Time bandit

It's off to the next town to find the next sage! But first, there's time for a bit of exploring. If first went to a near by island, but it was surrounded by sheer rock walls with no place to dock. I'm guessing we'll later get another mode of transportation that can fly and open up more of the map.

Betting that tombstone says 'Here Lies Link'

Next island i checks out had a little cave off one one side of it. I was kinda hoping that it would be a secret path that leads to the higher levels that I can't reach, but it turns out that it was just a cave full of crabs. Not even giant enemy crabs,  just friendly blue ones that didn't really have all that much to say. Maybe it will be a side quest location later...

Crab, in my cave?

I tried another island a bit of a ways off, it had a beach to land on and a bunch of monsters wandering around. Turns out those monster were twice my level and totally kicked the party's ass. Juts barely escaping with 1 health and 2 dead party members, I figured it was time to get back on track and head for the next story location.

Did not figure I'd literally be on a track. 

The next area is rather industrial, with quarries everywhere and most of the monsters are steam punk robots. The mech monsters were naturally tougher than my party could handle at the moment, but not on the scale of that island. Just shows i'll be here a while and by the end of it i'll be strong enough that the monsters will run from me.

Something's not quite kosher about this place...

From the outside, Hamelin looked like a giant metal box with with a pig face on it, but inside is a massive industrial steam punk city packed full of high rises, orange lights, and copper piping. You could probably fit the whole population of every town I've been in into just one building here. I'm kinda surprised that this isn't this world's capital, with all the people here.

The dress code is a little boaring 

The thing that catches the party's eye, other than the sheer scale of the place, is that all the guards and most civilians wear pig masks. At first i thought that they were pig people, like how Ding Dong Dell had some cat people running around, but as far as I can tell everyone is humans in masks.

I'm sure it's for totally above board and legit reasons.

Right after getting into town, Swaine drops out of the party and goes off to do... something. He doesn't say and it hasn't been explained yet.  oh well, just hope we don't find any green chests while he's gone.

This kid is reverse stalking us

The ghost sage is here, of course, and he has another puzzle to solve. This one was easier than the last, just need to count how many mech familiars are in the picture of the Wizard Wars in the book.

5

The reward of it is rather good though, a spell that shows the locations of all the chests in the area for a short time. Handy if i don't want to look it up on line. 

Something useful!

Now it's time to explore and do side quests! All the standard stuff, mostly moving emotions form one NPC to another. Also slept at the inn, mainly just to get the next book page about the local history.

Maybe it says why this place is so steam-punky

With no more NPCs that I could help, it's time to continue with the story. While Oliver and Esther are walking down a street, all the building suddenly start to move and rotate. At first i thought that maybe this was some kind of Macross city defence thing, but it turns out that they were just getting out of the way of the prince's procession. 

Not good to stand in the way of something even buildings move for.

After the parade, Swaine pops back up saying that he has a lead on where the sage they are looking for might be. Apparently there is some one working at the castle that matches his description. Esther says that she's impressed that Swaine isn't completely useless after all. Ouch! Then there's an announcement that any one making eye contact is now illegal, which is kinda harsh. 

Welcome to the Tump administration.

The group tries to enter the palace, but are of course turned away. Swaine has an idea to get around this though, they just need to dress like guards. Since the uniforms cover their whole body, they should be unrecognisable and free to pass. He also knows just where to get them in the local black market. The merchant they ask claim to have no idea what they are talking about and have no uniforms, but changes his tune when Swaine says an odd thing about some one named Grace.

Betting this will make sense later.

While the merchant goes to get the armour, Esther asks Swaine if he's ever been here before, since he seems really familiar with the people and goings on in Hamelin. He denies it, claiming that he's just making it up as he goes. Right...

The merchant returns and as luck would have it, not only does he have three uniforms available, but two of them are child sized and even colour coordinated! He even had a spare mask that Drippy could wear. Esther complains that the uniforms make her look huge, but Swaine quips back that she looks the same as always.

Payback for that useless jab earlier.

Surprisingly enough the plan works, the guards buy that they work at the castle and let them in after Swaine shows he knows the prince's favourite food. This could just be a lucky guess since everyone in this pig-masked city keeps talking about truffles, because of course they would.

Worst guards ever.

Once inside, the guards are not quite so easily tricked, leading to a stealthing section where Oliver needs to sneak around corridors out of sight of the guards patrolling. It's actually a little tricky, and messing up boots you back out side and have to do the whole thing over again. After that, they find a drain pipe that leads them deeper into the palace and ditch the disguises. Except  for Drippy that is, he figures that being just a helmet lets him hide better than the rest can.

Well, hes not wrong. As long as nobody picks up the helmet.

They don't get far into the place before they run into a giant pig tank boss battle! It's official name is apparently Eisenschwein (German for Iron Pig) Mk X, but it also goes by...

I said I expected Porco Rosso in the first post, not this!

Unsurprisingly, the tank has a huge amount of health and deals a huge amount of damage. It's a good thing I saved at the drain pipe, since this thing demolished the party over and over while I could barely make a dent. Eventually Drippy popped up with some completely useless advice on how to beat it.

Great if i had any familiars that knew lightning!!

So it wound up being a long slog of a battle where Oliver ran around the outer edge of the arena and plinking it with magic for 1% health. Many attempts and nearly all magic restore items later, I finally beat the dumb tank into submission. Not a fun battle

The white flag was a cute touch though.

The scene then cuts to the prince, who seems to be having some severe self image issues. This does explain the law that everyone needs to wear a pig mask and can't make eye contact. As the party enters his chambers, he quickly puts back on his pig costume and demands they explain why there are there.

His mask slips off though and they see he looks just like the picture of the sage, so they ask for his help. But it turns out that this isn't the great sage, but his son, and the sage died fifteen years ago. The prince goes on to say that he has none of the magic powers that his father had, so there's no way for him to help them. To top things off, the Prince has apparently had his belief stolen bu the evil wizard, explaining his low self image and thinking he's useless. 

Looks like we'll need to find some belief then...

Now things really get weird in short order. When they get back to the area they fraught the tank in, a thick mist rolls in and lowers the visibility to zero. 

Not surprising that this city ha a smog problem.

When the fog clears, they find themselves surrounded by guards wearing monkey masks. The guards seem even more confused and startled with the group being there than the group is. Then some guy comes up that the guards say is the emperor of the place and demands answers. 

Well that's a long story...

Off screen it's then sorted out that the party was some how transported into the past. I would have liked to have seen how that was determined, but i'm betting explaining it would have tipped the game's hand a little too early.

I'm just as surprised as you are about this!

The Party proves to the emperor they are from a different time by showing the picture of the sage, who is the emperor's youngest son all grown up. So I guess this would make the prince we met the emperor grandson. Confused, the emperor asks about his oldest son, to which Swaine flippantly says that the emperor never cared much for that son.

And there we have it!

Given that Swaine some how knows this very personal bit of information, and the fact he has the same darker skin and brown hair as the emperor, it seems bloody likely that Swain is actually the Emperor's older son Gascon all gown up. Or he could be Gascon's son depending on how old Swain is, and the time scale, either way he's royalty.

There's no time to dwell on this though, since a guard rushes in and says that the emperor's sons have wandered off out side of the city to practice magic and have gone missing. The emperor has a "fuck 'em" attitude towards this, claiming they they can fend for them selves and it's against tradition to go off to help them.

Father of the year material here.

The party, other other hand, thinks differently and decide to go off to help the sons, since it would be no good for the great sage to die when just a kid. 

So next time it's off for more time travel fun!