Here there be dragons. Let's Play Bahamut Lagoon!

Wh.MAGE gets a newer, more bird-like makeover, by the way...

As does Polaris, as he finally transforms from Marshmallow to Dragon with a little more put into his Fire stat.

Taicho: But I cannot say it alone either... Tonight... I want you to come with me to BRIEFS's room. It is a secret mission. Come alone.

Naturally, you'll only get this conversation and the scene later if you chose Taicho as your spy - anyone else, and the conversation won't take place.



Anyway, let's go beat up a secret weapon!



Wait, we're fighting inside THAT THING!? O-oh dear...



We're using the same team as last time, naturally.

Persona opens the battle with a little trash-talk...



All right, battle time. The key to the battle is to try and get past the obstacles on the battlefield as quickly as possible, which isn't easy when you have to deal with poison swamps that slow you to a crawl, as well as these walls here. We'll see later what they do...



As soon as they get in range, Calzone and Truffle begin their assault on the Phantasm here, nearly wiping it out.

Sadly, it's not enough to wipe it out, resulting in it getting off a rather big hit on its turn.



This is the big trick with the wall, by the way. Every second turn, it will close up and trap whomever's inside, preventing them from moving for the duration of the turn. They can still use field spells mind, but that requires them being in range, which they're not so it's a moot point.



Anyway, at least Brandon kills off the Phantasm unit so it can't give us any more trouble.

One turn later, the walls open and we continue our march south.




Lots of attacks going on here as the teams start cleaing out the monsters in the area.

Anyway, while Rush and Joy are tangoing with the skeletons, the others push forward to take out Persona.



Calzone took a pretty heavy hit from the Spinals though, so he and Matelite fall back a bit and let the others take over.

Honestly not much to say here - the PANTS platoon continue their clean-up of Persona's bodyguards...



Oh, right. Joy and Wh.MAGE finish off the remaining Deflesh, after several rounds of chicken with her dragon.



Right, now let's get this party started.

Uh... huh.



That didn't go too well. Persona's hitting pretty hard, much harder than the bosses we've fought up until this point, and worse yet he's paired up with a pair of Gerumpel's to absorb damage from.



In order to even the odds a bit, it would be in the the platoon's best interest to clear out the bodyguards first. Brandon and VicViper seem to pick up on this and do me the favour of cleaning them out anyway. So thanks for that, guys.

Leave it to Gunso the dirty to finish him off.

Persona: My cleaning days are over...



This battle was far longer than it should have been.

Taicho: I am excited... PANTS... You go ahead...



...?



BRIEFS, thinking we're here for... less than savoury reasons, responds to our gentle prodding with a hard slap.

BRIEFS: I'm sorry, but... at this time of night... No!! Get out!

BRIEFS: PANTS... If we can see the sky... Let's go to the terrace.

BRIEFS sends us more mixed signals...



This is the big reason we're visiting the scene, by the way. Sure, extra story is nice, but these items are hard to come by, after all. It'd be a shame to miss one, y'know?



BRIEFS: Hornet told me... He said that this is the closest spot in Papillon to the sky... Look, the sky is almost within arm's reach... Hey... PANTS... Do you ever remember things when you look at the night sky? A bunch of things... When... I'm lonely... I always look at the sky... The truth is... I wish we could see it from closer up... Hey, PANTS, What will happen to us? From now on... Will it work out... Fighting... Worrying... Life back then when we didn't know anything...



BRIEFS rushes back to bed, but before she can drift off, Taicho jumps in with a bit of news...

Matelite: I made a man-to-man promise at Granbelos Castle... I was hiding some... information for BRIEFS... I will let you hear it, PANTS... After I left General Gudolf's room, I went even further into the castle... There was a small room there... In the room, was... General Palpaleos...

Palpaleos: Who are you...?! I remember seeing that beard somewhere before...

Taicho: I am a traveler... A battlefield salesman... I must have the wrong room...

(...A battlefield salesman in a castle?)

Palpaleos: ...? I've heard that voice before...

Taicho: No, we have never met before! ...General Palpaleos...

Palpaleos: Very well... Come in, traveler. I feel like talking to somebody.

Taicho: ......

Is that relief that his identity wasn't figured out, or trepidation that he'll be alone, unarmed, in the same room as a high-ranking general?



BRIEFS? Nah, couldn't be...

Palpaleos: Do you know what I mean?

Taicho: I think I understand... I too have a wife that is very far away.

Palpaleos: I see... Even now... You can't forget her?

Taicho: Her name is Celine... I do not want to forget her... However... I am a coward. Sometimes I think about the day when I will not remember her anymore...

Palpaleos: I'm envious... Does that mean she's still alive?

Taicho: ......

Ouch.

Palpaleos: Traveler... you may go.

Taicho: ......



Palpaleos: Traveler, please listen. If you ever run into the Resistance somewhere, I want you to tell a certain girl something for me... Her name is BRIEFS.

!!!!

Palpaleos: Tell her... "I will forget about you..."

Taicho: I will make sure to tell her.

Palpaleos: Traveler... I hope we meet again sometime..."

Taicho: I would not want to meet you on the battlefield... Farewell!

BRIEFS... doesn't take to well to the news, and Taicho doesn't like being the one to give it. ...Man, this is depressing. I need some air-



Oh look. Every... everyone was listening in on the conversation.

......

How about that.



Next time, the Resistance continues their search for the Holy Dragons and sets a course for The Magic City of Godland.

yaaaay

Welcome back. Last we left off, we had successfully completed our spy operation and discovered that Emperor Sauzer of the Granbelos Empire had fallen ill after reading the mind of a Holy Dragon. With the pressure on, join us now as the Resistance Army arrives at their next destination...



Narrator: The Magic City of Godland... A lagoon whose independence is acknowledged even by the Empire, due to its advanced magic civilization...



Melodia: Wow! Wow! It's Godland! The Mini-Devils are excited too!! More Mini-Devils are gonna join!! Right?!

What.

Manyo: Manyooo!! (Go! Go! Godland is a good place! Go!

Hornet: Hey! Don't be bringing Mini-Devils on the bridge!

You know yelling at her isn't going to do anything, Hornet. Just do us all a favour and throw them overboard and rid us of those pests forever.

Melodia: Hmph! You're a meanie, Hornet! Get him, Mini-Devils!

[Mini-Devils attack Hornet.]

Monyo: Monyooo! (Go! Go! Godland! It has good things!!)

Hornet: Hey! Knock it off!



Rush: Hey, Truce... Are you awake?

Truce: Y-yeah, I'm awake. Just a little tired... Why?

Rush: I can't sleep either... It's weird... Bikkebakke! How about you?

Bikkebakke: Zzzz....

Truce: Looks like he's asleep. I guess we shouldn't wake him up.

Rush: Oh... Um, Truce...

Truce: What?

Rush: I don't know how to explain it, but... The people of Mahal... I sense something about them...

Truce: ?!

Rush: I don't know how to... Um... How should I put it...

Truce: I think I know what you're trying to say, Rush.

Rush: Then you can feel it too, Truce?!

Truce: Huh? Oh, yeah. I get the feeling they're different than the people from Kahna somehow... Taicho, who fights for his late wife... Lukia, who's really strong and beautiful... Donfan, who fights so he can meet girls... Jeanne, who's a little masculine but still cool.

Rush: They're different from us, you know...

Truce: From a young age I was raised only as a soldier.

Rush: Freedom... Do I want freedom...? I don't really know... damn it!

Truce: I don't really know either...

Bikkebakke: Zzzz....

Rush: Bikkebakke! You don't know either?!

So many late-night discussions... I hope they'll be up and ready for the fight.



We're pretty much shoe-horned into the fight at this point, so feeding time it is.

Truffle, as the dragon paired to our summoner, is in a real need for a tune-up, as the damage BRIEFS and Sendak have been doing has been... well, pathetic. So, in an effort to get the two back on track, we'll be focusing on raising his Thunder (Valitora) and Ice (Leviathan) stats to bring them back to form.

The stuff we've got isn't raising the stats too much, but it's a noticable improvement at least.




One quick trip to the shop really gives us what we need, boosting Truffle's Ice stat up to 77. As a bonus, he also gets a massive surge to his Mind stat as well, making his breaths absolutely deadly. It's a two-fer, really.

Yadda yadda, same teams...



No pre-battle talk, thankfully.

The theme for this stage revolves around the incubators in the screenshot to the left, and breaking them open. That is, in some of the incubators there are pretty powerful items that you can grab a hold of, such as armor, healing items, etc. that's above what you can get at this point in the game. However, there's a catch - some of these incubators contain monsters as well, and it's impossible to tell until you open them up with Thunder techs.

...Well, you can also check to see which have items from a FAQ, but who does that?

Because of this, this stage is either the shortest in the game or the longest, depending on whether or not if you go after the items. If you don't and march to the boss, it's over in under 10 rounds, guaranteed, but if you do and try busting them open, the battle takes a lot longer as a result. It's a bit of a wash either way, and it's probably my least favourite battle in the game as a result.



Anyway, the battle begins in... well, not earnest, but close enough. Note the neat battle-specific background, one of the few interesting concepts in the battle.

The Auto-Cannons are back, by the way.



The zombies near the beginning finally go down...



And Matelite starts on cracking open the incubators, netting us a High Drug. First time's the charm, huh?

Oh God, these jerks. As you can pretty much tell by looking at their names, the enemies you fight here either null physical or magical attacks. However, that's not the big deal - the problem is that there are more magic guards in a group than blade guards, meaning that whittling them down with field attacks before finishing them in melee isn't a worthwhile solution. The only way to take them out is by going melee right away, and, with the limited space to do so and the opening for counterattacks, this means it'll take a long, long time before they die.

So... yeah. They suck, and I hate them. This is the only battle they're in, thank God.



By the way, I did mention that they can use HP-halving attacks that deal heavy damage to your dragons, did I? Ugh.



Anyway, enough bile for now. Opening the next incubator reveals a group of Phantasms, which pretty much get obliterated in the same turn.

The next incubator reveals another Phantasm unit, which we hastily put down.



Our next broken incubator yields better results, grabbing us another useful Nimbus Robe.



By the way...

Here's how awesome a well-raised Summoner is. Over a thousand damage to one target, and freezing a large body of water? Hell yes.



The downside of this is that it puts our units in range of the Magic Guards...



Another incubator, another item.

Dealing with these guys. Takes. FOREVER. Hate them so much.



Here's some more monsters.

This incubator releases a Drug Rod, which... we don't really need, but oh well.



While this incubator releases something far, far worse. The Diseaser here is roughly as strong as any of the bosses we've fought so far, capable of dealing 800 damage to an entire party on a whim. However, killing him will give our units a pretty big boost in experience, as well as some pretty powerful equipment depending on what element we use to finish him.



And what better way to start a tough fight than to use your strongest attacks?

It's interesting how the battle dynamic changed once Diseaser took the field - I drop pretty much everything at this point to try and finish him off quickly.



Can you blame me though? If this had hit one of the mage units, odds are it would've been lethal.



Eventually he goes down, giving Matelite's unit an instant level up and some very nice equipment.

Oh, right. These guys are still here.



Uuuuuugggghhh.



What's infuriating is that I didn't realize that Lancers could damage Magic Guards until this moment. Hate hate hate.



More incubator fun...



And the last Magic Guard goes down.

With the death of this Spinal unit (which popped out of nowhere - sometimes an incubator will hatch on its own), Radia's now the only enemy left on the field. So, a montage of the last few incubators is in order.



Phantasm unit here...



You can't tell, but there are Spinals in this one.



Ho-hum, another Phantasm unit.

Some decent armor for our Light Armors? Nice.



This should be good for dragon-feeding.



While this one will net us some nice cash.



Since it's on the other side of the map and Radia began moving at some point when we moved in her range, we miss this treasure here. Sadly, it's a good one - you get a Holy elemental axe called the Nulnim here, which doesn't become available until later on in chapters 19-23. So... yeah.



Interestingly enough, Radia's an undead unit...