526 xenoblade - discovering bionis' right elbow

Dear Readers,

We warped to Valak Mountain and started hiking in search of the Three Sage Summit.

Using a map we hiked through a pass which led all the way to the Bionis' Right Elbow but nowhere else. It felt like a place we shouldn't be yet. There were Setor Eks here which looked just like other Eks but they were well above LV90. The Monta Moramora flying around looked intimidating too. There were also Latio Apis, little bugs flying around that seemed like they might be part of a random quest later. Big ol' ether deposit here too but I didn't bother harvesting anything.

On the way there we met a Setor Eks randomly galloping through the pass. It wasn't malicious but I did feel the need to step out of the way!

Three Sage Summit was near here but definitely not part of this path. I'll have to try a different route next time.

525 xenoblade - zain and kurralth may be in trouble

Dear Readers,

I noticed Miriall now had a quest and it was urgent. She said Zain and his friend went to Valak Mountain and haven't come back. We agreed to help.

We had to find Zain and Kurralth near Three Sage Summit on Valak Mountain.

I looked it up and it was in a place we hadn't explored yet on the upper level. I don't think Mumkhar is in the way either as he's on the lower level. We'll have a look next time.

524 xenoblade - vidian is happy her friend isn't racist anymore

Dear Readers,

After talking to Lesunia, I set the clock back to daytime and went back to Vidian. Whew.

She was delighted to hear Lesunia was back to her old self. She then told us she remembered back then, admitting she was embarrassed her headwings were so small, since she was half High-Entia. Lesunia said back then she didn't care about that at all and that she was envious of her shorter wings, saying they must be easier to maintain. She was really happy now they could be friends again! Hooray! This updated in the affinity chart too.

I decided to catch up with Lesunia even though the quest was now done. She said she did some research and that once upon a time there were High Entia that discriminated against other races. She said it she honestly thought it would be romantic to fall in love with a Homs and that it would help settle the differences between races.

523 xenoblade - lesunia remembers when she wasn't racist

Dear Readers,

Thankfully, we already had Befalgar Pedestal mapped out and were able to warp there.

We set the clock to 5AM and nearby was the Morning Dew Ice in the form of a glowy red item with an exclamation mark. Easy pickings now!

We warped back to Vidian and she was delighted we got it. She made something called "Affection Seal Half" and asked us to give it to Lesunia for her.

We set the clock to nighttime and warped to Lesunia. She recalled when she and Vidian were young. She wanted to get Morning Dew Ice so badly that she and Lesunia got separated from their class on a trip to Valak Mountain. There was a really bad blizzard and they survived until morning talking to each other, trying not to fall asleep. When morning came, there was the Morning Dew Ice. She remembered how she survived that night thanks to Vidian. She then reflected on how she was treating Vidian now, calling her all kinds of bad things. She resolved to apologise to Vidian.

Quest not over yet. We had to go talk to Vidian again. This involved setting the clock to daytime and warping... well there's no warp between here and there but I have to go all the way to Vidian again. It's really tiresome but it's nice this development is happening. I'm gonna end the post here. I could do it all in one but this rigmarole is wasting enough time. 

I'm glad Lesunia is going to be less racist from now on.

522 xenoblade - vidian is still having problems with her racist friend

Dear Readers,

I looked online to see if I could do any more quests. I found one for Vidian in Alcamoth. We warped there to chat with her.

She heard about us helping Lesunia out with her racism problem and asked us for more help with her. They used to be friends until they had a falling out over something Vidian broke that belonged to Lesunia. She was still cold with Vidian and Vidian wanted the old Lesunia back. We agreed to collect Morning Dew Ice from Befalgar Pedestal on Valak Mountain at dawn.

Off we go!

521 xenoblade - no, still not strong enough for mumkhar

Dear Readers,

After defeating a couple of enemies that gave me trouble before, I thought, why not the next major story enemy?

Unfortunately, he was still too strong for us. I tried running around a bit but things got confusing and I didn't know who was who sometimes.

We did manage to knock him down on the ground at one stage at least, so that's something. We'll get there.

520 xenoblade - defeating the lightspeed sonid finally!

Dear Readers,

Now that we were a good bit stronger, about LV51 on average, I wanted to try and fight the Lightspeed Sonid again to see if we could defeat it.

Even with the extra levels, it was still a tough fight. I didn't have any visions, but I did die once and Reyn died twice. It was all in the same fight though and I was lucky to have bars in the party gauge.

We threw our usual attacks at it and tried not to die otherwise. We got one chain attack in and I got Sharla to heal me as my HP was 1. It wasn't too easy at all but at the same time we beat it and finished the quest. Hooray!

519 xenoblade - saving the lighthouse from flying thingies

Dear Readers,

It was already nighttime and the flying creatures appeared at the balconies of the lighthouse. We took all three of them on, one by one. Only one could fit at a balcony. I call them thingies because I already forget what they're called. They're not exactly memorable and they're the same type of creature as the ones that attacked us at the Ether Plant.

The first one I played as Melia. We defeated it handily. I switched back to Shulk and beat the other two just as handily.

When all that was done, Shalen wanted to thank Melia, so I had to switch back to her again.

When I spoke to Shalen, she got weird. She wanted me to thank Jarack for fixing the lighthouse and put me down for not doing it. She called me reticent and this weird argument happened. After this, Melia's reticent branch thingy was unlocked and Shalen's affinity updated in the chart. It said she had heart racing for Jarack, which is nice and kind of explains some of the awkwardness at least.

Jarack went back to the Ether Plant and we warped there to speak to him. He didn't have any more quests but said he sometimes puts love letters in the turbines for fun and liked the idea of them being found and read by ladies. That was kind of amusing.

518 xenoblade - melia helps at the lighthouse

Dear Readers,

We warped to the lighthouse to see if Jarack needed anything for repairs. It wasn't going well for him and Shalen was in despair. She wanted a High Entia who knew how important this lighthouse was. We couldn't get a quest from her, so we spoke to her as Melia.

She asked Melia if she knew how important the lighthouse was. She said of course she did and that it served to suppress monster activity at Eryth Sea which would prevent them from attacking Alcamoth. Shalen praised her and said nervously that the lighthouse would take time to be repaired and would be attacked in the meantime.

We agreed to protect the lighthouse while it was being repaired and to defeat 3 Decay Ekidnos during the night.

517 xenoblade - revenge of the hodes at the ether plant

Dear Readers,

We went back to Jarack at the Ether Plant and he said he could hear the Hode Leader's death cries all the way from here, which was pretty good! It saved me from having to tell him everything that happened.

After we finished up his quest, another popped up. The Hodes wanted revenge! We had to defeat 2 Confusion Ekidnos. Jarack legged it lol.

They lined up side by side and came to the Ether Plant. They were very easy to defeat though, which was nice.

When we beat them, we had to find Jarack. He escaped to underneath the plant on the ground below. Seemed like a good hiding place while we were fighting above.

He thanked us and set off to repair the lighthouse.

516 xenoblade - beating up the funeral gozra at last

Dear Readers,

I tried another go at the Funeral Gozra in Eryth Sea to see if we could beat it now.

We did it! I just fought normally and didn't do anything particularly special and we just beat it handily and without any trouble at all. That's great. It was so much trouble before. I feel a bit more confident about going up against Mumkhar now. 

515 xenoblade - completing the collectopaedia for makna forest

Dear Readers,

I checked the collectopaedia for the first time in a while. I noticed I had the last thing for Makna Forest collected, the Enigma Lotus. I confirmed it and finished the page for this area. Hooray!

That's that done. Next!

514 xenoblade - geography lesson with dunban and me

Dear Readers,

I didn't notice this before but the next available heart-to-heart was between Shulk and Dunban on the Bionis' Leg at the Believer's Paradise. I didn't realise it before because it doesn't work unless the characters in question are in your party when you check it out. Anyway, we got there and did the scene.

I said to Dunban we'd never see a sight like this from Colony 9. This was the absolute wrong time to do this because it was misty and pouring rain hahaha!

Anyway, the scene continued. He agreed with me. I said I'd never get tired of looking out at this landscape and wondered when these rock formations dated from. He didn't sound too interested and I said it to him.

From this point I had to choose stuff to say for Dunban. I had him say of course he was interested. I told him he seemed to switch off whenever I talked about geeky stuff or anything about the latest fad. I asked him if he knew what the latest "superfood" was that everyone was talking about.

I'm pretty surprised this game has the word "superfood" in it as a topic of chat!

I had Dunban say that he knew. He brought up Chewy Radishes and said they were the latest healthy ingredient. He said he saw a queue of people lining up to buy them and that it was as long as the Bionis' Leg, which made me laugh!

I was surprised he knew the answer as I barely knew myself. He told me not everything could be learned from books or from researching in the lab. I said I'd keep it in mind.

I was expecting this to be about Dunban giving Shulk a pop quiz, but from the looks of things it's the other way round! 

513 xenoblade - flowers of eryth sea with sharla and riki

Dear Readers,

The next available heart-to-heart was at Eryth Sea and it was between Sharla and Riki at Hovering Reef 2.

Riki said the flowers here smelled like passion and made him feel passionate. Sharla asked him if he was feeling okay. He said he loved flowers.

This time, I was picking what to say for Sharla. I said I liked flowers too for the best results. The other option was about Riki getting old, which wasn't a nice option! What the heck!

Riki talked about eating flowers but also about bringing them home for his wifeypon. Sharla said he was a good husband and he was modest, saying he wasn't that good.

Sharla commented on the shade of blue these big flowers had and said they would suit Melia. She suggested he give her one of these blue flowers!

I had her say she'd be so happy. She thought Melia was sensible but she was too uptight and needed to loosen up. Riki agreed with her. Sharla offered to help Riki pick out flowers for Melia and he happily agreed.

What a nice thing! I had a look at the alternate dialogue and it's funny too. He's dead right to protest the ageism remark!

512 xenoblade - fallen brethren with melia and me

Dear Readers,

The next available heart-to-heart was between Melia and me and it took place in Makna Forest, at the Agni Tablet landmark.

I asked Melia if something was bothering her. She said she wasn't feeling herself. I had to choose what Shulk had to say and "hey look at this!" was pretty funny but not the best option. I chose to ask her what was wrong instead.

She talked about losing her companions to the Telethia before she met us. She missed them deeply.

I said they sounded like great people. The other option was about her getting on their nerves, which would be a horrible thing to say. Yeesh.

She said they took care of her all her life in the villa and asked if I would help her give them a proper sending off. I said of course, we'd do it together, she and me.

We bowed our heads as in prayer. Her own words came up as a thought bubble and they were nice. She promised them she would live her own life to the fullest and asked them to look over her as she journeyed on.

That had to be very hard for her. I feel glad I can be her companion at a time like this.

511 xenoblade - a broken watch with sharla and me

Dear Readers,

The next available heart-to-heart was in the Ether Mine, again between Sharla and me. This was in the Mining Base landmark and it was called "A Broken Watch".

Sharla was looking for something and she found it, her pocket watch. As Shulk I had to pick what to say. I said it's a beautiful watch. Sharla said it was her father's who gave it to her before he died. We reckoned Otharon must've picked it up during the evacuation. Unfortunately it wasn't working right now.

I said I could fix it. She was super grateful and said it would mean so much to her. I said it was no problem as I was handy and everyone at Colony 9 kept bringing me things to fix!

I love watches myself! I can see how a particular one can be special to someone.

510 xenoblade - reconsidering the past two heart-to-hearts

Dear Readers,

I changed my mind on those last two heart-to-hearts and decided to redo them again.

I looked up another guide for the heart-to-hearts and it turns out I was doing the best possible paths all along. That's good to hear.

Even though I miss out on that extra bit of interesting dialogue about Juju picking the right girl for himself, what I picked was the best possible outcome.

OK! Gonna go with what I picked first time.

509 xenoblade - what visions may bring with sharla and me

Dear Readers,

Next heart-to-heart I was able to do was "What Visions May Bring" with Sharla and me as Shulk. This was the one next to Raguel Bridge - North landmark.

Sharla asked me what it was like to see the future. I said I found it hard to explain but I described it as being made to watch a dream. I asked her what she thought of my ability.

I then had to choose what to say for Sharla. I looked up what the right answers were. I had her say I wish I had it. Sharla said if only she could see what was going to happen to Colony 6 then maybe she could do something about it, maybe even save Gadolt. She admitted it couldn't be helped though but she was grateful that Juju was able to be helped with the power.

I had Sharla say that I could save someone's life. She said she felt stronger because of me. I was thankful for her kind words but I felt like I could be better with my powers. I wasn't able to save Fiora and sometimes my visions were hazy. She said not to be so hard on myself as I saved everyone loads of times with my abilities! I was thankful.

I looked up the dialogue and it looks like there's other dialogue if I chose other options with more opportunities for hearts, even if there was an initial loss of hearts. That extra dialogue seems nice too, like the stuff about what kind of girl Juju would pick for a relationship.

Oh well. I won't worry about that for now.

508 xenoblade - heart to heart points don't show up on the map unless you're in that area. wtf

Dear Readers,

I just learned the hard way that heart-to-heart points don't show up on the map unless you're in the area itself.

Why is this? What a nuisance.

It might seem like a small thing but it's yet another annoying thing about this game. I don't need more reasons not to play it.

Anyway, that's the way it is. I don't know why but I have to be aware of this when looking for these points now.

507 xenoblade - overlooking the colony with reyn and sharla

Dear Readers,

I decided to do some heart-to-hearts. I was able to do the one titled "Overlooking the Colony with Reyn and Sharla.

It's the one on Agora Shore I wasn't able to do for ages but now I'm able to.

Sharla looked at Colony 9 and talked about how live was in Colony 6 before the attack. I was now choosing what to say as Reyn. I asked her if she wanted to go back there. She said she thought about it but she felt she had to fight for now.

I told her not to be so hard on herself. This led to some banter and with her telling Reyn she appreciated the way he made her laugh and smile. She teased him a bit as well when he said they were friends.

I looked it up and these were the right choices to make. Glad to have this heart to heart.

506 xenoblade - upgrading colony 6's special to lv3

Dear Readers,

Now we had enough to upgrade Colony 6's Special to LV3, so we talked to Juju.

Upgrading it built a little park there. It seems small but it's nice. It's also said it'll help with filling the Collectopaedia. That'll be nice for sure.

Everything was now at LV 3, so as a bonus, street lights have been built! Very nice!

I checked out the street lights and they were indeed nice and made the town look more like a town. The park helped loads as well with its nice water feature. A guy was training there at night now and during the day, girls are there talking about gifting things to people. Looking forward to seeing what items pop up here.

The sentimental music is sounding stronger now with more instrumentation as the place develops more and more. Chatted with one person who has a new shop and they're positive business will pick up. It's all new and hopeful sounding. Lovely.

505 xenoblade - upgrading colony 6's nature to lv3

Dear Readers,

We warped back to Juju and gave him the stuff to upgrade Colony 6's Nature to LV3.

With this, flowers were planted all along the main street. It also said the mine's ether crystals went up in rank, which is interesting.

One of the old people loved seeing the flowers, saying it made them feel young again. So that's a nice thing for people.

504 xenoblade - hunting bono nebulae for squall elements at eryth sea

Dear Readers,

All that we needed now was the Squall Element, which is obtained from Bono Nebulae at Eryth Sea.

Been a small while since we were in this area. Enemies are quite weak to us now! Maybe we should take on the strong enemies we couldn't fight before. All in due course.

The green Bono Nebulae are all over the place except during thunderstorms when they turn a different colour and become extremely strong. When that happens we just have to change the clock and hope for a time when it's not thundering.

We had the same old problem of the creature blowing up on us when it got too weak, not dropping anything. We spent a lot of time trying to get our chain attack gauge to stay topped up so that we could be ready. This meant we had to fight many other enemies for ages and some of them were too weak to even let us build up anything.

Eventually I switched out Shulk for Riki. I used Riki's Yoink! move again and again until I finally got the Squall Element with it! Great little Nopon he is!

503 xenoblade - hunting reef nebulae for snow elements

Dear Readers,

We were on the hunt for those blue nebulae in the mountains. Up until now, we didn't go near them, but now I needed the Snow Elements for an upgrade in Colony 6. Reef Nebula they're called.

These things are all over the place. I find that a good place to hunt for them is the little area southwest of Befalgar Pedestal. They appear there a lot and there's nothing else in the way to annoy you. It's level ground as well. The more powerful version of them are here too but I'm not gonna bother with them for now.

Just like every other nebulae in the game, they explode when they get weak and don't leave any treasure, which is very annoying. I've come to expect such a thing now, so when I see them emitting some red lines when their health is low, we carry out a chain attack with break and topple in order to delay its move long enough to defeat it and get the drop.

Getting the drop takes luck as well and we had to fight so many of them. Eventually we got the snow elements we wanted and then got the heck off the mountain.

502 xenoblade - how i almost got killed in the mountain looking for ice cabbages

Dear Readers,

One of the items I wanted for the Colony 6 reconstruction was the ice cabbage. I got some before but now I just need one more for an upgrade. I took out my reference and got to hiking.

I hiked everywhere I could see spots where they might be. I hiked along Kana Peak trying to get lucky, but I kept picking up every other thing like wet rats or whatever else in the miscellany of items that have a much higher rate of appearing. I also started falling off the mountain for the first time! I tried again and I kept falling off! How did I manage to stay up there the first time when exploring?

At one point Reyn fell off and when he respawned his respawn pushed me off the mountain! It actually made me scream when this happened.

I even tried going on that awful ice slide again. No luck at all.

Eventually I got the ice cabbage by revisiting the Lava Cave over and over until I finally got it in that inner chamber where we got the Magma Rock.

I also unwittingly discovered the Hidden Gamigin during one search where we went south from Ignia Hill along that narrow path going upwards. That didn't end well at all. I'm just glad we got the ice cabbage at last.

501 xenoblade - researching valak mountain items for colony 6 reconstruction

Dear Readers,

We had a chat with Juju about reconstruction again. I looked up to see what I could upgrade and it seems I could upgrade Nature to LV 3 and Special to LV 3. I just needed to pick up an Ice Cabbage and obtain 2 Snow Elements from Reef Nebulae and 1 Squall Element from Bono Nebulae. I had some of the other stuff needed already.

Research done, now to obtain the stuff!

500 xenoblade - giving nopo'rikh the wrong perfume on purpose

Dear Readers,

There are two routes to the Ma'crish/Nopo'rikh situation. I chose the one where she continues to dote on him because I think it's cute. I don't know if she's enslaving him but I do think she's really fond of him.

I spoke to her and she said to get the Pure Perfume from an island at Makna Falls which would have the opposite effect of what he wanted. It was very easy to find and very near the warp point. We got it in no time at all.

We gave the pure perfume to Nopo'rikh and then headed back to Ma'crish. She was grateful we gave him the wrong perfume, saying she could now cuddle and snuggle with him forever and ever.

Nopo'rikh didn't seem to mind too much. He said she didn't mind if he didn't do his chores and doted on him anyway. That's nice at least! I think he'll come to appreciate her affection for him and I'm glad he's not a slave.

For this we got the Colony 6 Celeb achievement for getting a 3-star Affinity for the Colony 6 area. Hooray!

499 xenoblade - nopo'rikh doesn't wanna be a pet

Dear Readers,

We found Nopo'rikh fairly quickly. He was in the Armu Field in Colony 6, so it wasn't far from where Ma'crish gave us the mission at all. Finding him increased Colony 6's stats and Ma'crish was very happy he was here.

We caught up with him again and he was unhappy with her company, feeling like he's a servant. Aw that's a pity. She likes him so much. We agreed to get some smelly perfume for him.

We also got the "Drawing a Crowd" achievement for increasing the population of the place to 50 people. Hooray!

498 xenoblade - ma'crish is looking for nopo'rikh

Dear Readers,

We warped to Colony 6. Ma'crish was here and she had a quest. She was looking for a Nopon named Nopo'rikh and she was worried about him.

We agreed to help her find him.

Been a while since we were in Colony 6. The music has changed a bit! It's getting more developed here!

Anyway, she says he likes to hide in the grass so let's have a look for him.