There's a couple ways this could have
gone.
Well, more than a couple, really, and
I'm not entirely sure how the option tree here really effects the
game going forward. It's possible to bypass Pandora altogether and
not get the female party member at all at this point, simply by
taking the Cannon Travel Service to Pandora, but since I'm going to
be hoofing it every chance I get this time, for sake of getting
levels, and even then, it might still be possible to not pick up the
female character here, simply by heading straight for the southwest
exit to the town of Pandora instead of to the castle where the king
lives.
Thing is, though, the folks in the town
are acting all weird, and the explanation for why, at least for now,
comes from the king and Jema, who are in the castle. Finding them in
the throne room on the top floor means getting the Girl to join along
the way. I'll get to the exact reason for that in a bit, but first,
there's a bit of a cutscene I had meant to mention last time, but
seem to have forgotten.
See, on the way to the Water Palace,
there's this sign that says “Beware of Goblins!” that seems to be
just a bit of gaming humor, at first. On the way back through,
though, a pair of goblins actually attack the hero and drag him back
to their village so the tribe can eat him for dinner. Fortunately
for us, the Girl shows up and pulls the hero out of the pot he's
being boiled in.
Once the pair is clear of the village,
she says she thought the hero was somebody else she was actually
looking for and goes running off without giving a name or a
destination, leaving the hero to continue on to Pandora solo.
When we catch back up with her in
Pandora Castle, she's running out on her father, who's set up an
arranged marrage for her that she objects to because she wants to be
with that Dyluck guy we met on the way to the Water Palace. When she
finally notices that the hero has a sword, she says we get the honor
of helping her find Dyluck as repayment for her saving the hero's ass
before. The hero says he's got his own mission to go on when she
says we're going to the woods to look for Dyluck.
Right about here someplace, we're given
a chance to name the Girl, so I went with Rose, after Rose Tyler from
the 2005 season of Doctor Who. No particular reason, really. Just
seemed like a thing to do.
In the throne room, the party overhears
the king telling Jema that he intentionally sent Dyluck into the
woods looking for the witch they think has been messing with the
minds of the townsfolk. This kind of sets her off, because she
thinks everybody's conspiring against her to get her into the
arranged wedding. That may have been a nice side effect, of course,
but the king was sending in his best men to get things sorted with
whoever was messing with his people's heads, fully expecting to get
them back when the mission was over.
Once the discussion's over, we can talk
to the king, queen, and guards in the throne room. The king and
queen are sympathetic to the hero's situation but suggest that he
goes on his way because they have their own problems. Half the
guards tell us we can't come in even though we already have, the
other half say that Pandora's an ally of a nation called Tasnica.
There's also the king's quarters off the throne room, with a guard on
a door that leads to some royal treasure inteded for the Hero of
Mana. Meaning we'll be back to get it later.
There are a few routes that we can go
from here. One is going directly to the forest to help Rose find
Dyluck, but if I remember correctly, we'll eventually reach a point
where we'll have to come back out and go to Gaia's Navel anyway, and
we'll be in over our head the whole time. The upside is that if we
do it, we'll have Rose with us when we deal with the shenanigans in
Gaia's Navel and the Dwarf Village.
There are a pair of other options that
come to mind as well. They both involve going to Gaia's Navel first
instead. Rose will protest that we're not going after Dyluck right
away. We can do what she wants and go to the woods instead of going
forward, but if we do that, the results will be pretty much the same
as above.
The other option is to say we need to
go ahead with why we're at Gaia's Navel. This will cause Rose to go
running off on her own and we'll have to go retrieve her once we're
done here. The upshot to that is that if we go that route, we'll
have access to a ranged weapon in addition to the spear we got from
Luca at the Water Palace and the other party member, a Sprite child
who was washed into the Dwarf Village after a flood.
Since I'm already at Gaia's Navel, I'll
be deciding what to do next time, as Neko is avalable as a save point
before we have to make the decision. For now, though, it's a little
late to go much further, so until next time, stay
safe, have fun, keep gaming, and DFTBA!
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