Suikoden V left off with me returning back to the main city after the Sacred Games, where I upgraded my weapons, met the new rune vendor, and then got sent off yet again, this time on a trek to go through some more ceremonial bits for my sister’s engagement.

The first stop was the East Palace, for the ritual of the Dawn Rune, even though the rune has been missing for two years. Here we ran into a creepy woman in black who disappeared into thin air, though we’ll undoubtedly be seeing her again, of course.

Then it was off to the north for a bit to the town of Lunas, for the purification ritual, which apparently consists of some kind of bath where only the women are allowed… Here I also learned some more about the politics behind the current queen’s ascension to the throne, and caught a couple of strangers trying to steal gold dust from the river.

After the ritual we were then headed far to the south to Raftfleet, where the thieves originated from. I did some grinding for a while before entering it since I felt a bit low on cash. It didn’t do much for my xp, though; the experience curve drops off so quickly that there hasn’t been much point in grinding for levels so far since you earn very little xp per fight before too long.

I saved for the night once inside Raftfleet, though not before running into a beaver-girl (each installment seems to have at least one morphic type, like III’s duck-people and IV’s cat-people), though her short, squat, and yellow appearance made her look more like a Pikachu, really…