Part 7: It's A Kind Of Magicant

Update Seven: It's A Kind Of Magicant

Welcome back! Last time, on Mother, we tooled around Magicant a bit, picked up a Flying Man, and it was decided I'm keeping the Easy Ring. Today, we're meeting someone very special and snagging two very special items, so let's rock.



We're heading back into this area today; it's the local castle.





There's also some very valuable items in here, including one that I am still drooling over.



There's two doorways in this hall, and we're heading inside the closest one first.



These guys kind of look like fat little skeleton children to me.



I'm sure there's no way that that is even close to correct.



Granted, I'm not great at parsing NES graphics sometimes, so it could be obvious as to what they are, and if it is, please, point it out to me.



Then she starts to sing a song, but only a short bit of it. The fact she can't remember seems to bring her pain. Then she wakes up covered in sweat. Something really sad must've happened to Queen Mary a long time ago...

It's a good thing we're going to see Queen Mary, then. Oh, yeah, spoiler, we're meeting Queen Mary.





But, uh, we're not meeting Queen Mary in this room. We're not doing anything in this room.





Heading down the hallway, we find the second doorway.



It leads to more doorways, most of which are very helpful.



Inside of the nearest doorway, we find another person and a reddish carpet.



I think we've found the Queen's throne room.



This carpet is hella long, too.



I guess it's so that if someone comes to assassinate the Queen, she has plenty of time to see them coming.

Or else it's grand and ornate and it's for fancy royalty. I don't know, I'm middle-class, dammit.



With the Onyx Hook, you can come back here at any time.

Before we speak with the Queen, I talk to this guy, and he makes me feel so welcome. And what's this talk of an Onyx Hook?



Jesus, man, I just got here.



Erm, aren't you awful short for a Queen?



and you can have as much as you like of whatever you want.

Look, Your Majesty, I understand you're a Queen and all, but I don't think you can ever give me enough experience points.



seem to remember it. I'm sure I'll be able to remember it someday.

I wonder if out on our melody-collecting journey we'll find the melody needed to jog her memory about this.



Or if she has a melody that we need. But, this is all the information we're getting out of the Queen right now; Telepathy does nothing here, and neither does playing our Ocarina.



So, we're just going to hoof on outta here.



There's still more castle to explore.



Oh, Jesus, the choices!



Behind Door Number One, unfortunately, there's nothing I really want. Just a few healing items, but Leo can just tank the damage.



Behind Door Number Two is more of the same, so let's skip straight to the third door.



Now, this room is the only super interesting one. Out of these six chests, you can only open one of them.

In the top row, there's a Boomerang, a PSI Stone and a Fight Capsule (which increases Fight by 5), while on bottom, there's a Rope, Ruler and a Berry Tofu.



I take the Boomerang, as it's one hell of an offensive upgrade for Leo. The PSI Stone restores some PP, but I'm about to find one here soon, so I leave it.



Sweet Jesus, look at that offense boost. That Boomerang was a fuckin' twenty point boost!



After opening one present box, all the others are opened, leaving none of their bounty behind.



Which is fine by me. I took what probably is the best item, and now we're done here.





So, after clearing on out of there, there's one more quick stop I'd like to make.



We're heading back to the village.



I've got some things I'd like to store, as we're about to get some nice items, and I'd like the space free.



It took me longer to find this house than I'll admit.



I throw the Ocarina, Teeball Bat and GGF's Diary into storage, as I don't think I'll need these items again. And if I do, they're just a conversation away.



Remember that area that held all of the different wells? As it turns out, there is a purpose to those, one I didn't know about before.





It even kind of makes the different amount of wells to make sense.



We need to enter a specific one of these wells, but which one?



If you guessed this one, huzzah, you are correct!



The well leads to an interesting path.



We need to enter these holes in a specific order. We start by going to the right hole.



Then left.



And down the left one again.



Then hit the right hole again, and we're brought to this place!



It's, uh...Certainly big. And has a very black floor.



And encounters!



These fellers have 40 HP, and sweet God, look at what the Boomerang does for Leo's offense. He can even SMAAAAAAAASH with it!





Gah, fuck! With only 35 HP, these guys fall just as quickly as Papa Swoosh does.



Goddammit, sometimes, I think my Easy Ring is a bit of a bootleg.



This is an Ulrich. I was getting tired of encounters at this point, so I decided to see if Offense Up was as useless as it was in Earthbound.

It definitely isn't, because, fuck, look at that number! Leo's offense was 81 prior to this! Good God, game!



There's also a bit of Flying Man action in this fight; he doesn't match Leo's battle prowess, but I'll be damned if I don't like having him along.



Thunder Alpha doesn't seem too terribly effective, but then again, if that had hit Leo, that'd be the most damage anything has ever done to him.





Oh, my God, Leo, you're amazing!





Oh, fuck my anus!



After another encounter, things seem to go back to normal.



I actually get to cover a bit of ground down here.



Even though I have thirty of these in a bag, I still won't turn down another one. They restore a good bit of HP, and I'd rather be prepared.



Heading south, we can see more of this dungeon to the east, and what I assume to be sky to the west.





Heading down and around the bend, I get into another encounter.



With 40 HP, they're no more a threat than anything else we've met.



But, he helps net Leo a level!





This is why I don't recommending taking the PSI Stone back at the castle. There's a free one here, and the Boomerang will serve you much better.



That's a pretty nice bit of PP recovery, too. It lasts more than one use, too, but I'm not sure how many uses it will last.





There's a split in the path here; heading west leads us down a short side path, while east leads us further into this area.



What the hell is that thing?



It looks like a dragon, but we'll have to wait a little bit before investigating further.



We've already met Swooshettes, and Papa Swoosh's earlier, but the Swoosh is new. He only has 30 HP, too.



It's a bit dangerous for Flying Man down here, as he has no defensive gear. If Leo wasn't kitted out as well as he is, I think he'd be taking comparable damage, which means this fight could be fairly dangerous.



But, after a few rounds of combat, both Leo and Flying Man emerge victorious. It's too bad there's no way to heal the Flying Man's wounds.



The dragon's pretty deeply asleep, as there's nothing I can do to rouse his attention. But, we'll be back for this guy, in about a half-dozen levels. You'll see why.



And apparently chill as hell, if he's just letting monsters converge around him as he sleeps.



Ah, jeez, not these jerks again.



After clearing out another family of Swooshes, Leo moves on from bothering the dragon. He's now mourning the death of Flying Man.



Hmm, a hole, within a hole, within a hidden hole-dungeon thing. Jesus, there are so many hole levels at work here.



But, this hole is special. It has a guardian.



The Cave Master here is no ordinary fish.



He counts as a boss, so I prepare accordingly.



I am never going to get tired of seeing that big of a boost to offense.



He attacks with combo attacks, which could be dangerous for a lower level Leo (or a Leo without top-tier defensive gear). This 3 HP of damage actually caught me off-guard.



With only 65 HP, I probably didn't need that Offense Up.



But, he drops a shitload of exp, and Leo levels up again!



At the bottom of the hole he was guarding, there's a present box. It's the other important item of this update.



If you'll remember back in the Queen's throne room, one of the people there mentioned that this thing would take us back to Magicant.



See! Even the description says so.



Now, already being in Magicant, I didn't think this would actually work.







But, uh, here we are. Back at the beginning of Magicant. Thankfully, we're not very far from where we were.





So, we're going to hit the impression man's house and save up.



have $1,224 in the bank.

We've got a good bit of dough, methinks. This will be useful when we finally get another party member.



But, we save up here, and we're done for this update.

Next time, on Mother, we'll be returning to the world outside of Magicant. Stay tuned!