Lunpa (village)


 * For the village's namesake, see Lunpa the Righteous Thief. For the dungeon-style location connected to the village, see Lunpa Fortress.

Lunpa (ルンパ村 Lunpa Village) is a village that can be visited in the first Golden Sun game. It is located roughly in the northwestern portion of the continent of Angara, with the village of Vault a short ways south of it, the village of Vale and Mt. Aleph geographically a short ways west of it on the other side of a mountain range, and the entrance to Goma Cave a fair ways to the east. It was named after its founder, the famed Lunpa the Righteous Thief, but it has ended up the dominion of a vicious band of thieves led by his unscrupulous grandson, Dodonpa, by the time the first game begins. While visiting the village at any point in the game is completely optional, completing a sidequest connected to it offers significant rewards.

In Golden Sun
Lunpa's location on the world map is accessible as soon as Isaac and Garet depart Vale on their main journey, but the front gate remains closed throughout the entirety of the game; the only practical reason to enter its overworld icon directly is to use the starting Catch Psynergy on the dangling Nut next to the guards.

Right next to the village on the overworld, however, is a separate location called West Lunpa Cave, which is a cavernous tunnel connecting the outside world to the village past the walls. This becomes the sole means by which the party can enter and exit the village, though the only way to get past the metal gate is by casting the Frost Psynergy on the puddle underneath the slab-like structure to fully elevate it; pressing the button on the wall to the right of it simply shuts the already impassable gate fully. Whenever the party needs to leave from the Lunpa side, they simply need to push the upper button on the far wall.

Since Mia can naturally produce Frost in her default class series, the village is technically accessible as soon as she joins the party early in Mercury Lighthouse. However, there is scarcely little point to doing so because the weapon and armor shops are not open, leaving you only with the Sanctum, Inn, and Item Shop services. The party will not yet have acquired the Reveal Psynergy to get treasures beyond the items that can be found hiding in various objects, and they will not have acquired the Cloak Psynergy needed to enter and complete the Lunpa Fortress dungeon north of the town. The items initially collectible include a Sleep Bomb in the upper left of the four western gravestones, a Nut in the open wooden barrel at the east end of town, a Lucky Medal in the box sitting by itself inside the house to the upper right, and a Vial in the leftmost barrel in the second floor of the structure with the armory.

Once the Reveal Psynergy has been gotten and the party has regained access to western Angara, visiting the town will also allow access to a secret cache of treasures, as well as a hidden Psynergy Stone in the western circle of rocks. While standing directly underneath the left of the three brown cylindrical posts at the north end of the town, cast Reveal to expose a puddle, then cast Frost on it. Then, without letting Reveal's effect dissipate, climb up the ladder and hop across the ice pillar. Walk along the town's perimeter clockwise and cast Reveal at the western dead-end, and interact with the glowing spot on the wall to make an entrance open up. The six chests here most notably contain a Water of Life and a Lucky Medal, and they also contain 44 Coins, a Smoke Bomb, an Elixir, and an Antidote.

The sidequest that takes place at Lunpa Fortress opens up when you obtain the optional Cloak Ball item in Tolbi, for the Cloak Psynergy it bestows lets you sneak past the guards. Once you have defeated the boss at the end, Toadonpa, cutscenes will deposit you back outside the fortress, and the village will have updated with new dialogue for the villagers and the weapon and armor vendors now open for business. A large array of new weapon and armor artifacts will be available in their menus, which include the highly useful War Gloves and make up the "tier" of items higher than what is offered by Tolbi and surpassed only by what is sold at Lalivero near the end of the game.

You will not be allowed to reenter the fortress until you have triggered a cutscene by going back through West Lunpa Cave, and the Yes/No options here determine whether you get deposited back at the town of Kalay far to the south or are left behind here. There is no inherent disadvantage to either option, since both Kalay and Lunpa offer further rewards for having completed the sidequest. Following that cutscene, use Cloak to reenter the Fortress and find the Mercury Djinni Tonic inside; this should be the last time in the game you need to enter Lunpa. Separately, completing the sidequest at Lunpa Fortress unlocks an event in that rewards you with an extra Orihalcon if this game file is used for the data-transfer function.

Vendors
Lunpa's Inn service is provided at the door with the Inn sign right next to the Sanctum at the west end, with the charge being 80 Coins (as in, 20 Coins per Adept).

Only the northeastern Item Shop will be open the first time you enter the village. The Weapon and Armor vendors to the southwest will only be open for business once you have defeated the Toadonpa boss inside Lunpa Fortress later in the game.

Collectibles
Available from the start: Available once the village is entered through West Lunpa Cave using Frost: By casting a combination of Reveal and Frost at the north end of the main town screen, the party can climb onto the screen's elevated grassy perimeter and reach a small cliff face at the screen's southwestern area. Cast Reveal and interact with the part of the wall that sparkles to make a secret "vault" open up, which contains the following six treasures:
 * [[File:Nut.gif]] Nut: Dangling visibly on a tree to the left of the outer entrance. Accessible early on in the game with the Catch Psynergy.
 * [[File:Lucky Medal.gif]] Lucky Medal: In the lone box in the upper-right house, just underneath the stack of three other boxes.
 * [[File:Nut.gif]] Nut: In the open wooden barrel just right of the northeastern house.
 * [[File:Sleep Bomb.gif]] Sleep Bomb: Hidden in the upper-left gravestone just below the western Sanctum.
 * [[File:Vial.gif]] Vial: In the second floor of the two-story structure with the armory, examine the leftmost barrel next to the bottom crate.
 * [[File:Antidote.gif]] Antidote
 * [[File:Coin.gif]] 44 Coins
 * [[File:Elixir.gif]] Elixir
 * [[File:Lucky Medal.gif]] Lucky Medal
 * [[File:Smoke Bomb.gif]] Smoke Bomb
 * [[File:Water of Life.gif]] Water of Life

History
Over a hundred years ago, Lunpa the Righteous Thief had founded the settlement named after himself in western-central Angara with his band of honorable thieves. Under his rule, even though he and his kin stole, the village maintained a positive reputation. However, at some point close to a hundred years ago, Lunpa disappeared in the Eastern Sea while sailing with Lord Babi, the ruler of Tolbi, as a result of both men getting caught up in a great flood that ravaged a significant swath of Weyard's surface. Leadership of the village would pass onto his young son at the time, Donpa, either before or after he went missing and was logically accepted to be dead.

Though the Lunpans would maintain their honorable approach to theft under Donpa's leadership, the presumed death of his father deeply affected him and led to him feeling lonely in life. This was why he would spoil his own son, Dodonpa, over the years to come — a course that would have grave ramifications for both Lunpa's people and its reputation at large. Once the leadership of Lunpa passed to Dodonpa, the thieves transformed into a vicious and feared faction under his particularly depraved rule, and the extremely elderly Donpa would be all but kept a prisoner by his own son. Dodonpa would effectively lord over his personal fiefdom of violent brigands in Lunpa Fortress, the cave-like network based within the town's northern end that Donpa himself had built during his years of rule.

The townspeople would have no choice but to submit to Dodonpa's iron rule, and they would be disallowed from sharing in any of the ill-gotten wealth his highwaymen would procure from those who unfortunately dare to venture too far to the north from Vault to the south. They are committed to resisting Dodonpa's efforts to pressure them into his service despite continuing to live in Lunpa.

Master Hammet's Capture
At the start of Golden Sun, the eruption of Mt. Aleph heralds a new era of danger for the world by showering Psynergy stones across the land and driving the wildlife dangerously mad. This has also destroyed a critical bridge connecting Vault's area on Angara to the merchant city of Kalay to the south, which has stranded the merchant caravan headed by Master Hammet, Kalay's leader. The imminent danger posed by the rocks falling out of the sky is what leads Hammet to try his luck seeking relative shelter and peddling his goods to the oppressed people at the notorious village... and right on cue, Dodonpa has his men capture Hammet and imprison him in Lunpa Fortress. Dodonpa's men admit this in full to the villagers.

Dodonpa immediately puts the entire village under lockdown and begins leveraging the false promise of Hammet's safe return to Kalay as a means of extorting ransom money out of the city. No one is allowed to leave the village, and travelers are not allowed inside under any circumstance. This puts the Lunpans under great duress because they can no longer either buy from or sell to outsiders, which leads to the weapon and armor shops and the local inn being forced to suspend their businesses and conserve the stock they had purchased. Of course, Dodonpa does not share any of the proceeds from his "little money tree" with the people under his rule. From this point on, the chef at the inn is forced to be regularly led along by the brigands through Lunpa Fortress with a blindfold on his face in order to deliver meals to Hammet.

The guards in front of the now-sealed gate are now assigned to forcefully turn away anyone from Kalay who would seek Hammet's release, relaying Dodonpa's message that they will "return Hammet to Kalay very soon." They do not need to use this excuse to get a strange, passing group of six to leave, and they successfully prevent Hammet's young servant originally left behind at Vault, Ivan, from getting into Lunpa. This plays a key role in the young Jupiter Adept's decision to seek out the Adepts Isaac and Garet and join them on their quest across Angara in pursuit of the aforementioned six. The guards remain confident that no one can get past the metal gate at the otherwise unmonitored West Lunpa Cave.

The Rescue
As Isaac and Ivan's party continue their quest across both Angara and Gondowan, Hammet's wife ruling Kalay in his absence, Lady Layana, continues diplomatically engaging with Dodonpa despite the delivery of ransom money not resulting in Hammet's release as promised. As soon as Isaac obtains the Psynergy to blend into the shadows at Tolbi, he may deviate from his own quest and return to Lunpa to make a bold effort to infiltrate Lunpa Fortress, put Dodonpa in his place, and extricate Hammet back to Kalay. Isaac's success in this venture ultimately depends on Donpa cooperating with him and spreading rumors that some "brigands" had snuck in to kidnap Hammet but failed and ran off, which results in many of Dodonpa's men leaving Lunpa to find the intruders. This shrewd gambit helps the party escort Hammet back out of the fortress and through Lunpa itself.

While the infiltration of Lunpa Fortress was taking place, a merchant associated with Hammet, one Bunza, reluctantly made his yearly trip to Lunpa for the winter despite hearing that the thieves were keeping Hammet imprisoned. Ascribing to Hammet's words of professional wisdom that merchants must be willing to approach customers regardless of the dangers posed by the surrounding environment, Bunza has attempted to peddle his wares to the people of the town but was turned back by the guards. However, his catching wind of the huge commotion set off by Donpa's rumors led him to investigate further for Hammet's sake, which was why he found West Lunpa Cave and was attempting to open its metal gate from the outside as Isaac and Ivan were escorting Hammet through it. That chance encounter works out extremely well for Hammet's side of matters, for Bunza elects to escort Hammet back to Kalay under the cover of his own wagons to avoid being detected by Donpa's henchmen prowling the surrounding wilds; Dodonpa's henchmen do not suspect Bunza of being involved.

Whether or not Isaac and Ivan elect to accompany Bunza's caravan back south to Kalay, they are capable of returning to the town to follow a lead about a "shimmering creature" that some villagers saw going into the fortress. By this point, the reduced presence of Dodonpa's underlings in the village prompt the shopkeepers to eagerly sell off their remaining wares to Isaac — though they only do so to close down their businesses instead of get them back on track. The Inn, meanwhile, opens its rooms to Isaac's company because they had received a letter from Donpa instructing them to treat the party like royal guests.

Nothing is known about the fate of the village following Golden Sun, including details such as how long Dodonpa is forced to languish in a cell under Donpa's watch in the fortress. The town is only mentioned in Golden Sun: The Lost Age during a discussion Felix's party has with the actual Lunpa in the secluded society of Lemuria in the Eastern Sea, which has provided him the magical fluid needed to severely slow his aging all this time. Though Lunpa is stunned to hear that his son is an extremely old man now and at the mercy of his wicked grandson, he muses that he cannot leave Lemuria to set Dodonpa straight.

There is also no mention of the village at all in Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, taking place across the same landmass over 30 years later, leading to conclusions that the village ended up wiped off the map by the many natural disasters spread across the world by the Golden Sun event.

Trivia

 * The villagers are aware of Lunpa's journeys with Babi over a century ago and their involvement in a great flood that apparently claimed many lives across Angara. One villager claims that his late grandfather traveled the continent with Lunpa. Another claims that the flood was a time when hordes of monsters appeared all of a sudden, and he draws a parallel to how the eruption of Mt. Aleph has caused hordes of monsters to appear in a similar manner.
 * One of the local recipes in Lunpa is "Thieves' Cookies," which are shaped like Dodonpa's face.
 * In West Lunpa Cave, Frost can still be successfully used on the puddle even after the metal gate is fully shut and seemingly covering the puddle up.