Beyond the Beyond: Update 31: Mist and Rain (Rainbow Valley)

[ladyabaxa]

Beyond the Beyond: Update 31: Mist and Rain (Rainbow Valley)

So, about that following Domino thing. Before we leave Luna we'd best make sure our business here really is concluded. It might be awhile before we can come back, after all. Oh yeah and we did kind of promise Domino's friend we'd investigate what happened. I guess we should do that too. It would be troublesome to wander off and realize that we forgot something important.

Apples? Last night this crate was empty!
You mean tonight it will be empty.
*opens mouth to say something then stops* Ok, you've got a point there.
Pryaa. Finn, there's a pirate out on the dock today.
Really? We must investigate!
Here we go again.

Hi kids. You're not from around here, are you?
Everybody in this town seems to ask us that same question. Is it really that obvious?
I've been all over the world and this is the first time I've seen whatever it is you are.
*grumbles something unintelligible*
That was a bit harsh. Our friend here is no monster if that's what you're implying.
Ah, no, no! That's not what I meant. I've seen enough monsters to know one on sight.
Are you a pirate?
I am.
Do you know Captain Domino?
I do.
I think he means if you know the captain personally. We've sort of heard some tales of him, like how he's kind of been acting weird lately.
Has someone on his crew been running their mouth?
Not exactly. *pauses* One of his friends is worried about him.
Domino may be an odd ball but he has his reasons.
Are you another friend of his?
Sort of. I haven't seen him in almost a year. We had... a falling out over a difference of opinion.
We heard that his crew abandoned him on Gaea Island.
Yes. From what I heard they got scared because the island is crawling with monsters and Domino wouldn't listen to reason.
Then I take it you're also worried about him.
Domino and I used to live on the western continent. One day, monsters appeared and we both lost our families. Domino, to take revenge for his family, decided to scale Arawn's Tower. He became a pirate to help achieve that goal. I'm worried that he might push himself too far. He has trouble knowing when he should listen to reason.
How would scaling Arawn's Tower lead to revenge against a bunch of monsters?
Wait a minute! That tower only recently appeared! How did he decide to scale a tower when it didn't exist?
There are many legends in Barbaros about Arawn's Tower and how it is supposed to appear in a time of crisis. Domino has been immersed in them since the... incident.
And now he's gone and gotten himself into a lot of trouble.
It's not as if anyone is actually doing anything about the hordes of monsters rampaging across Aridia. Barbaros is holed up in its castle. Bandore is off gallivanting across Marion. Zalagoon is bracing for war. You can't fault people for turning to legend when the armies that should be protecting them aren't.
We meant no offense. We have seen and fought many monsters over the last few months.
Aww... I know. It's just hard not to be on edge right now. So, you folks are looking for Domino?
Not so much looking for him as we might be going by that island soon.
You're certainly searching for something.
I can't speak for the others but I'm going to go see the world!
Haha! That's the spirit! Not going to let any monsters keep you down?
No way! I'm not scared.
Well whatever it is you're looking for, good luck on finding it.

Well I guess we'd better get to searching for that errant crew member.
Here?
Where else would we start?
Good point.

Uh, excuse me but we're sort of looking for a guy who was part of Captain Domino's crew.
Why? You looking for Domino or just have a beef with someone?
Actually we're looking for a guy who found a statue and might still be in town.
Statue? Yeah, I have the Statue of Gaea. I was hoping the legendary Moon Crescent would be there. Nobody's interested in buying it, though. What a waste...
You're looking for this? *Edward produces the Moon Crescent*
What?!! You have the Moon Crescent. Where did you, ARGH! Nevermind! How much do you want for it?
Well we might be convinced if you want to trade.
You wanna trade? A straight trade then? The Statue of Gaea for the Moon Crescent?

Are you sure about this, Edward?
Yeah you were pretty damn worried about that thing's power.
Aww the human just wants to mess with time a little bit.
Don't be stingy! This is the legendary treasure of Gaea Island. Think it over! Come back if you change your mind.

Wait, I didn't say no. I guess we can make a deal...
Oh! You'll do it? Then let's exchange.
There it goes. Goodbye little artifact.
Aww, this is great! You have no idea how happy you've made me. Now I can party at night without losing any sleep!
Well I suppose there are far worse uses for the Moon Crescent.

And just like that we say goodbye to the Moon Crescent. Sure we risked our lives navigating Arawn's Palace to wrest it from its ancient hiding place for reasons that were not at all clear to the party at the time they were down there but it has now found a home where it will enable one guy to get incredibly wasted, party like it's the end of the world, and probably lose the priceless magical artifact when he's mugged or drops it and the tide comes in. Oh well. (This is still definitely a misuse.)

In fact this is the only use for the Moon Crescent in the entire game. Although there are night palettes for the battlefields the developers either didn't have the time or inclination to make night versions of any other town. You can only use the Crescent while on the overworld and if you try to enter any town other than Luna the game just ignores the fact that it should be night and silently ends the Moon Crescent's effect. So if you've forgotten or missed NPCs in Luna mentioning stuff happens at night then get the Moon Crescent and try it out in Ophera it is easy to assume it's just some half-baked gimmick (which it still is) and completely miss the one chance you have to pick up the non-linear plot threads for this part of the game and be left confused on where to go. You'd also miss the weapon and armor shops and given that it's going to be quite awhile before we see any equipment upgrades in shops that can leave the player in pretty bad shape.

Is Beyond the Beyond about to get more difficult? Yes but we've still got a little more time before it tries to throw us out of the murder tree. Hopefully we'll be adequately prepared by then.

Before we say goodbye to Luna I decide to go ahead and use the Source of Growth on Tont. It gives him 2000 experience which is not enough to level up but would be pretty good if we got here at a low level or I just got Tont. As it is it will close the experience gap between him and the rest of the party a bit.

Not far to the east of Luna is this odd land formation. The high mountains force the party into a narrow pass thick with trees.

Before we head into danger I take a quick look at everyone's stats and it turns out I remembered correctly that the Heavy Mail comes with a speed penalty. Three points isn't enough to worry me but it does drop Samson down the turn order.

Are you all ready?
I think so.
Ready as I ever am to face the great unknown.
So you don't have any idea what Jonowan is like, Sir Samson?
No. All I know is that whoever lives all the way out here tends to keep to themselves.
Kinda like Simone then.
Kryaa. Let's hope they're friendly.

The valley narrows to a mist-choked path where one misstep could leave the team in deep water.

Ahh, fog! So much for being able to see where I'm going.
Don't worry, Finn I'll lead the way.

Steiner I'm pretty sure you've led us straight into monsters.
Kra, it's not like there's any way to walk around them without being seen.
Hey I remember that lizard guy. Isn't he your friend or something, Tont?
Well, uh, summoned creatures are compelled to help but they aren't necessarily happy about it.

Duly noted. Ouch.

Nothing can ever be easy, can it?
I guess not.
So, are all these monsters just sort of milling about in here or what?
Maybe they're lost.
*amused snort*

Hey more wind spirits. Maybe they won't attack us?
I can feel them drawing mana from the air.
Ok then first strike it is.

The sylphs would have been a nasty surprise if we had wandered in here when we first reached Luna but by this point they're too slow to pose much of a threat.

Two paths. Which way should we go?
Kryaa. I can see open water to the east.

And there's a hooded figure right in front of us.
Who is still up to no good?

Hey! OW!
I think that's a yes.

Assassins are just like Thieves except with moderately better stats so this enemy actually gets one attack off before we kill them.

You still haven't said which way we should go, Finn.
Well, open area to the east, narrow path to the west. My treasure senses are tingling.
When are they ever not tingling?

Generally whenever another monster decides to attack us.
One gargoyle? That's it?
You were expecting more?
This is a waste of our time.

It's not even doing anything. It's just giving Sir Samson a dirty look.

Grmph!
Sir Samson are you all right?
Ok I take back what I said.
Come on, before it does that to anyone else!

Here I was thinking I'd never get to show off someone being turned to stone. In pretty much any other rpg this would be cause for concern but petrification is not permanent in Beyond the Beyond. Once the battle is over Samson shakes off the effect and continues on like nothing happened.

Ahh, my senses prove right once again. Ok little treasure chest what do you have for me today?
It's a ribbon.
A ribbon I will be taking.

So there's Annie's next ribbon upgrade, providing a little more defense. How? I have no idea. Magic must be involved or strobe lights are attached to it (I like the strobe light notion, let's go with that). The team then heads east.

Tont is something wrong?
A thought just occurred to me. Why are earth spirits always so stubborn?
I don't know, why?
Hey there's more powder in this jar here. Ewww, did that plant thing really eat this?
Pryaa. I think it ate the person it once belonged to.
It seems so simple. I just never considered how I was asking them.
There's a code of etiquette to that stuff?
Yuck!
But you're still going to take the jar?
Well I'm already covered in plant guts and this is worth a good chunk of money so yeah I am.

A dead end?
There's a statue over there, isn't there?
Yes.
GAH!

That was sudden. Everyone ok?
Yeah.
Damn statue... *grumbles something inaudible*
Wouldn't it be easier to just build a bridge?
Pfft. Then their fancy dragon statue things would be useless.
*giggles*

So here we have this area's gimmick: statues that think this is Bionic Commando or something.

And because there's a statue to cross to the east there must of course be another one for going the other way.

Steiner could you warn me before I blunder into any more of those things?
Will do.

Their range seems to be 6~ish tiles so the "puzzle" of this area is realizing you need to walk as far away from a statue as possible to avoid that trigger range.

Of course that doesn't help when the statue is literally offscreen so there's no way to know it's there until you walk into range. Surprise!

I thought you were going to warn me!
I can't warn you about something I can't see, Finn.
*grumbles* Ok.

The team gets yanked back to the other side and continues on.

That's... actually rather impressive, Tont.
*beams triumphantly*
Haven't we seen that spell somewhere before?
I... don't think so. Sir Samson?
I've seen it many times. It didn't used to be so rare.
What happened?
*shakes head* Callers come and go.

Tont's Firedrake spell might eat through his MP quickly but it also does a good job of killing and severely wounding anything we run into in this area. I save it for the bigger groups to cut down on our damage intake.

Statues, statues everywhere.
Somebody really liked that design!

Now to your left, Finn.
At least one of us can see something through all this.

This is the most complicated "puzzle" part of the area and most of the challenge is the fact that even when the statues are in range they're barely on screen. There's no room for error here. We have to take it slow.

I'll hold onto that.
Eh, it's just more magic liquid.
You find this stuff often?
It seems like it.

A Source of Vitality is definitely worth the trouble.

Finn I think there's something shiny over there.

What's this? Something is lodged in the eye. *pulls on it* Umph! It's stuck tight.
Here let me. I bet there's... *a ring pops out* ...a trick to it.
Ok now who sticks a ring in a statue?
Obviously someone with too much time on their hands.
It's magical. Some sort of wind enchantment I think.

I'll test it out.

The Tempest Ring is one of the better rings in the game and completely worth the run-around to find it. Anyone can equip it and a +5 speed boost that can be assigned to any team member essentially at will is nothing to sneeze at in this game. For now Tont will wear it since he is the slowest party member and having his Firedrake spell available earlier every turn will help when the game tries its best to murder us.

More gargoyles.
Have they always been able to turn people to stone or was it just that one?

I propose we don't give them a chance to do anything.

Sounds good to me.

I didn't expect Firedrake to be so effective on Gargoyles so it turned out Tont didn't need any help. Still, this is better then chipping away for several turns with the mild risk of petrification. We're not exactly hurting on MP right now.

Eventually the path turned north.

It also threw a small kink in the works by taking elevation into account. The team was just glad no one was dumped in the water below.

Aww, no more fog.
Thank Arawn.
There can't be much more valley ahead of us.

AH!
But there can be hooded figures throwing knives at us.
Scum!
This one's even got a dog. How... practical.

Aw, a rainbow. Brightens the day a little?
Praa. It does lighten the mood.

(The perspective here is unclear but the shadows suggest we're walking underneath a rocky outcropping with a waterfall. Don't ask how that is structurally sound. Yup, eyes on the pretty rainbow. It is a nice touch, though.)

Don't worry, Steiner. The carnivorous plants are here to sour our day.
As if anything could shake my mood, Finn!

Hmph! They're hardly a threat.
To think, Finn, that just a couple months ago a horde of these things probably would have sent us running.
Times do change, don't they?

That they do. Hmm, this is the top of the waterfall.

Hey is that another wind spirit?
It seems to be.
Come on Steiner I've had quite enough of these things for a lifetime.
Kryaa! Let's do this! RAWR!

You know, all in all this has actually been rather pleasant.
How so?
Well no demons are trying to chew our faces off.
Just carnivorous plants.
Well, yeah, but those hardly even get a nibble in these days.
I'm enjoying the trip, plants trying to eat me or not!
Praa. It's not Simone?
It's nice to find out the monsters aren't really all that scary.

I suppose you too will have more stories to add to your repertoire after this, Sir Samson.
Hmm. Yes. I suppose that is one way of looking at it.
The trees are thinning out.
And there's a horizon that isn't a mountain.
Okay so does anyone have any idea what direction this village is other than 'somewhere east?'
I'm afraid not.
Nope.
Lovely. Well, it's gotta be somewhere around here, right?

After five days of wandering aimlessly, getting turned around, and generally not knowing which way to go the team finally spots buildings in the distance.

Next time we're in a major town we need to invest in some decent maps. Who's with me?
Aye!

Next time on Beyond the Beyond - a new village! This must be Jonowan.

Update Thirty | Index | Update Thirty-Two