Summary: This takes place several years after the previous introduction, but not in the present events of Evil Moon Girl’s attack yet. Porom and Palom set off to train by retracing Tellah’s path from Kaipo through the Underground Waterway to fight a monster there.
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Several years later…
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Ship
-Palom is off to Kaipo to train to be a sage. Why Kaipo?
-Ah. It’s Tellah’s homeland, and he wants to walk in his footsteps. Again, I’m not sure whether to be a bit sad that he’s taking the “Path of the Sage” thing so literally, or whether to be kind of impressed that he respected Tellah so greatly.
-Porom and Palom are holding the same kind of conversation as there was between the Elder and Palom. Palom wants to be a sage on his own, for what seems like the glory of sagehood. Porom says that the title of sage can only be granted by the people of the world if he uses his magic wisely over the long-run.
-Apparently, the Elder and Tellah traveled the world extensively before each settled down in his own respective town. This is really cool to me.
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Kaipo Docks
-Wait… how does Kaipo, in the middle of the desert, have docks?
-Oh, the docks are at the desert’s edge.
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Kaipo
-Tellah’s grave is here.
-And King Edward visits it, and Anna’s grave, regularly. :(
-Rumor from town: a 10-legged beast is in the Waterway. Can’t be Octomamm (who’s both dead and had eight legs) – who then?
-Tellah’s grave: “Tellah, the great sage, rests in this desert oasis together with his beloved daughter, Anna.”
-Porom and Palom each reflect on Tellah’s grave in different ways. Porom wishes Tellah peace and happiness, and also hopes he looks out for Palom. “He really needs it.”
Palom is more casual (“Hey old man! Guess it’s been a while…”), but just asks for Tellah to help him become a sage too. No thought of Porom here, which kind of makes me sad.
-Strange for me, while their reflections on Tellah’s grave were expected, their reflections to Anna’s grave were soul-crushingly heart-breaking.
Palom wonders if Anna was anything like his mom.
…
…
I have no idea who their parents are. A part of me wonders if this is going down a line where the twins are Tellah’s grandchildren from before Anna met Edward, but I seriously doubt this.
Porom is worried about the kind of woman she’ll grow into. She’s heard how warm and loving Anna was, and wonders if she’ll ever be like that or just intellectual.
-We also learn that Kaipo is now part of the Kingdom of Damcyan. All hail King Edward (and the Glow Cloud, of course, but also King Edward)!
-Onto the Underground Waterway
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Underground Waterway
-Palom recognizes the bridge where Tellah and Cecil first met. This reminds me of Fellowship of the Ring, when the party comes across the stone trolls from Bilbo’s story years earlier.
-Again, Palom is thinking about how he’s on a sage’s path, and Porom has to remind him to stay focused on the present.
-Standard monsters down here from the base game’s waterway. Toads, zombies, shellfish, etc.
-Note to self: Toads only seem to cast “Toad” in retaliation, so let Palom Blizzard them down.
-We come to the waterfall leading to Octomammoth. Palom gets ready to jump, as Cecil and friends did in the base game, but Porom very reasonably is a bit freaked at the idea of JUMPING DOWN A FRIGGING WATERFALL. She gives in eventually, and they jump, but I’m glad at least someone brought up the idea that jumping down a waterfall isn’t exactly smart.
-Boss time! And it’s… son of Octomammoth? A palette swap definitely, Cooler Mammoth. Unlike Octomammoth, Cooler Mammoth’s tentacles were separate creatures called Cooler Leeches (like tentacles).
This fight was rough. Died twice before figuring it out.
The first time, I tried using Thundara on all the mobs. It didn’t harm the Mammoth, but did major damage to the Leeches. Problem was that after I destroyed them, the Mammoth regenerated them all, and they wore me down. The second time, I tried taking down the Leeches one by one, with the plan to attack the Mammoth once only one Leech was left, but I wasn’t watching Porom’s health well enough.
The last time was successful. Started out with Protect on both of us, which helped a lot. Proceeded to ignore the Leeches, and just use Porom for Cura on both the twins and Palom for Fira on the Mammoth. Did massive damage to him, and once the Mammoth went down, the Leeches went down with him/her.
[By the way, does Protect stack, the way it did in FFII, or is a single cast of Protect the max benefit I can get from it?]
-And Palom still sees this victory as just “Sage Trial #1.”
-Sorry, but I have to quote this in full. It absolutely applies:
“All his life has he looked away... to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing. Hmph. Adventure. Heh. Excitement. Heh. A Jedi craves not these things. You are reckless.”
Just substitute “Sage” for “Jedi,” and we nail down Palom’s main problem that Porom keeps trying to teach him.
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Next time: Back to the future. Hopefully with a bit less focus on Palom.
