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Ragnar - Sorta detective noir, with a battleaxe

Alena - Can punch through five feet of solid stone, and gets Jessica in a way the other heroes really don't.

Cristo - Awkward but powerful.  Could be the strongest character of all if he'd just stop being an idiot.

Brey - There's a reason for that!  Hope you like exposition...

Taloon - Three words: merchant ninja army

Mara - Can set anything on fire, up to and including lava golems

Nara - I still haven't shown off the Silver Tarot Cards, have I?  Pick her, they're pretty great.

Jessica - She's the Legendary Hero, but you technically don't have to use her if you don't want.

[Phenixmirage]

Most likely, the guy we just recruited inadvertently left his buddy to die, mistaking a doppleganger for his buddy.

What a heroic companion, eh?

That is the implication, yeah. Hector either got attacked by his buddy's doppleganger and ran away, not realizing what had happened, or else his buddy was attacked by a Hector-ganger and then attacked Hector too, thinking he was another doppleganger.  Either way, it was a tragic misunderstanding that wasn't really Hector's fault.

[Fjords to Plowshares]

Hey guys.  I'm back from the world science fiction convention, Patrick Rothfuss is a cool dude, and it's time for a new installment of Let's Play Dragon Warrior 4.  Truly all is right with the world.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Konenber is the next stop on our party's quest to meet their Chosen companions, save the world, and have their revenge.  To get there, our three heroes braved a cavern, faced abandonment, trusted each other, won the world's greatest treasure, and inspired a bitter young man to open his heart.



This is that man.  Meet Hector.

Hector is another pure physical type; all he does is stab things, but he's really good at it.  He's got about the same gear and stats as Orin did; the major difference is that he doesn't hit quite as hard.  That's what separates the Alchemists from the Young Men, I guess.  Hector makes up for that somewhat by having a "build up power" move like those gophers from Chapter 1.



Now that we have Hector - and more importantly, his darling horse Primrose - we can cross the desert and begin to explore the wider world.



For example, here's one of Linguar's desert-dwelling cousins.  He probably has some kind of trick or gimmick, but as is becoming increasingly common he can't survive even one round of Offensive-level attacks.  All he manages is the bleed-fall-over-and-give-xp trick, and frankly I've seen that one before.



In any case, the desert passes without incident and soon we reach this quaint little outpost.



It's a stopover on the road to Konenber, a place for people to restock after crossing the desert.



It's pronounced "anew".  Fitting, for a place of refreshment.



And it comes with a native guide!  How convenient!



If you turn down his generous offer, he'll give you a tip about the local inn.  But why would we refuse him?





Well, ok, some of what he has to show us is a little banal, but there's good stuff too:





At last, the long-promised "looting and thieving" subtheme comes to the fore.  We'll be back this evening.

Until then, our guide has a few more notes for us:




Unlike every other town in the game, Anueax has two inns.  Our tour guide already gave us a highly unspecific warning about the other one, which I guess has high prices and an incourteous staff.  I just came back from the world science fiction convention in Reno, Nevada, so I'm feeling pretty sympathetic to pricing and service complaints.

However, there is one weird thing about this inn: there's no one behind the desk.  How are we supposed to check in?  Well, it turns out that our tour guide is also the inn's proprietor.



Predictably, the "good" inn is more expensive.  The power of marketing, ladies and gentlemen.

After a stay in the cheaper of the two inns, the party conducts its own exploration of the town of Aneaux:



Weapons and armor are nothing new.  Morning Stars are great, the Wooden Hat continues its reign of dominance, &c &c &c.



Yes, and we'll be having a closer look this evening, if you know what I mean!

Speaking of that, let's go desecrate the grave.  Maybe he left some other stuff behind!



Fantastic!  A portion of the ancient warrior's strength.  That will surely aid us in our quest to save



FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

Ok, you know what?  Enough.  In chapter 5, finally, at last, you're given something to at least mitigate your punishingly tiny inventory.



Step one, Return to Endor.



Step two, visit Taloon's wife Neta.



Step three, leave behind plot items we're no longer using oh sweet Cthulhu finally.



You see, the designers have a fondness for one-use plot devices like the Birdsong Nectar, the Symbol of Faith, or as shown here, the Gunpowder Jar and Boarding Pass.  You're not allowed to drop them once they've served their purpose, so they just hang around taking up valuable Strength Seed space.

Neta will let you store these things in her vault for as long as you want.  Depositing items is free; retrieving them costs proportionally to the item's value (10gp for unsalable plot items). 

But why the change in career?  Neta's son elucidates:



Ok, kid, listen, "elucidate" does not mean "tell obvious falsehoods".  Remember that back in Chapter 3, when Taloon was breaking the game and accumulating more money than the world's highly idiosyncratic God, he wasn't searching ancient ruins for lost artifacts or anything.  No.  Neta's top secret source was across the street, and the shop itself might as well have been named "Nothin' But Abaci".

: It's a decent weapon for merchants, and it lets you calculate the exact scope of your enormous new debt!

Exactly, thank you Taloon.  Really, this is all about Neta.  Clearly she has no need for money; with her stupefying mind control powers she can get more whenever she feels like it.  Luckily for Endor she's shown no interest in political power.  So what does she want?

I think the answer lies in Neta's pricing structure.  Normal storage facilities charge by the amount of space your stuff takes up, and the amount of time you leave it there.  Neta lets you give her as much stuff as you want for as long as you want.  Her prices particularly encourage us to drop off strange and exotic items like Boarding Passes and Symbols of Faith - if we ever need them again, we can get them back for a nominal fee.

I think she just likes having stuff.  The more rare and exotic the stuff is, the more she likes it.  Exactly the sort of ambition that one would expect from Taloon's wife, in other words.  Or is Taloon's ambition exactly what we should expect from Neta's husband?



In any case, we're done here for now.  But fear not, Neta fans; there's plenty more inventory juggling in my future :/

_{I could have done an LP of DQ6, the ROMs are right next to each other, DQ6 has a bag, mutter mutter...}



Returning to Aneaux at night, the party's plans to steal Ruvas' sacred armor are interrupted...



...by Ruvas himself!  Little tip for any tour guides out there: if your resort town is haunted nightly by the spirit of the mighty warrior who saved said town from devastation, mention that shit in the tour.  We won't think your town is scary, we'll think it's totally awesome.

Less awesomely, there'll be no stealing done tonight; some other dude had the same idea and got in ahead of us.  On the gripping hand, this is the second piece of Zenithian equipment that's come to our attention.  Most people know the Zenithians only from old faerie stories; their influence disappeared from the world long ago, around the time the Ruler of Evil first earned his title.


  : and perished along with the last monster in the final battle.

The last major monster uprising coincided with the rise of the being now known as the Ruler of Evil - that's why the current monster uprising has everyone so on edge - so Ruvas' heroic sacrifice was probably part of that broader conflict.

Put another way: the Zenithian armor was stolen from Aneaux sometime in the last five hundred years, or so.  A historian could pin it down for us more precisely, but in any case the trail is stone cold.  If we want to claim this legendary artifact armor for ourselves (if?), we'll have to find another lead someplace else.



With nothing left to work toward in Aneaux, the party heads south to Konenber...



...the game's first real port town.



See?



SEE?

You guys know how I am about boats, so if you'll indulge me for a moment:



It's a ship!  They say it's under construction, but honestly it looks pretty complete.  Maybe we can get a ride?  Maybe we can buy it, and open up a little of that DQ open-worldiness?



Fuck

But wait a sec; who'd be brave/reckless/optimistic enough to build a ship in conditions like those?


  : He went to the lighthouse to destroy the monsters who are making sailing impossible.

Yay, it's Taloon!  And, of course he's the brave/reckless/optimistic guy; what else would you expect?



So: we need a ship, famous merchant has a ship, famous merchant needs some help killing monsters, and Jessica here was trained from birth into a finely-honed implement of monster destruction.

Next stop: the Lighthouse of the World.



After getting equipped I mean, this is still an RPG.  Luckily(?) that doesn't take long; the only new thing is the Golden Barrette, a strong helmet that only women can equip.  AFAIK there aren't any men-only items, so those of you who voted for a female hero gave me a concrete mechanical advantage.  Thanks!



As always, the bar eatery is only open at night.  Trolling for rumors, we find this:



Woah.  No matter what you say (or who's in the lead), she laughs at you for taking her seriously.  But that's not actually what I was looking for.  Let's try again:


  : It was a princess and her escorts.
  : They said they were after a man called Necrosaro.

Intriguing!  Useless until we get a ship, but after that we can double the size of our strike team.



Jessica's Fiscal Responsibility plan, phase 1: step away from the bar.


  : He plans to travel the world in search of legendary weapons.

It always warms my heart to see Taloon receive his due.



It's just a random room in a random building with an extremely high-quality lock and a treasure chest behind it.  I don't think I ever saw this as a kid; we'll be back once we've got the Final Key.



Elsewhere: what is this?  We go to ask the poor fellow his business, and




Away he goes!



Probably he was eying the Barrettes.  So fashionable!  Anyway, we can choose not to forgive him, but:



Thou must!

Anyway, short of summary execution I'm not sure what Jessica could do about this.  Our not-thief ran straight to the church, so clearly the religious authorities aren't going to be any help.



Yeah, I don't see the priest being any use here.

So, let's forgive the poor guy:


  : You can exchange Small Medals for items.

Shit, is it time for small medals already?  Whoops.  One trip to GameFaqs later, I learn that we don't have to backtrack very far:



One of the dressers in Taloon's ship.



One of the dressers in the other ship in Konenber, which we didn't visit on-camera because no one inside has anything interesting to say.  For example:



Yeah.

Actually, ok, there is one thing:



A Clue!  If we want to find the princess, now we know what hemisphere she's in.  Probably.

Exploring the rest of Konenber After Dark, Jessica turns up one more conversation of note:



And what is he thinking about?


  : The people of Santeem, across the sea, vanished without a trace....
  : Do these events have some connection to the rumor the Ruler of Evil will resurrect?

Jessica takes this second-hand account of the destruction of her home without tearing up, much.

Anyway, it was nice of him to leave the subsequent Santeemian (Santeemic?) civil war out of his list of monster-related catastrophes.  Apparently it's a purely human affair.



The following morning, Jessica's crew sets out for the lighthouse.



Save MP is nice for long trips with tough dungeons at the end of them.  Mara's great, but at this point in her development she can only go for about 10-15 fights before she's stuck relying on her Poisoned Needle.



And it's a long trip to the lighthouse.



So far away that, if it's affecting ships in Konenber, it's probably disrupting sea travel everywhere in the world.  No wonder sea travel is so despised; at any moment, monsters could take over this random lighthouse on another continent and sink your ship and kill you.  It's a wonder that port towns exist at all.



The lighthouse.  Also: why not to take screenshots while walking.



Toward the back, we find our prospective employer/fellow Chosen One!



TALOOOOON!



Characteristically, Taloon knows exactly what the problem is and how to solve it.



Also characteristically, he's not tough enough to get the job done solo.



Choice box elided because come on; we're not going to turn down Taloon.


: They say a remnant of it still burns somewhere in this lighthouse.
: It should be able to extinguish the Evil Fire.



Likewise, we don't need a repeat.  When Taloon tells you something, you remember it.



Taloon leaves the job to the (presumed) professionals.



The Lighthouse has two themes:



obnoxious dead ends...



...and huge swarms of Metal Slimes.

Seriously, they're ubiquitous.  Normally it's nigh-impossible to kill one before it gets bored and flees, but here the odds are on our side.  This is a great place to level.

Which is good, because honestly?  The Lighthouse is kicking my ass.  Metal Slimes have their reliable Blaze, Grizysabers and Rogue Knights like to crit people, and Thevros hit the whole team at once.  The upper floors have Skeletons and Weretigers, which hit even harder.  Nara is healing people every round and it's still not quite enough.



On my second trip, I remember that on the first floor...



...it's possible to enter that cross-shaped obstruction, and pick a Luck Seed and some gold.



On my third trip I encounter this monster group...



...and somehow kill all three Slimes.  Hector critted one, I think Mara dropped one with her Needle, it was astonishing.



Everyone levelled twice.



Don't get the impression that that's typical, though; the screen above was far more common.



Still on the third trip, I encountered this little green fellow.


: He must have got scared and run back to town!
: I'll go there and get him!  Kiii....kiii....



wait a sec we're indoors doesn't that



Yeah, it does.



More hallways more treasu



Our first Man-Eater Chest!

From now on, sometimes when we open a treasure chest it'll stick out its giant tongue (what is it with this game and tongues?) and try to eat Hector.  They hit hard, but are too fragile to be really threatening.  In the very late game we'll learn a spell to detect these without having to put our tasty fingers in them, but there's no reason to bother; spend that MP killing the chest, and at least get some XP for your trouble.

Elsewhere:



Mara did this three times in one dungeon.  Good job, Mara.



Deep into our fourth trip, we find this.



DQ4 loves fancy-chest fakeouts, but this one time everything's as it seems.  Which is really weird; Taloon gave us a detailed list of instructions, gave us the unprecedented ability to repeat them if we weren't sure what was going on, and then the quest item is just out in the middle of the floor, right on the path you'd have to take to get to the pinnacle anyway?  Maybe their playtesters confuse easily.



On the plus side, Mara can now steal MP from our enemies.  She's still more useful with a full tank of MP, but at least she doesn't degenerate completely without it.



The stairs to the top?



No, just one final dick move before the climax.



Now at least we can



oh for fuck's sake Lighthouse

What on Earth (or whatever these people call their world) was the architect thinking?  Are these stairs ornamental?  What?



Third time lucky, mostly because there aren't any other upstairs.



Though, actually, I guess I get it now.  These stairways weren't walled off in the original design; the monsters bricked up the entryways to keep people from interfering with their scheme.  Pretty good, but they overlooked that third stairway in the back.



The monsters are doing a jazzy voodoo dance around their Evil Flame.



: Fire inspector?



: It's right, that wasn't very good.
: Sorry...



And so:



The Flamers have an assortment of fire attacks that hit the whole party, while the Lighthouse Bengal heals his allies...



...and roars so horribly that the teenagers which comprise 100% of my party have a chance to miss their turns.

Dick.



That combination makes itself felt early: Mara catches a couple of bad fireballs, and the Bengal's roar stops Nara from healing her sister in time.  But Jessica's counterattack finishes it, so we're probably ok.



Honestly, I was lucky to get that result; the DW4 AI doesn't understand about focusing fire, so multi-enemy boss fights like this one tend to drag on horribly as everyone spreads the damage as evenly as possible.

Also pictured: Jessica, coming within a hairsbreadth of death.  Which, since she's the only healer present who understands the concept of "healing people before it becomes a crisis", would be fatal.  But the RNG broke my way, and shortly:



Big XP, but then again, this is our first quest with genuinely global impact.  I'd say we've earned it.



Nara's Sleepmore is a single target version of Sleep that's supposed to work reliably.  It does not.  Her AI seems to know this, and does not cast it in any tactical setting except Try Out.




One suspects that a bunch of DW4 playtesters missed this step.  Don't be like them!  Also note that because of all the graphical shenanigans, the someone-died tint has temporarily left the screen.



It returns as soon as I open the menu.

Still, it's easy to fix for real.  Jessica knows Outside and Return, so one quick resurrection later, we hunt up Taloon:


: And the ship is finally finished!
: I've one more favor to ask of you.
: Monsters are after me.


I do not know what he says if you turn him down, because I never for a moment considered it:



HELL YEAH!!!



...hell yeah?



Our new ship emerges from the harbor.



Our new ship, in a cove.



And Taloon is talking I guess.

I kid, I kid.  This is good advice; we can sail throughout the world, but we can't tell where we are or where we need to be.  Still, this party has plenty of gumption, and I bet we could get to any destination eventually.

So where's it to be?  Mintos, where the mapmaker dwells?  Back to Monbaraba and Keeleon, to take another shot at Balzack?  Santeem, to find out what became of the country in the wake of the civil war?  Should we try to track down Alena?  Something else?

And one other thing:



Right, this.  There's only room for four in the main battle party.  Everyone else has to hang out in the wagon, where they get half xp.  Who's it going to be?  I've set up a poll; if everything goes to plan, you should be able to vote on who to kick out, Survivor style, as soon as this post goes up.

[monk12]

STARBOARD THE HELM!

I voted to kick Hector off the main team, because nuts to him. As far as general goals, a visit to Santeem seems interesting. Bear in mind for both of these votes I don't have a clue where the plot is going or how balanced the party is- hopefully wiser minds will shout down any idiocy I spout.

[tehstefan]

We need Taloon, because aww yeah Taloon.

[EuchreJack]

Yeah, is there any advantage to taking Hector?

Don't feel much of an attachment to him.

[monk12]

Oh god who is voting Nara off the island- we need delicious heals!

[Sheb]

Let's get the maps and look after Santeem. We obviously need to stop that war of their.

[nenjin]

I never used Hector. He was a generic stand-in IMO. However the Heroine is not a bad ass melee fighter yet, and isn't really a great tank for the group. Neither is Taloon.

Still, it's early so we might as well experiment. M & N, and Taloon.

Taloon, the most interesting arms dealer in the world: "I don't always travel with a trio of spellcasting hotties....but when I do, I travel with Jessica, Mara and Nara. Adventure safe, my friends."

[varnish]

Thrills! And Taloon!

Hector seems like he's had the least time to really develop a personality, so you know what, who needs him?

I don't know anything about this game aside from what you've shown us so far, (which I guess is actually quite a lot) but I say go for the maps. I do love maps.

[Fjords to Plowshares]

No love for Hector, I see; as of this post he's captured 11 of the 16 votes, with the remaining third going to Nara.  You dicks.  Well, I knew what I was getting into, asking people not to pick her.

I tend to agree with the majority: Hector is problematic as a viewpoint character.  Unlike the rest of the party, he's already had a major character arc, and almost all of it happened off camera.

We know enough to infer a little, though.  His best friend was also his childhood friend; they grew up together in Branca, or maybe Endor.  They played together, dreamed together, and ultimately learned to fight together.  They wanted to test their skills, young men always do, so once they'd heard that the Eastern cave held the "world's greatest treasure", there was no keeping them away.  Probably they'd planned out what they'd do with it before they'd set one foot inside.

Then it all went wrong.  They were separated, and Hector fought to rejoin his friend...only to have that friend turn on him.  They fought, and Hector won.  But that's too oblique, it's not how Hector thinks.  He killed his best friend. The best friend whose name we still haven't heard, did you notice?  Even now, Hector can't say it aloud.  Hector returned from his great adventure alone and broken; he moved back in with his father and settled into angry isolation.

The rest of the story is familiar: a band of strangers showed Hector the Symbol of Faith, and he realized the truth: his friend never betrayed him, and their fight was a tragic mistake.  No one's fault.

So is Hector's story over?  Not quite.  He's suffered loss and he's known healing, but one step remains: he has to go on with his life.  The life he planned as a child has been warped irrevocably out of shape; what the hell is he supposed to do with himself now?  Traveling with the legendary hero is amazing, but it can't last.  He knew even before Nara took him aside that he wasn't one of the Chosen.

So what's he going to do?  Tune in next time . I'll leave the polls open for another day or two, then start the next update.  Whatever it turns out to be.

[Bluerobin]

Nicely written. The only problem I can see is that by fleshing out Hector and trying to make him a character with a story worth following you're stacking the votes against Nara.

[Fjords to Plowshares]

Remember when I said I have a really bad sense of direction?

That turned out to be foreshadowing.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The people have spoken, and they said: back of the line, Hector.  That leaves Jessica as our best tank; Taloon's respectable offensively, but his armor lags behind his weaponry.



Partially that's because he still has that grossly above-level Sword of Malice that we picked up in chapter 3, but it's representative of a broader trend, I promise.



Speaking of Taloon, a few updates ago I promised that we'd check back in on the old man in the tunnel around now, to reassure him that Taloon's still alive despite all his reckless adventuring.



I remembered this promise because, while I was waiting for you all to vote (and mostly not for Nara, thanks for that), I went back to edit my posts for the first four chapters (which was eye-opening, by the way.  Missing words, incomplete thoughts...I'm astonished no one asked for some quality control at the start of chapter 5).



The wagon can fit into underground spaces, if they're large enough.



Now that is how men greet one another after a long absence.  "Oh, hey, you're not dead!  Nice."

Let's talk about Taloon some more.  Normally, the "Fight" command in battle is a pretty simple thing; you pick a monster, it takes some damage.  But for Taloon in chapter 5, things are a little different.  Sometimes he hits monsters and deals damage like usual, and sometimes, well, it's easier to show than tell:



Here he is trying to get the monsters to give up their anti-human rage and leave us alone.  When it works, it makes a monster group disappear without granting any xp or gp.



But this Blazeghost's rage is unquenchable.  Maybe it originally split off from one of the many Blazeghosts Taloon murdered during Chapter 3?

Taloon has lots of goofy battle effects like this one; I'll try to showcase them all over the course of the LP.  Some are devastating, some are useless, but most of them are like this one: wacky, weird, and entirely unlike anything anyone else can do.



The Return spell is smart enough to bring your ship with you.  That being so, the group is immediately confronted with the question of Where To Go Next.  None of the party is exactly well-traveled; the closest thing they have to a man of the world is Taloon, and even he has never had access to unrestricted sea travel before.

After some discussion, the party settles on Santeem.  It's right next door, so they'll be able to find it even without a map, and it's the site of one of Necrosaro's many crimes.



Skirting the coast south of Endor, we find an isolated little shrine.



Intriguing!



Doh.

Dragon Warrior 4 is a lot less linear than, say, Final Fantasy 4, but it still has some firm opinions about what you ought to do when.  We can't grab the (extremely useful IIRC) treasure in this shrine until we've laid hands on the Final Key, and it's hidden behind a long sequence of nasty monsters and Plot.  We'll back back.



There, you see how easy this is?  No need to torture time and space, just get on your boat and go.  And then maybe monsters take over a lighthouse half a world away and kill you, but honestly, how likely is it that that will happen again?



Even without random lighthouse-related mishaps, the sea can be a dangerous place.  Here we see the common Man-o-War, a distant cousin of the healer.  It lacks the magical abilities of its more-obnoxious kin; I vaguely recall that its tentacle attack can sometimes paralyze, but that hasn't happened yet this playthrough.



Also, you can be attacked by dinosaurs and that's great.  These particular dinosaurs can spit fireballs that hit the whole party, so watch out for that.  They resist magic, too.



A typical Taloon level.  He gets better Strength gains than I remembered; maybe this won't be so bad.



Disembarking, the party finds the travel gate unguarded.  That poor Santeemian guard who was stuck out in the middle of nowhere has finally...what?  Deserted, been recalled, been eaten?  This is either a really good sign for Santeemian stability, or a really bad one.



Maybe we can get some answers in Frenor.



Or maybe everyone's still obsessed with the Golden Bracelet that no one was using anyway.  This happened years ago now.  Move along, people.  It's all news to these four, but still.



That's more like it.  A first-hand account of what's going on in and around Santeem castle is exactly what



the fuck?

: Orin!  Thank God, we thought you died!
: Bwuh?
: No time for that, listen to me.
: The object of your revenge, Balzack, seems to be under the protection of Necrosaro.
: By using the Secret of Evolution, Necrosaro intends to make the monsters even more powerful.
: We have to destroy the Secret of Evolution before he succeeds!
: Your late father, Edgar, would have wished to see this also.

Message delivered, Orin falls back into an exhausted sleep.


  : When the soldiers closed in on me, he suddenly rose and fought....
  : I owe him my life!  Blush....

This is the same girl who we met in chapter 4, also known as "the only happy person in the whole castle".  But anyway, yay!  Happy ending for Orin!

_{I should have phrased that differently}

Ok, shiny new change of topic ahead.  While we're in Frenor, we can get some details about the exact powers and limits of this "Golden Bracelet" thing that everyone's going on about:



Why, sure.  Miner-looking dude has the facts:


  : It's said to possess the power to amplify the force of darkness and create the undulation of evil energy.
  : Therefore, it could cause a catastrophe if misused.

: Magic and alchemy, eh?
: You think it was Dad's "secret ingredient"?
: That doesn't quite fit, but if Balzack used it afterward...
: So how did Frenor lose track of such a powerful item in the first place?



:

The party talks it over, and decides that if they ever find out who's responsible for that particular bit of appeasement, they will give that person the beating of three lifetimes.



That's it for horrifying revelations in Frenor, so the party strikes south toward through a narrow mountain pass...



There's a village on the way.  It seems happy enough, but there's not a lot to do, so the party pushes on south to...



...Savnucks.  I don't remember a lot about these, honestly, but Rabidhounds aren't very dangerous and these are just a recolor of those, so



OH GOD WHAT

After one round of combat the score is 1-2, Savnucks leading.  These things can cast Infermore, a wind damage spell that's about as powerful as Brey's totally awesome Snowstorm, and which like Snowstorm hits the whole team.  I loved Snowstorm back in Chapter 2, but now that the shoe is on the other foot I'm suddenly feeling some antipathy.



Yeah, there was no way to win that.  And no reason to try; everyone on this team has already died at least once, and there's nothing to recommend the experience.



So Operation Santeem or Bust is on hold for the moment; we at least need to get the other half of the party raised from the dead.  The good news is that we're literally four steps from safety...



...but the bad news is, hills and forests offer a higher encounter rate.  As does darkness, for that matter.

The party flees yet again, and yet again it works on the first try.  I do have an "in case of TPK" backup plan now; here's hoping I'll never have to use it.



After a stay at the inn to combat death lag and general exhaustion, the party spends a few hours bumming around Tempe, taking the pulse of the city.  But there's nothing much to learn; there used to be a monster taking captives here, but a "pretty woman" defeated it.



And oh yeah, one other thing: the Santeemian civil war is over, and the monsters won.  What remains of human authority appears to be vested in the Surene Guild of Merchants, but that's just by default; they're the only human power bloc left.

At least, that's the rumor.  Confirming that, and then doing something about it, is now priority #1.



Here we see the early fruits of Operation Santeem or Bust, second attempt.  Curers are obnoxious, but ultimately not that dangerous by themselves.  It takes a lot of MP and a lot of time, but we manage to grind through them all.  Soon:



Surene!  The available gear is nothing much; the only point of interest is the Magic Key door that we can't (yet) pass through.

: Note to self, obtain this 'Magic Key' thing everyone keeps talking about.



Rumor confirmed.  Damn it.


  : In far away Branca, they tell a story of a celestial woman who fell in love with a young woodsman.
  : She came down from the sky.
  : Do you believe anyone really lives up in the sky?

The Zenithians are supposed to have done, but they're more myth than history to normal people these days.



As in chapter 2, true love is denied.



As in chapter 2, Marone is singing inane songs instead of getting the lovebirds together like he's supposed to.

And that's it for Surene.  Moment of truth: were the rumors true?



Castle Santeem.



It's definitely empty, but...



Damn it.

: Actually, as horrible as this is for the people of Santeem, it's pretty good news for us.
: Mystic Dolls aren't hard to kill, and each one is worth 300 gold pieces.



: They even like music!

_{As you'd expect, this functions like a Sleep spell.}



These are not as nice.  Huge, tough, hard-hitting, pretty much everything you'd expect from a half-human, half-rhino.

Also: Necrosaro has the Secret of Evolution.  Is this what became of the people of Santeem?



: What.

It makes a twisted sort of sense.  Balzack failed completely at Keeleon and had to be saved by his master.  So, Necrosaro sent him to a relatively low-risk and well-controlled posting, out of the way of the major plots (that we know about).



So the party races for the throne room...



...only to find it empty.  The despot is not in; he's apparently off doing something more important than oppressing the people of Santeem.  Mara and Nara have to wait a little longer for their revenge.

Once Mara finishes stomping around the room blasting things, the party notices something peculiar on the roof...



Right, that.

It turns out to be possible to get onto the roof via a hole in the wall in one of the bedrooms

: Yeah, speaking of that: what?

All in good time.  The party jumps eagerly through the hole, and shortly:


: Meena says the King of Santeem had a strange power.
: She says you should talk to a person in Surene who can tell you more.

Good advice, and it's completely adorable.  More things during our adventures should be like that.  More things should be like that.



Meena doesn't have much to add to her friend's analysis.

So the party returns to Surene, and finds...

nothing.  No one in that town has anything new or interesting to say; Marone in particular proves his uselessness as a bard yet again by utterly failing to have any kind of prophetic scoop.  Whatever this is, it must be behind that damned Magic Key door.

Out things to do in Surene, the party takes to the high seas.  In theory we're looking for Monbaraba and Keeleon, but we quickly reach a point where anything familiar would be fine.

The many, many random encounters inherent in that plan give me lots of chances to show off Taloon's gifts:



Giant homicidal fish are more easily soothed than are ghosts made of fire.



This works whether or not the creature in question actually has eyes, of course.



I've never seen this work, GameFaqs says it's the same as that 'hideous, shrieking roar' business that tiger-based enemies like so much.



Passing by the Birdsong Tower.  I think this screenshot was taken during my second inadvertant circumnavigation of the globe, but don't quote me.



Taloon levels again; he's gone from 15 to 17 since he's joined, while Jessica and Nara didn't advance at all.  Maybe I've been underestimating him.



Never mind, there they go.



Wandering the world, I happen to spot a shrine on the coast.  We're hopelessly lost anyway, so sure, why not?



Because there are giant magic toadstools, of course.  This set has the peculiar distinction of being Mara's first RobMagic target; that spell has many fewer targets, and is thus a lot less useful, than I remembered.



Also there a demons leading packs of fire-breathing lizards.  Or maybe "shepherding"; the demon didn't try any commands beyond "go kill those people".



The shrine itself is not very compelling.  Two doors we can't open...



...and directions to a place we've never heard of.  Back to the open sea!



The man really is a leveling machine.



As we're wandering yet another strange coast, the sisters spot a familiar bit of shoreline.



Sure enough, it's Monbaraba!


:\: I hear there's a big island rimmed by rocky mountains in the far eastern sea.
:\: They say there's a castle of monsters on the island.

Just inside the wards, we're accosted by a man who wants to know all about this "Castle of Monsters".  Monsters do not build castles, as a rule, but it seems like the sort of thing Necrosaro would enjoy.  Jessica promises to share any monster-castle discoveries she might make.




Mara and Nara take the opportunity to catch up with their old friends in the show business, and we learn about a stand-up comic who's taken the town by storm!

Maybe these people aren't such degenerates after all.



Last time we were here, a woman named Lynn was hiding from King Balzack/Keeleon back here. 
Her Cleric buddy finally learned enough healing magic to get the both of them out of town safely, it seems.




The cycle of fear remains unbroken.  This guy isn't young and pretty; there'll be no clerics for him.

Oh well, let's go see Panon's show:



Well, this certainly sounds more wholesome than the last show we saw performed here.


: So a man walks into a monastery, right?
: And he goes to the head monk, the elder, and he says, you know, I want to be a monk.  I love brown robes and cassocks, in my free time I illuminate manuscripts, I think I have what it takes.
: There's just one thing, one thing I'm hesitant about.
: You know..._{sex.  The chastity thing.  That.}
: And that's a hard thing to admit to, he's talking to a man who's been a monk his whole life, right, seventy eighty years.  It's intimidating.  But the elder doesn't laugh.
: He doesn't get stern, he doesn't disapprove, nothing like that.
: He just gets up from behind his desk, walks out the door of his little monk's cell, and beckons the young man to follow.
: And they go down some stairs, into a basement.  And in the center of the basement is a big wooden barrel, all sealed up, except there's a knothole in the side, toward the top.
: And the old man points to the knothole, and he says, "Take out your dick, and put it into the barrel."
: And the man's like, "What?"
: So the old monk says it again: "Take out your dick, and put it into the barrel."
: So he does, and immediately he's getting the best blowjob he's ever had in his life.  Just masterful.
: So naturally, a few minutes later, he's up in the old man's office taking his vows of monkitude.
: And when that's done, the young man's like, "So."
: "This barrel."
: "I can go down there...whenever I want?"
: And the old man nods.  "Any time you want.  Well, except Thursdays."
: "Well, that's fine, but why not Thursdays?"
: "Because Thursday is your day in the barrel."

Or not.

: I liked it.  Sure, it was dirty, but it makes you think.

We also heard a rumor that Panon would be available for questions in the eatery after his show.  He didn't turn up, and instead, God help us, we met this guy:



:

Now he'll resurrect for sure!  Thanks for making our job like ten times harder, you shiftless prick.



This actually isn't the "island rimmed by rocky mountains" we were warned of in Monbaraba.



But there's definitely no way in, not by ship anyway.  We'll have to find some other way to reach that suspicious patch of swamp.

The ship, overall, hasn't been as freeing as one might hope; we can go places, but our ability to do stuff when we get there is constrained by doors, ghosts, and the occasional script trigger.

(And if the ship feels a little too free to you - if you miss the days when water was an incredible barrier to be circumvented in complex and inefficient ways - then fear not.  The most ridiculous mode of water travel, by far, is still to come.)



Back in Haville, the port town north of Keeleon, we learn that King Balzack has forbidden ocean travel entirely, thanks to a daring shipboard escape that some gypsy sisters made a while back.  So, two things.

1. Doh.
2. "King Balzack"?  Isn't he supposed to be in charge of Santeem now?  The people of this kingdom have no interface to their leadership at all.

Also:



Discipline has somehow slipped even further in the Keeleonian(?) military.



That being so, and since we're in the neighborhood, we go to visit Castle Keeleon.  Probably we won't make it through the front door, but we can't not try, you know?



Yep, there that is.  For the second time this update, we're thwarted by a Magic Door.  How does one make a Magic Key, anyway?

Maybe Orin will know.



Trying to sail back to Santeem, the party somehow wanders off course and runs into an island surrounded by rocky mountains.



Wait, "island surrounded by rocky mountains"?



This merits investigation.



We sail in, take a few steps, and...



BAM!  Random encounter!  We've got a new Healer type to contend with, and the name is making me a little



Yeah, should have seen that coming.

The weak, defensive healer of this monster pairing hits as hard as anything we've faced so this game - what the hell can the giant rhino-man do?  I still don't know; Nara very prudently kept him under Sleepmore the whole battle.  I take back everything bad I said about that spell; when you're wildly underleveled and in over your head, it's exactly what you need.



After several rounds of fierce combat, the party manages to squeeze out a victory.  It was as hard as any boss fight we've had so far, but so long as we don't face anything worse, we'll be fine.



I didn't write that until much later, so I didn't jinx us; the party reaches the north shrine unmolested.



The travel door leads to that weird, locked-out shrine in the middle of nowhere that we visited earlier.  Travel doors get harder to make the further apart the two endpoints are, and these shrines are on opposite sides of the world, so somebody at some point really, really, really wanted fast travel from here to there.  But why?



Heading south (fighting off another Rhino/Healer pair on the way), we see another shrine, accessible only by ship.  Maybe it will contain the answer?  But as the party skirts the river...



We don't outnumber them 2 to 1 this time, and that's never ideal, but if



OH SHIT RUN

Primrose drags the wagon away at a gallop, and eventually Jessica pulls it together enough to cast Return and get the team back to Konenber.

Next time on Let's Play Dragon Warrior 4: we find that God-damned map.

[monk12]

Hooray for updates!

Now that is how men greet one another after a long absence.  "Oh, hey, you're not dead!  Nice."

My face

[Phenixmirage]

D'awww. The slime and it's kitty friend are so cute!

Taloon levels up faster on average than any other character, which is pretty cool. Just never, ever take him to the casino's monster arena.  I did, once. He threw sand in the eyes of the monster I bet on and got it killed. 

[nenjin]

That joke is the best. You didn't happen to get that from a book of dirt jokes did you? I knew what it was the minute it read sex.