I. Prologue
II. Xak Series Timeline
III. Xak: The Art of Visual Stage
IV. Fray In Magical Adventure
V. Xak II: The Rising of the Red Moon
VI. Xak Precious Package: The Tower of Gazzel
VII. Xak III: The Eternal Recurrence
IV. Fray In Magical Adventure (Spoilers)
The beginning of Fray’s story takes place pretty much immediately following the events in which Latok Kart saves Fray from the forest monsters in Xak – The Art of Visual Stage. As Latok carries Fray on his back all the way back to Nurse Elle of Fearless village, she grows fond of Latok and wishes she could do something for him in return to aid him in his quest. As Fray recovers in the village, Latok returns to check in on her and she presents him with a ring of protection, a relic most likely given to her by her father Dominic as it is her family’s sworn duty to the Kingdom of Wavis to watch over and guard the Great Tree, which unfortunately became possessed by evil by Badu’s magic of coercion during Xak I and ultimately had to be subdued by Latok’s sword. Latok graciously accepts Fray’s token of appreciation and continues on his quest to fight Badu and hopefully find the whereabouts of his missing father.
As Fray is recovering in Fearless village she meets and befriends many of the villagers including Latok’s mother, Bobby the blacksmith’s son, the sorcereress Endora and Elise (Of whom would later become known as “Rival Elise” as she happens to be clearly a rival in the war for winning Latok’s heart). Anxiously Fray waits for Latok to return from his journey, and he does so after completing his quest. Fray is so excited to see Latok that she runs to him with open arms ready to hug him and welcome him home when…
She trips on something and falls to the ground… just short of reaching Latok, who instead is now holding Elise in his arms. Alas, Fray finds that due to her clumsy nature she has lost all hope of being with Latok…
But wait!
If she is able to help Latok find his missing father, then, then… she might be able to finally win Latok’s heart and become more favorable to him than that of Elise! But how she wonders, can she do this? She is not a skilled warrior like Latok and she is very clumsy as well…
And then it hits her, perhaps she can become a magician like the sorceress Endora. She visits Endora and learns the basics of “How to become a Mage” with her support and guidance and when she is finally ready for further training, Endora requests that she become a student of the Mirsia Magical Academy. Mirsia Magical Academy is a well know institute for rising magicians who study in harnessing the power of Xak, the life-force of the human world itself, otherwise known as magic. The magic used by humans in the human world is that of Xak, however the dark magic used by the demon race is that of a power derived from the demon world of Zekesis. Fray studies at Mirsia for three long years under the leadership of her mentor Mill Gerald, but due to Fray’s inherent clumsiness it is three… painstakingly... long years. But, finally Fray is ready to become a full fledged mage and is ready for graduation from the academy. During her graduation ceremony, Fray runs out early in order to gain a head start on her journey back to Fearless village so that she can now embark on a quest with Latok to help him search for his father and not be a burden to him now that she is able to fight the demons.
And so, this brings us to the very beginning of Fray in Magical Adventure as she daydreams about Latok being so happy with Fray for helping him find his missing father and dancing with her and creating a perfect surreal happily-ever-after romance scene, all in her head as she travels as fast as she can back to Fearless village. And she arrives in town to find that…
Latok is not there…and even more, he has left her a note saying that he is sorry that he has left her behind, but he has gone off on a lead to where his father might have been sighted near the region of Banuwa village and that he did not want Fray to get hurt during the journey there.
Feeling as useless as ever after having trained so hard to journey with Latok, she begins to feel depressed and doesn’t know what to do when Endora, Bobby and Elise arrive on the scene and encourage her to press on in her journey to help Latok, and that just because Latok has left, it doesn’t mean that Fray cannot try and catch up with him. And so, Fray decides to continue her quest and sets out for Banuwa village, where Latok has said that he has traveled to.
The first location Fray decides to travel to is situated on the border of Lake Valua, of which the area of Banuwa village is across the lake on the other side. Fray fights several monsters and traps along the way as she makes her way to what appears to be a shrine on the edge of the lake and enters. Off in the distance Fray spots a statue which seems to emit a voice that speaks to her telling her to leave this place. She taps the statue out of curiosity and the statue’s head breaks away from it and falls in the water. Shocked and appalled at Fray’s actions, the voice reveals itself as a giant dragon. The dragon introduces himself as the king of the water dragons and says that she has desecrated the shrine of Raytoun, the god of water. The dragon explains that she has performed an action that she should really be put to death for, but out of the niceness of the dragon’s heart, he offers to let her live if she’ll kindly just walk away. Fray says thank you and tells her that she is trying to get to the other side of the lake and asks the dragon if he could take her to the other side. Surprised that Fray would even think of asking for a favor when he was kind enough to let her live for her transgression, he reluctantly tells her that he’ll take her to the other side and asks her to step forward. Fray does so when due to her clumsy nature she accidentally pushes the remains of the Laytoun statue over the edge of the cliff into the waters below. This of course enrages the water dragon immensely and he attacks Fray, however Fray is able to subdue the dragon. Fray tells the water dragon that if the water dragon cares so much about the statue, she’ll promise to go and get the pieces back and return them to the shrine. The Water Dragon agrees to this and disappears forgetting all about the offer to take her across the lake. Fray mumbles to herself that the stupid statue was most likely already broken to begin with and that an innocent girl like herself couldn’t have possibly have broken it. With that she puts the whole incident out of mind and decides that the next destination would be Arzal village since Latok would have had to go through Arzal in order to head to Banuwa.
Upon arriving in Arzal village, Fray senses that something is wrong and that the villagers are a bit uneasy. Apparently the Mayor’s daughter, Irene was kidnapped. Fray decides to visit the town mayor, Demus to ask him about whether or not he has seen a blue-haired swordsman recently. The mayor tells her that a blue-haired swordsman did in fact pass by and offered to help find his missing daughter. Fray tells herself that this blue-haired swordsman must be one in the same as Latok seems to always be in the practice of helping people. After asking where Latok went, the mayor tells her that the man was heading toward the plain of Arzas, but he never returned. Some of the villagers even have said that he must have been kidnapped as well even. With this new information in hand Fray decides to journey to the plain of Arzas, as after all it is in the same direction as Banuwa village.
As Fray makes her way through the plains of Arzas she fights many monsters and guards who seem to be under the control of a mysterious entity as they attempt to harm Fray and possibly kidnap her. Eventually Fray reaches a temple and takes a look inside. A succubus named Arsides appears before her explaining that she is a guardian of the temple and tells her that Fray will have to die for trespassing through this scared temple. Fray tries to explain that she is only passing through, but Arsides won’t hear of it and attacks her. After a fierce battle Fray defeats Arsides in an embarrassing way, as the magical shots from Fray’s rod have apparently cut through the straps of her top brazier briefly exposing a naked top-half portion of Arsides’s body. As Arsides tries her best to cover herself up with her arms, she reluctantly allows Fray to pass through to exit of the temple.
Fray makes her way to the next town, that of Reigia village. After asking mayor Zarmof of the town if he has seen a blue-haired swordsman, he tells her that he has heard that this blue-haired swordsman was last seen traveling along a mountain path across the bridge on the other side of the lake. Fray asks the mayor if it would be alright for her to use the bridge to cross the lake so that she could continue her search for Latok. The mayor tells her that unfortunately the bridge is out and cannot be used to cross the lake. The mayor then tells her that he is sorry that he cannot do anything to help her, but he has a urgent matter to attend to in that his son has fallen deathly ill. Another gray-haired man who is watching over the bedridden boy speaks and introduces himself as sorcerer Isac. He tells Fray that he might be able to help her cross the lake, but he asks her if she can do them both a favor. He explains that the only medicine that can cure the mayor’s son is a leaf-medicine that only Dr. Razel of Valuah village can create. However, due to the bridge being out, they haven’t been able to travel to Valuah village. Fray agrees and together they visit a nearby cliffside overlooking the lake where Isac summons the power of the god of water, Raytoun to part the waters of the lake in order to make a land bridge to the other side. However, as Isac explains this process of holding the waters back requires him to stay behind and concentrate on a continuous channeling of the magical spell, so he asks Fray to make haste.
Fray jumps down onto the land bridge and fights her way through countless underwater creatures and even through a sunken ghost pirate ship and finally encounters a boss battle with the lord of the lake in the form of a giant squid at the end.
On the other side of the lake, Fray finds herself in Valuah village. Upon entering a little girl by the name of Miry takes notice of her and starts to follow her around asking her all sorts of detailed questions about magic and the possibilities of her becoming a mage someday. Miry takes Fray to Dr. Razel who happens to be her grandfather and has been her guardian since the disappearance of her parents several years ago. Dr. Razel starts work on the leaf-medicine immediately while Fray and Miry step outside. Upon exiting the house, a man teleports in front of them and Fray recognizes the man immediately as her teacher Mill Gerard. Surprised to see her, Mill explains that he has come to Valuah from Mirsia in order to investigate the kidnappings that have been taking place around Valuah. Mill tells Fray and Miry that it is believed that the monsters that have been sighted during the kidnappings are most likely from Ku Or, a magical floating fortress in the sky. However, the magic keeping Ku Or afloat is so powerful that the fortress itself is invisible to most people, and only those who are gifted at using magic or have learned to use magic can see it. Miry tells Mill that she can see it and tells them both that she wants to be a mage. Mill seems surprised by this and begins to take interest in Miry’s natural magical ability. Fray tells Mill that she was on her way to return to Reigia village to deliver the medicine to the Mayor and the sorcerer Isac. Mill asks Fray if she can help with the kidnapping situation and if she can ask Isac, (who seems to be a fairly well known and powerful sorcerer from Mill’s perspective) if he’ll help as well, as he would be the one to ask about the method of getting inside Ku Or. Fray agrees to help Mill and continues on to Reigia village.
Back at Reigia, Fray delivers the medicine to the mayor’s son and the boy recovers. Fray informs Isac about Mill’s request for him to help with the kidnapping situation and asks him what the best way into the fortress of Ku Or is. Isac tells her that should use the power that lies dormant inside the Barnas volcano to break through the magical barrier of the castle. This power is an ancient artifact known as the “Divine Wings”. Isac warns Fray that the trek to the Barnas volcano and inner sanctum will be very dangerous and he hands her a seal key so that she can break the seal on the Divine Wings inside the Volcano.
The Barnas volcano is filled with all sorts of rock golem and lava monsters as she makes her way through several man-made mines and mine cart tracks overlooking large pits of lava that seems to be modeled directly after of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, even the theme song for the stage is similar to the theme song of the movie. As she makes her way to the inner most sanctum of the volcano, she runs into the guardian of the Divine Wings, a great big Fire Dragon. After an intense battle, the dragon falls making a path for Fray to continue on to retrieve the Divine Wings. After finding them, she returns to Valuah village to prepare for the next step against the fortress of Ku Or.
Upon arriving, Mill tells Fray that Miry was kidnapped and that they were powerless to stop it. Mill and Fray walk to a cliff that is next to the village and Mill uses the Divine Wings on Fray by summoning the power of the god of the sky, Airia and the goddess of wind, Sinary to release the seal on the wings. After releasing the protective seal on the Divine Wings, two magical angel-like wings appear on Fray’s back and she finds that she is now able to fly to the fortress of Ku Or. The next stage becomes a shooter of sorts, similar to the one shooting stage of Xak I on the dragon’s back as she fights off several monsters that are part of the defense system of the Ku Or fortress. After defeating a large golden wyvern, Fray lands on a terrace at Ku Or and proceeds inside.
After proceeding through an elaborately decorated castle hallway full of traps and monsters defending the fortress, Fray finds the entity responsible for generating the magical force field around the Ku Or. This entity is in the form of a gigantic evil tree, very similar to the great tree that Latok had to defeat in Xak I. After destroying the evil spiritual energy housed in the tree, it reverts to normal and this causes the teleportation seal around Ku Or to weaken allowing Mill and Isac to teleport directly into the fortress. Mill tells Fray telepathically that it will still take some time for them to arrive, so that she should try to continue on and look for the missing children.
Fray makes her way to the centre of the fortress and then on into the dungeons where she finds the kidnapped children placed in holding cells and under a sleeping spell. Mill tells Fray that he will be arriving at Ku Or soon to lend a hand with evacuating the children and Fray continues on through the dungeons. Eventually Fray runs into Latok, only it seems something has happened to him as he does not remember her. As it turns out, the man introduces himself as Lutok Hart (As opposed to Latok Kart, who turns out to be basically a parody character) and is actually quite different personality wise than that of Latok. Apparently Lutok was on his own mission to rescue the children and help the villages put an end to this Ku Or crisis. Lutok is more cocky and full of himself and even at some point asks Fray if she’ll be his girl of which Fray respectfully declines. However, through and through he turns out to be an ally during the events at Ku Or.
Mill and Miry arrive on the scene and Mill decides that the best plan of action is to have Miry go with him to help the rest of the children prisoners while Fray and Lutok deal with the master of Ku Or. Continuing on Fray makes here way through another stage of Ku Or monster and soldiers, this time taking her outside on the castle grounds and into a passageway filled completely with water, sort of like an indoor castle moat. Fray finds a board and decides to magically enchant it so that she can use it like a surf board and proceeds to surf down the waterway fighting guards and dodging cannon blasts and jumping various obstacles in her path as she eventually finds herself in the keep of Ku Or.
At the keep, Fray meets Lutok again and they both ascend a tall staircase leading up into the throne room. A trap awaits Fray and Lutok as they enter the throne room set by an extremely powerful sorcerer named Amadok, who apparently was supposed to have died centuries ago. However, even after his supposed death, his spirit was so powerful that it enabled him to live on and in time it inhabited body after body. He shoots a blast of concentrated magical energy at Fray when Lutok stands in the way of it taking the full brunt of the blast in Fray’s place and collapses to the ground. Amadok laughs at Lutok’s foolish attempt at saving Fray’s life and tells Fray that it is now time for her to meet the same end. Fray screams at him asking him why he is doing all of this? Amadok laughs again at Fray’s question and tells her very well, as she is about to die anyway, he’ll tell her what his master plan is. He begins by telling her that the fortress of Ku Or was designed and built by an ancient civilization, containing many tomes of secrets and knowledge that rivaled that of the very power of the gods. Amadok explains that he required fresh bodies of the children in order to unseal the divine power and surpass the gods of Xak and even the demon race, as the gods of the netherworld demand flesh. With that, Amadok tells Fray that it is time for him to deal with her first before proceeding to the completion of his evil ritual and fires off another magical energy blast. However before the blast can hit Fray, Mill arrives just in time to create a magical shield barrier in front of her that reverses the spell back at Amadok who disintegrates into thin air. Mill asks Fray if she is okay as he kneels down to check out the condition of Lutok who is still unconscious on the floor. Fray tells Mill that she’ll be fine, but to please take Lutok back to the village. With that Fray journeys on through the door and through a gateway to the netherworld.
Fray finds that the netherworld is a very twisted place with all sorts of horrible atrocities happening all around her and the monsters are far worse here than any she has previously encountered. At the end of this gruesome demon invested area fray makes her way to the final guardian.
*Note* This boss is different depending on which Fray you are playing. For Fray-CD, Fray fights against a massive armour plated demon soldier. If you are playing Fray for any of the earlier systems such as the MSX, then she finds herself at a mirror, and as she steps closer the mirror image of Fray comes to life and four exact images of her come out of the mirror and circle around her firing magical shots. Fray uses a great deal of her magical abilities in order to destroy the mirror, which shatters and the four images disappear revealing what appears to be a final hidden chamber of the fortress.
Fray steps through and finds herself in a room decorated in the overall décor of the fortress of Ku Or. Apparently the only way to have reached this room was through the passage of the netherworld. Immediately Fray senses that it is in this place that the dark ritual will be carried out. Fray climbs the stairs and enters the staging ground for the final battle.
*Note* The final boss battle is VERY different depending on which version of Fray you are playing.
Final Boss of Fray in Magical Adventure
If you are playing the original Fray In Magical Adventure, Fray walks into a throne room chamber to find that Mill has collapsed and seemingly dead on the floor. Sorcerer Amadok enters the room wounded and gasps that his work has been ruined by Mill and he too collapses to the floor. Mill gets up and explains that he was able to shut off Amadok’s ritual just in time so that the whole thing backfired which really ticked off the gods of the netherworld and they destroyed Amadok. Fray steps through into the ritual room to find that the spirit of Amadok is still alive and though it is weak, it has still managed to summon forth the most powerful god to have ever existed in the world of Xak and merge with it. This summoned god is not at full strength, but Amadok explains that this will be enough to destroy them and begins the fight. The god that he summons looks very similar to that of Badu, the final boss of Xak I. Fray defeats the merged soul of Amadok and Badu and returns to the previous room to find Mill and a Luzarc, very powerful wizard who had disappeared two years before that of becoming the host body for Amadok’s evil schemes. Mill had been trying to find Luzarc or several years as they were old colleagues and he is happy to have finally freed Luzarc from Amadok’s control. The castle begins to tear itself apart and they all managed to teleport out in time to watch as the floating fortress of Ku Or falls into Lake Valuah.
Final Boss of Fray CD
If you are playing Fray CD for the PC-Engine, Fray finds Amadok waiting for her and Mill. Amadok is holding Miry hostage and planning on using her for the dark ritual due to her magical potential being quite strong. Together they manage to free Miry from Amadok’s grasp and he runs to perform the dark ritual anyway. Fray proceeds to a higher platform and uses the power of the Divine Wings once again allowing her to fly. While Fray is airborne she has a sky battle with Sorcerer Amadok overlooking a netherworld void below them. After defeating Amadok’s first form, he transforms into a massive demon that takes up the entire area as Fray dodges his attacks and is eventually able to destroy this form. With a final devastating flame bird attack, Fray is able to destroy the remnants of Amadok’s spirit as it cracks apart and dissipates. Fray returns to previous room and together Fray, Mill and Miry teleport out of Ku Or. The floating fortress of Ku Or falls into Lake Valuah and the three of them teleport on the lakeshore.
The Ending
The ending of both Fray in Magical Adventure and Fray CD is pretty much the same, aside from a few minor details here and there. Later that evening the villagers throw a celebration party to honor the return of the missing children and the destruction of Ku Or. Fray tells Lutok that she now feels confident that she will no longer be a burden for Latok Kart, of whom she explains she is trying to find. Lutok tells Fray that she should follow him if that is what her heart chooses, but if she ever reconsiders his proposition for Fray to become his girl, he’ll wait for her. The next morning at Dr. Razel’s residence (Luzarc or Mill, depending on which game you are playing) requests that Miry join the Mirsia Magical Academy. Dr. Razel explains that now the Miry is old enough it is time she hear the truth about her parents can be revealed. He explains that Miry’s magical potential is most likely due to the fact that her parents were both very powerful and gifted magicians and that they were not in fact dead, but had instead disappeared and the sorcerer’s guild could never locate them and maybe they are still alive. Miry decides to take Mill up on his offer and Fray decides to continue her search for Latok now that the bridge can now be fixed. The ending basically explains what happens to each of the characters. Lutok Hart at age 20 became the king of some far off country never to be heard from again, Mill Gerard and Miriam Sweet became partners and went on a quest to destroy evil and hopefully find Miry’s parents and Fray eventually finds Latok as he is boarding a ship from a port in Banuwa village that is headed for Death Mountain, where the final events of Xak II take place. The end of Fray CD shows some additional screenshots of Fray catching up to Latok and jumping toward him to give him a hug.