Octopath Traveler: Session 10

Let's see how much of Chapter 2 I can get done today!  First up, Primrose.  I'm doing them in the same order that I recruited the characters, so it's going to be interesting since I recruited Cyrus just after Tressa and both of their Chapter 2s take place in the same city.

In Stillsnow, Primrose decides to dance on the stage in the tavern to try and loosen the townspeople's tongues, but the only things she gets are compliments and ogling.  However, someone from her past who happens to be there recognizes her.  This someone is a woman who served her family, by the name of Arianna.  As it turns out, Arianna is working at a brothel to make ends meet, and the man Primrose seeks is the guy who runs it.  Getting there to dispose of him is a bit tricky, though.  The only way that people can get there is by carriage, and the guy who drives the carriage is very suspicious of Primrose.  She asks around and finds that he owes the tavern keeper a debt, so she leverages that to get on the carriage.

Once there, she goes through a secret passage via a cave, to end up directly in his room.  From that point, things are fairly straightforward.  They introduce themselves, Primrose states her purpose for being there, and the fight happens.  Rufus, the Left-hand Man has two sidekicks that are kind of annoying, but die in relatively short order.  Rufus, however, took two hits of Brand's Thunder to the face, as well as numerous Cross Strikes boosted to varying levels.  He did charge up for a big attack at one point, but I broke his defense before he could use it.  Being nothing more than a worthless sack of HP, though, he went down with no issue.

Primrose finds out that her next step is in Noblecourt, and after some words with Arianna, she sets off for the next leg of her journey.

One thing I noticed a few sessions ago but didn't mention for whatever reason: in the Journal, the lengths of the banners change depending on the amount of each character's story (or sidequests for a given region) you've completed.  It's one of a variety of things in the game that I'll classify as a "nice touch".

Tressa's Chapter 2 is fairly straightforward: she arrives in Quarrycrest, notes that it's a gold mining town, then through interacting with the locals, finds some stones that look beautiful once polished and decides to start selling them.  Of course, this means you have to use her path action to buy them off of the locals first, though thankfully I'd already scoped the area with Alfyn before doing so and found the haggling boost.

Shortly after discovering that the stones polish up quite well, she meets another travelling merchant by the name of Ali who tells her what they are.  Her first sale of them goes without a hitch, but on the second one, Ali decides to be the rival merchant, and he's totally better than Tressa at being a salesperson.  Tressa does her best Edea Lee impression at one point, letting out a good "Mrgrgr...", which was fun for me, being a player who got the reference.

The entire time this has been going on, we've been seeing cutscenes that show us that the whole place is run by a most unsavory man by the name of Morlock, who insists that he owns the land that they're mining on and that everything they dig up is his.  Not surprisingly, he has learned of Tressa and Ali's activities, and declares them to be illegal.  Ali goes on a huge rant about how horrible Morlock is, which ends with him getting pwnt by Morlock's guard Omar, and dragged off.

Tressa decides to save him, so it's on to Morlock's mansion a short walk through a few random encounters away.  You know, for a guy whose coffers are overflowing, his mansion really needs a lot of work.  It's super dark and dusty on the inside.  Surely he's got the money to pay someone to clean it...  Also, it's got the most confusing floor layout ever.  After a while of exploring and beating up the enemies found therein, I reached the final room where the battle actually takes place.

Owing once again to my over-levelled nature, Omar wasn't that difficult.  He did the standard "every time his guard is broken, he strengthens it by two hits" thing, but that seemed to max out at 8 instead of 10 or 11 like in previous cases.  He did charge up a presumably big attack at one point, but by sheer luck I had his guard one hit away from being broken, so he never got to actually use it.  Omar is also accompanied by a couple of sidekicks who were annoying, but died quickly.

Tressa and Ali have another talk after Morlock and Omar run off, and they decide that round two of their MERCHANT BATTLE will be at the Merchant's Fair in Grandport.  But first, they need to procure stuff to sell in order to compete with one another, so the next stop on Tressa's journey is Victors Hollow.  Every ounce of my being wants that to be "Victor's Hollow", but there's no apostrophe in-game.

As previously mentioned, next up will be Cyrus' Chapter 2, which is also in the town of Quarrycrest.  Not having to journey there means I can just hop straight into it next time I pick up my Switch, so it should go by a bit faster.  Maybe I can get three people's Chapter 2s done next session?  We'll see.  I also kinda want to go exploring and discover the third town in each region.  Maybe I'll do that once I'm done with Chapter 2.