CLIMBING TALON PEAK WAS LARGELY UNEVENTFUL -there's a Djinni I missed near the top, presumably I have to beat the Mountain Roc first -which, by the way, I wake up by using Slap on its wattle -doing this causes it to drop the roc feather, meaning we have finally completed the actual goal the game has presented to us. -for the record: Psynergy Vortexes have not ONCE been mentioned or seen since way back when Rief almost got eaten by one -Blados chooses this moment to make a dramatic appearance, prompting every party member to respond at once. this happens in Tales of Vesperia too sometimes, but it had the benefit of making everyone's textboxes appear at once, be very short (one word or so) and not sticking them on screen very long -Dark Dawn does not do this. to its credit, Amiti's contribution to Blados' appearance is "Who is this person?" which is great, but there's a reason there's an Awkward Zombie comic about this. Ryu Kou and Hou Zan also chip in though so its a wash -to nobody's surprise, Chalis is here too, professing they're about to "help" us -"I am beginning to feel left out." Amiti may just be the best party member -"You're not missing much." Ryu Kou is p. good too -anyway, the two say they're going to help us obtain the magma core we also need from the mountain roc (although vaguely and poorly). how do they do that? -Hou Zan posits the theory that Volechek orchestrated Sveta's fleeing as well as Ryu Kou and Hou Zan's escape to get to this point, which... why? what does that do for us? or them? -Chalis says it's because they need to talk to us, and then they refuse to tell us what they're here for. this is stupid HEY LOOK THEY MENTIONED THE MAGMA ORB FINALLY -also the mountain roc is starting to wake up -the party has no idea what the Magma Orb is, which is great because Laurel danced around specifically naming it so we wouldn't start the Alchemy Dynamo with it. ironically, had she given us that information, we'd know enough that it could be dangerous and therefore would avoid working with Blados or Chalis a moment longer -also: we needed the Magma Orb to open the door in the ruins at all, so Blados and Chalis are technically correct and being helpful here, if only because AS USUAL the game's so-called sages are really bad at helping us -anyway I'd assume that the pair were taking a year to relay useless info to buy time for the mountain roc to wake up, which is even less amusing here than it was the first two times Alex did it -Chalis finally just says "kill the roc and you get the orb", which AGAIN I REMIND YOU is the same thing Laurel was telling us to do to break Eoleo out (and Hou Ju I guess, an ordinary girl would make much bigger incentive to rescue than a pirate's son but she isn't a party member later. spoilers) -so the dramatic tension of "you have to kill Morgal's legendary national symbol to break people out of Belinsk" is somewhat undercut by the EXTREMELY HELPFUL WITH LITERALLY NO ULTERIOR MOTIVES I KNOW THAT SOUNDS SARCASTIC BUT THEY STRAIGHT UP ARE TRYING TO HELP US THEY'RE JUST BAD AT IT Laurel and Tret telling us to effectively do the exact same thing -this seems familiar somehow AND THEN WE FIGHT THE MOUNTAIN ROC -it gets a few cool cutscene attacks, like Upward Blast, where it throws someone sky high and then slam dunks them back to the mountain -it also can Stone Molt, which changes its form to have higher defense and regeneration, I think? -it matters not at all, as one good shot from Amiti "fells" it, causing it to retreat upwards into the sky -the bird collapses to the mountain top and coughs up a macaroni, or a "magma shard" -we then climb into its rune-lined interior and grab the rest of the macaronis. this is kind of neat since it implies the mountain roc is a construct, perhaps in the same way as the Wise One was/is -Ryu Kou notices that we're not too thrilled about looting the Magma Orb that we need to progress anyway could be used to start the Alchemy Dynamo, and instead takes it for himself to do what we were going to do with it anyway -this is supposed to be seen as a dramatic betrayal of the party, one which forces Ryu Kou to threaten smashing the orb if attacked to kill everyone, but again... we're all trying to do the same thing -THIS SEEMS FAMILIAR SOMEHOW -Karis tries to call his bluff because he wouldn't dare risking us all feeling very sad that we couldn't keep our promise to Laurel (which we'd have to break anyway by her own words no I will not let this go). Ryu Kou points out that this doesn't really hold up as a fate to be avoided over his sister being boiled alive -"I'm doing this because I'm sick of mincing around the problem when there's a solution right in front of us." okay can we play as Ryu Kou instead of Matthew and his troupe of performing idiots -"I hope none of you takes this personally. It really is just about saving my sister, you know." no, I understand bro, and I wish you well. you heard the same conversation we did from Laurel, you know the warnings and needs, I wish you the best -"He's gonna pay for this!" SHUT THE HELL UP TYRELL -Matthew finally gets an emotion screen for this, which I interpret as him being really happy that Hou Ju is being saved, we got the feather, we can finally go home after letting Kraden know we're done here -Karis chooses to interpret this as him being happy that they'll travel faster with fewer people, and that we should go meet Sveta in Belinsk. not to put too fine a point on it, but... why? -like, we got the feather! we can go back and get the soarwing fixed, aka OUR MAIN GOAL FOR LITERALLY THE ENTIRE GAME DESPITE MUCH BETTER MAIN GOALS. Ryu Kou and Hou Zan are going to go save Hou Ju, which while I can see that failing on account of them not being Adepts, it's of much more importance to them anyway -and Ryu Kou stressed that he'd rather work by himself with Hou Zan anyway -Sveta went to a lot of trouble to get the Slap Glove to us, yes, but we still don't really know what her plan is anyway, or whether she's even an ally. we could go play the Arangoa Prelude to signal her return, but we could also just let the musicians do it anyway since we've gone all around Morgal gathering musicians for it, they could probably take the hint (maybe I am overestimating the average intelligence of Weyard) -the only real issue for us is Kraden is still I don't even fucking KNOW where, but frankly if he couldn't be arsed to meet us in Bilibin, Belinsk, OR Port Rago, that's on him, and besides which we were only going to meet him for help with the Mountain Roc anyway -all we'd have to do is break past Border Town's blockade, which while difficult? wouldn't really be impossible given all the other places we've broken into over the series (except for where we don't have a path back because the game devs say we don't) -like I don't really agree with a lot of what Quovak said about the first two games, but here the solution to literally every problem we've had would be far easier by just not actually doing anything in the first place -and say what you will about Saturos and Menardi, but at least they told us their goals from the word go: "lighthouses! we're lighting them! we kidnapped your friends and family!" I still do not have a single inkling of what the overall goals of Blados or Chalis or Alex (who hasn't even appeared since that one time he half-captured Kraden's student) are -almost every time they appeared, it was to reinforce the exact same thing our guide at the time told us to do, only in a slightly more villainous (if you're charitable) or just plain dickish (if you're accurate) way -what did Blados and Alex gain out of forcing us into Ei-Jei? what did Chalis gain out of being in King Wo's court (by the way we're never gonna see those clowns again)? what do they gain from the Alchemy Dynamo? they have no reason to be doing anything and neither do we and it's DRIVING ME GATDAM BONKERS ARE YOU DONE -yeah I'm done let's make a new journal entry since this one's dragging