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xyzzysqrlY'know, I think this is actually going to stretch on into a third or possibly even fourth month. It could be worse, I could be playing Dragon Quest 7. Still... yeah, this is gonna just keep going and going and going.
Welcome back anyway to Tales of Vesperia. Last time the party killed a major public figure by accident, Judith revealed her true nature to Rita, and everyone sulked a WHOLE lot. Things are getting kinda tense on the interparty relationship front. Also, Yuri managed to alienate Flynn, which I wasn't sure was even possible for him.
To my delight, when I take Yuri back to his crappy one-room apartment in the Lower Quarter, two things happen. First, Estelle and Rita instantly claim the room next door as their own private quarters and lock themselves in. Second, Yuri has a scene with one of the children of the Lower Quarter where it's revealed that everyone in the LQ can tell just by looking at Yuri that he and Flynn had "another" fight. They're all pulling for Flynn and Yuri to make up.
The kid hands Yuri a loaf of bread with explicit orders to find Flynn and split half with him. They ALWAYS share. Heck, when Flynn and Yuri were training to be Imperial Knights, they only had enough money to buy one sword, so they just traded it off to each other, back and forth, all day long. Yuri can't help wondering if it's REALLY gonna be as simple as "split lunch, make up".
I have to admit... yeah, this will take me a long time to finish, but scenes like this are why I'm still gung-ho about playing through this one. So much character tucked away in a totally optional place.
Back in Dahngrest, Raven and Karol bail along with Harry. They're off to chatter with the Don. So we drop by the inn and chill. Estelle and Rita head off to bed again...
Rita: "Estelle and I are going to get some rest after the long trip."
Estelle: "Ah, but I have to..."
Rita: "REST. What about you, Yuri?"
Yuri does the party's shopping and then hits the hay too. He's woken by Estelle poking him, as he's slept long into the afternoon. Karol hasn't come back from the Union HQ yet, but eh. Everyone's sure he can handle himself. Raven reports in: The moment the Don heard what happened, he stormed off somewhere. Probably to the Manor of The Wicked, which is where the Leviathan's Claw are HQ'd. ... SERIOUSLY, the Manor of the Wic... OKAY LET'S GO WITH THAT. Yuri shrugs and hops out of bed. Let's follow the Don and see what happens!
Just outside, however, we walk right into a huge crowd. Estelle spots Karol in the middle of the angry mob. He's arguing about how they have to protect the city but not start too much trouble... Apparently a group of angry citizens from Nordopolica have been spotted on the way to Dahngrest. Retaliation is happening and that's not good. We've got to go get the Don back, and FAST. Karol agrees to hold things down in the city, and to try to keep an all-out war from breaking out.
Meanwhile, the group decides to roll out.
Estelle: "If the Don really did go meet with Yeager, what could the reason have been? And why would he go alone?"
Yuri: "It's not to deepen the ties of their friendship, that’s for sure. It was probably because he didn't want his subordinates to get wrapped up in the mess."
Rita: Well. That's just one more example of how much the guilds love doing things the HARD way. Upholding every rule. Settling every score. Is it all
really that important?"
Raven: "Hey, if we’re goin' after the Don? Now's the time. We can have special sharing time later."
The game stops to ask if we're REALLY SURE about leaving to do this, which I suppose means we're not coming back any time soon. Hoo boy. Oh well, let's bounce to rival turf and try to stop agang guild war. To the Manor of the Wicked! (It's like an alternate title for The House of the Dead.)
The place is ... naturally, surrounded by eternal night and heavily guarded by faceless minions. Gauche and Droite are outside, arguing with the door guard. No, they don't have proof of who they are. They need to get in and stop the Don. (So he IS here.) They had to drop that thing with the Hunting Blades and the dragon-rider and come back here at once. (Huh, they're after her?) This is a VERY informative eavesdropping session! ...well, it was up until a guard noticed them listening in. Oops. Back to Brave Vesperia standard operating procedure: Beat everyone senseless.
The group makes the choice to storm the mansion. They can't run off to help Judith right now, even if they suspect she may be being hunted for riding an Entelexeia. If the guilds want apatheia, killing her dragon would be high on the priority tree... but they're RIGHT HERE, about to go after the Don. Yuri takes a moment to remind Estelle that this is that "deciding on priorities for ourselves" business they talked about.
In the front door of the mansion we go. Don Whitehorse is visible right off, dueling with bad guys and Yeager on a balcony high above. Dude has theatrics. Unfortunately, Gauche, Droite, and a bunch of assassins are in the way between us and him. CHARGE! While dealing with them, the Don and Yeager move their fight deeper into the mansion. After them! (...after gathering all the treasure in the mansion first because come on we're not SAVAGES here).
So we fight deeper into the mansion, winning battles and weirding each other out.
Estelle: "Our weapons are! LOVE!"
Yuri: "Justice!"
Raven: "Sex-u-al-ityyyy~!"
Rita: "WOULD YOU STOP!?"
Karol also gets super-good at cooking omelette rice and develops Meat Sauce technology. Apparently this involves sticky flour, tomato, onion and pork. Happily, the icon does show it served over a plate of pasta, which makes me feel better. I really didn't want to think about these guys just eating it with a spoon or something.
Karol is almost -depressingly- good at being an omelette-serving team mom, actually.
Further in we find Yeager cornered, held at swordpoint by Don Whitehorse. Unfortunately Gauche and Droite are still between us and them, so we buckle down for a boss fight -- which never happens. The Don isn't quite ready to go through with the deed, and he's got to get back to Dahngrest to stop that war. He's prepared to let Yeager off with a final warning. Yeager gloats that there's no way the Don can stop a war from starting now, then hurls himself through a second-story window to escape.
Y'know, it may just be me, but ... couldn't he have just left normally and saved the gloating for later? No, I suppose then he wouldn't be a genre villain. But NOT BEING a genre villain means you spend a lot less time PICKING GLASS OUT OF YOUR NICE SUIT, y'know?
Oh well. The Don turns his attention to the group. What exactly do they think they're doing? Well... Yuri presents the ciel crystal that used to be Belius. The Don instantly knows what must've happened, and gets depressed. Then more guards show up, so he leaps out the window too. ... GODDAMN IT PEOPLE. Well, that leaves us to deal with the guards, so we do, but more are coming.
Yuri: "Looks like it's about time."
Estelle: "You don't mean... from up HERE?"
And so WE all hurl ourselves out the second story window. DOORS EXIST, DAMN IT. Oh bugger all this. Back to Dahngrest. Karol flings himself at the party. IT'S TERRIBLE! What is? Well, the Union and Palestralle (the Nordopolica guild) are using hoplon blastia on each other! Oh no! Which one was hoplon again? *check notes* Oh, it's the one that's like... aer blasters. They are shooting each other. Well that sounds bad, we should probably stop that.
Unfortunately the Don has other ideas. He's been acting strangely, and Raven knows why. He's literally trying to get himself killed, because in a way this is really all his fault. After all, his son did kill the Duce of Nordopolica. You can't just smile and wave and apologize out of that one. Yuri feels like he recognizes those tactics -- Why else would the Don go after Yeager, give up so suddenly, and come back so fast when he heard the war was starting? He's gonna throw himself between the two factions and get himself offed.
Karol sprints off at this news. After a moment, Yuri follows. Don Whitehorse is just casually kneeling in town square as Karol begs him for help, advice... anything really to take his mind off this. But the Don's mind is made up. He's ready to pass to the afterlife.
Harry Whitehorse leaps out. He'll die too. He's coming with his father.
Raven... refutes this idea soundly. Don Whitehorse approves, and tells Raven to nail Yeager for him. DAMN RIGHT. To a WALL. Rita can't understand why these people are so damn dedicated to stupid honor. Yuri, however, steps in to be the Don's second, as no one else will.
Don: "You're stuck with the job nobody else wants."
Yuri: "You too."
Don: "Ha. No kidding. I was lookin' forward to watching you go places, kid. I'll save you a seat in Hell."
The Don makes a little speech about how there's a new age coming for the guilds, then draws his dagger. In goes the knife. Slash goes Yuri's sword.
...well, that... that was dark. Cut to Estelle and Rita discussing the nature of belief and sacrifice. Which... is something Yuri feels he needs to sort out, himself. What exactly does he believe? How much is HE willing to sacrifice? And Brave Vesperia... what about the guild? He's killed someone he never wanted to kill...
With the body count steady rising, we pause for a bit. See you next time.
Welcome back anyway to Tales of Vesperia. Last time the party killed a major public figure by accident, Judith revealed her true nature to Rita, and everyone sulked a WHOLE lot. Things are getting kinda tense on the interparty relationship front. Also, Yuri managed to alienate Flynn, which I wasn't sure was even possible for him.
To my delight, when I take Yuri back to his crappy one-room apartment in the Lower Quarter, two things happen. First, Estelle and Rita instantly claim the room next door as their own private quarters and lock themselves in. Second, Yuri has a scene with one of the children of the Lower Quarter where it's revealed that everyone in the LQ can tell just by looking at Yuri that he and Flynn had "another" fight. They're all pulling for Flynn and Yuri to make up.
The kid hands Yuri a loaf of bread with explicit orders to find Flynn and split half with him. They ALWAYS share. Heck, when Flynn and Yuri were training to be Imperial Knights, they only had enough money to buy one sword, so they just traded it off to each other, back and forth, all day long. Yuri can't help wondering if it's REALLY gonna be as simple as "split lunch, make up".
I have to admit... yeah, this will take me a long time to finish, but scenes like this are why I'm still gung-ho about playing through this one. So much character tucked away in a totally optional place.
Back in Dahngrest, Raven and Karol bail along with Harry. They're off to chatter with the Don. So we drop by the inn and chill. Estelle and Rita head off to bed again...
Rita: "Estelle and I are going to get some rest after the long trip."
Estelle: "Ah, but I have to..."
Rita: "REST. What about you, Yuri?"
Yuri does the party's shopping and then hits the hay too. He's woken by Estelle poking him, as he's slept long into the afternoon. Karol hasn't come back from the Union HQ yet, but eh. Everyone's sure he can handle himself. Raven reports in: The moment the Don heard what happened, he stormed off somewhere. Probably to the Manor of The Wicked, which is where the Leviathan's Claw are HQ'd. ... SERIOUSLY, the Manor of the Wic... OKAY LET'S GO WITH THAT. Yuri shrugs and hops out of bed. Let's follow the Don and see what happens!
Just outside, however, we walk right into a huge crowd. Estelle spots Karol in the middle of the angry mob. He's arguing about how they have to protect the city but not start too much trouble... Apparently a group of angry citizens from Nordopolica have been spotted on the way to Dahngrest. Retaliation is happening and that's not good. We've got to go get the Don back, and FAST. Karol agrees to hold things down in the city, and to try to keep an all-out war from breaking out.
Meanwhile, the group decides to roll out.
Estelle: "If the Don really did go meet with Yeager, what could the reason have been? And why would he go alone?"
Yuri: "It's not to deepen the ties of their friendship, that’s for sure. It was probably because he didn't want his subordinates to get wrapped up in the mess."
Rita: Well. That's just one more example of how much the guilds love doing things the HARD way. Upholding every rule. Settling every score. Is it all
really that important?"
Raven: "Hey, if we’re goin' after the Don? Now's the time. We can have special sharing time later."
The game stops to ask if we're REALLY SURE about leaving to do this, which I suppose means we're not coming back any time soon. Hoo boy. Oh well, let's bounce to rival turf and try to stop a
The place is ... naturally, surrounded by eternal night and heavily guarded by faceless minions. Gauche and Droite are outside, arguing with the door guard. No, they don't have proof of who they are. They need to get in and stop the Don. (So he IS here.) They had to drop that thing with the Hunting Blades and the dragon-rider and come back here at once. (Huh, they're after her?) This is a VERY informative eavesdropping session! ...well, it was up until a guard noticed them listening in. Oops. Back to Brave Vesperia standard operating procedure: Beat everyone senseless.
The group makes the choice to storm the mansion. They can't run off to help Judith right now, even if they suspect she may be being hunted for riding an Entelexeia. If the guilds want apatheia, killing her dragon would be high on the priority tree... but they're RIGHT HERE, about to go after the Don. Yuri takes a moment to remind Estelle that this is that "deciding on priorities for ourselves" business they talked about.
In the front door of the mansion we go. Don Whitehorse is visible right off, dueling with bad guys and Yeager on a balcony high above. Dude has theatrics. Unfortunately, Gauche, Droite, and a bunch of assassins are in the way between us and him. CHARGE! While dealing with them, the Don and Yeager move their fight deeper into the mansion. After them! (...after gathering all the treasure in the mansion first because come on we're not SAVAGES here).
So we fight deeper into the mansion, winning battles and weirding each other out.
Estelle: "Our weapons are! LOVE!"
Yuri: "Justice!"
Raven: "Sex-u-al-ityyyy~!"
Rita: "WOULD YOU STOP!?"
Karol also gets super-good at cooking omelette rice and develops Meat Sauce technology. Apparently this involves sticky flour, tomato, onion and pork. Happily, the icon does show it served over a plate of pasta, which makes me feel better. I really didn't want to think about these guys just eating it with a spoon or something.
Karol is almost -depressingly- good at being an omelette-serving team mom, actually.
Further in we find Yeager cornered, held at swordpoint by Don Whitehorse. Unfortunately Gauche and Droite are still between us and them, so we buckle down for a boss fight -- which never happens. The Don isn't quite ready to go through with the deed, and he's got to get back to Dahngrest to stop that war. He's prepared to let Yeager off with a final warning. Yeager gloats that there's no way the Don can stop a war from starting now, then hurls himself through a second-story window to escape.
Y'know, it may just be me, but ... couldn't he have just left normally and saved the gloating for later? No, I suppose then he wouldn't be a genre villain. But NOT BEING a genre villain means you spend a lot less time PICKING GLASS OUT OF YOUR NICE SUIT, y'know?
Oh well. The Don turns his attention to the group. What exactly do they think they're doing? Well... Yuri presents the ciel crystal that used to be Belius. The Don instantly knows what must've happened, and gets depressed. Then more guards show up, so he leaps out the window too. ... GODDAMN IT PEOPLE. Well, that leaves us to deal with the guards, so we do, but more are coming.
Yuri: "Looks like it's about time."
Estelle: "You don't mean... from up HERE?"
And so WE all hurl ourselves out the second story window. DOORS EXIST, DAMN IT. Oh bugger all this. Back to Dahngrest. Karol flings himself at the party. IT'S TERRIBLE! What is? Well, the Union and Palestralle (the Nordopolica guild) are using hoplon blastia on each other! Oh no! Which one was hoplon again? *check notes* Oh, it's the one that's like... aer blasters. They are shooting each other. Well that sounds bad, we should probably stop that.
Unfortunately the Don has other ideas. He's been acting strangely, and Raven knows why. He's literally trying to get himself killed, because in a way this is really all his fault. After all, his son did kill the Duce of Nordopolica. You can't just smile and wave and apologize out of that one. Yuri feels like he recognizes those tactics -- Why else would the Don go after Yeager, give up so suddenly, and come back so fast when he heard the war was starting? He's gonna throw himself between the two factions and get himself offed.
Karol sprints off at this news. After a moment, Yuri follows. Don Whitehorse is just casually kneeling in town square as Karol begs him for help, advice... anything really to take his mind off this. But the Don's mind is made up. He's ready to pass to the afterlife.
Harry Whitehorse leaps out. He'll die too. He's coming with his father.
Raven... refutes this idea soundly. Don Whitehorse approves, and tells Raven to nail Yeager for him. DAMN RIGHT. To a WALL. Rita can't understand why these people are so damn dedicated to stupid honor. Yuri, however, steps in to be the Don's second, as no one else will.
Don: "You're stuck with the job nobody else wants."
Yuri: "You too."
Don: "Ha. No kidding. I was lookin' forward to watching you go places, kid. I'll save you a seat in Hell."
The Don makes a little speech about how there's a new age coming for the guilds, then draws his dagger. In goes the knife. Slash goes Yuri's sword.
...well, that... that was dark. Cut to Estelle and Rita discussing the nature of belief and sacrifice. Which... is something Yuri feels he needs to sort out, himself. What exactly does he believe? How much is HE willing to sacrifice? And Brave Vesperia... what about the guild? He's killed someone he never wanted to kill...
With the body count steady rising, we pause for a bit. See you next time.
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Date: 2013-03-21 01:13 am (UTC)Meanwhile...Estelle and Rita apparently swing that way? Poor Yuri, all this and he's got no chance to get the girl (unless he's gonna end up with Judith, I guess).
And probably the same question you're asking yourself--there's a group living in some place called the 'Manor of the Wicked'...and noone up until recently has been genre-savvy enough to realize that they're probably going to not be Nice People?