So, basically, we're on our way back to
Timber, and the plan is that we're going to go take the Timber
television station. That's about the extent of it. We're just going
to go charging in there, on foot, to take the studio by force.
Well, okay, it's not that simple.
Because the whole town's on lockdown as a result of our attempt to
kidnap the president that we only just now fucked up, we're going to
have to hoof it on over to the TV studio, which is conveniently
located behind the offices of Timber Maniacs magazine. I'd suggest
that Timber Maniacs is the local visitors' bureau book that's handed
out free to tourists in most businesses, but given the other
weirdness we've seen, it's more likely to be a propaganda tract like
the Anarchist Monthly was on the train.
Fortunately, Timber is a relatively
small town, with not much going on, aside from the invasion. I did a
little exploring, and found the hotel and what passes for the weapons
shop. The hotel's all booked up because our buddy Vinzer's in town
and apparently the whole damned hotel is the presidential suite here.
The weapons shops in this game are kind of an odd bird because they
function on a neat idea that was carried over to Final Fantasy IX.
We'll be needing the shitload of items the monsters drop to upgrade
our weapons, but in order for those upgrades to actually appear in
the shops, we need to also have used a magazine item called Weapons
Monthly. I've heard said that it can be done by just having the
items in your inventory and the money to pay for it, but that was
something I read on the Internet, so take from that what you will.
The idea actually works a bit better in
the next game, because it tends to rely on modifying weapons and
items the party doesn't have to go very far out of its way to get or
would have anyway. Granted, it also requires having a rather large
quantity of things that we'd previously not needed to have more than
one or two of sometimes, but luckily, Final Fantasy 9 continues the
trend of flooding the inventory with things pretty much right from
the first random battle that started here in FF8. And I still
haven't done my article on the whole drop rate thing, have I?
But anyway, back to the task at hand.
As the Timber Owls' train pulls into the station, we're given a
cutscene where a Galbadian officer is in a briefing with a squad of
soldiers. It seems they know what we look like and have sufficient
cause to bring us in for questioning. The soldiers are all gung-ho
about doing exactly that and are only too happy to be aggressive
about it. The officer, on the other hand, at least has a plan. Even
though I know the soldiers are trying to do what's right, it would
have been a bit smarter to stick around and hear the officer out
instead of just running off and asking everybody in town if they've
seen us. I suspect the officer had a plan to set a trap for us, just
in case we were actually dumb enough to do exactly what we're being
dumb enough to do. As is, though, the soldiers have given the
resistance a good chance to warn us off. Not like it'll do either
side any good, because there are random battles with the Galbadians
here.
Since I've got the Card command
equipped to Selphie and it lets us win battles without getting
experience, I thought I'd try it on the troops. Turns out, it
doesn't work, apparently because the soldiers and officers are all
human. That's odd, because I could swear we win cards of them after
battles, and I know there are some high-level cards of specific
characters, too.
And I think I might have fucked up a
time or two here. One time is that if you head past the hotel, away
from the train station, there's a little scene where there's a pair
of Galbadian officers bullying a pair of Timer militiamen. If you
approach, Rinoa gets pissed enough to start a fight with them after
one of the Timber guys tells the officers off. I'm not sure if
that's good or bad, but I did it and rescued them.
The other is that you've got the option
of going into the Timber Maniacs headquarters before heading on to
the TV studio. I think there are a few things to be had in there,
though, I don't know how important they are. I know there's like a
porno mag in there that the party can't read, but if we keep it and
give it to Zone and Watts later, they'll help us with something. But
since I didn't do that, I'll have to see if I can get it on my way
out of Timber, since I did the whole studio thing already.
I know where the entrance to the studio
is and how to get there, but folks on the street tell us to go talk
to a lady who lives with her kids in the house next to the Timber
Maniacs office. The lady tells us we can go look into an alleyway
that leads to the studio from the upstairs bedroom. She's got two
kids, little boys, I presume, up there who try to scam us out of ten
gold for looking out the window by saying they need the money to feed
a cat who sleeps on the bed all the time. The mother swats their
asses for it, and one of them whines about how they're not asking a
thousand gold for it any more, and then says we don't have to pay.
To actually get into the alleyway, we
have to go through a bar that's on a lower level. Outside the bar, a
pair of Galbadian soldiers are bragging about how they'd horked a
playing card from some drunk guy in there. One at least has the good
sense to say that maybe they shouldn't do that so much because the
people of Timber already hate them enough as it is. When they see
us, they decide to take us on, and of course, get the crap kicked out
of them. After they go down, Squall finds the card and picks it up.
Once inside the bar, there's a loud
drunk guy going on about how it's the resistance's fault that he's
stuck there and drunk off his ass because he can't get on a train and
go home to Dollet. I don't know if the trains in this game are like
most forms of mass transport in our own world. My understanding is
that most such things in the real world won't let you get on if
you're that drunk, so it wouldn't have mattered that nothing was
running anyway.
There's a couple ways of getting past
him. One is to observe what he's drinking and buy him one or two
more, but I've never been able to do that successfully, so I just try
to give the man his card back, because it's a crappy one if you're
going to be serious about the card minigame. But because he's still
only just barely sober enough to appreciate your honesty, he'll let
you keep the card and give you another before having the barkeep drag
him away from the door.
In the back alley, there's another
drunk guy who says something about boxes, but it doesn't make sense.
I guess we can move them and find a draw point or something. Past
there is the actual studio complex.
On the front outside wall of the studio
is a big ol' jumbotron. I guess it kind of makes sense that it would
be switched on right now, since our good buddy Vinzer is going to be
doing a broadcast soon. When we first see it, though, it's just
showing static, apparently the interference that's been blocking all
over-the-air broadcasting for 17 years. If Galbadia's got a way of
overcoming that, hell, they could take over the world the same way
Microsoft sort of has: by licensing the hell out of it and selling it
to anyone and everyone who wants it, because let's face it,
over-the-air communications are really kind of something important,
and more than a little handy to have in quite a lot of situations.
And then Rinoa goes and has an attack
of intelligence when she realizes that holy shit, the president of
Galbadia's in there and he's got armed guards up the ass with him,
which means that charging straight the hell in might be kind of dumb.
It helps that Watts shows up and reminds her of this, of course.
Yeah, they think of it now, after we're like three quarters or four
fifths of the way to the studio.
And then, on top of that, Rinoa and
Squall get into an argument about this, because he rightly can't
stand the fact that the Forest Owls don't seem to have three brain
cells amongst them, and she's all upset because she doesn't get that
she hired a team of mercenaries who get paid to just do whatever
their clients say.
Of course, it turns out that it's kind
of a moot point, because Seifer managed to break out of whatever kind
of cell he was in back at Balam and sneak past not only us but all
the Galbadian security people, too. He makes his presence known when
he takes out a couple guards and then manages to grab ahold of our
buddy Vinzer and hold his gunblade to the president's neck just as he
announces that somebody called the Sorceress will be his
representative at a world peace conference.
Turns out that Quistis had been tasked
with bringing Seifer back to the klink, so she's there, too, and
tells us to get to the studio and help her.
As if this whole thing wasn't enough of
a mess, when we get there, Zell and Seifer get into it, and they
spill the beans about most of us being from Balam Garden. The
president says he's going to have his army crush Balam. Seifer drags
him off the set, and we see the Sorceress for the first time. She
convinces Seifer to let the president go and then all but literally
drags Seifer off by the balls, telling him that he's just a scared
little boy and she can help him with that.
Once all that's said and done, Rinoa
shows back up after having run off in a hissyfit after her argument
with Squall. On the way out of the studio, she asks Squall and the
others to take her someplace safe because, at least for a moment, she
realizes that she's gone and fucked her own cause right up the ass.
It may not be irredeemably so, but we'll get to that next time,
because this has gone on far too long, and given my usual writing
time, I'm well past my bedtime again, so I need sleep.
But worry not, dear friends, I'll be
back before long, because our friends the Forest Owls and their SeeD
companions have only just begun to derp on us. Until then, join me
in getting a little shuteye, won't you?
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