Part 43: Labyrinth
LabyrinthMusic: Fall

Today is not an important day. It's Sofia's unbirthday! I'll make sure to give her something she hates.


Karina isn't on the same page. Or is on the same page? Does she mean 'loves' in oppositespeak or

Let's see what Monica wants.

























It's okay Monica, this game doesn't have a rival system.





Requests like this are literally just speedbumps on the way to marry someone. In Shara's case, you have to complete her questline and some requests from Monica and Wells.



That's it. That's the entire conversation. Blaise is truly a man of mystery.






I guess I should give Sofia her valuable birthday present now.




Great. Have one from the pile.









Gaius continues to be a national treasure.


Pop culture references? In my Rune Factory?





Yue doesn't have anything too notable today, so enjoy a weapon description.

Just because, have some shipping stats. I'm not going for 100% completion because I'm not insane, but you can get decently far as long as you're crafting & cooking a lot.
And now, How To Catch A Lover Snapper, in three easy steps:

1)Go to the underground area before the boss in Privera Forest.

2)Run in and out of the area until a fish with a silhouette this size appears.

3)Catch that lover snapper.
This trick works because the lover snapper is in the largest silhouette category, and nothing else that spawns in Privera is. So instead of sitting and fishing all day, you can just reset the screen until the right size fish shows up. Now I can finally finish that stupid Carlos quest.






Tomorrow: So close to full-grown charm blues. So damned close.

Let's finish this quest that's been hanging out there since...November? Jesus. (Click the link and head to the end of the update if you need a refresher. tl;dr catch two lover snapper to prove we're good enough for Carmen)


Music: Title Theme






That's it. The only prize is fulfilling a requirement to marry Carmen. The later requests involved in bachelorette questlines are really bad about that.

Speaking of which, let's see what Shara wants. It's never said anywhere, but she's hanging out in the Privera flower field for this.


Rude.







This is one of my favorite daily dialogue subplots.





Oh no. She might be attacked by an insanely dangerous Wooly.












For the record, this is where the Big Half-Monster Reveal would normally be. The two woolies here were parent and child, and the parent was getting medicine. But since we've done the Big Reveal in the plot already, that little plot thread is just...left unsaid, I guess. Quality!






Again: It's a Wooly. It's the weakest and least aggressive monster in the game. The horror!











...why were you going to give a ring to a Wooly?



Her not being a hazard to everyone's health? Her having a basic understanding of medical ethics?
The next several hours happened, but then they didn't happened. You see, I've been religiously saving every few in-game hours, because I want these goddamned plot flowers grown already and am sick of typhoons. One happened at the end of the day, and...



Yeah, fuck that. Luckily I didn't lose more than a few minutes of progress.

This is also around when I dug around my fridge enough to realize I already had a pink cat in storage. Only charm blues left for the bouquet now!









With that out of the way, it's time to see something I keep forgetting to show off: The labyrinth dungeons. Once upon a time you could do these multiplayer, but

Our only dungeon choice right now is Forest Quest, which is rated level 15. Which makes sense, since these dungeons unlock the instant you can turn into a Wooly.
Let's get to it!
Music: Dungeon (Multiplayer)

Welcome to the labyrinth. The entire layout is randomly generated, each room is pulled from a very few setpieces, and ways you can't go are blocked off by convenient obstacles. Simple enough.

The monsters may look familiar, but their levels are scaled to match the dungeon level. Not a big deal now, but important to remember in later labyrinth dungeons.

One big reason to go in here is semi-painless upgrade item farming. None of the rooms in the labyrinth have monster spawners, so you can run through decently fast.

A bigger reason is the item chests. Their contents are similar to Yue's stock - ranging from total garbage to game-changing.

Each level of the labyrinth has a boss monster guarding the way out, in this case the Wooly King. It has the same AI as a regular Wooly, ie. completely harmless.
Before anyone asks: You can't recruit the giant versions of regular monsters.


I could keep exploring, but let's just keep things moving and get out of here.

Beating Forest Quest unlocks Mystery Tree. It's level 30, so it might pose something resembling a challenge. (For comparison, Link is level 36)


Not gonna lie: The scenery here is giving me war flashbacks from RF4. Rune Prana: Never again.

The stuff here's tougher for sure, but not enough to be a real threat.

The layout was also oddly linear.

All in all, this run was pretty boring. No notable loot. The boss was just a goblin captain or something mundane enough I didn't realize it was the boss until the gate appeared.

Noticing a pattern with the levels? I might be able to handle Forest Hunt since my weapons are nuts, but it's getting late and



I need all my effort for remembering to upgrade farm tools, after all.


No farm is complete without a seasoned hoe.

The Lion waterpot can water three large farm squares at once. I feel so pressured to actually organize my farm plots instead of growing stuff wherever.


Two charm blues means I can finish the bouquet and the next Pia quest!


tl;dr for this one was that Pia messed up the bath, and she sent us to get a Charm Blue while Sakuya had a little chat with her. You know, normal stuff to leave hanging for an in-game week or more.

















Why does it it take an entire day to make a bouquet? Oh well, it's not like this part of the plot hasn't already dragged on forever.


Rude.


Why are you all starting to comment on this now?

...I have questions, Blaise.



Aaaand walking right back in to finish this quest.



Look, it's not my fault I'm compelled to win so many of them.






I mean, she's always strange, but...yeah, this is strange even for Pia.





















Well, that was...something.

Let's go talk to relatively normal people.

Let me tell you about this thing called 'carrot cake'...








Welp, time to kill time by killing monsters.

Fun fact: The watering can can be weaponized. Somehow.


8PM hits, and we beat Carmen to her own house.



Not that it matters, since she magically teleported in and has been in there long enough to make dinner. Don't think about it too hard.
























The reward is-hey wait, didn't you just go back inside?

Too tired for this shit, try again tomorrow.
Next time: I hope you like plot, because boy howdy do I have plot.
And as a reminder:
Haifisch posted:
Guess what? It'smonster name voting time
again! Be aware that it'll take several updates for any of these to show up thanks to my backlog. As a reminder, the character limit is 6.
I need names for the following:
-Shadow Panther. It's a reptilian panther.
-Scorpion. It's a scorpion.
-Hornet. It's a hornet/bee. These monster names are not the most creative.
-Silver Wolf. It's a not-silver wolf. More of a blue, if you ask me.