Side Quests

Lily’s Vichyssoise

During the Edited for Content quest, the party visits Sindarin du Vide’s editing room. Point B on the map is a recipe for Lily’s Vichyssoise. If you talk to Sindarin in his shop in the waking world you can present the recipe to him. He’ll tell you a story about Lily and offer to cook you some of the delicious soup if you collect a series of items for him.

Ardus, uninterested in a fetch quest, sends John to the Seaside Bazaar to fetch the items. After the short scene, Lily’s Vichyssoise is added to Sindarin’s menu when purchasing items from him. He explains that the soup takes a while to make so you can only have two servings at any time.

The soup can be used during battle and boosts one character’s Persuasion and Elocution by 300% for 3 turns.

Creator Commentary: A fetch quest is a derisive term for a type of quest design in RPGs that is seen as lazy. Although, the actual problem is that they are usually boring. Pretty much any quest in an RPG, be it a JRPG like Final Fantasy or an MMORPG like World of Warcraft, will feature getting a thing or killing a thing as the ultimate objective. I wanted to lead the player to think the Vichyssoise was the start of a meaningless fetch quest only to have Ardus order John to do it himself. I think this is funnier and more in character since John is supposed to be learning from Ardus anyway.

Trout Fillets

By buying a pound of trout from the blue-hooded merchant in the Seaside Bazaar and using it in the MacGuffins menu, you will get 4 Trout Fillets. These consumable items will remove any negative state from one ally.

Nick’s Knacks

Continuing on from the previous side quest area, Nick has a few more important items he can give us. There are two conspicuous sparkling books in Nick’s store. The book on the bottom is Rift Isle Mysticism which Nick is selling for 2,000 gold. Unlike other books in the bazaar, there is no way to lower the asking price on this one.

Creator Commentary: Anamnesis is a Greek word that means “lack of forgetfulness” or more simply, remembrance. It is usually used to refer to the Christian tradition of Communion which recalls the last supper Christ had with his followers (see Luke 22:19).

If you don’t have enough EP to use the much more costly Reinvention skill, then Empty Mind is a good alternate skill to use if you need to avoid all damage for a single turn in battle (although Reinvention will not work if you are trying to complete Gammin's side quest).

The other book that Nick is selling is a first edition NCU Dictionary. He is charging the ridiculous price of 3,000 gold for the tome, though. The only way to get a hold of the copy is to convince him to part with it.

Nick is best taken out with the liberal application of the Reason skill, a Lily’s Vichyssoise and a strong pathos attack like John’s Sarchasm. If Nick does manage to use Tongue Twister on himself it would be prudent to use Modus Tollens to counteract the buff with its opposite debuff.

After convincing Nick, he will give you the NCU Dictionary for free!

Gammin’s Tautology

If you have completed the Bazaar Encounter quest, then you have in your possession Gammin’s Watch. Gammin’s shop is in the middle of the Seaside Bazaar.  When you return the watch to Gammin you have the opportunity to negotiate for a reward or refusing one. In order to get the most out of the encounter, ask for a reward and then ask for 400 gold. Gammin will capitulate.

If you insist on refusing the reward, you will earn Gammin’s favor - which doesn’t do much actually. If you talk to Gammin at any other time, he will challenge you to endure his deductive skills. If you agree to the challenge, a rhetorical battle will start.

If you manage to defeat Gammin, he will complain that he didn’t get to make his point, but will give some gold for your trouble. The actual way to properly defeat Gammin is to survive his Reductio Ad Absurdum skill, which he will always use on the 5th turn of the battle.

There are two main ways to solve Gammin’s puzzle. The first is to get lucky and have one of your party members counterattack the Reductio Ad Absurdum skill. The other reliable method is to use the Empty Mind skill during the turn where Gammin says, “I’ve got you figured out.”

Note: Unfortunately, the Reinvention skill does not work because Gammin claims his victory before the reviving effect can take place.

After surviving his deductions, the party gets to learn lessons from Gammin. Naturally, Gammin teaches the Reductio Ad Absurdum skill.

Reductio Ad Absurdum will change its element each time it is used. It starts off with a ethos element, then switches to logos, then pathos and finally back to ethosagain in that order. It is more situational than other high damaging elemental skills, but gives relatively early (and cheap with regard to EP) access to the elemental skills with a triple damage modifier.

Creator Commentary: Reductio Ad Absurdum is a type of logical argument that proves or disproves an assertion by showing an absurd or impossible outcome that can be deduced from its premises.

Kreutzfeld Rarities

The northernmost shop in the Seaside Bazaar is Kreutzfeld Rarities. The merchant behind the counter is a man named Sudi. The bookstore naturally has a number of books for sale. If you ask to browse his inventory and then cancel out of the shop menu, Ardus will ask why his prices are so high and suggests Sudi give him a 50% discount. Sudi requires convincing and so a rhetorical battle starts!

Other than the Library of Babel skill, Sudi does not have much in the way of fancy tricks. The standard strategy of buffing John, debuffing Sudi and using powerful pathos skills will work even if the party’s average level is below the recommended 14 to take on Sudi. Of course, it is possible to avoid the battle entirely if you feel like paying full price at his shop.

Once successful, Sudi will cut the price on all of the books in the shop in half. This brings the total gold needed to buy one of everything (since these are the only locations these books can be found) to a more reasonable 3,425.

Here is an overview of the rare books that can be purchased from Sudi.

The Intuition and Economic Forecasting skills are passive bonuses that have a chance to activate at the start of each rhetorical battle. This makes them very good at generating money if you are inclined to constantly run away and then immediately fight enemies again to ‘game’ the system. Ultimately, there are a number of ways to generate income and this is a legitimate if somewhat boring tactic.

Creator Commentary: The minuses to Willpower and Erudition for these books is meant to simulate the boredom of using them regularly. Thus, the learning process is painful but useful knowledge can be gained. The +10 Regret on Advanced Economics should be an obvious side effect of committing to read the tome.

Tempetes Tuxedo

In Ordolessian Trends, the clothing store run by Eventide, there is a black suit on one of the clothing racks that sparkles conspicuously. By examining it, you’ll learn that it is the Tempes Tuxedo and Eventide doesn't want to sell it. If you want to haggle for the tuxedo, you’ll have to fight for it!

Eventide will automatically counter the Incoherent and Malaise conditions so don’t bother inflicting them. She is also immune to Self-Loathing as she taught the skill in the first place. Unlike most enemies, she has a 90% chance to resist the Apathy state as well. She can inflict Apathy at any time. At the end of every 3 turns, she will use a pathos skill if any par member is in the logos state unless she doesn't have enough EP in which case she will refill her EP. If she has enough EP, she will randomly pick between Aggravating Fist (90% of the time) and Onus Probandi (10% of the time). Onus Probandi is almost guaranteed to drop a single character to 0 WP, a fact that she apologizes for if it happens.

Usual buffing and debuffing strategies apply. Be wary of countering Apathy will either Revision or Trout Fillets.

After successfully convincing her to part with the Tempetes Tuxedo, you now have access to one the best suit in the game!

If Cynthia is in the party and the Research Level for Eventide is at least 2 (it will be 10 if you win the battle, but the game continues even if you lose so you might not have all 10 levels researched on Eventide), she will learn the Sensitivity skill from observing Eventide’s behavior.

The first step in figuring out the puzzle is to assign values to each of the hats. The easiest one to deduce is the Top Hat since its price is the amount of available hats which is 5.

Some other facts we can deduce: The blue hairband is the most expensive since its price is two more than the second most expensive. We can also conclude that the second most expensive hat is maximally priced at 7 because 9 is the highest single digit number the hairband could be.

To figure the rest of the hat values we’ll have to make some assumptions and check them with the logic of the riddles.

The Feathered Fedora is the cheapest, for example, but not priced at 1. Let’s assume that it is priced at 2 then. This means that the Red Newsboy Hat would be priced at 4 (since it’s twice the cheapest price). This would make the Green Fedora priced at 5 since it is one more than the Red Newsboy Hat. This doesn’t work because we know that the Top Hat is priced at 5 and no two hats share the same price!

Starting again with another assumption, let’s say the Feathered Fedora is priced at 3 (since 2 doesn’t work). This means the Red Newsboy Hat is 6 (twice the cheapest). The Green Fedora would then be 7 (one more than the Red Newsboy Hat) which we know is the highest number the second most expensive hat can be. Thus, the Blue Hairband is priced at 9. This logic works, so we can assume that the prices of the hats are:

When you examine the door at exit 1, you are asked for a 4 digit code. Since there are three hats laying in front of the door, we can assume the values of the hats can be used to figure out the combination. There is a Top Hat (5), a Feathered Fedora (3) and a Blue Hairband (9). If you just sum the values of the three hats, you get 17. 17 is not the right combination, though.

The extra step involved in solving the combination are the mathematical operators assigned to each hat. The Top Hat is addition, the Feathered Fedora is division and the Blue Hairband is multiplication. This means the hats can be read as the math problem: +5 / 3 * 9

5 divided by 3 is 1.666 (more easily thought of as 5 thirds). 9 times 5 thirds is 45 thirds which can be simplified to 15. Input the combination 15 into the door at exit 1 to proceed further in the puzzle.

Using the same math formulas we can solve the rest of the doors.

Exit 2 has a Green Fedora (+7), a Red Newsboy Hat (-6), and a Blue Hairband (*9).

7-6*9 = 9

Exit 3 has a Red Newsboy Hat (-6), a Feathered Fedora (/3), and a Top Hat (+5).

-6/3+5 = 3

After solving exit 3, the way down to exit 5 is open. We are not going to go that way at the moment for two reasons. One, we haven’t solved the entire puzzle yet and, two, that path leads to an item that is used in the Eve Angelus side quest and is covered in detail there. For now, let’s solve the combination for exit 4.

Exit 4 has a Green Fedora (+7), a Top Hat (+5) and a Red Newsboy Hat (-6).

7+5-6 = 6

After inputting the combination for the fourth door, the screen shakes and two new things appear on the map. There is now a second door available next to exit 1 and there is a treasure chest that has appeared at point G. The new doorway can be used as a shortcut to bypass the doorway riddles now that the puzzle is solved. The treasure chest at point G contains your reward for solving the logic puzzle - three epiphanies!

Origami House

After completing the Fill in the Blank quest, you will have access to a map of Hornberg drawn by Harlon Waits. There are two notable locations besides Will's Home: the Origami House and the Hidden Library. We'll cover the Hidden Library later. For now, if you head back to Hornberg at any time (you can do this on the first visit too) there's a store called the Origami House that has an orange book sitting on the counter. By examining the book, you can trade all of the experience gaining items in your inventory and turn them into experience points for the party.

Hidden Library

When fighting the two Paper Dragons, remember that the second one will not appear until the second turn of the fight. This gives you an extra bit of time to get prepared whether by buffing or debuffing. Using Interruption on the dragons is good to keep their damage output in check. For beating the two dragons in the chest, the party receives a new item, the Actualization of Experience!

By trading this in at the Origami House counter, every party member is guaranteed to gain a level (since each level only requires 1,000 experience points).

Watcher of the Abyss

As soon as the Seams of Reality quest is in your quest journal, a rare enemy known as the Watcher of the Abyss has a chance to attack the party during any normal rhetorical battle (the Watcher can't intervene in a boss fight). You'll know the fight is imminent when the message, "The Watcher of the Abyss has found you. There is no refuge." is displayed before a battle starts.

The Watchers are some of the highest level creatures in the game and should not be taken lightly. If you want to, you can escape from the fight if one finds you. Doing so will display the message "The Watcher has your scent". If you plan on fighting, the best strategies revolve around verbal damage, inflicting the Apathy state with John's Ad Hominem, and reducing the Watcher's WP with gnosis skills like Choropleth Survey. They have incredibly high CON and RES, so it also recommended to use Dysphemism and Cult of Personality to reduce those stats to manageable levels.

The chance to see a Watcher is dependent on the total value of the party's regret stats. Each point of regret represents a 0.5% increase in the chance to face a Watcher. Every time you fight a battle and a Watcher doesn't show up, the base chance to encounter the Watcher is increased by 0.5%. This means that a Watcher will eventually find you. If you escape from a Watcher, the base chance to encounter one is reset to 5%. If you win or lose, the entire party's regret is "washed away", i.e., reduced by 100 (to a minimum of 1). Finally, if you manage to win, you are guaranteed to get at least a Bulwark of the Mind and have a good chance at being awarded a Spirit of Optimism and a Brisk Gait (all of which permanently raise your character's stats). The main reason to seek out these creatures is to take advantage of the 50 AP you get upon winning. This windfall of ability points can have any character learn just about any new skill in a single battle.

Creator Commentary: The warning message "There is no refuge" is a reference to the warning when a boss appears in the Treasure shmup, Ikaruga (Radiant Silvergun too). The Watchers themselves are key players in the greater mythology of the universe the Logomancer takes place in, but the scope of this game precluded any further exposition of their purpose. I think this is beneficial in the long run, because the mystery of these bizarre creatures is an integral part of their appeal (to me anyways).