Trails in the Sky #11 - A Day in The Life At Ruan

Forewarning: All I did during this update was finish most (as in not “all”) of this chapter’s sidequests. So rather than strategically skipping over them as I had been doing thus far, this entire recap is explicitly dedicated to them. Consequently, you can skip the recap entirely and just head straight to the write up, if you only care about the main story. I just thought you should know how much CARE actually goes into this game’s optional content.

RECAP: Who You Gonna Call?

Please, we're professio- *splash*

The bracers acknowledge that they have an oppressive fuck ton guild work to catch up on, so before they head out they decide to thin their backlog and help out around town. To kick things off, they head south to the warehouse district where they meet their client, Harg. The dock worker says that after moving some barrels in front of a crane to a warehouse, he lost the warehouse key somewhere around the Aqua Rossa bar while going to get plastered take a break. After some internal discussion about where it might have wound up (hint: it rhymes with “arbor”), the bracers get down to business and search the waters around the drinking establishment. Hawkeyed Estelle spots the key shining in the harbor, however, she quickly realizes that they have nothing with which to “fish” it out *winkwink.* Off to the bar! Conveniently, the barkeep is nice enough to loan a fishing rod to the bracers (provided that they return it, of course). The Fishing Goddess then fulfills her lordly duty and retrieves the fallen key. Harg appreciates the bracers’ efforts and with that their harbor business is now complete.

Following up, the bracers next decide to finish up their tasks in South Ruan by heading for the mayor’s estate. Steward Gilbert greets them, immediately informing the teens that the Sapphire Glim, a fancy candelabrum worth several hundred thousand mira, has been stolen by a crook who fancies himself a steampunk Edward Nigma (or Phantom Mask, considering his name is hilariously “Phantom Thief B”). The calling card he left behind contains a clue about where the treasure is located, though it is more than a little cryptic for the bracers, who just arrived in Ruan to figure out on the fly. The bracers spend the day searching around town while I check Gamefaqs and eventually figure out that the clue points to the city’s lighthouse. Some wholly undeserved gloating is had, but rather than finding the stolen macguffin, the bracers scrounge up another piece of parchment extending the Easter egg hunt.

Did I mention that I love this game's writing?

Again, this clue leaves the bracers stumped for a while, but after another trip to the Internet more aimless searching around the city, they explore the recently opened casino and find yet another clue glued to a roulette wheel (I’m sure that the clients by no means factored this into their betting decisions and in no way bankrupt the casino. Surely). By this point the bracers are becoming a bit aggravated, though this time they immediately figure out where the clue is pointing. Everyone quickly heads over to the air field, where they pick up the next clue behind a small transport vehicle. As Estelle points out, this clue is fairly on the nose and points directly to some barrels by a steel crane in the warehouse district. Regardless, the bracers gotta get paid mission must go on, so the teens check out the barrels. Alas, though the crane was immediately apparent, the barrels were nowhere to be found.

Estelle asks a nearby worker about their little conundrum and, though he doesn’t know where these particular barrels went, he remarks that there are many inside of a warehouse. Considering that the bracers just dropped off a warehouse key, they capitalize on their past deeds and convince a delightfully compliant Harg to open the warehouse and excavate the barrel (just one) that he delivered during their last visit (yes, that was actually important). After opening the warehouse, however, the harbor master Portos (really?) walks out and questions why the bracers have come to the warehouse. Harg convinces his boss to let the bracers be, and saunter off. The drunk dock worker then upholds his end of the bargain and pulls the barrel out of the warehouse. The clue this time, appears hastily written, apologizes for the misleading nature of the preceding clue, and states that the Sapphire Glim is inside of the barrel, thus ending the great Ruan caper…until Portos comes back and perplexedly asks what the bracers are doing at the warehouse. After some head scratching and double-taking, shock and frustration descends. The bracers (and Harg!) were indeed, bamboozled by Phantom Thief B.

Why do I feel like I'll be spending my vacation on Gamefaqs?

Estelle runs off to go find the crook, but eventually gives up. The bracers then report their success(?) to Gilbert and Mayor Dalmore. The mayor is simply glad to have the candelabra back. Understandably, Joshua and Estelle still want to catch the thief, but Dalmore reminds them that their mission was merely to retrieve the statue and (sadly) sways them to cease further investigation (for now...).

With this business out of the way, the gang heads back into the heart of the city to find their next client. At the Ruan church however, they spot a familiar face. The man (named Jimmy) is also coincidentally one of the bracers’ clients and reminds them that they rescued him from a pack of monsters on the beach the other day. Getting down to business he then adds that he’s looking for the treasure of the great pirate, Schirmer who used to operate around

Ruan a hundred years ago (or so says Kloe). Jimmy happens to have a map, and excitedly tells the bracers where to look, though Estelle remembers that they had already been to the location marked and produces the torn map and ancient daggers found earlier. Jimmy almost wets himself and snatches the map fragment and exclaims that it must be a map to Schirmer’s treasure (so, he had a map that leads to another map that leads to “actual treasure”…seems legit). Regardless the man thanks the bracers for turning over their finding and rewards them with the customary lump sum of…nothing, (the daggers are supposedly a reward in and of themselves) and the bracers continue on their not at all slighted way.

Hoooookay there, settle down buddy

All of the requests in the city finally taken care of, so the teens head south of Ruan for their next hefty sounding mission. Along the road they spot one of the monster packs marked for extermination, so with resolution and razzmatazz they promptly remove the small hoard. Coincidentally the bracers manage to spot the Zero Shot(X) gun parts that one of their clients dropped along the way to Ruan. Logically, they stash it for later as opposed to running all the way back into town and continue their trek. A hop-skip-and a jump later, the gang finally arrives at the waterfall laden Air-Letten checkpoint.

Inside they spot a pack of travelers rabbling complaining about the Royal Army being pushovers to some fatcat. None of this sounds appealing so the bracers look for whoever is in charge. And atop the gate, they find him. Sergeant Hahn thanks the bracers for arriving so swiftly and briefs them on the current situation. A traveler currently in the dining hall is making things “difficult” for the other guests and refuses to leave. The bracers are then to persuade him to get his jerkass out of here move on by any means necessary politely. Alas, the crowd of travelers is growing increasingly restless and nearly threatens violence, so Joshua decides to talk them down while Estelle and Kloe negotiate with the unruly guest.

In the dining hall, they find out that (surprise, surprise) the unruly guest is Duke Dunan with his po

So long as you hide the body

or butler, Phillip. Officer Kientz tries to give Estelle some basic advice on how she might get him to leave (though casually leaves corporal punishment on the table in case diplomacy fails). Estelle is the absolute worst person for this job, but by channeling Joshua’s cold calculating demeanor she miraculously succeeds and the duke leaves without incident much to Kientz’ dismay. Everyone celebrates the wicked witch’s Duke’s departure and says their farewells. Before returning to Ruan to collect their spoils, however, the bracers take a moment to explore Sapphirl tower while they’re in the area. They don’t find anything particularly noteworthy, but the chests and such contained valuable loot that is sure to help the bracers going forward. And with all of their business FINALLY sorted, everyone returns to town after a long day’s hard work.

You and Mr. Shonen Anime must've gotten along famously

The bracers drop off the Zero Shot(X) with the perverted client at the weapon shop who in turn rewards them with a powerful new quartz. The bracer then make an executive decision that since they only have two requests left, both of which take them out of town and in the direction of Jenis Academy, they should stop by the bracer’s guild now, collect their numerous rewards, then complete their final jobs before the day’s end. And they do just this, earning a junior bracer rank promotion in the process. They find their last local client inside one of the shops. Per his request, he has a (heavy) maintenance kit that needs to be dropped off at the lighthouse (with Vogt!) to get it working again. They spend some time talking about the former Ruan local as well as his favorite past time…drinking Azelia Roses (read: fancy martinis) with Spicy Anchovies inside. Considering how much hell the old man gave the bracers about COMPASSION, they decide to demonstrate their attentiveness by getting procuring one of these disgusting adult beverages before fulfilling the request.

“It’s Alive!!!”

One thing I should mention before I get into the meat of tonight’s observations is the potential inconsistency I noticed between Jean allowing the bracers to go and help out Kloe when they supposedly have a mountain of jobs to sift through. It seemed like a serious plot hole at the time considering that the game never mentions the blatant negligence such a job would require. However, I quickly resolved this theoretical plot-hole when I realized that the requests that periodically appear on the guild board in the form of sidequests are actually a representation of the guild work the bracers are supposed to be completing for their day-job.

Thus far, Estelle and Joshua have usually had around three “real” jobs on the board at the start of a chapter, while more are perpetually added over the course of the story. In Ruan however, there were at least five jobs on the board initially and a handful more that appeared while the plot was moving too fast for them to justify taking a break. But, Falcom apparently recognized the conflicting obligations and set the deadline of virtually every guild job for after the bracers go to Jenis Academy, in addition to offering a reminder that there is “still work to be done.” It’s pretty clever all things considered, and is a nice way to coerce the player into attempting the optional content without forcing it down their throats.

This game truly wouldn't be the same without you :(

Anyway, as I’d mentioned before, a lot of love goes into the sidequests in this game. From the way that seemingly disconnected quests effortlessly layer on top of each other layer (the warehouse key and candelabra caper quests for instance) to the extraordinarily vast differences between them, quests in this game have a breadth that’s almost unheard of in RPGs these days. But again, what surprised me most about all of these quests was not merely the diversity of scenarios, but seemingly emergent vivacity communicated through the NPCs.

I know, I’ve been harping on and on about how amazing this game’s NPCs are, and how they make the world feel incredibly lifelike despite the fact that they communicate exclusively through text. But, this update also demonstrated another interesting facet of these minor characters that firmly goes beyond what most RPGs have ever convincingly managed: they travel and in a non-dramatic fashion.

The characters aren’t merely recurring cameos as seen in a number of recent titles like Mass Effect, The Elder Scrolls and various Final Fantasy games, but people like any other who occasionally travel to try to live their lives to the best of their abilities. Likewise, they don’t need some life-threatening/home destroying invasion to decide that they’d like to move elsewhere.

Perhaps because I spent so much of the last entry talking about FFX, the only other analogue I can immediately compare this to are O’aka and Donna from the same game. However, the former is really just a thinly disguised means of providing the player with a shop at desperate times when there clearly shouldn’t be a merchant in the vicinity (like on a monster-infested, snowy mountain summit). And the latter is meant to offer a foil to Yuna’s pilgrimage, and lend extra weight to the idea that Yuna is not the only summoner trying to save the world. They are both important in one sense, but because such significance is given to both of them through the plot, they come across more as exceptions to an unspoken rule that NPCs are static in every sense of the word.

The constantly updating dialogue, and unique personalities granted to each NPC, naturally helped bring a sense of life to the Liberl kingdom as well, but nothing sells a world more than seeing the stories of familiar characters continued almost twenty hours later in a wholly new location for entirely character specific purposes. Gold. Star. Falcom.

*There were a lot of spectacularly snarky chests this time around, and since this is largely an extraneous update and I largely ended up glossing over my trip through Sapphirl Tower (which took almost 20 minutes of real time), here are all of the chests that tickled me pink this session. Nesxt time, we get the plot moving again with- wait for it..........SILENT MONTAGES!!!

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