Part 7: Days 7-9 - Three's a Crowd

Days 7-9 – Three’s a Crowd

Where we last left off, Mouse attempted to convince people like Rummy and Bagoth that time was looping on the island and that Xelpherpolis was evil. He failed.

However, he has taken the first steps, and now we must pursue the possibilities as far as possible.

When we failed to convince Bagoth, Pattimo suggested predicting something, like the reactor explosion. While just telling him about it wouldn’t accomplish much, perhaps we can intervene in a more meaningful way?

What do we know about the reactor? It explodes, of course. In the process of preparing the “Sacred Sword” for the wedding. We saw someone mucking around with it earlier, who was it….?



Ah yes, Ano. If anybody can be of help regarding the reactor, it would be him, right?

But as you can see, talking to him elicits no meaningful response. You would think we’re barking up the wrong tree, until….



(But getting anything out of that Magic Scientist will require a lot of work.)

Contrary to Pattimo’s words, it will not require a lot of work, just a lot of following cryptic clues.

In a room right next to Ano, two blokes will give you some hints about him. One mentions he has a favourite pen made of gold, but that doesn’t sound relevant. Another says he has great respect for his teacher, Jailson, who pioneered Magic Science.

That sounds like a promising lead, right? Maybe his mentor can help applying pressure to him? Of course we have no idea where this Jailson might be or if he’ll help us.



Turns out Jailson’s here in the back yard of the palace.

Jailson: “Sorry, but could you come back again later? I’m busy with my research right now.”

(Boy, if you think the apprentice is bad, the teacher’s even worse.)

Jailson: “Huh? Did you say something?”

The fact that Jailson overheard implies that Pattimo and Mouse have just been whispering to each other really subtly this whole time with their bracketed dialogue.

Anyway, this conversation is what you’ll get on any normal occasion with Jailson. However, talking to him when seeking the reactor key provides this follow up….





Jailson: “If you get close to it by mistake, it’ll swallow you in a single gulp. Hey, watch out!”




Click here to see Mouse beat up a big flower.

And suddenly, we’re fighting. Large Magic Flower is the closest thing to a boss fight we’ve had so far.

Large Magic Flower looks like the Walking Flowers we met ages ago. It has a regular attack that does damage, as well as a health absorber. It can spray pollen that reduces your defence.

The fight might have been a lot tougher had I not grinded long and hard, but as I have, I manage just fine.



Now Jailson is unconscious. Because of the shock of seeing us fight his flower. Huh. Also note the flower isn’t actually dead.

“To have “Large Magic Flower” beat you must have been quite a shock. Jailson’s passed out over here.”

”But Pattimo, I beat the flower, not the other way around!”



We decide to loot Jailson for his key. Why? There’s no way to know intuitively.



There’s a locked door in the palace. We could have noticed it far earlier, and its logical that a key you get might open a locked door in the palace. But you’ll never guess what we want from here.



Jailson’s clothes. Why we bothered raiding his room for these when we could have stripped his unconscious body is beyond me, but here we are.

More importantly, you would never guess the plan Mouse has in store. First, we have to go to the empty room just outside Ano’s room, and “use” Jailson’s clothes from our inventory.




That’s right: Mouse’s master plan was to impersonate Jailson so we could bilk Ano into giving us the reactor key. Mouse is not only a perfect fit for his clothes, but such a master cosmetician he made himself look like a 50+ year old man.



Ano is completely fooled.

”Yes, hello my good young pupil. Have you perchance considered that the demon reactor might explode?”

“What? What if the demon reactor exploded….? What are you talking about? That came out of nowhere. That’s not like you at all, Professor. As long as I am managing the demon reactor, there will be no accidents. There is a control room for the demon reactor. Now, as long as that doesn’t get destroyed, there’s no need to worry.”

”But my good boy, what if the controls are destroyed?”

“What if the control room’s functions are destroyed? Of course, in that case there would be a huge explosion in the reactor. But that’s inconceivable. If you are so worried Professor, why don’t you go inspect it yourself?”



”Ah good, thank you, my good apprentice.”

“Humph. You don’t have to treat me like such a novice.”

We are then teleported out of Ano’s room, and out of Jailson’s clothes.

We have our key, and that’s all we need as far as recruiting Bagoth goes. Well, aside from showing up at the right time.



Rummy shows up to demand we date her once again. This is a scene that will change, so we need to show up. However, we have a quick stop to make on the way.


Now Playing – Claire’s Theme



“There’s nothing really special here, but if you want, have a look around.”

Our visit to Claire’s shop produces nothing fruitful. If you expect to trigger something, you might waste a lot of time, and even miss Rummy’s new date.

The content comes when we try to leave. If we did this during the first week, Claire would give us a cryptic warning about us getting into serious events on the island. But as we are on the second week…



“I’m sorry. For some reason, I have this feeling that something’s going to happen to you. You’re….yes, you’re going to be at the center of something very big. Like the center of a watch dial. Oh my. Sometimes I just babble on about things that make no sense. That’s why the islanders think I’m strange.”

“Actually, what you’re talking about makes sense.”



“My name’s Pattimo. I’m Mouse’s longtime partner. You probably have special powers. That’s why you have partially awakened from the mysterious magic that lurks over the island and have started to speak the truth unconsciously. But to the islanders who know nothing, it sounds like pure fiction.”

“….Mysterious….magic. Kid….I mean, Mouse…Are you saying you know what this thing is?”

”Indeed. Let me tell you everything…”



”….so yeah, Xelpherpolis is evil and time is looping.”

“I’m sure it’s hard to swallow all at once…”

“No. For some reason, I do believe it. Actually, I already knew. Show me your watch again, would you?”



“Until now, the only really accurate clocks were those in my shop. Maybe there’s something similar about us. I…I must have already known from the very first time I saw your watch!”




Now Playing – Breaking the Loop



Just like with Loreille, there’s a big flash of light, and Claire’s out of the loop.

“….It wasn’t even when you showed me the watch. I knew the minute my hand touched yours. I don’t know why, but I feel really relieved. I feel like I do when I’ve had lots of water after a morning with a hangover.”

“I hope you’ll keep an eye out for this guy. A new member!”



We could say no, but there’s no point when we have no other party members.

So yeah, Claire’s an official ally that we can now drag around the island at our leisure. I’ll talk more about how she fares as an ally when we hit combat.

I could have taken this opportunity to present Claire to Plosi (despite being “old” she’s good enough for him), but we have other things to attend to.

Right now, we have a date to attend.



”And you….brought a friend.”



”Just think of it as a double date.”

”Whatever. I guess it makes a nice metaphor for my life….”



We cut to sometime into the date, where Rummy is now drunk as a skunk.

“Sir Mouse!! Are you listening?!”

(Didn’t know her drinking was this bad.)

“Excuse me, did you say something?”

”Definitely not.”

“All right. Bottoms up on this one. Bottoms up!!”

”I don’t think I can drink anymore, Rummy.”

“What? You can’t? Should you be saying that? One word from me and you could be dead. Shall I inform the royal household that you have been calling Sir Xelpherpolis, the leader of this island, an evil apparition? You will DEFINITELY be sentenced to death!”

”Actually, go tell Xelpherpolis directly. He’ll probably laugh.”

“Now, now, hurry up! You’re a man so down it. Just down it! Sir Xelpherpolis can drink a bottle of the strongest alcohol and his coloring doesn’t change a shade!”



(This time she’s a sobbing drunk. Your talk with her this morning must have had an effect.)



Mouse sculls his drink. I guess to distract Rummy, or make her feel better.



“This is so…embarrassing!”




“YES”

“You are very blunt, aren’t you. But that’s all right. I know it myself. It’s better than you telling me some blatant lie. Sob. Sob. Sob.”

“NO”

“Oh, you liar! The truth is you, Mouse, like the Princess too…Sob. Sob. You’ve (sic) in the same situation as me. You like someone who’s out of your reach!”





And she’s passed out.



We cut to 6AM the next day (day 8), taking Rummy back to her house. The implication would be that Mouse kept her at his hotel room until now. Sounds like an awkward situation to me.



“But drinking and blowing off steam like that made me feel so much better. Thanks, Mouse. After I rest a bit, I’ll go over to the castle. If you need me for anything, don’t hesitate to call on me.”

She turns to go inside her house.




“…..Oh, nothing. Never mind.”



Mouse rubs his head like he’s confused and then leaves.



As you all must have guessed by now, we have to intervene in her explosive poisoning attempt. How isn’t remotely clear right now, but we’ll get there.

Interestingly, we still have Claire with us, as if she followed Mouse around the whole time.

Now, many of you are already aware that this game is nearly impossible to play without a walkthrough. However, the walkthroughs are not always good sources of information. One suggested that you could go recruit Kyte now, as he’s supposedly available from 6AM to 12PM. This is not correct. The actual window for grabbing Kyte is between 12PM and 6PM, I believe. You definitely can’t get him in the morning, cause I tried. While he said he’s unavailable on the 4th, you can still get him on the 5th, and that’s when I pick him up.

We have something else to attend to anyway: Rinna’s tour.



There’s no change to Rinna’s tour until you hit the music scene. Here we get a completely new song: Woods Energy. It’s another complicated piece that I fail miserably attempting normally. This one’s so bad I actually set the slowdown feature to 20% to get a good result. Fortunately, just like last time, you’re performance doesn’t matter.


Click here to hear some negative energy in the woods.

Rinna’s tour doesn’t help with anything other than unlocking that song. It so happens that this scene is completely missable, and thus the song could never be heard either. One wonders why they bothered.

An odd side effect of Rinna’s tour is that Claire is forced out of the party. No idea why.



I try nabbing Kyte while I have Rinna with me past 12. It doesn’t work. I think it’s designed this way due to how you recruit Kyte. But even after I ditch Rinna at 4PM, he still doesn’t want to come with me.

We can go check on Rummy for an interesting tidbit.



Well we know what she’s on about, don’t we? But we must still wait until later to do anything about it.



I attend the Gallhint scene. Nothing changes except for Xel’s lines at the end, as well as Loreille’s prediction being cut out.

“I don’t care how many times I see it, it still amuses, doesn’t it? A person really dies after all. You have already become a part of this island. You’re just the same this one here! (sic)”

It sure seems like the man already knows we know about the loop. But he clearly isn’t acting to stop us. This moves us to the start of the 4th day of this week (day 9), FYI.



As part of my testing whether I could recruit Kyte early (still couldn’t, he’s drunk on the bed, as you can barely see), I get some interesting dialogue from this bloke.

Lordan’s Son: “I know you almost killed me, but I still can’t get you out of my mind!”

So, uh, this implies Rummy tried to kill “Lordan’s Son” here, but the dude is madly in love with her anyway. A very bizarre thing to bring up at random. I’m not sure we ever get any elaboration on what happened between the two of them.



I thought I’d test if we could still see certain scenes, and this one can be. There’s no new dialogue, but it is truncated, and Ano never shows up. Xel just reminds us of the dinner.

It’s at this moment I remember I lost Claire to Rinna’s tour and go to get her back. We just have to talk to party members where they usually hang out to get them in our party. However…




“Of course, I’ve never used it. I’ve thought of throwing it out lots of times. But after meeting you and awakening from the spell of time, I realized something. If time reverts back, all the things we have acquired during that time disappear too, right? But, the items placed in the vault are untouched. This is the “Time Vault”!”



Pattimo parrots Claire for no apparent reason.

“The inside of the vault isn’t affected by time. It contains a power that surpasses time. I want you to use this. If you have a valuable item, store it in here. If you do this, you’ll be able to take your items with you into the next time warp. It’s easy to use. Check out the vault you’ll figure out how to use it right away. Also, I’ve unlocked the entrance on the second floor of the shop. Feel free to come on through anytime you want.”

While key items and accessories will always come with you upon looping, useful stuff like healing items and money vanishes. I built up a few thousand grinding that was pissed away by the loop. Now that we have Claire’s time vault, that won’t happen again. Of course, we have to remember to store our stuff before time loops, else it’s all lost.



The vault can store infinite money, but has a limited capacity for items: only five different types. That means you can have the maximum number of any given item (99), but only five different types of item. 99 Live Berries and 10 Revive Potions can fit in just fine, but you couldn’t fit in four more types of item.

With that out of the way, I grab Claire and head to the palace. Now’s the day to save Rummy.

We don’t really know what we’re doing as far as stopping her goes. If we check her house, she’s gone, as she promised yesterday she’d return to the palace. She has a room on the first floor, a place you don’t normally visit (going through the main entrance gets you to the second floor).



Traversing the palace gives me the perfect opportunity to describe party members in general and Claire specifically.

While we had no issues with our temporary guests like Rummy on the beach and Rinna after the tour, when you first recruit a character in Ephemeral Fantasia, they have a “reliability” rating of 50. Reliability is a stat that measures how likely they are to follow commands. Yes, that’s right, allies can refuse to follow orders, usually resulting in them doing some basic attack instead of what you wanted. It’s an annoying mechanic that will just frustrate you early on. Reliability increases quickly, but there’s little point to it existing in the first place.

You’ll notice that Claire has comparable HP to Mouse, but she starts at level 1. Fantasia has a stat called “Party Level” that increases with experience like individual levels. I don’t fully understand it even now, but the bare minimum it does is to increase character’s HP and MP regardless of their own level. While this means you’ll never have a character with minimal HP, it doesn’t make them any more useful starting out: without weapon levels, they suck at attacking and have low defence. Their other stats also won’t be all that high, like strength.

Claire uses a chain for a weapon (she holds it in such a bizarre way). Right now, all she has is a basic attack that barely hurts enemies. She will eventually learn better attacks. One is called “Cologne”, which lets her confuse enemies. It’s mildly useful early on, but not so much later. Her best Arts are “Heal Circle” and “Speed Chain”. Speed Chain increases your action speed. Heal Circle gives your characters constant regeneration for a set period (or until they reach max HP). She can be a real life saver in certain situations.

Claire’s true forte is magic. She learns ice spells which do a whole lot more damage than her wimpy chain ever will. Because of this, it’s best to put her in defensive mode: that way, you reduce damage done to her, and nothing is taken away from her ability to cast magic.



Anyway, here is Rummy’s Palace room. She has no unique dialogue right now, to the point you might think you can’t do anything here. But the sweet spot comes at 12PM.



Rummy’s very surprised to see us, and has a bunch of new things out on her table.

“I’m so sorry about yesterday. I was not feeling well, so I took the day off. I am back on the job looking after you again, but I have another matter I must attend to right now. I heard you will be attending this evening’s dinner, so I will come pick you up. Until then…”



Rummy has left, forgetting that she has left some very incriminating stuff on her table. Let’s snoop, shall we?



Loose Page: This is not well known nowadays but it is possible to make a powerful gunpowder by mixing the Nightmare Flower and powder made from radiant stones. Separately, these two elements are harmless, but combined they create a surprisingly powerful explosive. In ancient Pandule, this explosive was used to mine for the world’s hardest substance, known as Gaeatect. It is possible to nullify the effects of this with the Nightmare Root.

A bit overkill to use a mining explosive to kill someone, isn’t it Rummy? But I guess in small amounts, all it does is make a wee fire.

After clicking on the two reagents on the table, Pattimo will speak.



“We’ve got to do something to thwart her plan! Our only chance are (sic) the hours between the banquet and when she mixes the potion. Let’s check out what’s going on in the kitchen!

And then suddenly, we are thrust into an encounter.




Click here to see Jaylamu be disarmed.

This creature is called Jaylamu. Whether it’s related to what Rummy was doing, or Xelpherpolis suddenly decided to send it to kill us, we’ll never know.

It’s another technical boss fight, but Jaylamu is not much trouble.



When defeated, rather than vanishing like other enemies, Jaylamu screams as its arms disappear. Odd to say the least. We acquire the Nightmare Root we need for beating him.

With Jaylamu out of the way, we head over to the palace kitchen.



In other words, 7PM is when we have to do something. If you came here at exactly 12PM, that means a lot of waiting, which I used to grind levels and money.



The glasses actually appear at 6PM, but you can’t interact with them until 7PM. The game effectively quizzes us on the events on that evening. The glass Loreille drank from was the blue one.

However, putting the nullifying root in the glass results in….




Click here to see Jaylamu die.

Another fight with Jaylamu. This time he’s armless, except for the one that shoots out of his stomach to attack with.

Despite losing part of his body, he’s stronger than last time, but nothing I can’t handle. This time he dies for good. Funnily enough, if we lose here, we get a game over rather than starting another loop.

EDIT: Just had an epiphany. It's not that we're randomly getting game overs, it's that losing to the wacky demons specifically gets you game overs. If you lose to normal monsters, you get a new loop, regardless of when. Honestly amazed it took me this long to figure it out.

Once he’s gone, we jump directly to the dinner party. Nothing changes about this scene until we hit Xel ordering Rummy to drink.







Xelpherpolis then leaves.



Loreille shares a glance with Mouse before leaving also.

Now, you’re probably wondering if anything interesting happens due to picking the wrong glass. You are still expected to fight Jaylamu, but we get a different scene…




We cut to downstairs, suggesting Mouse just left Rummy sitting on the floor.

“How did you know? How did you know I’d do that? Please answer me, Mouse!”




“I surprised you, didn’t I? Sorry. I am Pattimo, the talking instrument. This here is my long time partner. How did we know of your plans to assassinate the Princess? It’s simple. We had already seen you try to do it once before.”

“So, what you said earlier was true?”

”Indeed. Especially the part about Xelpherpolis being an evil douchebag.”

“There’s nothing you should feel badly about.”



“But, this woke you up finally, right?”




“Hey, take care of this one, OK? Our new partner….”

And now we have a full party of three.

However, there’s someone we’ll be missing out on getting: Bagoth. We could have gotten him today, but it would mean leaving Rummy. Rummy is more important to nab for reasons that will become apparent later.

EDIT: It is technically possible to nab him, as I was informed that a speedrunner managed to sprint to the demon reactor just in time. Of course this must be achieved in a narrow time frame, so it would be easy to miss out.

Here is where I shall stop for today.

Join me next time, where we finish up this week and move onto the next.