RGR009 - Wouldn't You Like to Be a Pepper Too?

With the Magic Key in hand, we returned to Isis to check out all those doors we couldn't get into before. There were a couple of nice treasure rooms full of status-boosting seeds and acorns, and the queen was kind enough to let us search in her general vicinity for the Wizard's Ring, which I believe is a multi-use MP regeneration item. After lurking around during both night and day, we headed back to Assaram to do pretty much the same thing.

You and your brother are weird.

This'll come in handy when Godzilla attacks!

Ahem.

Uh, yabble dabble?

You could have just handed it to me.

Hey, I've got just the key for that!

Back in Assaram, we met the leader of the dancing girls, who told us about the path to the east through the mountains (of which the entrance and exit are both visible from just outside the town), along with a man who suggested we first visit Portoga to see the king. The mountain path is apparently guarded by a dwarf named Norud who isn't letting people through, and he's an old friend of the king of Portoga. Outside of the bounds of a video game, it'd be a longshot, but I'd say that's exactly where we need to go.

Which one's Vegeta?

This Norud's sounding like a jerk.

???

Who says I call it a ship?

So we warped to Romaly and began our trek northwest to the shrine that leads to Portoga. On the other side, we immediately began to encounter new and powerful enemies, but we fought hard and eventually reached the town in one piece. In Portoga, people seemed to be enamored with pepper. We were told the king loves the stuff, and a number of people said they wished they could try it. We had a feeling that was going to mean the king would be asking us for a pepper-related favor before he'd help, and that feeling was spot on.

With the path to the east both dangerous and currently closed, there was no way to get pepper from the east, where it's plentiful, to Portoga, where it's obviously not. Therefore, our quest was to make the journey eastward, find some pepper, and bring it back. If we could do this, the king would give us a ship! He even gave us a Royal Scroll to show to Norud so he'd let us through.

Couldn't we have just swum? Or jumped?

Wouldn't it be Lumpi?

Phew, finally made it.

I don't know, do you?

I prefer Mrs. Dash myself.

I bet he'll give us a quest.

You watch too many soap operas.

Nifty!

Barbarians and PEPPER.

Lame.

Maybe they like it there.

A ship for some pepper? Deal!

I'd really like to have a boat, so we're going to take him up on this quest.