PART IV: AFTER THE DEFEAT OF THE BLACK MAGE

Chapter 7: Hotel Arcus

(A/N: Without the Seal Stone, we’re technically not the Adversary anymore. However, for the sake of consistency, I’ll continue referring to us as the Adversary, especially since we’re on track to regain our power in future storylines. Hotel Arcus was originally level 270 content, but the NEW AGE update changed it to be level 265 content instead.)

A few months after the events of Cernium, Neinheart reached out to the Adversary and told them that the Alliance had unearthed some new information about the Ancient Gods. He explained that a strange intruder had infiltrated Ereve a few nights ago. As the Chief Knights had chased after them, Neinheart had found a set of rabbit-like footprints leading in the opposite direction.

He had then run into Cosim, the intruder, who had told Neinheart that some of the answers that the Alliance sought about the Ancient Gods could be found amidst the deserts of Grandis, after which he disappeared.

(A/N: We’re first introduced to Cosim during the Detective Rave’s Case Notes theme dungeon, in which he appears wearing a cosmic helmet filled with starry shapes and help us save Savage Terminal from Senya Angler. At the end of the story, Cosim decides to visit the ‘oldsters’ up top, a reference to the realm of the sages, as he’s disturbed by the return of the Angler Company and the Apostles of Gerand Darmoor making their move.)

As the Chief Knights returned, Cosim had overlooked them on a cliff, watching them speak with Neinheart. Cosim had then taken off his helmet, revealing his masked face, and spoke aloud that the Alliance should hurry, as their quarry was the slowest of all, but faster than the hare.

(A/N: Cosim’s name outside GMS is Lepus, which is the Latin word for ‘hare’. I have absolutely no idea why they changed this, as it’s meant to tie into his rabbit aesthetic, such as his bunny-ear headband and his rabbit-like footprints. In KMS, Cosim instead says that their quarry is the slowest of all, but faster than him.

Their quarry is Archelon, an Ancient God in the shape of an enormous turtle. Cosim’s line about their quarry being faster than the hare is very obviously a reference to the short story, “The Tortoise and the Hare”. Archelon’s name is derived from the genus of the extinct marine turtle ‘Archelon’, which is the largest turtle species to have ever been recorded in history.)

A few days later, Neinheart led Belle and the Adversary to a decrepit train station somewhere in the deserts of Grandis, explaining what had happened with Cosim along the way. Neinheart told the Adversary that he had no notion of what exactly they were intended to discover, adding that he highly doubted that such a decrepit desert train station was even still in operation.

Just then, the Adversary noticed a sign that pointed to Hotel Arcus. After considering it, Neinheart decided that they should investigate the hotel, as they had a responsibility to investigate any lead, no matter how unpromising.

(A/N: Wild Hunters get some exclusive dialogue here, in which they ask Belle why her jaguar, Black Jack, didn’t come with her. Belle explains that Black Jack had told her that jaguars are vulnerable in the sand. However, she then notices that our jaguar seems to be fine. The implication here is that Black Jack probably lied to Belle to get out of having to go to the sweltering desert.)

They soon arrived at the hotel, where they found a robot who introduced himself as Captain Archelon. As he poured them a drink, Irena revealed that she had already arrived at the hotel and told them that they were late.

(A/N: Just like how the Glory Guard in Cernium was composed of the two pirate instructors, Hawkeye and Checky, our mission to Hotel Arcus has the two bowmen instructors, Irena and Belle, to serve as our Glory Guard companions.

Wind Archers get some exclusive dialogue here, in which they express their surprise to see Irena. Irena greets us and notes that it’s our first time being dispatched on a mission together. The Ignition revamp for Cygnus Knight storyline retroactively creates a minor continuity error with this line, as Wind Archers travel with Irena to the Gate to the Future in their 4th job advancement, which would make this trip to Hotel Arcus their second mission together.

Lara also gets some exclusive dialogue here, in which Archelon recognizes Lara’s bell and notes that he’s seen it before, long ago. Lara is surprised and asks him whether he remembers when he last saw the bell. Archelon hits an error while attempting to access his memory circuits, to which Lara laughs and tells him that her grandfather would forget things all the time too.)

Archelon then offered to make them fried eggs and activated a Cookbot, which loudly proclaimed that it was engaging its egg preparation protocol and launched a fried egg on Belle’s face. Just then, a boy named Rusty appeared after hearing the noise and introduced himself as the hotel manager and mechanic, asking what had brought them all the way out to the desert. Neinheart explained that they were investigating traces of an Ancient God, but Rusty told him that he hadn’t heard about anything like that before.

Realizing that Cosim’s tip was likely a dead end, Neinheart decided to find the nearest Alliance base to get a transport back. However, Rusty warned that a sandstorm was coming and recommended that they stay indoors. Deciding that it would be best for them to rest, Neinheart booked four rooms for himself and the others.

The next day, the Adversary and the others found a note from Neinheart, which explained that he was heading back to the Outpost, as their fastest airship only had room for one, and that he was entrusting them with finding information on the Ancient Gods. Furious at Neinheart’s treachery, Belle punched a wall and created a massive crack. Hearing the noise and fearing that the marauders had returned, Rusty rushed over and yelled at the Glory Guard for trashing his hotel, demanding that they pay for the damage.

Belle tried explained that they didn’t have the funds to pay him, as their nations were teetering on the edge of bankruptcy after the war against the Black Mage, and asked if he could let it slide, promising that she would leave immediately to have Neinheart repay him. Irena reminded her that they needed to investigate the Ancient Gods, but Belle snapped and asked what Ancient God would want to live in such a wasteland.

Rusty agreed and told them that if an Ancient God were out in the desert, then he would have known about it, as he had spent his whole life in the hotel. In order to repay him, Rusty made the Glory Guard peel potatoes. Belle fumed that she was stuck doing chores while on a mission, but the Adversary reminded her that Rusty had threatened to tell everyone that the Alliance would rather run away than pay their debts.

Furious, Belle decided that she was going to head back to the Alliance, but in the lobby, she ran into Senya Angler wearing a cowboy outfit and followed by three Senyabots.

(A/N: If the player has completed Detective Rave’s Case Notes, the Adversary will immediately recognize Senya, who greets us and notes that it’s been a while before asking whether we’ve missed her. Otherwise, both the player and Irena will say that they recognize Senya from the Alliance reports.)

Though Irena and the Adversary immediately recognized Senya, a clueless Belle asked who she was. After being reminded by Irena about the Alliance reports, Belle recognized both Senya and the Angler Company. Senya laughed that she hadn’t realized that the Company’s reputation had made it all the way across the forgotten sea to Maple World.

Rusty then arrived after hearing the commotion and Senya introduced herself to him, explaining that she had come to buy the hotel. However, Belle called her bluff and told Rusty that Senya was from the Angler Company, which was still rumored to be active, despite having been wiped out in a massive explosion several years ago. From the Alliance reports, Belle read that Senya had recently been sighted in Savage Terminal, where she had been believed to be conducting acquisitions on the Company’s behalf, with T-Boy being one of her known associates.

Belle also read that Senya was currently regarded as missing and flagged report-on-sight, causing her to note that the Alliance considered her to be important. The Adversary then pointed out that Senya likely had some ulterior motive behind buying a run-down hotel in the middle of the desert and suspected that her plan had something to do with the Ancient Gods.

(A/N: Kain gets some exclusive dialogue here, in which he notes to himself that he’ll need to keep searching for the Ancient Gods if he ever hopes to control the unstable power inside of him.)

Both Irena and Belle agreed that they needed to stop Senya from buying the hotel. They then spoke to Rusty and explained who Senya was, adding that he shouldn’t sell her the hotel. However, Rusty told them that he would be crazy not to take her offer, as she was offering quite a lot of money, whereas they couldn’t even pay for the damage that they had done to the hotel.

Irena asked Rusty why he hadn’t immediately taken the deal, to which he explained that he wasn’t sure why she would be offering so much money for a run-down hotel. Because of that, he was planning to sleep on the offer for a few days, and so Irena suggested to the others that they look for clues on the Ancient Gods in the meantime.

Rusty then explained that he had an old treasure map which might be useful to them, though he couldn’t remember where he had gotten it. He told them that the map also had something written on it, which Archelon helpfully supplied was, “It is the slowest of all, but the first to arrive.”

(A/N: The treasure map shows the outline of a giant turtle that encompasses the Arcus desert, which is a reference to Archelon’s true body buried beneath the sands.)

However, Rusty told them that he had lost the treasure map long ago, likely to the outlaws who frequently raided the hotel pantry when they ran out of food. As the trio headed into the desert, they discovered that a robot named Toogi was following them. Just then, the leader of the Ironshots appeared and warned that they were on Ironshot turf. Toogi then voiced that they were hotel guests, causing the Ironshot leader to back off, as the Ironshots weren’t permitted to touch hotel guests.

Belle asked him whether the Ironshots had ever stolen a treasure map, which he confirmed. He offered to give the map in exchange for them fighting off the Sandblade Marauders so that the Ironshots could expand into their territory. After fighting off the Marauders, the Adversary returned to the Ironshot boss, who told them that the Puxillians had seized much of the Ironshots’ territory, where the map had been left behind. As they moved to go find it, the boss realized that there must be a great treasure where the map led to and began to get aggressive.

The Ironshot gangsters then started to attack them, causing the Glory Guard to retreat. However, they soon realized that they had left Toogi behind. Belle wanted to go back for him, but Irena told her that it would be dangerous and claimed that broken machines could be replaced. Belle argued that no two robots were the same and rushed back in to save Toogi.

Belle was able to save Toogi and bring it back, but she found that Toogi had been damaged. Irena asked Belle why she had risked her life to save a robot, to which Belle replied that Toogi had only been in danger because of them. They then brought Toogi to Rusty and asked if he could repair the robot. Rusty told them that his robots were more complex than a typical machine, and that they were just as difficult to repair. Belle explained that she was an expert with machines, which she worked with every day for the Resistance.

However, Rusty told her that he had been building robots for his entire life, and that there was no way that she could fix something that was difficult for even him. Belle was annoyed at his words and attempted to argue, though Irena quickly shut her down. Rusty then told her that they would be able to find the part that they needed at the old drive-in theater in Puxillian territory.

The Adversary was surprised that there was a theater in the middle of the desert, to which Archelon explained that Rusty used to go to the theater all the time until Kelly, the other mechanic who had worked on the trains, had left the city. Irena suggested that Belle rest and recover from her injuries while she and the Adversary went. They then asked Rusty where Senya was, to which he explained that she had gone for a walk.

Suspecting that Senya was searching for something, Belle noted that they had an edge over her, as they knew where the treasure map was. She then asked the Adversary to look for the part that she needed to fix Toogi while they were searching for the map at the drive-in theater, vowing that she would fix Toogi on her honor as a member of the Resistance. (A/N: Resistance classes and Xenon get some exclusive dialogue here, in which they promise that they’ll help her fix Toogi too.)

As they headed into Puxillian territory, Irena told the Adversary that she felt bad that someone as young as Rusty was managing a hotel that no one ever came to.

(A/N: When we arrive at the theater, Irena asks us if we’ve ever been somewhere like this before. We can either say “once or twice”, to which she’ll say that she never pegged us for the social type, adding that it’s a first for her, or we can say “never”, to which she’ll say that she hasn’t been somewhere like this either.

The drive-in theater is actually playing an M-Force movie based on the events of the Omega Sector theme dungeon. In the Omega Sector storyline, Hoony is the Blue M-Forcer and a professional actor, and at the end of the storyline, he decides that he’s going to make a film based on their latest adventure. The Hotel Arcus storyline confirms that he did end up making that movie.

I thought that it was a bit strange that Maple World movies are playing in Grandis, especially since we later see that the same movie has been playing ever since Rusty was a little kid. I guess that it makes sense when you consider that the Interdimensional Portal has been around for quite a few years now, meaning that it’s entirely possible that Grandis might’ve adopted some of Maple World’s culture, just like how Maple World seems to have adopted Grandis’ hologram technology.

The Omega Sector storyline also revealed that Joey, the Green M-Forcer, markets the M-Forcers and even sells merchandise of them in order to fund the Omega Sector headquarters. Since we’ve seen in the theme dungeon that the aliens of Omega Sector buy their merchandise, it’s entirely possible that Joey also capitalized on the appearance of the Interdimensional Portal to expand his business to Grandis, which would explain why the M-Forcers are famous enough on Grandis that their movies are playing in a drive-in theater in the middle of nowhere.)

At the drive-in theater, they found that the Puxillians were actually primitive lizard creatures. With no way to communicate with them, the Adversary decided to fight off the Puxillians while Irena looked for the map. Their search took them deeper into Puxillian territory, where they found that the creatures had fashioned apparel from broken-down cars.

The Adversary realized that if the Puxillians could do something like that, then they were likely intelligent enough to communicate. They then sheepishly asked a Puxillian about the map, but the Puxillian pointedly ignored them for having attacked them. The Adversary then began fighting the Puxillians again when the Senyabots suddenly appeared to fight the monsters as well. The Senyabots explained to the confused pair that they were programmed to protect Senya’s friends from danger.

Using the robots’ arrival as an opportunity, Irena decided to search the Puxillians’ dens for the treasure map. The pair then found the map inside one of the abandoned cars that the Puxillians were using for their dens and opened it up. Irena found it strange that the map depicted an island when their surroundings were merely vast desert. They discovered that the treasure was located north in some area that was drawn on the map as a snake-like twisting shape.

Irena decided that they needed to speak with Rusty and headed back alone, even as the Adversary reminded her about the part that Belle had asked them to find. Just then, Senya arrived and greeted the Adversary, explaining that she had come to the Puxillian territory because she had heard that there were lots of broken machines in the area.

Senya told the Adversary that machines weren’t like people, as machines lost their value and were thrown away when they broke down. As people didn’t cherish their memories of all that the machines had done for them while they had still worked, Senya felt that she ought to pay her respects in their place.

(A/N: Senya’s words here give quite a lot of insight into how depressing her life actually is. As a cyborg, Senya is part machine and part organic, but despite looking and acting human, she doesn’t consider herself to be a real person. Her perception of herself as a machine stems from how her father views her as a tool first and a daughter as a formality.

The fact that she’s well-aware that she’s not loved by her father probably furthers the way that she dehumanizes herself. Echoing her father’s mentality that machines are discarded when they don’t work, she probably spends a lot of her time in fear that she’ll be his next victim and forces herself into perfectionism.

Although her paying respects to machines that break down is probably just a reflection of the empathy that she’s forced to suppress, part of me also can’t help wondering whether she’s saying this after having seen her father destroy one of her siblings if they happened to have failed a mission, in which case she might also indirectly be paying respect to those siblings. Something like this actually happens not too far in the future, which does end up shaking Senya considerably.)

Senya then offered to help the Adversary find the part for Toogi, and the Adversary began fighting the Puxillians again until she told them that she had already found it. Before she handed it over, however, she asked why they were trying to fix a robot. (A/N: You can either say that you think machines are important too, or that you feel guilty just leaving it in that state.) Senya then told them that she had figured out why Rusty hadn’t sold the hotel.

The Adversary suggested that it was because he didn’t know what she planned to do with it, to which Senya merely laughed and told them that her reasons were for her to know. The Adversary then decided to head back, but Senya told them that she would stay for a while, as it had been a long time since she had watched a movie.

The Adversary asked Senya what she was going to do with the hotel if she took ownership of it, to which Senya replied that she would use it to make the world a more beautiful place. She explained that it wasn’t so much about the hotel in its current state as it was what she could do with it, though she added that she wouldn’t elaborate until after she bought it.

The Adversary then returned to the hotel, where Archelon poured them a drink after noting that they seemed bored and alone. The Adversary asked him what kind of robot he was, to which Archelon merely replied that he was the captain. He then asked them how he could improve his services, as well as instructions on how to manufacture ‘love’ so that he could ‘brew with love’.

The Adversary attempted to explain that it wasn’t possible to manufacture love and elaborated that being able to give up something that was core to one’s identity was love. They then asked Archelon why Rusty hadn’t sold the hotel yet. Archelon told them that Rusty complained about wanting to leave the hotel five times a day, though he never followed through.

Just then, Rusty himself appeared and told the Adversary that Irena and Belle were in the garage. He then asked the Adversary if the people of the Alliance were Seekers, explaining that the guests who used to stay at the hotel long ago had called themselves Seekers - adventurers on the hunt for ancient artifacts.

(A/N: Pathfinder gets some exclusive dialogue here, which appears to have been changed over patches. The KMS video that I found has her note to herself that Hotel Arcus must be the place where adventurers like herself, who were fascinated by ancient relics, had once stayed. However, the GMS dialogue has her say two different lines back-to-back. In the first one, she wonders whether the artifact that the Seekers were looking for is the same thing that the treasure map leads to. In the second one, she wonders whether they were searching for artifacts like her relic.)

The Adversary then changed the subject and asked if he was planning to sell the hotel to Senya. Rusty replied by asking if they would want to run a hotel with no guests, though the Adversary noted that he didn’t seem like he meant it.

As the Adversary headed to the garage, Rusty told them to tell Belle that no one but he could fix Toogi. At the garage, Belle expressed her relief that they had finally returned. Irena apologized to Belle that she hadn’t been much help, to which Belle replied that it was concerning that she couldn’t even tell a crosshead screwdriver from a flathead. Irena retorted that though that might be common knowledge in a group obsessed with machines like the Resistance, it wasn’t something that the Cygnus Knights concerned themselves with.

(A/N: Cygnus Knights get some exclusive dialogue here, in which Irena asks us to agree with her. We respond by telling her not to bring us into it.)

The Adversary then gave the part to Belle, who was unable to determine how to even begin installing it. She explained that she had never seen a robot like Toogi before, explaining that its internal structure was incomprehensible. She added that she had checked the structure of the other robots as well, all of which were similarly complex. Because of this, she suspected that the robots were all artifacts of an Ancient God, though she added that it was merely a hypothesis.

(A/N: Mechanics get some exclusive dialogue here, in which Belle asks them whether they have any thoughts, as she figures that they’d know more about machines than her. They reply by saying that though they’re pretty competent with machines, Toogi’s design is different than anything that they’ve ever worked on.)

As she attempted to remove the damaged parts, she accidentally triggered a recording of young Rusty fixing Toogi long ago. (A/N: “Help me Archelon Kenobi, you’re my only hope.”) Though Toogi had no special features, Rusty had decided to make it a tour guide for hotel guests. The robot, mixing the words ‘tour’ and ‘guide’ had given itself the name Toogi.

Another recording then started, with a Rusty closer to his present age telling Toogi that he doubted that Kelly would stay for much longer, and that there would be no one left to look after the robots on the train once she left. Archelon had then told Rusty that it had been one month since the larger Rusty had disappeared and asked when he would return. Rusty had told Archelon that there was no coming back from where his father had gone. The Adversary realized that Rusty’s father had passed away, and that the remaining residents had abandoned the town.

Irena then realized that they had stumbled onto an important clue by learning about the train. She realized that the snake-shaped object in the treasure map was actually a set of train tracks. Rusty then arrived and was impressed to see that Belle had actually managed to fix Toogi, although he was less impressed when Toogi fell apart again.

He then told them that he finally understood what Kelly had said before she left – that there was a time for everything, including the robots, the hotel, and even herself. Though he could try to fix it and keep it going, everything eventually ended. Refusing to waste the rest of her life keeping the old robots working, Kelly had decided to leave. Rusty told them that he and Kelly had been romantically involved, but they had parted ways in the end. However, Archelon pointed out that Kelly would frequently mention that she and Rusty were just friends. (A/N: Can we get an F in the chat for my boy.)

Rusty shushed Archelon and told them that it seemed as though it was finally Toogi’s time. After everyone returned indoors, Senya arrived and decided to take a look at Toogi herself. Meanwhile, the Adversary asked Rusty if he knew about the train station, as it was likely where the treasure was. As they weren’t merely kids playing make-believe, Rusty decided to believe that their treasure hunt wasn’t just a fantasy and chose to tag along with them.

At the train station, Belle was irritated to know that the train never stopped and wondered how they would board it. To their surprise, they found Senya hanging onto the side of the train. She extended her hand for them to grab and helped them climb to the top of the train, where they asked Senya why she was helping them. Senya replied that she just wanted to be part of the team, though no one except Rusty believed her.

They then realized that they needed to get to the locomotive, just as the Conductorbots and Houndbots detected unauthorized passengers. Rusty explained that he had assumed that the robots on the train would have broken down without Kelly to maintain them, but they had merely gotten out of control. Suddenly, the Ironshot gang appeared and claimed that they had come for the treasure, while the Puxillians appeared and spoke unintelligibly, though Irena surmised that they had come for revenge.

The Senyabots then appeared and began attacking the Ironshots and Puxillians, and Senya told them to keep going while she handled the enemies. However, Belle begrudgingly remained with Senya, claiming that it wasn’t in her nature to leave an ally behind. While Belle and Senya handled the enemies up top, the Adversary, Irena, and Rusty arrived at the locomotive to search for the treasure.

Rusty told them that according to the movies that he had seen, hidden treasure was always in a secret compartment, and so he figured that it would be the result of pulling one of the three levers in front of them. After the Adversary pulled one of the levers, a secret compartment opened, just as Belle and Senya arrived. Inside the compartment, the Adversary pulled out a bomb, which immediately activated.

(A/N: The shape of the bomb looks somewhat similar to Lara’s bell, although there are still a few notable differences between them. It’s possible that their similar design could just be a coincidence, but the fact that Archelon recognizes Lara’s bell, and the fact that an important part of Archelon is contained inside the bomb makes me wonder whether there’s some relationship between the two after all.)

Meanwhile, the Ironshot boss and the Sandblade Marauders’ Overlord, who had also arrived, decided to team up and split the treasure, just as the haywire train robots chased after them. Suddenly, Archelon appeared out of nowhere and explained that he had arrived to retrieve Rusty. As he struggled to activate his combat mode, the Ironshot boss attacked Archelon and broke him. With the bomb about to detonate at any moment, Rusty grabbed it from the Adversary’s hand and threw it at the gangs. The Adversary grabbed Archelon and they all jumped off the train before returning to the hotel.

Senya began to work on fixing Archelon, though Rusty feared that it was his time, just like Toogi. To his surprise, Senya appeared and presented a perfectly repaired Archelon and Toogi, with both their quirks fixed as well, explaining that she had used the advanced technology of the Angler Company to fix them.

Grateful to Senya, Rusty decided to sell the hotel to her and told Archelon that Senya would be his new owner. The Glory Guard then watched the ownership transfer, dejected that they hadn’t able to stop the sale in the end. Belle was particularly upset, as there was no way that they could have done anything without making themselves look like the villains. Rusty apologized to them, though he told them that he had no reason to stay anymore.

An upset Rusty then took one last look at the hotel before he decided to head out to the drive-in theater. There, he found a Houndbot who had come all the way from the train. The Houndbot then dropped the bomb fragment into his hands, inside which he found a rusty screw. He asked the Houndbot if it wanted to play gunslinger like he used to in the old days, but he then told it that he wasn’t the captain anymore.

His words then took him back to a memory of his younger self watching the M-Force movie with Archelon, where he had struggled to define what ‘captain’ meant after Archelon had asked him. Just then, a stranger had appeared and had told Archelon that a captain was ‘a defender of justice who protected people’. The stranger had then introduced themselves as an old friend of Archelon.

They had told Rusty that Archelon used to be impressive in the old days and had explained that they had returned because they had believed that it was time, though they had realized that they would need to wait a little longer. They had then presented the treasure map to Rusty and had explained that there was nothing more precious in the world to Archelon, whom they had called their ‘screw-loose friend’. With that, the stranger had disappeared.

(A/N: Please note: the following text contains major spoilers for the Dimensional Visitor storyline. If you don’t want spoiler, skip to the end of the author note.

The Dimensional Visitor storyline reveals that Archelon’s friend is an Ancient God named Gob, a small toad-like being who’s proficient in technology. It’s revealed that Gob created a pocket dimension at the start of the Ancient War, allowing him to hide from the Adversaries who had been created to defeat the gods. We also learn that Gob left his pocket dimension for the first time after the war in order to return Archelon’s screw to him, and that he was attacked by Darmoor shortly after, with Darmoor stealing most of his power and forcing him to hide away again.)

As Rusty recalled the term that the stranger had used to describe Archelon, ‘screw-loose’, the Ironshot boss came to take the treasure from Rusty when an augmented Toogi arrived and transformed into a Senyabot before quickly defeating both the Ironshot boss and the Houndbot. Shocked at what Senya had done to Toogi, Rusty feared that she had done the same to Archelon.

He began to rush over to the hotel, where Belle was demanding answers from Senya, asking why she had spent so much money buying the hotel when there were no clues about the Ancient Gods that any of them had uncovered. Senya told them that she didn’t know any more than they did, though that was about to change. She revealed that she had made some adjustments to Archelon after taking ownership of him, explaining that he was in charge of the most vital part of the hotel.

She then ordered Archelon to deactivate all the robots in the hotel and activate the hotel defense system. When Archelon failed to do the latter, she asked him to bring up the surveillance system, which he also failed to do. Irena realized that Senya hadn’t fixed the robots so much as made them subservient to her.

(A/N: Xenon gets some exclusive dialogue here, in which he asks Senya how she could do such a thing. He then tells her that he doesn’t care if she better at machines than anyone else, as she has no right to twist them for her own purposes.)

Just then, Toogi returned back, shocking the Glory Guard with its new appearance. Senya then ordered Toogi to attack them, but Toogi hesitated and explained that they were its friends. Senya realized that an outdated robot would always remain so at heart, no matter how refurbished it was. She then summoned her loyal Senyabots and ordered them to attack the Glory Guard.

As they fought the Senyabots off, Senya ordered the robots to self-destruct. She then thanked the Glory Guard for giving her the opportunity that she needed and ordered Archelon to initiate aggression mitigation protocol. As Archelon complied with the order, the ground began to shake violently. Senya revealed that the hotel used to be a fortress long ago, and that an ancient weapon was stored underground, with its key being Archelon himself.

From the ground appeared massive robots, who effortlessly defeated the Glory Guard. Rusty rushed to the scene and found the Glory Guard collapsed on the ground. The Adversary explained that Senya had used Archelon to summon the ancient weapons, whose armor had repelled all of the Glory Guard’s attacks. (A/N: These giant robots are technically relics of an Ancient God, which means that they fall under the principle that only a god can challenge another god. Since we don’t have the Seal Stone anymore, we’re basically just a regular person, and so our attacks are just as ineffective.)

Meanwhile, Archelon was attempting to resist Senya’s commands and override the ancient weapons, but he found that he couldn’t do so. When he refused to obey Senya’s orders to cease his attempts, she decided that she would simply destroy him and rebuild him again. She then had one of the ancient robots destroy Archelon, much to Rusty’s horror.

Rusty sobbed over a broken Archelon, claiming that he never should have sold him to a stranger. He then showed the rusty screw to Archelon and promised to fix him, just as Senya gave Archelon his final command to self-destruct. Archelon warned Rusty to get away, but Rusty refused, claiming that a defender of justice never abandoned their captain.

At his words, Archelon was able to regain control over himself and used the missing screw to instantly repair himself. He then declared that he had been asleep for long enough, and that it was time to wake up, warning Rusty and the others to be wary for falling debris. Archelon then held on to Rusty as an immense, fortress-like tortoise emerged from beneath the hotel. Archelon then ordered the ancient weapons to return to the ground. Senya was impressed to learn that the entire town had been built on top of a slumbering Ancient God, and that the old screw was the key to awakening him.

(A/N: The giant tortoise is Archelon’s physical body, which had been dormant ever since the Ancient Gods were defeated. The scene in which he pops out from the ground was an animated short that showed that he was massive enough to have lifted the entire hotel and all its surrounding buildings on its back. After that animated short, the hotel and everything else is back on the ground, and so I’m assuming that he went back underground offscreen.)

Rusty then told Senya that he wanted to use the card that she had given him, which was capable of buying anything, in order to buy back his hotel. (A/N: What kind of broken credit card is that?) Senya readily agreed, explaining that she had no use for a defense system that she couldn’t control. However, she was confused about how the robots could have defied her, as there was no one more skilled at manipulating machines than her.

Rusty laughed and asked why a robot that had never once listened to him after a lifetime together would ever listen to her. He told her that that was the meaning of family, where no one did what they were told, even as they all went through everything together. After a pause, Senya told him that his experience with family and hers had been very different. With that, she took her leave before the Glory Guard could stop her.

Back in the hotel, Archelon calculated an exorbitant cost for their final fees. Belle asked if there was a special discount for friends, but Archelon promptly replied that friendship had no monetary value. (A/N: Get wrecked.) However, he decided to take into account that the Adversary had helped him learn about love, allowing him to learn how to ‘brew with love’.

He explained that the human heart was something that he had long been curious about, which was why he had originally decided to live alongside humans. He explained that his robotic body had been constructed long ago by an old friend in order to ensure that he wouldn’t forget, as well as to ensure his awakening after his physical form fell into a deep sleep. The Glory Guard realized that Archelon had the consciousness of the same Ancient God upon whom the city had been built.

(A/N: Kain gets some exclusive dialogue here, in which he notes to himself that while he had originally assumed that all Ancient Gods were filled with terrible, malevolent power, it seems that there are other kinds of Ancient Gods as well.)

Archelon then told Rusty that the hotel’s primary clientele, the Seekers, had returned. Belle asked Archelon what the Seekers were searching for, to which he replied that they were searching for ancient artifacts all over the world. As the Glory Guard discreetly slipped away, Rusty watched in amazement as dozens of new guests poured into the hotel. The Seekers marveled at how the hotel was still standing and how it looked just like how their families’ stories had described.

Some time later, Archelon gave the Adversary a Sacred Symbol and told them that he would give more in exchange for defeating the dangerous monsters around the desert in order to keep it safe for the Seekers, as well as to pay off their exorbitant fees.

(A/N: Following the NEW AGE update, Hotel Arcus was given two small side quests meant to expand the worldbuilding of the area and tease a few future encounters with characters like Kelly or Archelon’s old friend, Gob.)

Rusty’s Request:
The Adversary met with Rusty, who was surprised to see them and asked whether they wanted to check back into the hotel. However, he explained that they currently didn’t have any empty rooms. The Adversary noted that the number of guests had increased suddenly, to which Rusty laughed and replied that it was all thanks to them. He explained that he and Archelon had been running all over the place to accommodate the new guests, though he admitted that Archelon’s sand-mixed drinks were still there.

The Adversary asked Rusty how Archelon was doing, as his original body had awakened. Rusty explained that though that was what they were saying, he believed that the large turtle still needed more time to move, which was why it had retreated back underground. He added that though he didn’t know whether it was an Ancient God or not, Archelon was still family to him.

He then told the Adversary that the most important thing for them was to restore the hotel to its former glory. The Adversary asked whether managing the hotel was going okay, to which Rusty admitted that it was the first time that he was dealing with so many guests, and so he was bound to make mistakes. He then added that he wished that he had his father or Kelly by his side. The Adversary recalled that Rusty’s father had passed away, and that Kelly, the other mechanic, had already left. Nevertheless, Rusty declared that as the hotel manager, he would restore the hotel back to how it used to be. He then asked the Adversary whether they would do him a favor as a friend.

He explained that after the train incident, the desert outlaws had grown quite aggressive, and with them expanding closer towards the hotel, he was worried about what they would do, especially to the hotel guests. However, since he was only a mechanic, and since Archelon’s defense system had gone offline after his original body had returned underground, he asked the Adversary to deal with the outlaws, adding that they could consider it to be payment for the wall that Belle had damaged.

After the Adversary fought off the desert outlaws, they returned back to Rusty, who thanked them for their help. He explained that the outlaws would calm down in time, as they weren’t really bad people. The Adversary then recalled that the outlaws had once mentioned that they didn’t touch hotel guests. Rusty admitted that he wasn’t too familiar with the story either, as it was something that he had heard from his father and grandfather.

He explained that the outlaws were descendants of desert workers, and that Arcus had once been as prosperous as any large city, as it was an intermediary point between different regions. The hotel had once been a crowded place, filled not only with guests like the Seekers, but also workers who greeted customers and mechanics who managed the robots in the desert.

However, when the High Flora had begun their war against the other races, communication between the different regions had naturally fizzled out, and people had naturally stopped visiting the hotel, as there was no reason to go there when there was nothing but desert. As a result, the workers had lost their jobs and had been forced to become outlaws in order to survive.

He explained that the reason why the outlaws hadn’t attacked him or the hotel was likely because of his father, who had taken care of the outlaws for most of his life until he had died of illness. Rusty noted that his father had likely felt sorry for them, as they hadn’t been able to get out of the desert, even after becoming outlaws, though he added that the outlaws would also occasionally steal from their food storage.

He then wistfully began wishing that his father could see the hotel so crowded, to which the Adversary replied that his father was definitely watching. Rusty thanked them for their words, and for helping around the hotel. He then asked one more favor of them, explaining that he had no one else to ask, as it would take Archelon until sunset to finish. He told them that the robots in the town needed regular maintenance, as some of them were as old as the town itself, which meant that they were prone to breaking down.

Since he was busy with the hotel, he asked the Adversary to check on the statuses of the various robots around town. The Adversary checked on Nacho the singing robot, as well as Gracho the jukebox robot, both of whom appeared to be functioning normally. They then checked on Sancho the sheriff robot, who appeared to be malfunctioning.

They returned back to Rusty and informed him about what they had learned. Rusty told them that Sancho had seemed fine before, and so he had assumed that he had been completely fixed. He explained that he would have repaired Sancho if he could, but Kelly was the one who managed most of the robots, and that Sancho’s inner circuitry was quite complex, meaning that she was the only one who could fix it.

He noted that it wouldn’t do for the sheriff robot to be malfunctioning when guests like the Seekers were coming to stay. Believing that Kelly would have kept a repair log, he asked the Adversary to find it in the garage while he gathered the necessary parts for repair. In the garage, the Adversary found the repair log, but found that a letter addressed to Rusty had slipped out from the pages.

They brought the letter to Rusty, who began reading it silently. After finishing, he told the Adversary that Kelly must have expected him to keep her old things instead of throwing them away. He explained that he had still been a bit resentful of Kelly for leaving Arcus, though he realized now that she had likely been lying in order to protect him. When the Adversary asked if he was telling the truth, Rusty offered to let them read the letter, noting that they were the one who had found it.

The Adversary began reading the letter from Kelly, who had written to Rusty that if he was reading it, then it must mean that Sancho had broken down again. She noted that he must have also kept her notebook instead of throwing it away. She explained that by the time that he read her letter, she would already be with “them”.

She told Rusty that she, just like everyone else, had decided that she wouldn’t die in Arcus. She then asked him whether he remembered when she had told him that there was a time for everything, adding that the time had come for her, too. She began lamenting what had happened to Arcus and explained that the reason why his father had died of illness was because of the war that the High Flora had started.

She noted that many cities and people were dying, and that if they didn’t do anything, their future wouldn’t be any different. Because of that, she had decided to fight against the High Flora and help make a difference. She asked Rusty to understand her reasons for not telling him the truth, and that if he one day came to understand her, she asked that he and Archelon come to see her, adding that she would be waiting.

(A/N: As we later find out in the Tallahart storyline, Kelly ended up joining the Primacy, a Grandis-based militia formed to defeat Darmoor.)

After the Adversary finished reading, Rusty told them that even though Kelly had asked him to visit her, he doubted that he would ever be able to leave Arcus, as it was his home, and also because Kelly should have a place to come back to one day. He added that he was worried about Kelly, as she was fighting in a war with only the skills of a mechanic. He then noted that since the Adversary was traveling all throughout Grandis in order to find traces of the Ancient Gods, he asked them whether they could tell Kelly to come back to Arcus if they ever happened to run into her.

The Adversary agreed, after which Rusty gratefully agreed to give them a room at half price, though the Adversary wondered to themselves that people normally offered free service in exchange. However, Rusty then told them that now wasn’t the time, as he needed to track down Sancho, who always wandered the desert when he broke down. Though he had no empty rooms to offer, Rusty invited them to have a good rest.

How to Brew the Special Drink:
Archelon called over the Adversary, explaining that he needed their help. He explained that new guests were arriving at the hotel, but his special beverage was still receiving low ratings, with guest complaints constantly increasing. In order to maintain the hotel’s stability, he declared that a new special recipe was needed. In order to change the minds of the guests, he told the Adversary that he needed a recipe for friendship. The Adversary reminded Archelon that he was the one who had said that friendship had no monetary value, which Archelon agreed with, explaining that metaphysical feelings couldn’t possibly be logically valued.

However, he added that in order to eliminate complaints, it was necessary to have friendly relations with the new guests, as a friendly relationship acted to efficiently prevent dissatisfaction. The Adversary silently noted to themselves that there was something wrong with Archelon’s direction of improvement. Archelon told the Adversary that since they knew the recipe for love, it could be inferred that they knew the recipe for friendship as well.

(A/N: Here, you get presented with two choices on how to explain friendship to Archelon. The first option is to point out his relationship with Rusty as an example, while the second option is to ask him if he has any other friends.

If you choose the first option, Archelon will state that Rusty has mentioned that they’re family, which means that his relationship with Rusty isn’t friendship. This basically forces you to choose the second option, which leads into the main part of the quest dialogue.)

The Adversary recalled how Archelon had mentioned having an old friend, which Archelon confirmed, explaining that they were stored as “old friend” in his memory circuit, and that they were the person who had created his current body. The Adversary then suggested that Archelon think about his relationship with them as an example of what friendship was like.

Archelon began accessing his memory circuit, which quickly failed and hit a critical error. As the time required for automatic recovery was increasingly getting longer, he told the Adversary that he required a spare memory circuit for troubleshooting. However, as he needed to be at the front desk in order to receive new guests, he asked the Adversary – whom he noted was standing idle – to obtain one for him.

After finding a spare memory circuit from the desert junk collectors, they gave it to Archelon, who finished installing it into his system. After scanning for the word “friend” in his memory, he recalled that before his original body had fallen asleep, he had been together with his friend for a long time. Soon after, however, he had grown curious about the human heart, as humans – despite being weak creatures – lived lives filled with various purposes. Because of this, he had decided to give up the power of the gods in order to live with humans.

He explained that his old friend had helped him do so by creating a robot body using Archelon’s own divine power. Using what Archelon described as the “hand of a god”, his friend had built his robot body in order to store his consciousness, as well as weapons to protect his original body. (A/N: These are the giant robots that Senya activated earlier in the story.)

The Adversary asked Archelon what he meant by the “hand of a god”, to which Archelon explained that it was his friend’s ability – to create something that didn’t exist before. (A/N: I’m gonna start telling all my engineer friends that they have the hands of a god to give them an ego boost. As a matter of fact, ‘Hand of God’ is actually the nickname for Archelon’s friend, Gob, whom we meet in the Dimensional Visitor storyline.)

Archelon also told the Adversary that he had made a promise to his friend to wake up and see them again one day. However, he noted that his friend’s whereabouts were unknown, and that he didn’t have any means of contacting them. The Adversary asked whether he had any clues in his memory about how to find them, though Archelon explained that most of the information regarding his friend was inaccessible, as there was a protection enabled on his memory circuit that was currently impossible to remove.

Nevertheless, he told the Adversary that he had a feeling that his friend was definitely alive somewhere in the world. However, he noted that he couldn’t leave Rusty behind, as families couldn’t fall apart, and his original body hadn’t fully awakened yet, which meant that he couldn’t yet transfer his consciousness. Because of this, he told the Adversary that they would need to find his friend on his behalf, as they were now friends as well. In exchange, he offered to repay them with a new specialty drink, which he began preparing by mixing together unknown types of liquids.