Part 50: Blooper Reel
Update 50: Blooper Reel
Music: AutumnWe rejoin Bush on the 16th of Autumn, already on the run!
I'll be honest, I don't remember if anything big happens today. I know some stuff goes down tomorrow, but I think today is just more prep work for the finale.
ANETTE: I feel really good recently. What about you, Bush?
I'm doing good!
Bush is already completely exhausted from cooking piles of tea. That stuff is still fantastic RP recovery for what it is.
Might as well make some more rose seeds. Will probably plant them on Whale when the pumpkins I've got up there finish.
I'm looking to have a bunch of Pumpkin Tarts for the finale, they're a huge HP and RP heal.
STELLA: Do you remember about that landslide in the mountains I told you about?
BUSH: Yes.
STELLA: Because of that, all ties were cut off to the town that I had connections with.
STELLA: I really panicked then and moved around from town to town.
STELLA: It was then that I got to know Kanno, Ganesha's teacher, and Lara's father.
STELLA: If it weren't for that heavy rain, the Trampoli as we know it wouldn't have existed.
Funny how sometimes bad things can turn around in ways better than you'd have thought. Doesn't always happen, but it's one of those nice little oddities of life.
GANESHA: There was a person that was called the "God of the Forge." We were both born on the 8th of winter. I'm proud of that.
I suppose that could be seen as auspicious, yeah. The real bad one is having your birthday on a major holiday.
Following this, I make some room in my various boxes just eating scrap metal for Forging skill. Might as well, it's just takinig up space.
This day is immensely empty, so take this handy advice section from Bush.
Annoying enemies like Souls getting you down with their high damage output? Just snipe the gate from a distance with the Fire Rod.
The Fire Rod solves a lot of problems, really.
(We're just grinding levels and skills.)
Following this, we go deep on continuing to stock up on only our best foods for the finale.
Tonight's preparations are Sandwiches, crafted to perfection after gifting them to Selphy for so long.
At just item level 2, these things are a near full heal on both bars and comes with a huge max HP boost. 280 HP, 450 RP, +85 Max HP, and Paralysis Defense. Who needs potions anyways?
All of our finale meals go into the bottom shelf of the fridge. It'll become quite sizable soon- Bush's mastery of the culinary arts will prove it's merit in the decisive conflict.
Now, one might ask why Bush has separated a stack of grass in his inventory until it's full.
The answer is quite simple.
You can use this to selectively grab runeys without having to worry about tossing the other ones back out. Wish I'd known this months ago!
It's even better when you realize the sort button in the inventory will automatically stack items, saving you the trouble of putting them all back together yourself.
Bush, you genius.
Bath time!
♨ BATH FACTS ♨
Bath Facts(tm) has been temporarily suspended due to lack of new bath facts.
We are deeply sorry for the inconvenience. Please forgive the Bath Facts(tm) staff, if you can find it in your heart.
We resume making cups and cups of tea individually, one at a time- that's just The Bush Way.
Added to our collection of food prep is 6 Peperoncino, 16 Relax Tea, a level 10 Salmon Sashimi, 4 Sandwiches, and 4 Cherry Pies.
This isn't including all the tea on our hotbar- this is just what we're saving for later. We're not even done yet!
After a dip back down into Snow Ruins for a Quality Fur, Bush sets to work on a Cat's Tail. This is just more magician wear to pair with our Bunny Ears if that proves to be a better weapon against what Gelwein has us go up against.
Those surplus Magic Crystals really coming in clutch here.
It also happens to be Kross's favorite gift, so it'll probably go to him eventually.
Bush is now a strange catboy/bunny hybrid.
But I like the style we were rockin' before, so it's back to that. This is strictly way better on a physical defense front.
Wow, Bush in bed at 6:58. Our boy's finally getting more than 6 hours of sleep on the regular.
New day!
Water some plants...
And get some mail!. That's the Bush daily routine.
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~"Actually..." - $@%&~
Oh, stars in the heavens,
what I reall want to be is a mailman.
I just love how everyone smiles
when they get their mail.
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Hrm, where have we heard that before?
IRIS NOIRE: One day, I would like to grow a lot of flowers with my own fields.
We can clear some land up here if you want. I'm sure you don't have much of a problem dealing with monsters.
I suppose that'll need to wait until after we solve the whole Gelwein thing. You two need to keep singing.
LARA: That was a strange dream.
LARA: Thinking back, those strange dreams were all due to it seeking help.
LARA: But, why were you called to the dream with me, Bush?
Bush has been receiving dream communications on the ol' brainphone for nearly 3 months now, it's not really new.
I then take a stop out to plant some stuff underneath the Church in the Snow Ruins back entrance. It's some backup carrots for sandwiches and some fodder for RP runes.
This is a decently convenient spot for it, but I think I also forget about these plants entirely.
Music: Whale Island TowerFollowing this, Bush continues his training arc. I start farming the Gigantes right at the tower shortcut. If you can land a fireball in quick enough, you can just stunlock them.,
Fire Rod, it's just too good.
Bush is now level 61.
Meanwhile, Pony is only 54. She used to stay much higher level than us, but her EXP being based off the increasingly impossible friendship system for monster let Bush overtake her.
We all know that visual is a lie, there's actually 11 smiley faces there. Don't gaslight us, game!
I eventually take the fight all across the towers. We're going to get to the bottom of these things quite soon.
Pictured it Bush sniping some gates before they spawn anything in the Tower of Glory. The thing is that all these towers have identical layouts...
Square platform at top down to a wide upper area...
Descending staircase to the right...
And wide bottom floor.
They all are structured like this, some minor visual details aside.
Also, big
on my part here, this lever next to the lower level staircase is actually what I'm looking for, I just don't even see it.This opens the path to the center tower, but I don't find it until tomorrow.
Oh, and they all have these "gardens" at the bottom. These of course being plastered in monsters, not fields.
The black and blue
We take a break from that for the time being to clear up some box space by making something we should have a long time back.
And that's a Wedding Bouquet made (with expertise, of course). It's actually worth over 3000 gold which makes me wonder if it's a profitable market.
You can always get more Tide Clusters at the beach, so Baleen isn't an issue.
Still, mass strawberries/tomatoes or the like will still always pay better.
Make a bunch of tea, nab a bath...
BUSH: Anette, this was sent to me by mistake...
ANETTE: Really?! It can't be...
ANETTE: Let me see that...
ANETTE: What the...? Huh?! What is this doing at your place, Bush?!
ANETTE: This is... This is really embarrassing.
BUSH: What's wrong? Is this your...
ANETTE: I guess I can't avoid it any further.
ANETTE: This is, well, a letter I wrote to the stars when I was small.
ANETTE: How on earth did it show up now?
BUSH: Oh, really... Then I guess I should give it back to you.
ANETTE: Hmm...
ANETTE: Wait. You already saw it anyway. Besides...
ANETTE: I became the way I am because I wanted someone to see it.
ANETTE: It all rests on your shoulders now!
If I recall, this all started from seeing her Constellation, I think. Regardless, I think we all know those wishes came true in the end
At this point, I decide to hit up Candy to get some Rune Stones. We've mostly not needed them as a mechanic until now, but there's some good stuff to get out of the towers.
...Of course, my thinking at the time is that there was levers behind each I'd need to hit to open the tower in the center.
Bush still has some mostly full bars left, so he criticals his floorboards for a while until he's tired.
New day!
Yeah, we're going into a 3rd day for this update. There's... not a lot going on now. Our farming is mostly automated, the runeys are fine for a while, most storylines are completed, most dialogue exhausted...
I'm really just cutting out a lot of "Bush fights monsters for 2 hours" as we're really running out of things to do.
We can always count on Anette to keep delivering content though!
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~"Another favor" - Ganesha~
Thank you for sharing ingredients
with me last time.
Can I ask you for one more favor?
I'm in need of a Wind Crystal.
Thanks.
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We've got a few in the box from slime hunting, so this is easily fulfilled.
These pumpkins are determined to finish growing at the 13th hour.
Following that, we make our way back to the tower with Rune Stones in tow.
The only other Rune Stone door I know of is at the end of Whale Island cave. Talk about an underused mechanic. I suppose I should be thankful, I'd rather not need more Runey-based stuff in my life.
The stones here have to correspond to the door's color and engraving. Birth has grass aligned doors.
Upon putting the stone in the finicky to target slot, a big spotlight shines down upon it and the door opens.
It opens into a cute little kitchen with two item boxes.
Oh, come on, game
These boxes both drop E Drink X on this run, which is that thing I had to go out of my way to get Lab skill 50 for last update.
Could've saved myself the trouble if I knew I could just get one from here.
Tower of Rebirth is covered in Little Mages and their recolors.
It uses Tree Rune stones.
This one's a kinda drab but also charming little bedroom. We get another E. Drink X and also a high level Fire Crystal.
I just like the little chessboard in here.
The next room is also a bedroom, but less cozy. We get Gold from these chests. That plus our other finds is mostly the whole loot table from these boxes: Drink X, element crystals, high tier metal.
One of the rooms in the tower of Glory (Hunter Wolves and Fairies) has an elegant little tea room.
The other is an elegant bedroom.
Lever hit!
And so, in we go...
...Oh. It's just a small antechamber before the boss room. I was expecting a few dungeon rooms or something, but I guess not.
We got energy and expendable supplies, why not go ahead and knock this off the checklist? Let Gelwein and his nonsense be our real final boss.
It's been a long time since Mr. Whale asked us to deal with this thing.
Music: Electrosquid(This one's an interesting track. It's a shame it gets old rather fast.)
*We open to a view of a darkened chamber, and in it is a rampaging bioluminescent octopus!*
I do like the colors this guy has going on, although the lightning part is really understated (really only present with the design on his face) compared to the more poisonous aura the rest of it has.
Electrosquid is a tough fight, but mostly for the fact it has so much HP. It only rotates in a circle to face you the entire fight.
His main attack is to just slap with both tentacles in front of him. It's decent damage, but rarely hits anyways.
His side tentacles can clip you for small amounts of damage, really only so it can knock you back to try and keep you in front.
This serves to stun you so the boss can better pull off...
Spraying water across the floor...
(This will hurt and knockback a bit, but it's usually not a big deal.)
Then electrocuting it with one of his two fron tentacles.
I have never been hit by this attack. In fact, it's so easy to avoid, it's a good attack to bait him into for free hits.
This is the attack that actually hurts. If you're too far around his sides and close enough to his body, he'll do a quick electric discharge all around him that's hard to avoid. It does about 100 damage, which is a 3rd of our health.
Better than the snek and the near lethal on most hits.
Still, he can spam the everliving bojangles out of this move, so you will die trying to tank it. That is, of course, unless you don't still have post-knockback invincibility frames active. Say, from those weak high knockback tentacles on his side?
If you time it right, you can absolutely keep eating 3 damage from a side tentacle and getting hits in as the electric AOE just moves through you harmlessly.
The problem in that little plan is that you can hurt the tentacles on the sides. Enough damage will make them curl up and be harmless for a while. You can even knock out the two front tentacles, but these stay down longer.
Taking these out is the intended way to fight the boss anyways.
My strategy for this fight is mostly to strategically spam the Demon Axe's higher level charge attack. It's the only thing we have that does good damage to Conductive Calamari here in regards to that massive HP bar, and even if the main hits miss, the shockwave tends to clip the boss for at least a little extra.
The tentacles do not count for the boss's HP.
That's because they count as individual monsters that reward EXP on kill.
This is simultaneously
and 
.Level cannoning is, as result, a good thing to do during this boss fight.
This healthbar at about half is the result of extremely frequent 350 damage hits (averaged from the full connections and small shockwave clips) over the course of two and half minutes straight.
This boss has a ton of HP.
When it gets to roughly a quarter or fifth of the bar, it's time for the usual rage mode. We do get to see the much cooler neon look that it had going on when the cutscene introduced it.
A higher turning speed combined with higher damage makes this part of the fight actually deadly. Even the side tentacles hit for 35 now, which is substantial enough to not be sustainable constantly.
The water spray + electrify is potentially more of a threat now as the boss moves faster and sprays longer. Despite that, it's still pretty easy to avoid even when the boss's own tentacles aren't knocking you out of the way instead of into it.
The discharge hurts real bad now, and is the main reason you'll probably die.
I get more than a few runs this far just to die. When it means I have to run around in circles around a boss for 3 minutes each time, I have to say, it starts getting a bit annoying.
If you do manage to KO all the tentacles at once, it will put the boss into a stunned state similar to the Ice Snake. The problem here is that it's a rather short window by comparison, and it takes so much effort of running in circles trying to hit these things to get to this point.
The trusty old Earth Wand does an okay job at hitting them, but it's rough. It's still useful to prompt at times if you can, particularly during the rage phase.
I didn't get that annoyed at this boss as it only took me 16 minutes to get a winning run once I figured out all the mechanics.
*It flails about for a short moment...*
*...and then collapses.*
yeah, rip in sushi, pal
It actually just shrinks back down and hides in a little pool in the center of the chamber.
Also I've got like one or two Runeys in my inventory, eating up space and I can't get rid of them to pick up our loot. I do what I can to make space, but those little buggers do make me have to give up some items I didn't want to have to.
Electrosquid specifically drops the Bright Tentacle, used for a max level head accessory and that's about it, I think.
We never make anything from this thing.
begone from my bag, you nuisance
Keep biting the hand that keeps your ecosystem alive, see what it gets you- go on!
go away, curse you
Ah, at last, inventory space. Let's go tell the Whale we solved that thing it asked us to do months ago.
WHALE: It seems that you have punished the monster in the water tower.
WHALE: Thank you. It will now act somewhat more tame.
WHALE: Well, this is a little something for your troubles...
And so we get a Little Crystal! Despite how it might sound, these are required materials for the strongest items in the game, including the permanent stat boosters.
Grinding Whale Island towers to max out your stats is a thing you can do in the postgame. We, uh, won't be doing that.
Well, what now? We can't do anything more until we get our crystal flower from Rosetta tomorrow.
Since we now have the forging skill to pull it off, I say, why not upgrade our magical arsenal? We make the Meteor Cane, the highest level Earth staff.
this is fine
It summons in meteors that fall near where Bush is currently standing for a period of time.
After a bit more gathering, we can now also make a Crimson Stick.
It doesn't look like much, but while we're casting it, any enemy that would be around us gets hit with some fire damage and knocked back.
Like most high level staves, it's really underwhelming.
If you are playing this game, Fire Rod, Earth Wand, and Gaea Staff are all you need, really.
In the meantime, I also used one of our level 10 flours to prepare some special Toast for the big day. 325 RP gain isn't something to laugh at.
Tomorrow we'll have the pumpkins we need to make a pile of Pumpkin Tarts to go with our Sandwiches in the big healing pile.
Our meal prep is serious business.
Bush is now flexing level 64 and a hot 70 Lumber skill. Magic's almost to 50, and we've got some impressive stats all around.
He's powerful, he's strong, he's smart, and he's ready to take on the world.
BUT!
I should make it clear that the Era of Disconnect plotline is reaching a critical point for Bush very soon- tomorrow in fact. Autumn 19th will be a important day for Bush.
Autumn 19th also so happens to be the date day for the season.
So, before Bush steps up to save the day, not knowing if he'll ever return, who shall he spend the afternoon with?
The list of available options is as follows:
1. Melody
2. Anette
3. Cinnamon
4. Selphy
5. Lara
6. Tabatha
Rosetta still won't be available for a date for quite some time, and the Irises are still busy keeping the island afloat.
Until then, goodnight!
Music: Goodnight