Dragon Quest IV -- #40. Same Game, Different Day
0Except now the shoe's on the other foot!
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Well, that was abrupt! Just like that, with a simple fade out and a narration blurb and suddenly an entire family is summarily uprooted and transplanted from Lakanaba to Endor. Wait... I assume the village is under jurisdiction of its nearest King, specifically Shamus of Ballymoral... and then Endor is just its own little kingdom, prosperous as all get out, but basically no land except a couple caves and a blocked off teleportal to the furthest outskirts of Zamoksva? (The casino biz must be even more lucrative than I thought!)
Otherwise, basically nothing has changed. Except the locations of Tessie and Tipper. And a small amount of flavor to their daily ramblings. AND one other thing... but we won't be getting to that just yet...
Unfortunately, Torneko's right corker of a wife still has that nasty habit of sending him straight to bed at the drop of a hat... even immediately after telling him that he needs to go see the king right away. But at least he gets a lunch in the morning!
...but don't you understand?! I'm trying to keep those shifty workers o' mine from slipping their contracts all too soon! I paid a right pittance to get them to follow me around and beat stuff up! I can't be lettin' 'em have the whole day off just 'cause I got sent to bed without having eaten the previous day's meal!
In total fear for my employees' indefinite servitude, we beat a hasty retreat to see what's what with King Norman, hopefully dragging along some new goal to guide us along... since... um... Torneko's done it. He's fulfilled his only established concrete dream of opening a shop somewhere all his own.
(There's a lingering and looming challenge to be met, of course... but that's even more outlandish a target and no real apparent motivation for Torneko to actually want to pursue it... so we're just going to play dumb for now and settle into our new, far more mercantile life.)
As it so happens, the Endor guardsmen are in need of some proper good outfittin', and only the best will do! Too bad we sold off a fair portion of it in the process of opening the shop that got us the eye of the king for such a purpose, eh? Quick! I need a weapons and armor shop!
Wait, we OWN one now! Somehow. Somewhat. Um... how exactly does this work, now? I'm serious, the game is dead set against actually explaining any of it, so... this might be a bit tricky to navigate in simple NPC dialogue trees and suspiciously familiar inventory management menus.
The short of it is... you can leave stuff with Tessie, and she'll sell them during the course of a day. In effect, she's doing Torneko's old job, and YOU get to be the "boss" who just collects the money afterwards. To cut further to the chase, she's apparently got a better sales acumen than her husband, because she'll collect a 50% markup over what Torneko could manage selling it himself.
The only problem is... it's all well and good and a right sound proposal when you get down to it... but it's directly contrary to the part where we use some thuggish love to pillage the countryside, since TIME WILL PASS if we want to settle back into the daily humdrum activities involved in operating an item shop.
Indeed, it's already as I feared... that extra nap before seeing the King cost us a whole extra day of labor out of Laurel and Hardie. Oh, the inhumanity!
Well, I guess I'd better get going and find some stuff to satisfy our opportunity to meet the king's materialist needs!
Returning to the site of our last Great Adventure, the Mysterious Dungeon that is the Cistern Chapel... ... ... um... is everybody okay? They're all acting like nothing's changed since we first set foot in here. My own hired goons seem to have forgotten about our rousing success and fiscal windfall?!
Maybe having them beat the living daylights out of some local critters will fix their attitudes. Or at least make me feel better, having instigated their violence and reaped all the rewards...