Alright, back to the game. As I said before, I’m on the world map. I have two locations: Albein Plains, which is where I’m at right now, and the Ever Garden, which is where I’m supposed to go. So let’s go!
They arrive back at the Ever Garden, with Heath saying that they defeated the monsters thanks to God’s divine protection, and reminding everyone to thank Him. He then repeats their apparent motto: “Protect the Light, condemn the Dark.” He’s actually said this before, I just didn’t mention it. Alph and Theo cheerfully repeat after him, which is honestly kind of creepy.
Then a White-Haired Pretty Girl shows up. Theo asks who she is. Leon, true to character, thinks she’s cute, and tries to flirt with her. She remarks that he smells sweaty, and tells him to hurry up and bathe. Niiice. She also reminds them to cleanse their weapons.
Cecille shows up, and welcomes everyone. The girl, sounding annoyed, asks what she should be doing now. Heath says that she’s the Ever Garden’s new maid. Apparently, she’s a recommendation from the Millennial Sisterhood Committee. *snickers*
Turns out the girl’s name is Lucia, and she’s been hired to do stuff like cooking, cleaning, and laundry so that the rest of them can focus on hunting monsters. Heath tells her that she can start by cleaning the dishes, and tells Alph to show her where the kitchen is. Leon, predictably says that this is one time he will gladly wash dishes. Lucia slaps him and calls him a pervert. Thank you, Lucia.
Alph says he doesn’t want to deal with a brat like her, and says that Cecille should do it. She leaves with the flimsy excuse that she needs to go pray. Heath tells Alph again to do that. Leon says that he needs to “heal his wounded heart in town.” Theo needs to repair his bow. Alph protests, telling them not to leave him alone.
Lucia speaks again, saying she doesn’t do dishes. She claims it dries out her hands, and she doesn’t like doing it. Alph gets annoyed, and tells her to go sweep the floors in the dorm if she doesn’t want to do dishes. She seems fine with that, and asks Alph to bring her a broom. He does. She immediately starts commenting on how nice the broom is. Kinda weird, don’t you think…?
Lucia tells him that he needs a bath, and then reminds him again to clean off the monster blood from his weapons.
The scene switches. Lucia is now done sweeping. Alph decides to give her a tour of the dorms. I’m given four options: “Action,” “Shop,” “Return to World Map,” and “Advance the Story.” Normally the first thing I do is go to the world map to save, but this time I’m going to shop first. So I go to the shop, and irritatingly cheerful music starts playing. I look around at what they’ve got. The weapons are the same ones my guys already have equipped, so forget that. Same with the hats and armor. So instead, I decide to use my 400 Rico (I messed up in my last entry – it’s not gold, it’s Rico…these games and their lulzy names for currency…) to buy items. I can buy VitaMints for 50, or Antidotes for 100. I have one of each already, if you’ll recall. I buy 4 VitaMints and 1 Antidote, leaving me with 100 Rico.
That’s pretty much all I need, so I leave the store. I then select “Action.” I have the option to talk to Theo or Cecille, or I can go to the library. Talking to Theo has him introducing himself to Lucia, and then giving some general idea of where things are on the continent. Theo ends it with saying that if Lucia goes to town to buy food, he wants her to buy lots of eggs for him. I then talk to Cecille, and get a little bit of exposition. Sounds like the Ever Garden has been around for thirteen years, and that Alph and Theo have been there since the beginning. Cecille’s been there for ten years.
I go to the library next. I have three options, the “Book of Mena,” “The Seven Elements of Power,” and “The Origin of ‘Holy Garden.’” First I look at the “Book of Mena,” which Alph tells me is the Luminous doctrine of how the world began. Shtraberl is apparently the name of this world – geez, talk about hard to remember. It also says something about a war between Dragons and Witches ruining the world, and God making it good again. Something like that, anyway. The second book is pretty much useless – it mentions the elements, but doesn’t say much about them. The third book just talks a bit about the establishment of the Ever Garden. Nothing really worth mentioning.
I take a brief detour to the world map to save, and then choose to “Advance the Story.”
It’s apparently nighttime now, and everyone’s going to sleep. The scene switches to Alph and Theo’s room. Looks like Theo is still so excited about the battle that he can’t sleep. But I guess he does, because the next thing we know, Alph is asleep. We get a bit with an unspecified person counting brooms. Weird. Alph seems confused. The person comments about a GOLDEN broom. Double weird. Then the person comments that someone is inside their dream. Is it Alph? Apparently, it is, because this person then comments that she can’t believe that HE’S a Rym. Whatever that means. Alph then realizes that it’s the voice of the “weird maid.” Guess Lucia has a broom fetish, then? Lucia basically tells him to GTFO her dream. Alph wakes up, wondering if that voice he heard was Lucia.
So he runs outside, and wakes her up. He asks what she did to him, and says that she was the strange voice in his dream. Lucia seems annoyed, saying that he’s the one who came barging into her dream. All of a sudden, we get a weird sound effect, and a monster shows up. Lovely.
Lucia gets annoyed again, saying that Alph didn’t cleanse his weapon like she told him to. Apparently, the scent of monster blood attracts other monsters. Alph starts trying to fight the monsters, apparently with little success. Lucia comments that she can’t watch this, and with a flash of light, she’s wearing something different. She then kills a monster with magic. Alph is understandably confused, and the battle begins. This time it’s just Alph and Lucia that I have available, and I have to use both of them. Time to start.
My objective is to defeat all enemies. Just like always. Seriously, that’s ALWAYS the objective. The one time it isn’t is in the final boss fight, and even then there’s only one enemy.
So I’ve got Alph and Lucia standing back to back, in the middle of a grassy map. My enemies are two Cerberuses, and one Behemoth. I’d probably be best taking out the Behemoth first. Since there’s just one, it’s probably stronger. Lucia is level 5, and she moves first. She has two spells, Aid and Shine. Shine is an attack spell, and Aid is obviously a healing spell. She’s too far away to attack, even with her spell, so I just move her a little closer. It’s Alph’s turn next, and he can’t attack yet either. He’ll get a ranged attack ability later, but he doesn’t appear to have it yet.
The Cerberuses move closer. One of them attacks Alph, and the Behemoth follows suit. Well, now I can attack with Lucia. Or…actually, I’d be better off healing Alph. So I do that. After a bit of struggling with the fail controls, I attack the Behemoth with Alph. And Alph is attacked twice, again. I don’t want him to die, so I heal him. Again. I really would like Lucia to be able to attack, but I can’t do that yet. Alph attacks the Behemoth, leaving it with ONE HP. Ugh…this sucks.
Oh, damn. Lucia doesn’t have enough MP to attack OR heal. So instead, she uses a physical attack on one of the Cerberuses. Alph runs off and uses an item to heal. He’s attacked twice, but the Cerberus misses. The other one attacks Lucia. She attacks the Behemoth and the Cerberus from behind, killing the Behemoth. She levels. Alph then proceeds to maul the weakened Cerberus. He levels, and learns a spell. Wonder what kind? Anyway, Lucia kills the other Cerberus, and the battle ends.
I get 500 Rico, a VitaMint, an Antidote, and a Catseye, whatever that last one is.
Back to the story. Alph asks if Lucia just used a spell. She replies that she did. Alph comes to the conclusion that Lucia is *le gasp* a Witch! And he’s right – she is. (Guess the broom thing was just a lame gag, then.) He remembers that he’s supposed to “condemn” witches, and he asks her again if she’s a Witch. She says yeah, she just answered that. Alph replies that he’s going to have to condemn her. Lucia repeats that, asking if he’s going to kill her because she’s a Witch, and then asks if he’s dumb. Alph spouts some crap about how he’s going to condemn Witches and bring peace back to the world. After all, that’s what the Garden Children are for.
Lucia reminds him that he couldn’t even beat those weak monsters by himself. If he couldn’t do that, then why does he think he can beat her? And besides, she just saved his life. In exchange for that, she asks him to not tell the others. All of a sudden, we get Leon yelling, asking where Alph is. Apparently, they have an order to move out. They’ve found the hideout of one of the Witches! I’m put back on the world map, with another destination opened up. It’s kinda late, so I’m going to save and quit for now.
