Sequence Break!

I should not have gone this far north.

We begin our exile with a tutorial. Just outside Vale is a strange creature. It's Flint, an earth djinn. He asks us to find the rest of his friends and teaches us how to utilize the powers of djinns. I don't fully understand it, but it seems important to use them more than I have been. I equip him to Issac because they're both earth guys.

Following the path south brings us to the village of Vault. Before we enter, though, a caravan leaves the town in a hurry. They're afraid of falling rocks, which I assume is the fault of Aleph. They try to go south to go home, but the bridge is out. The only alternate path is through bandit lands, which they take. Apparently, they had to leave a young apprentice named Vlad because a rod was stolen. The Vault townsfolk speak of a recent rash of robberies. Many believe the cause is the sketchy people hanging around town. In the mayor's house is the guy the merchants left, Vlad. He's looking to get the rod back but can't find the clues. He's also really bad at conversation.

(Un)Fortunately, he has a special power. Issac and Garet recognize that Vlad uses Psyenergy, a term he's never heard of, but they can't tell exactly what. The short of it is Vlad can read minds. He uses it too often and never learned to have actual conversations, so he comes off as being a creep all the time. But he knows what's going on, and we offer to find the Shaman's Rod, the rod Master Hammet, the merchant, lost. From here, we have to use Vlad's Mind Read Pay throughout the town. To do this, press select while hovering over it and select L or R to quick use it.

You can "speak" to everyone, including the dog, but the inn is our destination. There are two sketchy dudes upstairs, and they try to avoid us when we ask them about the robberies. When we leave the room, the group concocts a plan. Surround them in the back of the room, and Vlad will read their minds. It confirms they, and a third friend of theirs, are guilty. Vlad knows the items are in the inn somewhere but somehow missed the specifics. Anyway, leave the inn, and I noticed the ladder leading to the hole in the roof. Investigate, Move the bookcase, and free the bound man. After a long conversation, the three thieves realize the gig is up and attack.

Vlad has two strong AoE magic spells, which do great damage. Garet's fire is pretty good, too, and Issac's quake is okay enough. I don't think I needed to heal. We'll quickly dispatch them, and the random guy will get backup. The thieves are thrown into jail, and the items are recovered. The mayor tells us that Hammet has been captured by the bandits, so Vlad goes to free his master. Meanwhile, we need to find a lighthouse.

We can pass the bandit's hideout, but we can't do anything. Goma Cave is to the east, but we're stuck. We can move a few statues to get towards the cave, but one is stuck in the vines. Before we give up, Vlad shows up and blows away the entangled. He couldn't get into the hideout either. With nothing else to do, he joins us, and we all enter the cave. The cave is easy enough to navigate once you remember you can jump across small gaps... There's a room with a man in it who points out the djinn above us. There's a statue nearby that we should push to bridge the gap. A few screens later is when this "bridge" comes into play. Meet the Mars djinn, Forge! To get him, we'll need to fight! Go all out and heal afterwards. Any longer than two rounds is too long. The rest of the cave is a simple walk.

Near the exit is Bilbin. There's a strange tree at the entrance that Vlad can Mind Read... The other villagers speak of a curse brought on a nearby town because the local noblemen cut down the sacred forest. He did it to build his new wife a grand manor. We can talk to him to end the curse, but the Scottish McCoy doesn't want three youths to die. All the other knights he's sent have failed, and he can't have three kids in his conscious. As we leave, a guard suggests the wall that prevents people from trying to end the curse isn't that great of a wall...

But to hell the forest! What's north? Through a cave that slowly turns to ice are monsters that scare me. But I press on. I manage to reach Imil, the snow covered village. There's a sickness taking out the villagers, but the healer, Mia, is doing her best to prevent deaths. Speak to the old couple in the first house. The old man will begin to cough, and his wife asks us to get Mia. Head to the "church," and the little boy tells us Mia already left. Return to the couple, and we'll see Mia heal the sick with her strange form of Psy. It works! She sees that we saw the strange fairy and tells us her story. The Mercury Clan knows healing Pay and is in a similar situation to Vale. Before we talk more, a pink light shines across the room. Mia is scared and cries out for someone named Alex as she runs to the nearby lighthouse.

We have to help Mia take out a monster and bridge the gap before she officially joins us. She'll be two levels above us, so we shouldn't be here. Based on how hard the mobs hit, I absolutely think we shouldn't be here. From here, we make our way through the sacred tower by altering water currents through pipes and eventually jump on water. I even found another Mercury djinn! I really shouldn't be here, but I manage to make it to the top.

But we're too late. It's already been activated, and we see who did it. Felix. He's still holding Jenna and Kaiden hostage and is just about to leave. Menardi is upset we survived and wants to kill us before we become a thorn in their side. Saturos appears from behind the lighthouse pedestal to do the dirty work. While we fight, the rest take the elevator down. Saturn mocks us, and then he kills us. The battle went pretty well for us, but he uses a lot of AoE. We don't have the healing to counter that AND do damage, so we died. Maybe I'll try again

...tomorrow!

Maybe I'll go where I'm supposed to and end the curse of the tree people. Either way, great tun!