or whatever, and that was what we were going to do.

I directed the team to the Save Point with Healing I had found stumbling around the castle in the prologue and made that our base to farm EXP. I mean, the Queen of All Ninjas was not going to go down easily at all. We should really take advantage of... ah, screw it. Let's just have Angela cast Game Breaker.

We were pretty close to the top of the tallest tower at that point, and that was as good a place as any to look for a boss. What do ya know, we found one. But I was absolutely certain that it was not the queen of anything. Instead, the mother of all fireplaces. It spat out two shapeshifting blobs and then all sorts of things Angela had found opening treasure chests. And by that, I don't mean the prizes.

BOSS FIGHT
VERSUS... UM SOMETHING

I couldn't figure out what element Game Breaker Angela should cast, so it was actually something like a challenge. My best guess was water, but we didn't have water, and didn't know where we were supposed to look for the spirit. Plus, it's not like we were that far in the plot anyway.

But even then it wasn't long before the fireplace exploded, taking with it the two shapeshifters and leaving the doorway that should have been there in its place. There was no time for a victory pose now, though. Our job wasn't done.

Far from done, it turned out. Moments after stepping through the door, who should show up but the very ninjas who had kidnapped my brother. Without wasting any time, I charged. And was flung across the room by a shuriken. (That's how you say throwing star in ninja.)

"COMBINE!" they both roared, doing what they said they would.

BOSS FIGHT
VERSUS BILL AND BEN

So Bill and Ben were two ninjas who were now one ninja, who, a few hits later, was two ninjas again. And then, when targeted with one of Angela's spells, each ninja was Bill and Ben. Anyway, they hit hard and often, but turned out to be glass cannons. They either exploded in a very undramatic fashion or used one of those Deus Ex Machina Brand™ Poof Move Dust Bombs™.

And then, there was no one left to protect the queen. Except herself, maybe. I pointed my spear at her. "It's over! Time for you to write a surrender treaty!"

She seemed to disagree. She preferred to float away through the ceiling.

I mumbled something like, "Fine, you're dead later," and left to see how my amazon army was doing.

Real, real well, it turned out. We ran into the elder in the throne room. And if he was here...

"The day is ours!" he declared.

Yeah, that.

"Well," I said, "we did a great job here today. Uh, I still have some questing to do, though."

It was an unpopular decision. The ladies wanted me. But I couldn't just stay here for the ladies when there were still levels to gain. Oh yeah, and my little brother. And maybe the world at stake, too, if the end of the prologue had anything to say about it. Or Don Perignon. (Though, honestly, what did he know?)

Back to Forcena!

There was even a free ride! I guess I should have been suspicious about the level of service with prices that low, because sailing was taking a heck of a long time, even for them. Luckily, beds were provided.

We /still/ weren't there when we woke up. Muttering obscenities, I told the team I was going to punch the captain. They were also curious about how long it would take to smash in his skull, and they joined me on my quest.

It was a lot darker in here than I remembered, but I thought nothing of it. Not for a little while anyway. As I reached the stairs, there was the sound of shattering glass behind me. Of course, I looked. Nothing. Nothing but Duran and Angela also looking for the source. Shrugging, I went on my way.

And a few minutes later, there was a high-pitched scream, and then Duran insisting it wasn't him. "Wait a minute," I said. "Wait a minute!"

Faerie popped out of my head, confirming my suspicions. "This is the legendary Ghost Ship."

"Oh, great," I said. "We're dead. Well, I mean, we will be. Not... not dead yet."

"Well, our beds seemed safe," said Duran.

"Right," I said. "Let's level farm, beds are our base."

But first we had to fight our way back through hordes of zombies. They had a habit of poisoning people. But I couldn't afford to use any healing items; there was sure to be a boss in here somewhere, and there was no way there would be shops. When Duran and Angela hit 0 HP, I gave up and did my best to run for the beds while dragging them behind me.

I had forgotten to check, but my HP were pretty dangerously low, too, and when a zombie got me in the back of the head... it didn't look good for my career...

Oh no. Where was my last save...?

Clichéstorm: ...Aaand we're back!

Quest summary: Find six more spirits, go to the Holyland, grab a sword, find my little brother. Stop calling the spirits macguffins, as they actually do something. I can still call them plot coupons, though.

Current goal: The spirit by Rolante.

So! There weren't any docks anywhere on the continent. Or at least not any we could reach from the natural boundaries all around Forcena. But somewhere in Forcena we set off an event flag, and on our return to the castle, a distant relative (brother, I think) of that Bon Jour cannon man had set up a cannon in the courtyard! With no other alternatives, we were forced to take it.

And what do you know, we survived. He knew how to aim! He knew how to aim at Bon Jour's house, to be specific. Thankfully, he wasn't perfect, and our broken bodies did not become a poor man's wrecking ball. I mean, he must have been poor if he needed to use more of our infinite supply of gunpowder. What I'm trying to say is our broken bodies were completely useless instead.

Of course, a quick nap in the inn fixed all that.

And so we were off to climb the mountains that a few days ago had been my home. We came across a suspicious cave, but there was a suspicious statue blocking the path. We came across the castle, but that was too full of ninjas to be anywhere near not-out-of-the-question. Finally I lead Team SmiteSquad to the conspicuously empty screen I had found farming one time. Still absolutely nothing. Nothing but a field of poppies. I felt really inexplicably happy. Happy... and I also...

woke up a few hours later in a pile of beds in a cave.

I think I spoke for all of us when I said, "G-b-th-what?"

"Princess!" exclaimed the startled amazon. "You're awake!"

I growled. "Royal decree: Don't call me that."

"You're not the queen."

"I think what you mean is I'm not the queen yet." I got a pained expression. "Argh, now you've got me doing it!"

"Princess," she went on, ignoring my exasperation, "There is a meeting going on that you should attend. Now that you're here and everything."

"What?" I jumped out of bed. "People are making decisions without me? The nerve." I shook my companions awake, trying not to think about the unfortunate implications that Angela's naked sleeping sprite made.*

Now, I wasn't an expert on Rolante law. What am I, a lawyer? I don't need to know laws to rule. But apparently the law left the Only Other Man in charge. I could say some things about patriarchal societies, but I won't because I don't actually know anything.

So we had a big, fat, boring war council. My plan was that we farm some levels and take the castle by force. The Only Other Man argued that ninjas do nothing but farm levels from birth, and have I seen those guys. Yes, I had; they were only level one; wait, did our castle really get taken over by an army of first-levels? Yes, it was called a zerg rush; we must also take the castle by stratagem. I was forced to agree, but only because stratagem was a really cool word.

"Now here's where it gets tricky," said the Only Other Man, who will from now on be referred to by his official title as the elder, because it is much shorter. "I don't know much about tactics, myself. You, princess, must--"

I scoffed. "Hey, I may be the leader of the army, but I'm no general either. Also, quit calling me that."

"I was afraid of that." Why was everybody ignoring the part about calling me princess? "And therefore, I have planned for it. We must seek out the world's greatest general."

"Who's that?" I asked. "Parson, uh..." I could not for the life of me think of the name of that guy. "You know, the hamster... Listen, you ever read this webcomic, Erfworld? That's... that's the joke here."

"No, Don Parignon," he said, completely ignoring any feelings of levity. "I think I spelled that right. Anyway, this gets tricky. You see, he is a Corobokkle, and they are a little..."

"Racist?"

He ended his meaningless gesticulations. "Yes. And you would need one heck of a disguise to get to him. However!" One finger shot into the air. "There are legends of an artifact called the Chibikko Hammer. Before you ask, you may not use it as a weapon."

"Aw."

"So go find it."

Oh, was that it? Nothing about what the hammer was supposed to do for me? Or rumors about its location? It couldn't be that I had stopped paying attention during that part. D-definitely.

And so it was as we were fetch questing across the land, we came across the farmer's market of whatever the heck the town was called. How could I resist? There were all sorts of impossibly rare items that I didn't buy because I realized they were too awesome to use. Mostly powerup food and such. But there was an old lady with a tiny booth who didn't seem to belong there at all. At my approach, she began a ramble about how boring this was, and would I like this hammer so she could leave with any satisfaction. I mean, you don't turn down a free weapon.

My Omniscient Plot Explainer kicked in, informing me that this was the Chibikko Hammer we'd been looking for the whole time. What luck!

Angela had stuck close by (of course, why would she want to be apart from me?) but Duran seemed to be gone. We found him around the center. With some ladies. "Time to go," I said.

"Hold on," he protested. "We gotta pay these hot chicks to dance."

Who was I to disagree?

Later I found out that it was actually the black market, but same difference, am I right?

Some forestly wandering later, we caught sight of a member of the racist race I mentioned before. He caught sight of us, too, and he ran into the trees. All right. It was time to find out what this baby could do.

"All right, this won't hurt," I told Duran, pulling the hammer back. "P-probably."

PLONK. That was not the sound of head getting smashed in. I was a little disappointed. Maybe I should have trained my hammering skill more, because it was a pretty wide miss. (And later, when I checked, I found that didn't even train my hammering skill.) Stupid, crummy piece of--

Smoke poured out of the hammer, engulfing the three of us. "Asbestos!" I choked. "Stop breathing!" For good measure, I squeezed my eyes shut, too. Man, this was fast-acting asbestos. I could already feel the cancers and tumors killing me to death.

Eventually, though, I couldn't hold my breath any longer. My next breath was completely clean. I blinked my eyes open, honestly a little shocked. The trees and grass were a lot bigger than I remembered. "Oh!" I said. "It's not asbestos, it's drugs!"

I got a thwap. Funny, because I didn't remember tripping any traps. Turns out it was Angela brand, because she was the only thing close enough to the back of my head. "We're Chibikko'd, dingus."

"Oh, the status effect that makes us do one damage!" I said, suddenly pointing at a chalkboard with the manual drawn on it. "That would explain the name. Of the hammer. Well, let's go end racism!"

I was, of course, quite a bit disoriented, but I could always tell which way was north. Up. And that was where the little racist had headed. I couldn't think where else we could be when the trees had doors in the trunks.

"Hi!" I called to the first dude I could see. I realized his beard was only proportionally big, but it was still ridiculous how he could survive with a beard that size. "We're looking for a guy, Don Perignon? I think I spelled that right."

"What for?"

My head reeled. This man asked some brilliant questions. "We need tactical advice." Good thing I had such brilliant answers.

He shrugged. "Dunno. Why don't you ask around."

And so we did, entering each house uninvited. I was quite disappointed to find that there were no cookies being baked inside any of them, because my heroic HP-restoring metabolism demanded cookies for the rabite tooth still stuck in my head. Beardy seemed to be in sight every time we left a house. I saw how it was, but I knew he wouldn't try anything with us guarding Angela. Of course, she could probably just cast a magic or something, too.

"All right," I said, finally giving up and returning to him. "We've searched the whole place. He's gotta be here, right?"

"Yes," he said. "It is I, Don Perignon." He paused, running his fingers through his beard. "I think I spelled that right."

"Guh--" I made such stunning arguments. "But you said you didn't know where he was!"

"Oho, but I was walking around at the time, so I wasn't in any one place."

That was it. I pulled the spear from my back and charged.

Actually, I didn't, because Duran was too fast with the shoving me aside. "Like she said--"

"She?" I demanded.

"We need tactical advice. See, the Corobokkle village by Rolante was invaded by mice."

"Oh, yes," he said. "This shouldn't be too tough. You must find the wind spirit, Jinn. Something a little cryptic. Then, have him blow sleep poppies all through Rolante. Retaking the castle should be a breeze, so to speak."

"Right." He nodded.

"W-wait!" I said. "How'd you know about the castle?"

Don Coolname chuckled. "You smell like humans. There's no fooling me. And there's no Corobokkle village near Rolante, okay?"

"All right," I said, hoping I had rolled high enough on my Bluff check to hide my nervousness. "So why'd you help us, then?"

"You've got a faerie with you," he replied. "I can sense that sort of thing. And when there's a faerie around, the whole world is in danger."

"Nothing we can't handle," I said, shooting him a cocky smile. "All right, then. We know where to find you if your plan fails."

Back up the mountain, and the suspicious statue was missing. Don McGrawsonman was an event flag. I wondered how it felt to be demoted to such a low status. Poor townsfolk have to live their whole lives like that, rarely if ever useful to us heroes, walking back and forth on set paths.

But why dwell on them when there's harpies to whack. I pitied them, too. I got no response for even my best pickup lines. I had no choice but to whack them for EXP. They did start it.

Eventually our farming was cut short when Duran "Oh my gosh, a giant rock!"

Faerie popped out of my head. "That's one of those mana stones I mentioned before. I could explain more, and I actually did, but in the interest of interest, I won't go on in the Questlog version."

Angela did a double take at the ground. "Hey, there are footprints over here!"

"Looks like a boss," I said, forgetting my spear was already in hand and making some useless motions for a minute. "Watch yourselves."

What do you know, some kind of black night was out there pumping some kind of blue, fat rabbit man full of evil energy. "Hey!" I cried. "That's impolite!"

He said nothing, and disappeared.

"All right," I mumbled, shrugging. Then I realized something. "Hey, that's the wind spirit! Uhm, are you okay, after--"

He was very eloquent today. "Grrrr."

And then he was gone, too. I almost began saying something when a giant harpy swooped out of the sky, picking up Duran and dropping him from the sky, knocking him clean out.

"Hey!" I cried.

BOSS FIGHT

VERSUS... TZENKER (I THINK SOMETHING LIKE THAT)

It was also unimpressive, with Angela spamming the Earth-type spell she had learned from Gnome. The one with the really sharp diamonds? And she solidified the tradition of powering up when weak. She used some kind of speed boost.

It didn't help.

VICTORY

Angela was becoming a bit of a game breaker.