Let's Play Lufia 2: Rise of the Sinistrals.
Chapter 12: Married... With Kidnapped Children.
"Um... Selan, you're acting uncharacteristically.... well, something... somehow. Something."
"Well, I'm one step away from dragging you to bed right now."
"Thank the heavens for my mysterious teleporting powers, then."
"Yeah, Selan. Are you breaking out your extra special tears just for me?"
"Oh, shut up, Maxim. Shut up, and kiss me, you fool."
"Yeah, I see what you mean. The thought of being in love with Maxim would make me cry too."
"It would make me squeal, but that's beside the point."
"I don't think it sounds like 'tear' at all, unless I break out my REALLY pretentious pseudo-'British' dialogue. Do you get what I'm trying to say, my young pioneaaaah?"
"Heh. Yeah, I think so."
"I guess the bottom fell out of the Super Special Tears department. You'll have to settle for regular, ol' tears from now on, like all the men in the world."
"Or I could check the black market. Wonder what women's tears go for these days."
"I think Selan felt like that too. She literally tore the clothes off his body the second she saw him. Traumatized the poor girl standing nearby something fierce."
"Maybe I should have tried that too. The whole 'playing hard to get' thing is a pile of crap. Actually, before I return to my store, I'm going to track down Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider and beat them both to death with my frying pan."
"I'd offer you myself, but our hair colors are a little bit too similar. It'd feel too weird, like both of us showing up to a party wearing the same dress."
"I... guh, that's... not a mental image I needed."
"So, these three guys went into a church...."
"Not now, Maxim."
"Man, we're married. Must admit I couldn't see that one coming."
"I woulda married you just for the chance to wear something other than my standard battle costume."
"And so you did."
"Well, crazy as this might sound, I'm also kind of happy to finally have someone on my level. It is actually possible to get fed up with breathless praise all the time, especially from clueless idiots."
"Selan, why did we invite these two to our wedding?"
"We didn't. We also failed to keep it secret from the two of them."
"Oh. I wonder who ratted us out."
*cough*
"Yeah, say that to Maxim."
"Well, he got himself an adventurous woman. That's cheating in so many ways."
"Oh, you have NO idea how adventurous she can be."
"MAXIM!"
"I... did not need to hear that."
"Even though I kind of just stated otherwise. That's... uh, that's just the male pride talking, baby."
"I'm sure it was. Now, please get bent. I've got things to do."
"Like not attending the rest of the wedding? Jessy, waaaait!"
"It's a pretty terrible way, though."
"Oh, listen to Mr. Sensible here. Since when did you start using your brain?"
"Eh, it's so much more making people think I'm stupid. The whole 'underestimating me' thing is just the topping of that delicious cake."
"Next wedding in this town better have monsters approaching from all sides."
"Yeah. We're not doing these things halfway, you know."
"Man, this wedding is shaping up to something special."
"Let's do this naked."
"Good idea!"
"What?! NOOOOO!"
"Juuuust kidding."
"So, did anyone bring the band? I want some Yakety Sax for this one. It's the only missing part to complete this comedy act."
"I'm sure the monsters got lots to spare."
"......"
"Well, except that one. Wowza, look at them go."
"Like... you know. A guy. The human beings with a sausage dangling between their legs."
"I heard that."
"You DO have a sausage dangling between your legs, though."
"And you'll be getting a nibble of that tonight, my dear."
"Hey, don't look at ME. I don't know him. He's just some guy, after all."
"Boingy boingy boingy."
"Not that kind of spring, my dear."
"That... doesn't sound quite as good."
"Nah, I was just kidding. I made you a solid man steak today."
"With yams, cole slaw and pain?"
"What else?"
"Yaaay."
"Summartider hey hey, summartider hey!"
"OK, that's enough. No more golden times for you."
"Ah-yup."
"Sun's up too."
"Ah-yup."
"Pretty warm."
"Ah-yup."
"Man, I'm hankerin' for a spankin' right now."
"Ah-y..wait, what?"
"So you ARE listening."
"You are an evil man."
"And that's why you married me, wasn't it?"
"Ah-yup."
"Man, being lazy isn't what it's cracked up to be."
"....um, did.. did I drop by at a bad time?"
"Naw, I'm just doing my job: trying to make them feel emasculated."
"I'll say. I'm not sure forcing them to lift weights with their erections is the right way to go about it, though."
"Hey, you were the one who told me to have fun with my job."
"I know, I know. Man, I hope this won't ever backfire in the future, when people are regaling their audiences with our tales of depravity."
"....."
"Er... I meant heroism."
"And let me tell you, she's much harder on me about keeping it up than on any of you guys. So uh... chow down on some Viagra, and you'll do fine."
"Let's go sledding."
"I mean... this town hasn't even changed noticeably. Do we live on the equator here?"
*shrug* "Dunno."
"Yeah, well... it's kind of amazing that we've been married for a whole year, and yet you haven't even said it once. Or maybe you did, and I just didn't notice."
"Yeah, but still...."
"Define 'sometimes'."
"Well, I won't demand anything specific, but I'd like to hear it RIGHT NOW!"
"So, did you... did you catch that?"
"Loud and clear, pardner."
"Of course, I saw the whole thing first-hand, so it might be a loooooong time before I can 'keep it up' again, but hey..."
"Yeah, well, it's not like this is something I'd want to do each forthnight, so that's fine. I'll still heckle the soldiers about it, though."
"A noise from the bedroom and we're down here? Whoever it is better not mess up our bed."
"I'm raising the rent if they make a mess on the sheets."
"It's like a theatre version of Willow."
"And here comes Mr. Skullface Oldguy."
"You're not taking this seriously at all, are you?"
"We take most stuff as seriously as it deserves to, my dear Idura."
"Oh, we'll see about that, won't we?"
"Weehehell, it's been a full year since the last time we dungeon-crawled, so show me what you got, sissy boy."
"Well, we just got out of bed, and then somebody kidnapped our child while we were downstairs having our toast and coffee."
"That asshole even messed up my sheets. I literally had to make my bed before I laid down in it."
"Yeah, if only we'd meet any of them. But no, we get Idura."
"In his trademark pink armor."
"Which he probably never washed since last time we met him, because ewwww."
"Yep. That's a... lighthouse?"
"We'll, I'm not sticking around until nightfall to find out of the top floor lights up. Just open the front door and get in already."
"Um... so, there's a mysterious light on top of the lighthouse? I... guess that's encouraging? Kind of?"
"Good grief, what's next? They send a guard to the local kindergarten, and he spends most of the time complaining about all the balls lying around?"
"Well, at least they didn't waste time introducing us to the locked door. Makes me wonder what kind of arbitrary key we'll be needing for this one."
"The cucumber key? I mean... we are sticking it into a hole, aren't we?"
"Ohoho well, let's.. return to that topic a little bit later, when we've put junior to bed."
"Well, doesn't look like I can make like Zorro and open both doors at the same time."
"And Zorro was known for his amazing door-opening abilities?"
"Well, that's what I heard from the ladies' grapevine."
"Oh well, I guess we should just pick and flick."
"Not by the nose of my chinny chin chin."
"Go weeee-.. uh, leeeeef-.. no, wait, RIIIIIIGHT!"
"So... you hankering for some shellfish? Escargot? Or let's take some chances and eat a poisonous animal."
"I'll take that over a well-done ghostfish any day."
"And I'll... take your word for that."
"Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow! Hot, hot, hot, hot, hot!"
"Yeah, not putting that on my finger."
"He went for the completely worthless expansion pack, didn't he?"
"Oh, you poor horsie. That armor does nothing to protect you at all, does it?"
"Oh Christ, one year off the drug and now I'm straight back in again."
"Lever addiction is a frightening prospect, isn't it?"
"Yeah. Drop your concentration for just one second, and your hand will immediately reach for the pole without as much as a second thought."
"Yeah, well, at least the ladder is now in place."
"Good to know my relapse into lever addiction wasn't for nothing."
"Um... OK, weird sign. Are we talking roulette, or Backgammon?"
"Blackgammon, perhaps?"
"Darchon?"
"I... don't have any other games offhand that I can make jokes about anymore."
"Yeah, me neither. Let's just on."
"Lllllight key. I don't even know why I couldn't see that one coming."
"Maybe this is what we need to place on black."
"Hellooo dark corridor."
"Good thing Dekar didn't join us for this one. His HAIR wouldn't fit inside this one."
"I wasn't sure what to expect here, so... yey?"
"This better be worth it, though."
"Big shield? Well, thank God, because I was getting tired of these small shields that couldn't protect crap."
"What does the mystery ring do?"
"Hell if I know."
"I wonder if we'll ever learn."
"Ah, yes, this place again. Well, let's get creative."
"Creative won't open the door, Maxim, and I don't want to spend our second honeymoon inside this place, so let's get moving."
"It's a good thing we aren't in the dungeon where we have to find the heavy key. That would probably suck."
"I wonder if there's a medium key."
"Or a dark key."
"Oh God, my eyes. I'm having an inertia crisis something fierce."
"At least we can see where we've been going. The trail of vomit I'll be leaving behind will help us with that."
"OK, I have no goddamn idea what that's supposed to be."
"It's the evil Smurf. Don't let it bite your tail."
"Well, we can just jump down this hole, or we can take some time to jam that huge pole into it before we jump down ourselves."
"Sheesh, I think I know why Idura's armor is a bright pink. I'm almost expecting to drop into a Cho Aniki arcade hall as soon as we enter the back door here."
"And now we're... fighting cancer?"
"I'm not sure if I can make any jokes about that. It's... a little bit too personal for that. Or something?"
"Well... at least there's no Cho Aniki games down here."
"Not sure what to think about when it comes to the Bee rock, though. If I equip it, will I be able to stab enemies to death with my butt?"
"There are worse ways to go, I guess."
"Well, hooray. We get to use this key twice."
"Good thing it wasn't the heavy key, then."
"So... did they seriously expect me to bar the only stairs in the room? Why would they even... hnng, never mind. Let's just get this one over with."
"But I wasn't going to change his nappies anytime soon MOUHAHAHAHAHA!"
"You monster."
"So speaks the department of redundant redundancy."
"Besides, we RAISED him on Grimm's tales, so if you think you can out-grim that, go ahead and give us your best shot, Doctor Fab."
"I WILL NOT HAVE YOU TAUNT MY PINK ARMOR!"
"Uh... 'now' what?"
"FIGHT HIM!"
"Oh. Well... we were going to do that anyway. Besides, what's the rush? What is he going to do now when we're between him and our son?"
"Um... well, you see..."
"Yeah. I mean... it's not like this guy exhudes menace or something. I seriously doubt he's any stronger than Gades. Otherwise, he wouldn't be Gades's flunkie."
"Oh, shut up. I'm totally going to kill you now."
"Pshyeah, if you thought it was going to be THAT easy, why kidnap our child?"
"Say what you want about Gades; sure, he was a murdering bastard, but he would have come at us directly. Not stoop to such hilariously pathetic plans to kidnap a baby."
"Shut up, shut up, shut up."
"Hey, remember that time you dropped by Dekar's place with some piddly minions? That's gotta be the most amusing miscalculation you've ever done."
"And when we defeated them, you ran away. If I weren't so pissed at you for threatening our baby AND making us climb this stupid tower, I'd give you the option of which one of us to fight. But now I'm not going to. Maxim and I are going to punch the pink right out of you."
"Man, you guys are cruel."
"And you're smirking too? Please don't tell me you're entertaining any ideas that you're going to win this fight."
"I might. You honestly thought I'm going to fight you guys alone?"
"Wait, don't tell me! You brought...."
"...uh, a piddly minion. OK, I was actually expecting one of the Sinistrals here, so now I just feel silly."
"SHUT UP! I CAN TOTALLY DEFEAT YOU NOW!"
"I just... I don't have anything else to say. This is just sad on so many levels."
"Yes, yes. 'Curse you' and all that. Run away, Sir Robin, and don't you come back no more no more no more no more."
"Heh. Well, shall we leave this lighthouse behind too, Jack?"
"I thought you'd never ask."
"Likewise. We haven't seen each other in a year, and yet you return in the nick of time to play interference."
"It's a hobby of mine."
"Well... yeah, but..."
"But? What but? We came, we won, we lived on. What else is there?"
"Um... about that."
After one year of peace and silence, the forces of evil starts stirring again. As Maxim and Selan ponder their situation, it's quite clear that there's more evil to be fought than Gades. Granted, with Gades mentioning the Sinistrals and Idura making his presence known before all this, that was obvious enough; the question remains... what made them wait a whole year?
"Er... how? How would my death have solved anything? There's gotta be more to it than 'Idura wouldn't have a baby to kidnap'."
"Well, that's a part of it."
"That's a load of BS, and you know it. We already know there are more Sinistrals out there, so if Maxim really had been gone, there would have been one less person to fight them. And we've already learned that the Sinistrals are quite destruction-happy, so Maxim being gone would not solve anything."
"That's right. Without me, without Selan, Dekar or Guy, other capable human beings will still be a "problem" for the Sinistrals. I'm grateful that you told me I had to go out and fight, even on very vague grounds, but this... this I ain't buying, lady."
"Idura talked about the bloodline, but... so what? Guy's gonna have his bloodline, eventually. And Dekar... well... OK, maybe he won't get his anywhere, but still..."
"Even Tia would have had enough of that crap at some point, I'm sure. Point is; this might come across as a world full of useless people to you guys, but there'll always be someone out there. Somehow."
"OK, OK, I get it. Jeez."
To be continued....
Onwards to the next chapter....
Back to the beginning....