Retro Gamer Ryan: RGR009 - A Great Big New World

Having chickened out before the fearsome might of just about everything that moves in the cave near Jipang (Derangers... ugh), we sailed northward along the coastline until we reached a small village called Muor. The people claim the village is the most remote in the land, but as it's not far at all from the shore, they must also consider it to be the ONLY village in the land. Everyone kept mistaking me for someone they knew named Papagatero, swearing I looked just like him.

We eventually found someone with some details on this Papagatero fellow, who revealed that he had come from Aliahan, and his name 'round those parts was Ortega. As in, my father, who died fighting a dragon on the lip of a volcano's crater (there, now you don't have to go back to early posts on the game). Looks like he was well-traveled.

Actually, we swam in this heavy armor.

It didn't seem THAT remote...

What

Are

You

Talking

About?

Hey, I knew a guy named Ortega... oh.

Thanks, I'll... treasure it.

Not a good planner, are we?

We then sailed around the northern edge of the adjacent continent until we noticed a strange piece of land in the middle of a forest near the shore. When we disembarked to investigate, we found an old man who was planning to build a town there. There wasn't much he could do, though, without merchants to invite business and expansion, and he knew it. I happen to know there's a merchant sitting around at Luisa's Place in Aliahan, waiting for an opportunity to be useful. I guess I've got a use for her now.

My map showed a number of shrines scattered around the world, so we decided to check some of them out once we were done talking to the old man. Just like in Dragon Warrior II, the shrines house a loose network of Travel Doors, allowing us to warp around the world quickly. However, several of these Travel Doors are locked behind prison doors, so we can't quite get around as easily as we'd like yet.

Finally, when we'd exhausted our list of shrines to visit, we headed south to an island that looked suspiciously like Australia, where we found the town of Lancel. It was a small town, but it was partially surrounded by a circle of mountains, and there was a cave nearby called the Navel of the Earth (roughly where Alice Springs would be) that could only be accessed by going through a shrine in the town. Unfortunately, the shrine was locked with prison doors, so we couldn't go any farther without the Final Key. We did pick up a couple of tips along the way, though; in order to obtain the Final Key, we'll need a special vase called the Vase of Drought. This vase is apparently hidden somewhere in Eginbear Castle in the northwest sea, and we'll need the Invisibility Herb to get to it.