Curate of Curiosities

Previously, we went to the Violet Sands in order to stop a war, and then immediately left so that a cat man could shoot a snake in the face a whole bunch of times, then we resurrected Lizard Nurgle, who doesn't look like what we would expect him to.

Now that our guild has earned enough fame from...various random errands, two new quests have opened up.

First is "Dealings In Disaster," Moke's quest. As part of a trial for the council of Shra mages, he must gather four objects spread throughout the world that represent the Noxious magical element.

In the meantime, Fero has his own quest, "Herding," which is a bit less involved. He must track down four missing hunters. They are found in the same areas as the noxious items, so I can finish both quests in one fell swoop.

Venomous words? Oh no. The Siren didn't die after all; she just hopped universes to the world of this game!

Another thing, now that Tezkhra, the god of the Si'Shra, has joined us, we can take him around to have a look at the world that he says that he created. And Lizard Gandhi, who was kind enough to let us stay at his place, somehow knows him.

Like I said, the objectives for both Moke's and Fero's quests can be completed at once. Now Moke is one of the "Greater Shra," who are destined to rule the world. That's...intriguing. A bit more than Kidra's cop reveal, anyways. And what's more, Tezkhra takes note of his stench as well. We already knew that, but if he, of all people, is noticing this, then...there's some horrible reveal involving him, isn't there?

Congratulations, we just aided an enemy nation's war effort!

And while we're at it, Falitza's now buff enough for us to start on her quest. It, predictably, does nothing for her mental condition, but shows that she's really good at punching things.

Now we can get to work with helping Do'Ssha. First mission, find some guy's shrine in the middle of the desert. Nothing special, the area's pretty much a hallway.

When the quest is over, the guild runs into a Fih'jik who introduces herself as Ques' sister and screams at him about how he's abandoned his homeland. Ques, despite the fact that he should have some reaction to seeing a long-lost relative, manages to stay stiff and professional while she pleads with him. I can see why, but it looks like she's going to be our client for this chapter, so I suggest hearing her out.

The next quest begins with three of our guild members snooping on a random civilian (which seems to be a common thing with them) from whom they find out that some guards have gotten lost in the desert.

Each of the active guild members has their own area to search through for the agents, and most of them will have to fight at least one monster on the way.

And let's just say, not every party member is built to fight solo. Weirdly, it was Sirush, the assassin who claimed to work alone when we met him, who came the closest to dying in this quest.

I wasn't going to bring up Alito's rank up messages since they're not as interesting as Ques', but this quest has given us enough favor to jump two ranks and reach the highest possible rank. This gives a massive amount of experience points to the entire party, and enough skill and mana points to max out several of each party member's skills. There goes what's left of this game's challenge.

The guild's willingness to help people may be shockingly variable, as seen with Rehm, but they're the best that Syri can get right now, and the situation is desperate, so it's any port in a storm for her.

Kir'Ssha's Silver Army is gathering its forces so it can come to Do'Ssha and kill us all. What's more, in a few days, something called the Unstoppable Night will descend upon the land and freeze everything to death. Yes, kind of like whereever Sindrel Song takes place.

We're told to watch out for the Sa'ansharu, who have some worldbuilding purpose behind them, but are functionally identical to the bandits we fought back in chapter 2. They've set up camp along the path, so how do we avoid them attacking us? By running past them when the sandstorm kicks up, even though you pass right in front of them, where they should still be able to see us even through the blinding sand.

And while the desert is crawling with snakes, they can be completely avoided by staying at the far north of the path.

From there, the quest turns into an adventure game, where you play as Alito as he tries to gather intel regarding the impending war within a 5-minute time limit.

So here's a run down of the situation: hundreds of years ago, the city of Kir'Ssha was buried in ash, rendering it mostly uninhabitable and forcing many of its inhabitants to flee, founding the city of Do'Ssha. Those who stayed in Kir'Ssha now view the refugees as traitors for abandoning the land that was said to be given to them by their god, and seek to exterminate them (or claim Do'Ssha for their own, the game's not very consistent on that). And after centuries of tension and armed conflict, the fearsome Silver Army, led by Commandant Zaka, is gathering its forces to invade.

If it was this easy for us to come across this camp, it's just as easy for the army to find it and burn it to the ground. This may be the first instance in this game of a villain's threat being made clear to the player: we never see the Broodmistress directly until we encounter her in her cave, chapter 3's boss only wanted to deal with Metzino, and the Si'Shra warden wasn't so much as hinted at until right before we fought him.

So there were at least two reconstructions. It would be nice to find out about them earlier, so that the player wouldn't be left scratching their head for 15 hours wondering what the title means.

Oh right. Ques--real name Seku Muezza--was a assassin working for Do'Ssha, but he abandoned them and now all of them except for Syri are dead. It's never explained why, but at least he has a reason for acting so distant towars his sister.

Yfus, our Johnny-Come-Lately, has his own quest in Fortifel (even though, in the achievement screen, it's listed as a Violet Sands quest, which made it a bit tricky to start). It requires him to have 70 willpower, and may be the only part of the game where I actually needed to grind. You did remember how there was someone else named Crossar, right? He's Yfus' father and one of Fortifel's councillords. We're also given a mention of Yfus' brother, who's decided to stay behind in Kir'Ssha and has already made a name for himself there.

And speaking of Kir'Ssha, Dehl gets it in his head that the invasion can be avoided if we got the perspective of its average citizen, so our next step is to just waltz right in and ask around.

I suppose we should have put off his quest until after we reached this point. Or maybe I should have been less efficient in doing the quest objectives. If I did, this would be much more of a suprise.

Although our stated goal is to gain the perspective of the average Kir'Ssha resident, there's only one person in the city we can actually talk to, who is, predictably, slavishly devoted to Kir'Ssha's cause, despite his crippling hunger. As this area's dreary color pallette would suggest, practically nothing can grow here. Evidently, Space Lizard is unfamiliar with the saying "an army marches on its stomach." Unless Kir'Ssha has nukes or anything, I don't see them being able to do much of anything to Do'Ssha.

Then again, I'm reminded a bit of Chrono Trigger's post apocalyptic era, whos denizens kept themselves alive by way of energy restoring machines, so I don't know, maybe they're using magic to avoid starving to death?

Yfus tells us that there's one place in the city with food, the royal gardens. In other words, the very heart of the very heart of the evil empire.

These are the royal gardens? Like that glossary entry I mentioned earlier said, Kir'Ssha's land has been barren for centuries, and furthermore, Yfus says it has been unkept all this time; once again, how on earth does this city have a remotely sustainable populace, much less a standing army?

The objective of this quest is to harvest food from the fruit-bearing trees and bushes scattered throughout the garden. The game warns us that doing so will take time, but the amount it takes is surpisingly insignificant. And since we're already at maximum rank, I don't really need to worry about getting this done quickly for extra favor.

I do, however, have to worry about the guards with AoE attacks, mages, and venomous snakes that have taken up residence here.

And what do we find out from our now well-fed fanatic? That Kir'Ssha's still raring to invade with its invincible Silver Army, that can somehow sustain themselves on the only fruits that can grow here. In other words, nothing we didn't already know.

So this whole detour into the heart of enemy territory proved to be a complete wash. Boy, is Syri going to be disappointed.

When we return to Do'Ssha, Mahk is there, where normally Syri would be to give us our next quest. I guess she was so ashamed of our failure that she ran off.

It's unusual for him to be standing out in the open, especially considering that the Unstoppable Night is right around the corner, and once we talk to him, we find that Xopi, the Shra kid that he's been raising, has gone missing. Not good. Then a messenger from Kir'Ssha comes and tells them that the army is ready to invade, and that Syri's gone missing. Even worse!

There's a series of battles, just like that one quest with Skint in chapter 4, before Dehl and Rehm manage to find Xopi, in a house inhabited by a Nal officer and a bandit.

And you know it's serious because it uses the same battle theme as the Tatzylwurm. Both of them die in one hit.

We've rescued Xopi and survived the Night, but Syri is still missing, and the Silver Army is still on its way to Do'Ssha, even though you would reasonably expect the Night to slow them down. You can't win them all, especially where this guild is concerned.

You again. Listen ma'am, I'm sure that whatever you need us for is very important, but we've got a war to stop, okay?

Never be the same? How so? Will this end with the guild finally being hailed as heroes for putting an end to the war, or it suffering a lethal blow to either its reputation or the lives of its members. And why on earth is it so important that we come with Fell immediately?