The inventor, or more accurately, the cannoneer fires them off to Valsena, but something's off...this is clearly not a city!
The path here has fairly weak, unremarkable enemies, though I do enjoy the presence of some spearbees.
Up ahead they run into Duran, who warns them that the Altenans have already begun attacking his kingdom, and then runs off to fight them. There's also a weird statue here, but examining it doesn't do anything more than draw surprised reactions from the team. The path also has weird warp holes in the ground, but they're not particularly complicated to follow.
Indeed, the path is fairly straightforward, if a little long winded, and they soon arrive at Valsena.
The city has seen better days - Altena has already invaded it, and the streets are filled with dead soldiers. The party quickly hurries to the castle.
After a few skirmishes with the Altenan soldiers, they run into the throne room, where a man in a deep red cloak is currently intimidating the king! He drops word of the Altenan queen seeking to control the Mana stones, and flees when confronted by the party! The king immediately recognizes the fairy and her purpose, and narrates of how he was himself chosen by a fairy once to wield the Mana Sword, but sadly couldn't protect her from being cut down by the Dragon Emperor.
They then quickly get down to business, and tell the party to head for Laurent's elemental stone, the stone of wind, next, as they will need the powers of the wind elemental, Sylphid, to collect the other elementals.
With the red wizard gone, the city is liberated, and the shops immediately reopen! They start selling chocolates and honey pots here, and I stock up on both. They also start selling MP consumables, which would be great if I
had any damn spells to use the MP on! Arrggh!
The town's residents have pretty mundane dialogue, aside from one amusing incident with the local fortune teller where the fairy in Hawkeye's head screws with his predictions. The inventor's brother conveniently installs a cannon to return the team back to Maia, and they head back down the Golden Road to Beiser, which welcomes them in, now that there's no threat of invasion.
Beiser is all about the night life - specifically, a lively night market that sells all kinds of exotic goods, from throwing weapons, to spellcasting coins, to powerful consumables. But it's not all sunshine and rainbows, as they also actively deal in slaves.
One of them was presumably Riesz's brother, which gets Riesz quite inflamed indeed! She draws her spear on the slave trader, and he meekly agrees to change his ways. Jeez, talk of a dark turn!
They then travel to Palo, which is part of Laurent, and thus currently under control of Nevarl's forces. Hawkeye panics a bit first, but then notices something strange - they don't seem to recognize him, or indeed, have any volition of their own. He deduces that Isabella must have mind controlled all of them. Riesz gets ready to fight them, but Hawkeye stops her, presumably out of concern for his old mates.
They run into a Laurentian spy posing as a waitress! She informs her that a decent bit of her forces survived the invasion, and are gathered in the mountains ahead. Looks like we're set to go liberate yet another place! Yeah!
The mountains are pretty, if not exactly very challenging. Most of the enemies here are of the flying variety, as you'd expect. Aside from doing a slight bit more damage, and having an attack that miniaturizes their targets, they're not very notable.
The party explores the mountain, and comes across a locked up cave passage, some curiously empty alcoves, the royal castle of Laurent itself...
And runs into a bed of sleep inducing flowers, which promptly knocks them out! Welp.
Thankfully, the Laurentian resistance rescues them, and informs them that they are planning to reclaim the kingdom soon with a decisive counterattack. They then invite the party to a strategic meeting.
The strategy is this: find an amazing strategist of yore, consult him for advice, then return with his advice. There's just one tiny little complication though - he is a tiny folk, and lives in a village of tiny folk that hates humans. So they need to pretend to be them via a miniaturizing hammer. Rumor has it that someone in Beiser's night market sells it, so that's where they're headed again. The game thankfully saves me some hassle by making one of the resistance operate a cannon to shoot them back!
Sure enough, someone in Beiser willingly gives up the hammer, without even charging anything for it! They then get back to the forests around Jadd, and begin furiously combing it for the entrance to the tiny folk village.
Thankfully, it doesn't take too long to find it - they briefly spot the elder entering it, and access is controlled by the weird gargoyle statues briefly seen earlier, which readily respond to them in tiny form and open the entrance. Inside, the sage comments on them "smelling human", and then pulls the old "pretending not to be himself" trick, sending the party on a wild goose chase around the village before being willing to speak to them. I am not amused.
Anyway, the plan is to enter the formerly locked wind cavern in the Laurentian mountains, navigate it to retrieve Sylphid, and then use it to blow the sleeping flowers' pollen into the castle. Sounds like a solid plan to me! Let's do it!
The wind caverns feature these statues which can be rotated via buttons to face away from the team, and hurl heavy gusts of wind around. Besides them, they are essentially an extension of the mountains, having more or less the same enemies, and so there isn't much to report. They switch the music out for an ominous wind horn, which is technically fitting for the place, but does make traversing it less exciting.
Eventually, they come across one of the elemental seals themselves! Aside from sealing the ancient beasts, they also have the power to change the characters' classes...if they were the right level. They are currently not experienced enough, unfortunately. Ah well.
Next time, we retrieve Sylphid and likely liberate Laurent! That should be an exciting time!
