Part 25: Autumn 1993-Spring 1994

    




            Nanny Ogg knew how to start spelling 'banana',
            but didn't know how you stopped.
                    -- Terry Pratchett


Hello and welcome back to Ken and Linda's adventures! Right now we they are on a quest to find Angela the singer, who is apparently the mother of this guy Mario from Lina Valley. We also learned last time about the "Tiger's Claw", the symbol of the town of Koshikata.

Apart from side-questing, we'll also take the opportunity to do a fair amount of hunting today, with a good mixture of old and new species, so... let's get started!



We were told that we might find Angela in Dogy Figh, as that is the last stop on her final tour of the planet, before she leaves for good! So let's head down there on the Bird Line, as always.



By the way, the employee of Bird Line down in Dogy Figh has a pretty funny thing to say.

This southern area is actually an island, so if you want to get here from east or west area, you have to cross the sea. If you don't have wings on your back, you're encouraged to use our service or alternately, you're free to try digging an udersea tunnel if that's what you prefer!

All right, let's have a look in the bar!





Hello, I'm Angela. Sorry you had to wait, but we had to do an encore!

Then the pianist comes over...

All right then, Angela... I guess it's time for me to get on the shuttle and leave the planet. Thanks for everything!
Take care! I will write to you!

The pianist leaves.



She's flying out this afternoon... She's been given a destination in a completely opposite direction from me, so I guess I might not see her ever again in my life... So, what did you want to talk about then?

Ken tells Angela about her son in Lina Valley.

W-what! Why didn't you tell me something this important earlier!
My real name is Carol! She's Angela! We both made some mistakes with men when we were younger, so we decided to "get rid" of our old selves and start fresh. So half as a joke we ended up swapping our names!
You need to go after her! I'm sure you can catch her on Ozsat!



Got it, I'm on it! I will get Mario, you go after her to Ozsat!

All right, guess our next stop is Ozport then!



We're supposed to be in a hurry, but as we know, the time does not actually pass when in towns, so let's check a couple of small things first before going up to Ozsat. We'll enter through the shopping mall side.



Over here in the corner is a locked room with two chests, but it can be opened with the storage room key which we now have! Apparently, all storage rooms can be opened with just one key.

The chests contain another bestman necklace (which we now know are used to activate the teleporters) and some ostrich meat.



The granny here also says interesting things.

Listen, I will only tell this to you! The next winning lottery number is 1197! Don't tell anybody else!

I'm not sure I believe you. If you knew the number why would you not just use it yourself then?

We'll continue to the airport side of the building.



We can talk to the lady on the sofa.

A rainbow and the ark... it must mean that god plans prosperity for the future of humanity!

The rainbow is of course the multicoloured teleportation bean emanating from the airport building!

As bwefore, the poster on the wall says:

The last paradise in the Galaxy!
Mother nature awaits you!
      -- Neo-Kenya Tourism Board

The dude staring at it is not impressed, though.

The only thing about this poster that isn't a lie is the word "last"!



All right, enough of that. Let's step on the teleporter and head up to the Ozsat satellite once again!



On the satellite, in the departure area, we find one of the animal traders. I guess he must have already closed up his shop. This is certainly a thing in this game, in Scenario C. As the time passes, more and more people will leave--and that does include shopkeepers!

If I could understand animal language I would tell them about the Grim Reaper. I would like to see their surprised faces! Especially the stonefish! It makes me chuckle just thinking about how their surprised expression would look like!



Getting over to the actual departure gate, it seems like the shuttle is ready to leave. The ranger standing in front of the door is quite strict about it...

No, no. You can only pass through here if you're crew. If you want to see someone off, please go upstairs to the observation deck. If you should loud enough, they might hear you from there.

Well, all right then. Shouting it is.

On the way back up...



And then...



Ken and Linda start shouting Angela's name... but people just proceed with boarding the shuttle.

One more time! Ready?

They shout again, but with no result.

One more time! You're a man, use your strong voice already! Ready?



But the last people board the shuttle...



...and it departs soon after.



Well, nothing we can do here at this point, so...



...let's just leave.



But we are intercepted by a just-arriving Mario!

S-sorry I'm late. Is my mother...
......
I see how it is... So I guess I missed her then...
......
All right, all right. Don't worry about it. Let me buy you a drink in the bar downstairs.



But then a woman appears running up the stairs!

Has the shuttle already left? Ugh, why am I always late for everything!
Um... sorry if I'm mistaken, but you're Angela, right?
How do you know that I...

From here the conversation is between Mario and Angela, since neither one has a portrait.

M-mother? It's Mario! Your son, Mario!
Mario? Mario! Is it really you, Mario?
It's really really really your son Mario!
Oh gods, thank you for giving me the habit of always being late to everything!

Mario then addresses Ken and Linda.

Ken! Thank you! I don't really have any money saved so I can't repay you with anything big, but...
......
Oh, right, I will unlock the warehouse in Lina Valley. There is a pair of frozen curiosities there in a device inside. Just go to the warehouse in Lina Valley.
Ken! You've both helped us a lot! Come on, mum, let's go. Bye Ken! Bye Linda!

They leave.



More or less. / Not at all. / [ Absolutely! ]
Well, I mean I did most of the work of course, but you also did a great job helping out.

And that concludes this particular quest! All that's left to do is go to Lina Valley and check out our reward!

Over in Lina Valley...



...this is the storage shed he was talking about.



There are two chests here and also on the right one of those cryo machines that keep frozen animals.

The chests contain a "gorilla punch" and a "shark crush". Both are weapons and both are in fact stronger than our swallow cutter. However I will not equip them for now since we are doing well enough and swallow cutter still has the advantage of hitting everyone. Although we probably do want to upgrade at least to eagle sabre soon since we might be running into some stronger opponents soon. But these two weapons are pretty strong, so I will keep them in case we need them for anything.

The cryo storage on the right contains a male/female pair of buffalos. But as before we won't be making use of this and will capture the animals ourselves in due course.

After leaving Lina Valley, I come back to Ozport because I remember that there is a couple of things to sell for a bit of money (golden nugget, etc.).



After exiting from Ozport, it's now Winter 1993!

This means it's time for some hunting! And for that we'll first head down south to Dogy Figh.



Just as we're about to board a bird, we receive another message notification. We'll check that out later today. For now we head to Dogy Figh.



Over in Dogy Figh, if we go inside to the bottom floor...



...we can find a familiar person! Ken's mum is visiting Dogy Figh on her travels around the planet!



And to think that they were so cute back then when they were only just born...

Not really very cute these days, unfortunately.

Anyway, that's it here, so let's head out.



Outside, just a few steps east of the town is one of those ruins containing a teleporter.



Of course, we'll activate it. Stepping on it...



...leads to a place we do not seem to have visited before. We'll leave that for later and just return back where we were for now.



A bit further east from Dogy Figh is this cave entrance, leading to Dark River, a place already familiar to us from the previous scenario.



As always, near the entrance you can find a whole bunch of...



...shrimp!

Continuing further through the cave, we find a chest.



It's (of course) a piece of equipment. Ken already has something better, but...



...we can equip it on Linda for a nice defence boost!



After finding a snail hat, we also find...



...some snails, of course! They are rather happy looking, too! I mean hey have webbed feet for easy swimming, sure, but who's counting at this point, right? Incidentally, the design is unchanged since the PC Engine version.



Like earthworms, snails too have the ability to change their gender--which can be annoying if you're trying to capture a specific one that you're missing, but it does fit with the real life characteristics of their Earth versions too, so can't really complain.

Continuing deeper into the cave on a lower floor...



...we find some species we mostly already know, such as...



Turtles.



Clams.



Crocodiles. These are as always a bit of a pain as females are pretty rare.



Leeches.



Going further in, we pass by this chest which is actually empty, and it annoys me every time I see it. For real.



This one here however is not empty and contains the leech whip, a decently powerful weapon (also stronger than swallow cutter). For now, we'll keep it in our inventory.

Continuing to explore...



...we find even two more chests! On contains a hippo tomahawk (a weapon) and the other has hippo shoes.



The shoes do provide a bit more defence, so I give them to Ken to replace his starting squirrel shoes (yeah was still wearing his starting shoes, believe it or not!).

At some point, I decide to make camp to recover HP and so on. We also get a short comment from Linda.

Whever I feel like I'm about to give up, I just look at you, Ken! Therefore you always must stay in high spirts, all right Ken?

As we continue battling through the cave, Linda helpfully ends up also learning the ability to "startle awake", which Ken alreary learned before. This simply allows you to not have to have anybody keep watch when overnight camping as now both characters will "startle awake" if attacked. Neat. When nobody knows this ability you really need to have at least one person keep watch in case of attack. Of course, keeping watch means they don't get to rest and recover HP, so you have to find a balance. Luckily for us, that is now over and we can always sleep happily.



Continuing still deeper in, we find some more extensive dry ground (this cave is otherwise more like an undergound river). If we overnight here...



...we can get attacked by cats! You can also sometimes find them walking around here, but it's easier just to make camp and get ambushed.

Finally, just a bit further in...



...we can find this odd looking thing.



Those are some rather amazing looking sharks! They have muscular arms which help with swimming, of course. Surprisingly, also, this design is not changed since the original release!



By the way, you probably noticed that chest which was next to the shark. It's a joke. It contains 1 G. But I won't complain since we found a bunch of nice equipment upgrades in this cave too.

All right, at this point we can say we have indeed explored this cave fully, so let's head out.



But we're heading out only to simply head back in! This entrance leads to Samakia (place where ants live), because we have some unfinished business here.



First of all, let's pick up a bunch of poop again.



And then, there's one last species here which we didn't get.



The sea urchins. So we'll fix that ommission now.

I also want to go down into the ant tunnels one more time.



The season has changed since the last time, so that means there is a new ant queen available since they only appear one per season. We've already handed one in to the ark, but...





...you really really want to get a second one! Trust me on this, you'll see soon why! (This is of course why I picked up that poop again!)

Ok, now we're done with this cave too. So let's head back north for the time being.



Coming back, we find that it's now Spring 1994. I guess all that hunting took a bit of time, huh?



Before we continue, we'll head over to the Ranger HQ to check out the new calendar.

So a bit of a warning: this one is slightly more risqué than the others, so maybe be careful depending on who might be looking over your shoulders. Especially if you're reading this at work.



All right, here it comes now.



Yeah, it's a bit borderline. But not to worry, since this is basically as far as it goes--the rest of them are back to the same style as we've seen previously.

Ok, now. We've been told a while ago to go talk to Flora regarding those dead cherry trees in Eterna as she might know how to revive them. Well, might as well do it now, let's head over to Hospico!



In Hospico, as we approach the hospital, we get another message notification! They for sure are not letting us have any free time, are they? We'll check that out later, for now let's see what people are doing around here!



Like this older lady here.

Sharp fangs and claws, warm body hair... Every time we let the devil have our way with us, mankind got more and more new thing. Now practically the entire galaxy belongs to humans... but when the Americans first landed on the moon, the devil just happened to ask in return for human fertility. It's not a big problem they said, it's only going to need to be solved tens of thousands of years in the future!

It is quite an interesting question, what year even is it? We only know that it is 1994 in the context of "death of Earth", but what year would that be in "our" counting? Or maybe it doesn't matter given the very real possibility that some sort of time shenanigans might be going on anyway.

Well, no matter, let's head back outside...





...and visit Dr. Flora!

Ah, hello!
What? The cherry blossoms in Eterna? Yeah, I've seen them before, but I don't think you can make them bloom again. Unless you're a magician, that is.

So, no help here then, I guess? Might as well leave.



But as we leave, she stops us!

Oh, so you're going to leave just like that? You're quite a tease, aren't you, Ken?
A woman can turn into a magician in front of her favourite man! Let me show you! I will teach you how to make dead cherry blossoms bloom!
A flower redder than fire grows in the red light of lava. The droppings of an animal that eats that flower, that is the legendary "hot poop"! It's the ultimate fertiliser which will make the dead trees blossom instantly!
There you go! Do you believe this "hot poop" story at all?
[ Completely! ] / About half! / A little bit! / Not at all!

So you want to be sure to answer with this particular answer here, because...

Haha, you're honest! It's not magic, but I'll teach you something good.

Linda learned from Dr. Flora the ability "identify plants".

So this is a passive ability to allow us to know more accurate names of plants/fruit. It is not actually possible to capture all 120 species without it, but I'll explain more when we come to it.

Other than that, regarding the rest of the conversation, we definitely don't know any place where lava might be found, so that's definitely a problem. Luckily we still have plenty of time to finish the cherry tree quest, so I'm sure we'll eventually find something.

In the meantime, there's still a few interesting things to be heard from people in Hospico.



For example down in the morgue, there's this guy in blue.

A long time ago, in this morgue I saw a miracle. A pregnant woman gave birth, half a day after she was killed. Speaking of miracles, the midwife at that birth was also amazing! She pulled both babies out of the corpse's belly with just her right hand! From then on she was know as "the holy mother's right hand"!

So uh, twin babies, huh? I wonder.

But anyway...



...back upstairs in this computer room:

Although there are individual variations, the sperm count of human males has now dropped to about 1/8 of what it used to be 2000 years ago. Outside of Neo-Kenya, artificial insemination is now the norm. There was even a study that sexless couples now have more children.

So, 2000 years ago, considering that it's now 1994, puts it just around the year 0, doesn't it?



And finally, just this lady on the roof.

Your teeth rattle, you have wrinkles and grey hair. That's what happens when you have seven kids. But then I look at their faces, and well, maybe it's not such a bad deal after all?

Cute.

Well, that's all for here for now. So let's head out...



...and listen to the next message!

Uh, I'm Louise, the wife of the couple who runs the farm in Battle Park. I heard you know a lot about animals! Would you do me a favour and see if you're able to do this? I'd like to fulfill my sick husband's last wish, and you won't refuse the request of a desperate wife, will you? Thank you! I will be waiting for you!

So, while the cherry blossom situation is on hold, this is our next task, I guess! Let's go immediately there.



Inside the farm building in Battle Park...



...we can talk to the wife. The husband is over there, sick in bed.

Hey you guys, I was waiting for you! I am Louise. Let me get straight to the point. I would like you to find some turtle eggs. Three of them should be enough.
That's my husband there in bed... The doctors have told him he doesn't have long to live... It seems he's only barely conscious now, but he wants to eat turtle egg soup one more time before he dies. What do you say? You can take care of that, right?
[ I will take care of that. ] / But what do I get in return? / No way!
Excellent! Thank you!



The details for the quest confirm that we need to find 3 turtle eggs and bring them to Louise at Battle Park. We can also see that we only have 3 seasons to accomplish this, so this quest is a bit more time sensitive than the others. Therefore, let's get to it immediately.



We can quickly check in on the husband before leaving, though.

Turtle egg soup... with red wine, with some nutmeg and a dash of basil to finish... Ah, the turtle egg soup...



By the way, you might remember that there's this guy in battle park whom you can sell champion's belts to and stuff like that. But he's only there sometimes, and finally he shows up and I can sell a couple of those which I've accumulated over time and free up some inventory slots!

Now that that's done, we can finally go and get some turtle eggs. But where would we do that, you might ask? Well... it was mentioned by an NPC a long time ago in Scenario A!



After exiting from Battle Park...



...we want to go that little island, in the northwestern part of the big lake. Luckily the lake is shallow so we can walk across it.



Here we are!



This place is called North Kamenos and it has a slightly different colour scheme than the previous caves we've visited--I guess it's supposed to be ice? Let's check out that tent to start with! Incidentally, "kame" also means turtle in Japanese, so that's a little hint in the name too.



If you've come here for turtle eggs, don't even think about taking them with you! They will chase you with all their might!

Well, at least it seems we're in the right place, huh?



Let's proceed onwards then, deeper into the cave!



Well, there are definitely turtles here.



But also some new species, too!



Like these foxes!



Proceeding deeper into the cave...



...we find another tent!



If you've come for turtle eggs, there's usually some over there on the rocks in spring, but you can't get there from here, you need to find another path. And... they say that if you steal their eggs, the turtles will chase you to the depths of hell! So, be careful!

After wandering around the cave some more...



...we find another as yet unseen by us species!



These are seals! I mean, they have human noses, sure, but...



These guys are a little bit stronger, so I make camp after to recover. Again a dialogue from Linda is triggered!

We still have no idea where the ark will take us. Aren't you a little bit nervous.
[ Quite a bit. ] / Not really.
Well, even if we have to go to the end of the universe, with just a little bit of food... as long as you're with me, I will survive!

Eventually...



...we finally get where wanted to be! Those are some very large eggs, but we'll just pick up a few. Luckily there doesn't seem to be any turtles in the immediate vicinity!

And so I know it's a bit abrupt, but we'll stop here for now. This update ended up cut a bit awkwardly because it was originally going to be a part of a longer one. But then I realised it would end up just too long so I decided to cut it in two. So this one is a bit shorter than usual, but in return the next part will be coming much quicker than usual since it's already basically done!

Until then, take care!




Here are some more pencil sketches, I guess these were tests for possible advertisements, since some of them say something along the lines "Coming Next Spring" and so on.