CHAPTER 2: New Friends, New Debts

Town

Duval

Skits

Duval

Dealing with Your Debt

After the train incident, Ludger awakes in a bar. Of all the places to recover! The very odd-looking man in the red suit (the opposite of Santa in every way) has apparently used spyrix technology to save Ludger, Elle, and even Rollo.

Speak to Rideaux near the exit and agree to sign the contract. There is no other way to proceed. Once you do, Nova will look over your account and monitor your cash flow through a device called GHS. This pretty advanced and frankly very intrusive tech allows the bank to track your money and demand payment. Your total bill is 20 million gald and it will serve as the motivator for exploring and defeating monsters.

Try to Go Back Home

Collect the items in the pub and go outside to the Downtown area to scour that as well. Leave through the southwest exit to go to the Marketplace.

The Marketplace is full of shops, and it is a good time to do a little shopping for Ludger and Jude. Get in the habit of stopping by the shops each time you visit an area because they stock new items during the course of the game. Upgrade your gear with whatever gald you have and don’t worry about that pesky debt—you’ll deal with that soon enough.

Head north to the train station and attempt to get a ticket back to Trigleph. Unfortunately the debt you acquired also came with travel restrictions. It will become pretty clear that you need to pay back some of your debt in order to reach new areas. So how is a young able-bodied guy going to make some money? The Job Bulletin of course!

Debt Repayment Interval 2-3

Item Delivery Quests

Skits

Get a Job

Nova breaks the bad news that you are being tracked with the GHS and have to make a payment on your debt to lift your travel restrictions. Go back to the Marketplace. As luck would have it, a man has jobs coming out the wazoo. These are legitimate Spirius Corp. orders that can be acquired at the Job Bulletin in most cities.

Speak to the guy next to the job board to check out what jobs are currently available. Contracts for various jobs range from event quests to monster hunting missions to item retrieval. The event quests are a set of specific tasks, but the other jobs can be random and will often repopulate at the Job Bulletin when you complete other jobs. The color of the job indicates if it is finite (red) or random (white). You can take on five jobs at a time, but some require a certain level of proficiency, presented as a job title. Job titles are awarded as various badges when you reach the goals for that level. To increase your title or badge level, you must complete jobs to earn points. It will become obvious throughout the game that many of the optional random missions will be required to help earn higher titles to eventually take on the red-specific tasks.

This first interval is pretty straightforward, and you might notice all of these jobs occur in the same location. In later chapters, the jobs will be pulled from all accessible areas, even if you haven’t visited them before. Take as many jobs as you can and head south to Alest Highroad to battle some beasts and collect items.

Debt Repayment Interval 2-3

Field

Alest Highroad

Enemies

Alest Ribbit

Alest Plant

Alest Chirpee

Alest Horse

Alest Highroad

Earn Some Gald in Alest Highroad

Not only can you complete various quests in these Fields or Dungeons, but it is also an opportunity to earn experience and gald by defeating monsters. In addition, there are lots of sparkling search spots that contain items or Elemental Ore that can upgrade your artes. The items on the map labeled as ore and blue bags (Gathering Points items) will appear in those spots at random. However, there will always be an item in the location shown by the white Loot Bags.

It’s easy to get caught up battling beasts, but learn to play efficiently and keep an eye on the number of enemies you need to defeat and items to collect in order to complete quests. A message will appear on the right side of the screen to alert you when a job has been completed. Once you have completed enough quests, head back to the Job Bulletin to report the finished jobs and take on new ones to make the most of your combat and exploration efforts. The open Field areas like Alest Highroad are rather large, but during your hunting and exploration quests make sure to look out for small caves and hidden areas to find treasure chests.

The toughest foe to deal with in this area is the Alest Plant. It has the most HP and can inflict magic aliments. While this early foe is not tough to tackle, the important lesson is that you should stock on up Panacea Bottles to heal any type of ailments. Fortunately this plant is weak to slashing attacks, so have Ludger attack relentlessly with his dual blades.

The other tricky monster to overcome is the Alest Horse, which is difficult due to its charging attack. Block its initial strike, or use free run to avoid its attacks, and retaliate with Azure Edge to exploit its weakness to Wind.

Finally Return Home

When you amass 5000 gald, Nova will send you a reminder to pay your debt. There is really no way to avoid making a payment. If you try to avoid Nova, she will continue to bother you until you cough up the gald. Throughout the course of the game, you should always have enough to pay your debt and it’s a waste to hoard it. Instead, make the most of your money and use your gald to buy new items and constantly upgrade your gear.

Nova will remove your initial travel restriction when she takes your first payment. Go back to the ticket machine and chose Trigleph—Central Station to go back home. When you arrive in Trigleph, you might be surprised to find that there is no familiar yellow star on the map. The reason is that the apartments are not on the same map as Trigleph. Also, you need to learn to change the map’s elevation with the right stick to actually see your apartment on the third floor.