Part 7

We left off last time, having met our new friend, Rowlf. After destroying the school lab, we high-tail it out of there. Then I look at Rowlf's stats.



Yeah, he's a total weakling, so it's not as if all of those rumors about him were false. Ah, well, not much we can do. Except take him to Magicant to train his ass.

First, though, random NPCs with even more random comments.





And best of all...

Sure, why not?



As I will learn soon, yes, they are.



Nope.




This allows me to make phone calls for free. Which is cool, but phone calls only cost one dollar, and this takes up 1/16 of my inventory. Well, enough stalling, time to go to Magicant.

First thing I do when I get there...





Well, he told me about it earlier, but I answer no anyways...





Nice. Not too exciting, but every little bit helps. After fighting for some time, I head to Duncan factory in the north. Along the way I find...


Only thing surprising about her is that Peter didn't knock her fat ass down in one hit. Even more surprising- that was a critical hit.


Peter is still to where common enemies have no effect on him. His only real concern right now is his side-kick's well being.






Yawn. None of there are surprising at all.


Oh. These. You know, in this game, nothing frightens me more than enemies that look like this. Reason- car exhaust. Peter has asthma, meaning that if they use car exhaust, he will effectively be out of the fight unless you have an inhaler. The reason for the level jump is that I started to go this way before heading to Magicant. I then realized that this was a very bad idea. Fortunately, I got away with this encounter without any problems.



This is the reason that I have to go to the Duncan factory. Kind of a pain.

I proceed north a bit. Soon, I come across this-



Sweet. According to the Games Rules Book of the World, this must allow me to get into the factory!

A bit more north...



Well, right here!



The dog then proceeds to do the moon walk, and attacks me. My "third" "boss,"



Except not. I beat it in one hit and continue into the factory.



I'm afraid I fail to capture the true essence of this place. It's a long, boring, horrible evil dungeon, filled with all sorts of things that want me dead. I have been unable to capture just HOW long, boring, horrible and evil this place is, but a good start is that, at Rowlf was level 8 when I entered, and was 15 when I finally left. He gained about 2000 experience, where enemies gave somewhere between 40 and 70 EXP each, with only a few that had more than one at a time. I nearly tore my hair out with this place. To make matters worse, this ended up being like a normal Hero/Sidekick relationship, as Peter did all the fighting and healing, and Rowlf spent most of his time defending himself. Now, I have to question WHY I wanted a sidekick. Ah well, in any case, let's meet some of the friends I made here.


Will always get a PK Fire off, doing about 20 damage to anyone who isn't guarding. This is a pain, and was probably the main source of damage we took.


These guys are pretty weak as far as attack and defense goes, but are THE biggest threat here. They can throw bombs, doing about 70 damage to both characters. I had to escape once due to these fuckers, as they knocked Peter out, and Rowlf has all the combat capabilities of an anemic six-month old.




Doctor Distorto isn't too bad, but he can do 12 damage to Peter where nothing outside of this place can do more than one. Then again, that isn't too amazing here.

Scrappers have PK Beam alpha, which does 30 points of damage to one person. Not a fun time.


Pretty much the same as scrappers from what I could tell, except with a different look. Anyways, after fighting hoards of these things, sometimes only able to take ONE STEP between battles, I finally make it to...



Hey, that could be cool!




And that's the end of the dungeon. Except that I still have to get out. I barely take a few steps before Rowlf buys it and I have to warp to Magicant again. Damn I hate this place.

After another bout of retracing my steps, I make it back to where the rocks were.



Well, I head just a little further north.




Well, I can only afford the trip to Raindeer, so I go with that. And now, I'm riding the train to a new area.



This goes on for a while. Sometime, I should make a recording of this.



Well, here's a map of the game world, with the arrow indicating where I am. In a hundred years, I will be surprised if there aren't any stories of someone returning a map for not showing his or her ACTUAL location.


I talk to someone here.



Well, eventually, I guess.





Well. Sidequest time. First, however, I go to town to buy something for Rowlf. I find a Plasma Beam for sale. The bad news is that it is an item, so it takes up inventory space. The good news is that it does 70 damage to an enemy

I get money for another ticket, and I head to Snowman. After all, it's the best lead I have right now. On the way to the station, I meet this joker.




Well, it could be one of the melodies I need.




'Fraid not, though. I don't talk to many people, because at this point, you tend to find people with colds. Peter, having left his mask at home, is particularly vulnerable to the cold and avoids them. When he grows up, imagine how he's going to handle the whole Avian Flu scare.

New train, new place...







New questions, new problems...




New people WITH problems...






But all in all, the same ol' game.






How convenient!

A short walk later, I get to a house.




Hmm, perhaps this is the girl whose hat I am carrying...




If this weren't a game about kids with psychic powers, I'd say that was a pickup line gone horribly wrong. I "use" the hat...



Yep.









And with that I have my third party member!

Let's see what she's got...



Ugh. Well, time for another trip to Magicant. But that's all the grinding I can take for one day, so I call it quits here. Still, I have two towns to explore, a desert to cross, and a bunch more problems to deal with soon. 'Til next time.