Session 9 Recap: An Exploration Explosion

Time for our first recruitment drive! We had lots of towns to visit for the first time and lots of faces to see. We visited the town of Prymount first, where our only discoveries were a Tomato Seed and Recipe #31 “Nachos”. A stop by Lorin Castle won us a Potato Seed and Recipe #24 “Omelet”, but also a barkeeper named Rosalita who was looking to open up her own place. The dangerously placed town of Delon contained only Recipe #5 “Clams” and some Whiskey, our first item for Rosalita. The town of West Hollow had Recipe #39 “Eggroll”; we also met a farmer named Zelda who seemed inclined to join us, but still needs to finish up some chores before she can join (i.e. need castle level 2).

In the kobold village of Highcrest, we discovered that Monty the trader has no interest in joining yet. We had no incentive for him, so we decided to leave him be for the time being. Also, the mayor/elder kobold may be missing; this bears more investigating in the future.

Coldwall Castle was a colorful stop, and not just because of Recipe #20 “Lasagna”. Harold made the acquaintance of another fancypants Narcissist, Roxie, who we found harassing some uniformed Harmonian soldiers about their lack of fashion sense and color. Harold hammed it up with the flamboyantly dressed woman and impressed upon her our need for a fashionista in our drab new castle. She seemed intrigued, but insisted that she can’t be tied down to one place while the whole world still needs her fashion advice and ran off. I wonder how many times we’ll meet her before she gives in?

The small town of Marid appeared to be in very poor shape. A small child sold us a duck for a high price, thanks to Harold’s soft-heartedness. We were also awarded Recipe #26 “Pie”. One of the villagers told us her daughter June is missing, and Harold remembered the name from one of his investigations. Nathan helped a girl named June escape from prison about two years ago, but all we know is that she may have gone north from there and was originally imprisoned for pickpocketing. We will be keeping an eye out for this young woman.

Our return to the Crystal Valley was brief but very entertaining. We found Ramza the drunk beggar exactly where he was sitting the first time, drinking away his troubles on the street. It didn’t take much for Daisy to persuade him to join us (free room and board tends to do that), but he still wouldn’t tell us what he used to do for a living or how he ended up where he was. Daisy assured him that he would find something useful to do around the castle soon enough. We were about to leave when we noticed a gathering near the Academy, where a woman named Lilly was regaling the crowd with a story of how she stabbed Yuber in the face. The lady adventurer and her bodyguards Reed and Samus agreed to join our effort because Lilly and Harold were old friends from their grassland days (apparently that was one crazy party). Plus, when she found out that Viktor’s daughter Daisy was involved, Lilly guessed that something big and exciting was probably going down.

With all possible exploration completed for the moment, we finally made our way back to the Sindar ruins to name our new castle. After some debate, we flipped from Unity Castle and Liberation Army and settled on Liberty Castle and the Union Army, because we “would make this war as severe as possible, and show no symptoms of tiring till [Harmonia] begs for mercy.” – William Tecumseh Sherman

After handing over the whiskey to barkeeper Rosalita and confirming that our prized healing fountain was still in place, we decided to pursue the plot and flew to Lindermill. Everyone in the factory town was talking about the disappearance of little Sam, the young son of Katherine and Luther. We learned that he had been missing for several days now, and neither the worried parents nor the one-eyed detective Xander had found any trace of where he had gone. Royce did some scouting and found tracks leading from the child’s window to the largest factory in town, which had been barred to us before. The goon guarding the door was most uncooperative, but he ran inside screaming and kindly left the door open for us when Royce threatened to feed him to his dragon. There was plenty of treasure to find and few guards, just the way I like it. We claimed a Mega Med x3, Rum, Medicine x6, Bandana, Old Book Vol. 7 “Intro to Trading” by J. Collins, and a Mega Med x3 before running into the bandit from the front door again, who was trying to steal some treasure for himself in the commotion. We started to kill him, but Daisy took pity on the single bandit and convinced him to surrender to us before he got himself killed. And that’s how Bandit Bill joined our team, not one to be held back by the absence of a face. He explained that “Bandit Bill’s boss is Bandit Bob” and that their group had kidnapped young Sam for ransom money, but the kid kept getting away from them.

With Bandit Bill in tow, we fought some bandits and collected more treasure:a Thunder God Hat (+1 MAG, +1 Lightning)(Sciath) and a Sticky Fingers accessory (used by bandits/thieves only, increases all talents by +1 grade). In the final room, we found about a dozen bandits and Bandit Leader Bob trying to capture little Sam again. One massacre later, we took Sam and the rest of the bandit treasure as our prize (Meg Medicine x3, Trickster Rune, Phoenix Plans #2, Bandit Tunic (+1 Steal skill)).

Katherine and Luther were more than happy to assist the war effort when we returned Sam to them and explained who we were, so the two of them are now recruited. Recipe #30 “Picnic Lunch” and the Play Script “William Tell” were discovered. Finally, we tracked down Xander the detective and paid 2000 potch to hire his services and recruit him to the team, in spite of his irritation that we had solved Sam’s case before he did. We will now be paying him 1000 potch per week (session) to get five extra investigations on top of what Harold gets to do, which will make gathering information on our stars that much easier.

Before ending the session, we spotted a deserted building with the name Renaldo’s Architecture posted and made a note to come back. And Harold begged a lady named Amelia to design our castle bathhouse, which we will hilariously pursue next Wednesday. You better get ready!

Session 5 Recap: Spotting the Silverberg

We leapt into the promised final wave of Harmonian soldiers with the roaring challenge of Royce’s dragon in our ears, but it took less than a round to bring us down. The two Harmonian generals wiped us all out at once with one mighty Unite Attack, and when we came to hours later, one by one, the battle was long over. Kuarjav awoke first to find a warrior standing over him, who expressed surprise at finding anyone left alive. The warrior identified himself as Damien, a member of the Liberation Army. Harold was greeted by Pearl, the Liberation Army leader herself (his efforts to flirt with her failed most spectacularly). Daisy met Jonah the cowboy, and Royce the nervous Dexter.

Disappointed at their loss in battle but glad to have found organized allies at last, Daisy urged that they storm Sorrowyn prison together to free his father and her friends. Unfortunately, the Liberation Army had other ideas. They pointed out that the battle, which had been heavily skewed in Camaro’s favor, had taken a tragic turn when Priest Sasari himself had turned his True Earth Rune on the brave knights. Sasari was still nearby, Camaro’s main force was whipped or buried under mountains of dirt and rock, and the most the rebels hoped to do that day was loot as many weapons from the dead as they could before Harmonia moved in to clean up the mess. Reluctantly, Daisy agreed that it was still not the right time to save her father, and the party went back to Bellhurst with the LA once the looting was finished. Before we left, we were shocked and saddened to find that Grant was missing from the battlefield. He had been the first to fall to the Harmonian generals, and Harold told us that the crime that landed Grant in prison years ago was a killing spree that left at least twenty people dead. Had Grant run off, or been recognized and hauled away by Harmonia? With no hint of where he’d gone and no way to track him among the thousands of dead, we were forced to leave with our questions unanswered.

As it turns out, Bellhurst was in fact the secret headquarters of the Liberation Army as we’d previously heard (it seems that our Harmonian disguises on our first time through town had been too effective for our own good, and the LA had taken us for actual soldiers). We had a meeting with Pearl and many other members of the resistance to decide what to do next. Should we seek out a new stronghold, scrounge up more funds, or seek out a good strategist for the movement? Dexter pushed for the latter, arguing quite pitiably that the LA should find a better strategist than he to lead them, and we all agreed that recruiting a strong strategist should be our top priority. As a result, Dexter joined our party and we set off on dragonback to begin our search in the Crystal Valley, where Harmonia’s top intellectuals were trained at the academy.

There was much to entertain and distract us even before we entered the Crystal Valley. Outside the city gates we found a drunken old man who had not even the money to sleep in a bed. Daisy and her compatriots took pity and took him to a nearby inn, where we paid 50 potch to give him a warm meal and a warm bed. Ramza thanked us for our kindness, and when we returned to check up on him later he explained some of his history. In cryptic terms he spoke of leaving his native Toran to travel through Dunan in his younger days, perhaps doing some trading. We got the impression that he might have made some shady deals in Dunan that caused him regrets, but he would not elaborate. So we left 50 more potch to buy him another night and took our leave to continue the mission.

Of course, we had a few more tasks to accomplish in town before advancing the plot. Every weapon we could afford to take to the local smith was improved upon, and a kindly old lady provided us with the Prime Rib recipe when she gave us dinner. At a nearby Narcissist’s house, we acquired the Play Script “Imperial Love”, and we perused the armor and item shops but found them to be far out of our price range.

Finally, the party strolled up to the academy itself, hopeful but without any real plan of attack. A gentleman loitered outside the doors of the academy, muttering to himself. Daisy’s helpful directions towards the main doors were met with more good humor than one might expect, and the gentleman eventually identified himself as Caesar Silverberg. The Silverberg name is known throughout the world as the most skilled family of strategists who ever lived, and anyone who ever heard of Caesar would know that he was the primary tactician in the Grasslands’ war against Harmonia several years before. Rumor has it that Caesar was only allowed to return home after Harmonia lost the war to him because of the impeccable reputation of his brother Albert, or perhaps because Harmonia’s situation was becoming so desperate that they would accept skilled help from any quarter, even from a traitor.

When we ran into him outside, Caesar was debating whether or not to meet Albert in the academy as per his brother’s request. Dexter drooled over Caesar in admiration as we talked, and the Silverberg eventually agreed to join us for dinner that evening and abandoned his plans to see his brother, who he didn’t seem to care for. The rest of us wandered through the academy for a short while but didn’t see anything interesting, save for when we spotted Albert Silverberg himself (who does have a face) chatting with the academy’s headmaster.

Dinner with Caesar Silverberg moved very quickly. It didn’t take long for the famous strategist to catch on that we weren’t exactly sympathetic to Harmonia, and when he insinuated that we would know more of the Liberation Army than he we did not deny it. In spite of his flirting with Daisy, Caesar did not agree to join us right away. Instead, he set us a test of courage and resourcefulness. There was a book (Old Book #6) that he desired, and it was locked away in the basement of the academy where it was sure to be guarded and swarming with monsters (for some reason). Now, if we can acquire that book and bring it back to him, he will agree to join our cause. If all goes well next week, we will have recruited a Silverberg to our side… albeit not one that inspires the greatest confidence in those of us who have played Suikoden III.