Alhafra is a pretty big place, but before we can do much of anything we have to trigger a scene by walking north where the Madran entourage finally makes it to the city. They do the “Holy cow this place is huge!” routine like the stereotypical small town yokels coming to the big city for the first time, then one of their number notes that the city got hit by the tidal wave like most places in this part of the world and the camera pans to show a section of town by the beach that’s been reduced to rubble. Since the town doesn’t seem to be in any sort of uproar other than that the Madrans think that the pirates must be laying low, and head off for the mayor’s mansion north of town. However, they do pass by a semi-unique NPC hiding behind some trees who mutters that he has to warn the other guys and runs off.
An NPC moves out of the way so we can visit the inn now, and the place is pretty packed since it’s also housing those who lost their homes in the tidal wave. We can learn here though that the guests are close to mutiny since the innkeeper’s providing only the bare minimum of necessities for them compared to paying customers (they’re apparently being fed nothing but vegetables yet there’s lobster cooking on the stove!) to save money since the mayor has apparently not done much of anything to help the town. In fact, if you diligently read as many minds as you can, you can pick up that the mayor of Alhafra isn’t very popular with the townspeople as he’s seen as greedy, and it’s apparently rumored that he has a horde of treasure hidden in a secret cave beneath his mansion. Surprisingly enough, if we head upstairs Alex can actually be found in the inn’s largest room. He says that he’ll be staying in Alhafra to rest for a while and reports that while the town does have a boat that survived the disaster, it’s already been sold. Trying to use Mind Read on him will just result in him telling us to cut it out.
We can’t go into the mayor’s mansion yet because the way’s barred by two guards (who are apparently very sensitive artiste types if you mind read them), and there’s also a jail but there’s no reason to head in there. I went right to the weapon and armor vendor stalls and upgraded everyone’s armor, which is very important at this particular part of the game. In the part of the town that’s been reduced to rubble we can learn from some sailors that the boat the mayor just sold is a full sailing vessel compared to the one that Isaac rode across the Karagol Sea that had a rowing galley. The way the people talk about this it’s like this is a new invention, so that can give you an idea of where Weyard’s overall technological development level lies. Steering Felix east takes us to “Eastern Alhafra” which is where the ship is docked. Even though it survived the tidal wave, it wasn’t in one piece as the main mast has toppled over and there’s a lot of debris caught on the fallen sail that a couple swarthy-looking guys sharing the same sprite of the suspicious guy from before are arguing over how to remove. They do a really, really bad job of hiding that they’re the pirates too. You don’t even have to read their minds for them to spill that they’re Champa.
Well, waltzing into the ship itself and heading below decks has us find that one pirate from earlier reporting the Madrans’ arrival to Briggs himself. Despite being a pirate captain Briggs has more of a Pacific islander feel to his outfit rather than the more stereotypical “yohoho and a bottle of rum” school of pirate gear, which makes sense given that the region of Osenia we’re currently in corresponds to northern Australia. As befitting a minor, pseudo-Goldfish Poop Gang-tier group of villains, the Champa aren’t that bright and basically spill their deal just so Felix and party (and player) can learn it: despite being pirates Briggs claims that their crimes really aren’t “that” bad since Champa would apparently starve without the food and supplies and whatnot they pillage, and even then they only take what they need. So Briggs claims. His plan is to continue lying low in Alhafra because it’s too risky to stir the pot right now since you know how a wealthy town might react. His minion practically falls all over himself to praise his boss’s smarts.
That’s when Jenna blows the party’s cover by snorting that there’s nothing brainy about that plan and the two pirates rush out into the hall to confront us. Felix’s group are as much a bunch of bleeding hearts as Isaac’s were since they immediately insist that Briggs come with them to clear Piers’s name. Just like the Vault bandits Briggs naturally is not about to just do as we say - Kraden says he’d hoped to avoid any unpleasantness (but he seems awfully excited nonetheless, as if us fighting is just a spectator’s sport to him), but oh well, it’s time for a surprise boss fight!
Briggs and Sea Fighter
HP
- 984 (Briggs) and 197 (Sea Fighter)
- Weak to Earth, Fire, Wind, and Water
- Echo Cut - Deals moderate damage to one enemy.
- Oil Drop - Deals moderate splashing Fire damage to two/three enemies.
- Herb - Restores 50 HP to one ally.
- Nut - Restores 200 HP to one ally.
- Signal Whistle - Summons a Sea Fighter.
- Echo Cut - Deals moderate damage to one enemy.
- Oil Drop - Deals moderate splashing Fire damage to two/three enemies.
- Smoke Bomb - Attempts to delude one enemy.
- Herb - Restores 50 HP to one ally.
And what a boss fight it is! This is roughly the equivalent to the fight against Saturos at Mercury Lighthouse in terms of being thrown against a surprisingly-tough boss in the earlygame. And it’s not in how Saturos’s moveset was literally two-thirds nukes - these guys are just all-around sturdy (See how they’re weak to everything? In practice they don’t take much more than neutral damage) have decent healing ability, and strong-but-not-overpoweringly-so attacks. Echo Cut takes off somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 HP on average which is about a little less than a third of Felix’s max HP and a little closer to a half of Jenna’s and three-fifths of Sheba’s. The battle’s fairly lengthy too since Briggs will prioritize using Signal Whistle to summon his flunkies whenever there’s an open slot. Keeping with the number of pirates we’ve seen working under him he’ll only summon four in total, but that means that there’s a grand total of 1969 HP to work our way through, more than half-again what Saturos had. Plus that Nut that Briggs has is an extra “eff you”.
The bright spot is that aside from a single use of Oil Drop (which is probably their most dangerous attack) each the pirates collectively have no AOE attacks so it’s easier to heal characters up provided everyone’s got some healing items in their individual inventories and that the pirates don’t decide to gang up on one character. Also complicating things is that at this point in the game we have absolutely no way of reviving someone mid-battle; there’ve been no Waters of Life to be found in any of the dungeons thus far or bought in any town, and while there is a Djinni that can be obtained by this point with revival capabilities, it’s a little unreliable and out of the way. If someone goes down they’re staying down, so it’s key to play slowly and defensively and make use of Iron to buff Defense and have everyone’s armor up to date.
Winning earns us 689 EXP, 1411 coins, and a Vial.
When we manage to defeat the five pirates Briggs actually shows that he has a sense of honor by admitting his loss and agreeing to turn himself in without a fuss. A voice calls out for us to wait though and a woman named Chaucha runs up to the party, imploring them to show mercy. She introduces herself as Briggs’s wife and implores us to show leniency on Briggs and his men because they weren’t committing acts of piracy for the hell of it, but for their hometown of Champa. Located on the southeastern tip of Angara beyond the mountains near Fuchin Temple, Briggs explains that Champa gets most of its sustenance from the sea since its soil is very rocky and barren. However in recent years even global warming has begun to take its toll on Weyard for warming oceans have made it much, much harder to fish, so the men of Champa have secretly become pirates in order to feed their families. Briggs is terrified of his grandmother in particular discovering his secret.
It remains to be seen whether Chaucha’s last-minute bid for sympathy works because before the party can fully respond to this backstory the Madran mayor and elder come belowdecks leading the mayor of Alhafra, an overweight, kinda greasy-looking man showing him once and for all that the nice “businessman” who purchased the boat from him was indeed a pirate after all. The Alhafran mayor is simply shocked, shocked at the turn of events. Even Briggs admits that if the ship was bought with Madran gold, then by rights it should belong to the Madrans. However, he does request that Chaucha and his young son Eoleo be allowed to stay on board the ship, at least until it’s fully repaired. The Madran mayor asks what about Piers, and when the pirate that he doesn’t know anyone by that name the elder dispatches one of his subordinates to return to Madra with the news so that the mysterious Adept can be freed. Overall the Madrans are quite pleased by the outcome: Briggs has been arrested, Piers’s name has been cleared, and now they have a fine sailing ship of their own, though the mayor is left with the impression that his Alhafran counterpart would much prefer dealing with the elder over him. Everyone departs, both mayors promising to reward the party for their deeds, and we’re free to head back above deck. There Kraden suggests that maybe we could help the reconstruction efforts since maybe the Madrans would give them a ride back to Madra. So we Move and Pound our way across the harbor, navigating over the flotsam and pushing various pieces of debris off of the fallen mast. Unfortunately though there’s a giant rock lying smack-dab in the center that’s completely immovable, bringing our repair work to a halt.
With the party being forced to resume their search for a new ship we’ll take one last spin around the town before hitting the road once again. The Alhafrans have begun repair work on their homes in earnest now, meaning that some water from the ruined section of town has drained away, allowing us access to a stray pot that has a Lucky Medal (yep, the special fountain mechanic is in this game too). If we stop by the town jail at this point we get a little scene where Chaucha and her son Eoleo, a small infant with Blinding Bangs, are paying the incarcerated pirates a little visit. Not much to be had here…until Eoleo inexplicably starts using Psynergy in an attempt to manipulate the cell key, which has just been carelessly left lying out in the open on a tabletop. Eventually we learn, either through miscellaneous dialogue or mind reading I can’t remember, that the little tyke’s an Adept the same way Feizhi from the first game is: by getting hit in the head by a falling Psynergy Stone blasted free by Mt. Aleph’s eruption. Chaucha calms her son down and returns to the docked ship, and naturally if you mind read any of the pirates or even Eoleo himself (for despite his typical waah-waah babytalk his thoughts are quite coherent) they’re all thinking of using this power to stage a jailbreak. Hmph. Also Alex lets us read his mind at this point and he’s basically all “Well if you want to go around helping people, more power to you.”
The final new place in this town that we can visit for the time being is the mayor’s mansion. The Madran mayor and the elder are staying in a guest room for the time being, and none of them are happy. Now that the pirates have been arrested the Alhafran mayor has apparently gone back on his promise to fix the ship, justifying his decision by saying that it’s only fair that Madra get back their stolen property, nothing more. If they want it repaired, they can pay for it. The guy’s just as much a greedy miser as some of the townspeople hinted him to be, and by talking to him and then mind reading him it becomes clear that he’s become obsessed with building a trade fleet of his own and becoming filthy rich and has absolutely no intention of even handing the ship over to its rightful owners.
We’re going to let that subplot stew for a little bit. The mansion has a little watchtower attached to it and if we ascend to the top at the behest of an NPC we can take a look out at some sort of flat-topped pink mountain that’s sitting way out in the middle of the vast Yampi Desert. The man says that that’s Air’s Rock, also known as Windy Peak since there are never any clouds around it, and legend has it that there’s a big secret resting inside. That sounds like our next destination methinks! Only, well, it’s Air’s Rock.
Soundtrack
- Alhafra
- A nice, pleasant town track nothing more, nothing less.
- Battle! Non-Adept ver.
- It takes a little while for this track to get good, but it's worth it. Shame that it only plays twice in the entire game.
