Part 7: I got the turnip.

Update 07: I got the Turnip.



Music: Whale Island Entrance

(Another song that suffers from re-hearing the first part way too often, this is a neat theme. I think it matches the mysterious, mystical feel of being on a flying whale island.)

On this Monday, right at noon, Bush has climbed a skyscraper of a beanstalk, at zero cost to his stamina, to reach a talking whale shaped sky island that is apparently going to plummet to the ground and destroy our house at some indeterminate time.

Also Bush is standing weird.




This is because we're finally in a combat zone! Watering cans are held like one-handed swords and hoes are held like two-handed swords for some reason, though their animations are the same as you use for farming.



Last time, the island told us to look at this weird rock.




BUSH: "The melody of trust grows within 12 maidens." I wonder what this means...



*Some balls of energy form and shoot outwards!*



...Okay.

I don't actually know what this is for, as I only got halfway through the game originally, and it wasn't relevant by that point. I have some ideas on what it might be for, but nothing solid.



BUSH: What was that just now...?


BUSH: I guess I should keep moving.




Music: Whale Island Cave

(I don't have too much to say about this track, really. It's good, but it feels a bit forgettable compared to others in this game.)

Progressing further past this gets us to a cave! It took us 6 updates, but we're finally getting to combat in this game about farming and combat!





These here are Gates, openings to the First Forest that occasionally spew out monsters in the form of lightning bolts.

In this case, we have a goblin!



Our low level pacifist magic sword lacks any interesting abilities aside from it's spammable basic attack: a back and forth diagonal swing combo.

It's still more than enough to easily defeat this goblin as they also similarly lack variety. They have a weak lunging kick and a sword slash. That's it.




Our sword can also damage Gates and destroy them. How a sword or a hoe can mend a dimensional rift is beyond me, but I guess we banish the gates too.




The goblin also dropped this, a Warrior Medal (previously called Proof Of Warrior). The 48 in a row thing is probably a reference to something, but I've no idea what it is.

Goblins can also drop Cheap Cloth and Blade Pieces. Honestly, the medal is the least useful item they could drop.



To the south from there is a few farm fields and thankfully nearby water. Where the other dungeons will have a rather obvious season to them, Whale Island is special in that it counts as Spring, Summer, and Autumn all at the same time. You can grow whatever you want up here.

The caveat is that Whale Island is unreachable on Sundays and the fields require a lot more time to get to. It's still a good deal at the end of the day if you need out of season crops early.



Instead of bamboo shoots, it also grows mushrooms. They're worth the same, but they've got a chance of poison on consumption.




I'm mostly running to the right and past the goblins for the time being- there's something else here I'm looking for, and my RP is quite low.



Here's um, ants. They're big, they can bite or shoot this stuff. Neither attack does much damage. They can drop insect jaws or insect skin when defeated, which makes you question how much truth there is to the pacifist magic our weapons are supposedly enchanted with.



I ignore them as well for now, as this section of the cave is what I'm looking for.

I've fought one enemy since I've been in here




Red robes and big witch hat, here's a returning character if I ever saw one!




WITCH GIRL: Oh?




MELODY: Hey, Bush!♪ It's me! Bathhouse Melody!


MELODY: What are you doing here?


Apparently, Bathhouse Melody is her full name now.




BUSH: That's what I want to know. There are a lot of monsters around here, you know.


It's really not that hard to avoid the enemies in here, Bush. Also screenshotting on the fade between sprites is terrifying.

Though, this event is a lot funnier if you grow the beanstalk and make it here in one go, as it effectively means Melody has somehow just been up here the entire time.




MELODY: That's what I want to know. There are a lot of monsters around here, you know.


MELODY: I think it's somewhere around that rock.


Also, her hat shadow makes her look almost a bit sinister now, that can't just be me, right? I wouldn't be surprised if she effortlessly fought off all the monsters on the way here.




MELODY: Why don't you try breaking that rock?



You got Cheap Hammer!



As I noted when I got the axe, the hammers also still have crazy proportions.






*So Bush gives the cracked boulder a right smack...*



*And a large amount of hot spring water spews forth!*



She performs the charging hug maneuver on Bush, which I believe is colliquially known as "the glomp."

This information is outside the purview of Amnesic Agriculture 102, and is not guaranteed to be factual.





MELODY: Yaaay! You dug up a hot spring!



um could you let me go now

Bush has just the most uncomfortable, unreacting pose and I can only say that I have probably done this before.




MELODY: Woohoo!♪ I knew my intuition was right.


MELODY: I have no time to waste!




MELODY: Oh right, I'll be running a bathhouse, so be sure to come by!♪


If you guessed that Bathhouse Melody would run a bathhouse, then you are good at context clues.




She waves goodbye to us and then waltzes off into the darkness in her toeless boots, humming.




With that done, I clear some ants off me and I prepare to use the hammer for it's common use.



Not only is it as vocally violent as cutting lumber, it's even more visually impressive.



The game is also nice enough to let you hit multiple ore rocks at the same time.




This nets me a bit of Scrap Iron and Iron. These will be important when I finally get a forge.



With that, we're outta here. Our HP and RP are in a bad way right now, and while I could try to get enough EXP to level up and restore both fully, (because that happens), I'd also be cutting it close.



Hey, this wasn't here when I left!

Apparently Melody can construct a bathhouse in 30 minutes.



The bathhouse opens at 3:00 PM, which is annoying when you need it at say, any time before that. My memory is dim, but I'm pretty sure later games just started opening them at the same time as other businesses.



Music: Business District Buildings

Regardless, welcome to Laga Springs. What or who is Laga, you might ask?




MELODY: Welcome, Bush, to the "Laga Springs"!♪


BUSH: "Laga Springs"?




MELODY: Yup. That's the whale's name. It's called Laga. That's why it's called "Laga Springs." But I'm the one that named it.


Melody just up and named the sky whale island without asking anyone, including it. To be fair, Whale Island Springs would be a confusing name as this is not situated on the island.



MELODY: Taking a bath cleans the soul! So you should come everyday! ♪




MELODY: Welcome!♪ The bath is perfect as always today!



Believe me, Bush will have a very clean soul by the end of this LP. The bathhouses in Rune Factory games are an incredible bargain for what they do, and we'll be coming here nearly every day.




MELODY: The men's bath is on the right side. I'll put you in a world of pain if you try to go in the women's bath!


MELODY: Did you just try to imagine what I'd do to you?


BUSH: N-no...


Yeah, I'm convinced the monsters weren't an issue for her.





MELODY: Thanks!♪ I can use the herbs to make medicine so I was looking for it!


A gift, but also perhaps more of a peace offering.

Melody's changed her perspective on gifts since Rune Factory 1, where the only act that would increase LP was using the bath. It still increases it here, but she now actually gets LP for gifts as well.




MELODY: That will be 10 Gold! Thank you! Enjoy!♪


A bath only costs the price of a turnip seed or handful of weeds- Melody charges the least in the series for this.




BUSH: (Let's take a bath.)




BUSH: (*phew* That's nice...)


This man has no nip. Such is the fate of our skinny Ken doll physique.

Regardless, we haven't had a bath in presumably a week, so we probably needed this.




BUSH: (That felt great...)





10g for a full restore is absolutely busted, and it boosts the quality of life in this game by a ton. We can effectively do double the work now, every day.

I waited this long just for the sake of pacing the LP a bit, but you can get this as early as day 1.

If you're playing along or just casually, open it as early as you can.




BUSH: The room is adorned with flowers.




BUSH: There are a lot of books about magic. Melody must study a lot...


The latter gives a bit of information on Melody that is probably predictable: the girl in a witch outfit studies magic. They do a little bit more with this than you'd think at first though.




BUSH: This is Melody's bed...


BUSH: No, wait... Sleeping here would be bad.




BUSH: Something smells very soothing. There must be herbs inside the stuffed animals.


BUSH: ... Zzz....



Music: Goodnight




Bush, what did you just




BUSH: Huh?! I fell asleep.


You and your fakeouts, game!



This doesn't actually move the clock any, alas. If it did, I'm sure it'd be a speedrunning strat or something.



Anyways, before we head off to bed today, we make some serious bank. We also jump our cooking skill to about 12 or so.




"Melody - The always lively bathhouse owner. Always in search for the perfect bath."




"Kanno - The old man of the Clock Tower. Very knowledgeable but only when he wants to."


Here's also the profiles for Melody and Kanno. I wish I could be smart whenever I wanted.



Music: Spring

New day!



This morning starts with a lone turnip. My watering got really off there thanks to all the passing out.




ANETTE: Bush! Good morning!


ANETTE: Who did you write a letter to today?


ANETTE: The weather is so nice.




ANETTE: Your house has been empty for a really long time. I always thought it was a waste since it had such a nice field.


ANETTE: It might be weird coming from me, but take good care of it, okay?


Anette's had her eyes on this house for quite a while.


-----------------------------------------------------
~"I got the Turnip." - Mist~

I have recieved the Turnip.
It feels so strange communicating
with you through letters like this.
Anyway, thank you.

-----------------------------------------------------

You could've just asked me in person. We're neighbors, you know.




ANETTE: Seeing some of those letters written in some weird foreign language makes it feel kind of off.


Mist is still recieving missives relating to her dark plot.




ANETTE: Kanno! You've got mail!


ANETTE: That's a really old book. Is it a magical book that Kanno is researching? Now I'm getting kind of interested.


Kanno also has books delivered. Anette has to carry so many books to just this side of town every day.




ANETTE: Whoops. I almost dropped my wallet.


She never actually loses it as far as I know, so no returning it for those LP gains.




ANETTE: This thick dictionary isn't going to fit in the mailbox.


I guess she leaves it on the doorstop?

She'll also say this when it's raining, and I can only wonder what happens to the dictionary then.





ANETTE: Melody, you got mail!♪


ANETTE: It's a letter from Lynette!♪




Lynette has trouble fitting in, so it's nice to see that she and Melody are friends. Also that the devs didn't forget about her. Still wish she made a cameo in a later game.

It also brings into question what exactly happened in the first game. Lynette is your main antagonist, and the person mostly responsible for your amnesia. That being said, she has a change of heart after our hero defeats the dragon god her plan centered around. Given we carry over no skills, no items, and barely anyone says anything about what we've supposedly done in the past, did it happen?

I guess these are just the unplanned sequel blues. Makes me kinda wish they had found some way to pull your data from RF1 to use in this game. The Wii can connect to a DS after all...




ANETTE: That's a really cute letter. Is it from your little sister?


Can't remember if we've seen this already, but Danny's got a family elsewhere.




DANNY: Oh. So you've been to Whale Island?


DANNY: Anyway, buy something.


Now that we have interacted with the plot people will remark on this. The large majority of people will be unimpressed by the idea that we managed to climb a skyscraper beanstalk to reach a flying sky whale island, but such is life in a fantasy world.





EUNICE: You went to Whale Island? How did you get to such a high place?


EUNICE: Bush, you can fly?


Some villagers are more easily impressed.




ANETTE: Ganesha, you've got an order from Alverna!


Going back to the mail, Alverna, or rather, Alvarna, is the town from Rune Factory 2. Frontier is still around 10 or so years before the events of that game.

That being said, I can only wonder what Tanya and Ganesha in the same room would be like.




ANETTE: Turner, you've got mail!


Really, they usually get the least interesting mail.




I pay my turnip dues, once again.



Then she starts humming some song, but as to what it is, I don't know.

I think this has something to do with the strange rock on Whale Island.




BUSH: Mist, you've said before that someone is calling to you, right?


MIST: Yeah. The person appears in my dreams and speaks to me sometimes.


MIST: He seemed to be in a lot of pain lately, so I got a bit worried. That's why I came to this town to look for him, but I can't find him anywhere.


BUSH: How strange...




MIST: I know! Next time I see him, I'll ask him to appear in your dreams, too.


Oh great, she's pulling us further into her schemes! Bush, don't fall for it!



BUSH: Um... Okay... Thanks, I guess.


Curses!



Jokes aside, it's pretty obvious it's the whale in this case, I'd think.

I also think it's about time I cut this JPEG grass. It doesn't give any fodder, but I also don't have a barn so that's whatever.





BUSH: What is this? Does it lead to some underground ruins...?

The Green Ruins are now open!


Here's the real prize here.





MIST: You cleaned up the front of my house and I want to thank you for it.


MIST: Let me give you this. Please take care of it.



You recieved Turnip Seed!


What's funny about this is that Bush doesn't even have a dialogue box, just a to end the conversation.



Music: Green Ruins

(This is a remix of the first cave in RF1, Carmite Cave. It's quite good and makes for a nice callback.)

A second dungeon in the same update! Egads!

This one has a season of eternal Spring, and is somewhat tougher than what we're facing in Whale Island's cave.

We'll be making periodic progress in here, but this dungeon has a special aspect to it that I don't believe the other dungeons have. It'll be quite some time before we see that, as it requires us to reach the first boss of the game.




This dungeon also has daily respawning crates that drop low tier crafting materials sometimes. I don't know who restocks them.

I go ahead and till one of those farm plots for later. I'll eventually want them to plant the two multiple harvest spring plants, Strawberries and Cucumbers. Doing that will establish me having a supply of them for as long as I want with the added benefit of being in a rather easy to reach location. At least one batch of strawberries here will give you enough to give the four townies who like strawberries one per day, and still get an extra one as surplus every harvest.

As three of those are romance candidates, (Rosetta, Anette, and Lara,) it's not a bad deal at all.



To progress further, we have to cut some vines out of our way.



This here is a Chipsqueek. They can either throw a volley of acorns at you, or do a very telegraphed bite.



They also go out on their own terms, by throwing an acorn in the air and hitting themselves in the head with it.

At least, that's how I choose to interpret it.




Thankfully, the majority of the dungeon farm plots have water sources nearby. These are even closer than the ones at our actual farm



Fighting ants and stuff really starts to wear me out, but...



Here's that full restore on level up I mentioned earlier.



Further in is a box that disappointingly nothing in it, and a good few more rocks to smash.



Hammers can sometimes daze enemies on hit. The fact that I did this to one of the cute squirrel foxes is because I was smashing a rock at the same time.

Bush is unrelenting in his farm work.



There's a lot farm plots in this place, really. A number of them are just far enough out of the way to be inconvenient.



More farm plots!

And that's about it for Green Ruins today. We'll have to skill up and gear a good deal more before we take it on for real.



I should've saved these monster parts, but also they're not too hard to grind out, so I think the extra cash was worth it.

Off to the bathhouse for the last part of this update!




FANCY OLD MAN: Hot springs are so nice...


FANCY OLD MAN: Don't you think so, young man?


BUSH: Yes.




NOLAN: I think that you and I will get along fine. My name is Nolan. I am traveling around sampling hot springs all over.


NOLAN: Where did you come from?


BUSH: Nice to meet you. My name is Bush. I am borrowing a field of this village and making my living here.


As far as I'm concerned, that field is ours.




NOLAN: A field, I see. I'm sure the bath feels very nice after a day of work in the fields.


NOLAN: This hot spring is very effective on back pain. Please rest here to heal yourself.




BUSH: Huh?! No, I...


NOLAN: Hm?


NOLAN: Oh, you'll have to excuse me for being so rude. I just cannot get out of the habit of speaking about things only from my point of view.




NOLAN: I suppose that young people like yourself wouldn't have back pain. I'm sorry.


And with that, we've met Nolan. He, uh, likes baths. About as much as Melody does. He does have that cat chilling on his shoulder though.

Anyways, that's all for this time.

Next time we meet even more characters! I would say it never ends, but it does!

...Just not any time soon.