Part 28: Axes to Grind
Update 28: Axes To Grind
It's not raining today!
Music: SummerTime for the usual Summer theme!
Bush starts the day of knitting another scarf. These are really good for grinding up skills early on as long as you've got Woolies.
Silver Ring Lv:4 was synthesized.
With some silver and our high level insect skins we can start producing Silver Rings. These are really good to mass grind Crafts skill with, as neither material is particularly rare.
Azure Brooch Lv:1 was synthesized.
With some silver and a sapphire we got from the Chickogriff long ago, I can make this decidedly not azure brooch.
I guess they forgot that Sapphires are only pink in this world when they named it.
I mostly made it for the skill up, it doesn't really compare to the crest we already have. You get more skillpoints for making difficult things and I've really not got much in the way of storage space still, so crafting random stuff is a good way to go about things.
The weird gap in our grass pastures has finally grown back in, so it looks a bit nicer now.
I don't know if anyone but me cared or noticed, but hey, farming!
waterin'
ANETTE: I love it when it's sunny. I wish it would be sunny every day.
But then I'd never get to use the guest tracks!
She doesn't have anything interesting to say after that, so it's back off the usual stuff until Bush can go bug other people for conversation.
LARA: I hear some rumors about a ghost recently...
LARA: It's not a ghost. It's Kross. He has lived here for so long. Everyone needs to be more caring and learn his name.
So other people can see him!
I guess this adds a bit of explanation to why he comes to the church on rainy days.
UZUKI: Maintaining the naginata can also train your concentration. I purify it with the purest of water in the early morning.
UZUKI: There is a dependable blacksmith called Ganesha here, so my regular maintenance is perfect.
Bush never maintains his tools, but that's because he's not beholden to a durability system.
EUNICE: Bush! Your clothes are torn!
BUSH: You're right... Maybe they got torn when I was working in the fields.
EUNICE: Wait just a second. I'll sew it up for you.
EUNICE: Done!
BUSH: Wow! It's as good as new.
EUNICE: I'm good at sewing. You can ask me if it gets torn again.
Given everything Bush goes through in combat, I'm surprised there was only one tear.
TURNER: Rumor says that the Zzyzx Empire next to our country is looking for its chance to invade the Kingdom of Norad.
TURNER: Scary...
They attempted it just a year ago, in fact!
They got kicked hard enough to not attempt it again for what I estimate to be about 15 to 20 years, so that's something.
BIANCA: The weather is nice today. Tabatha was happy about it, too.
Huh, the weather must be real nice. It's the first time people haven't complained about the heat this season.
KROSS: I don't really like it when it's so sunny.
KROSS: Heh... the sunlight is so cruel. It shines upon all the beautiful things as well as the dirty things. Don't you think so?
Kross is evidently more of a moderately cloudy kind of guy.
LUTE: The weather is so nice. My work goes so smoothly when the weather is this good.
It's a Thursday, so Lute is here at the lake! I gave him a scarf, but he didn't wear it...
LUTE: A long time ago, Erik called out to me from behind and tried to hit on me.
LUTE: But when he found out that I was a man, he ran away at the speed of light.
LUTE: Don't you think that's rude? Well, we got to be really good friends after that so all is well.
I still wish Lute was a romance option- he's a cool dude. Compared to Erik, who is a rude dude.
TABATHA: When the monsters run out of food, their frienship with you starts to decline.
TABATHA: Please be careful not to abuse them.
This isn't really an issue for us. We produce almost 5 times the amount of food needed for our monsters every day.
I don't cut it most days though, I let our stock just hover at around 10 days worth of food. It's mostly out of "I've got other stuff to do" energy, but also because it's slowly growing me more Runeys.
I should probably start cutting more so I can stockpile 30 days of food for Winter. Maybe I'll just commit to cutting it every day in Autumn.
SELPHY: The writing from Uzuki's country is pretty different from ours.
SELPHY: I'm learning some of it, but it's actually pretty hard. Still, it's fun to learn it.
Selphy has now entered the import market, trying to find those unlocalized literary gems. Maybe she'll end up going into mail-order translations.
We now interrupt your slice-of-life for serious plot progression.
BUSH: Kanno, the run in the Whale Island's tail shrunk.
KANNO: What?! Are you certain about that?
KANNO: Whale Island stays afloat by the power of that Rune. If the Rune continues to decay, the island will fall and crush the village!
BUSH: Is there anything we can do? Anything at all?!
KANNO: Hm... Perhaps the Rune is shrinking in size because those Spirits have gone somewhere. Do you know of any other places where Runes have gathered like in Whale Island?
BUSH: No... Can't say that I do...
KANNO: Is that so... In that case, let me know if you find a place like that.
BUSH: Okay! I'll start looking for a place where a lot of Runes gather!
We are reminded of the fact that renaming this town to Termina would unfortunately be appropriate.
We now know we're looking for some other mass of runes, perhaps to transplant them or something. We don't really know where to find that yet, so we can really only progress onwards with what we know.
It'll be a while before we get there, and there's no timer, so this urgency isn't real.
Also, yes, neither Bush or Kanno change expression in this dialogue. It seems to only happen in dialogues triggered by story progression. I'm still guessing it's a bit of a development leftover.
KANNO: Whale Island stays afloat due to the vast quantities of Runes gathered there.
KANNO: You saw it, too, didn't you, Bush? That's what it was.
Yeah, the Whale kind of told us so himself.
Never mind that, it's time to work on balancing the runes down here.
Peperoncino Lv:2 was synthesized with expertise!
Never mind that, I'm not going to bore you or myself with the details of Runey management. Instead I'll skip to later in the day where I'm prepping supplies for more Whale Island exploration.
I still don't have the Oven that I really wanted for toast, but the Peperoncino's lifesteal will supplement us well enough for now.
Following that, I dive down into the Lava Ruins to farm more Ignis for magic dust and experience as I run Bush's bars low.
A removal of a Seal debuff and a bath later, and we're ready to do some exploration.
...But before we go, I drop by Selphy's and buy the Ultimate Lab Book, which is the book containing the rest of the Pharmacy recipes, and More Fine Dining which is the intermediate baking book. The latter claims we can "improve our position in the household" which I doubt, as we're already master chefs, and the only one in our household.
Also Melody has officially taken the lead in terms of LP thanks to Relax Tea.
Music: Whale Island OutsideI do some minor farming up on the isle and head in to talk to Iris.
IRIS: It has become so natural for us to speak like this everyday.
IRIS: It feels strange because we were total strangers until a little while ago.
No joke, you've known each other for maybe two, running on three weeks?
...Or, uh, months? You know what, nevermind. Try to think about all the implications of this world's years being 1/3rd the length of ours is a fool's errand.
IRIS: I love the moon. Looking at its pale glow really makes me feel at peace with myself.
You're quite the night owl, so I'd imagine so.
Following that, we head on out to the Tail Tree and on to the Drain.
While I do that, I go ahead and farm a Glittering Edge off of a Mantict- this will be useful for making the Crescent Axe.
Alas, Pony went down in a brawl with some beetles, so I'll yet again have to brave the Drain alone. She's too aggro for her own good sometimes.
Bush is one monster away from hittng level 31, so I try to take down a fairy to get his bars back to full. A chaotic fight ensues, but I manage to separate the two that spawn here.
Seal doesn't really seem to bother the fairy all that much though, it's still got the very deadly fairy dust attack. Did I mention that it can stun you? Yeah, this is pretty much a one way trip to the infirmary-
But somehow Bush breaks out in time and gets a final axe swing off. That was a hell of a close call.
I bop the other one out of existence for good measure, and also because it was almost down too.
Bush is fireballing a Tortas here, but the explosion particle effect kinda covers all that up.
The Fire Staff still does a good job at times, but the more hits of the Earth Staff tend to make it better on the usual.
After doing that for a little bit of experience, it's down into the drain to make progress. We've got 3 hours and 25 minutes from this screenshot until I have to bail out at 1 AM.
As a reminder, staying up past that makes Bush wake up late and I can't have that. Cuts my day short, and also prevents us from meeting Anette.
The water lasers hurt a lot by the way. This one hit for 93, and Bush just clipped it on the side. The fact that flying fish are spawning down here too means that this is about to turn into a bullet hell featuring water lasers.
A fish-made laser narrowly misses Bush as he goes to eat some peperoncino, pretty much just for the HP restoration.
...What? I ain't fighting this mess. I'm getting out of this deathtrap as quickly as I can.
Going up and around through the center area brings us to the third and final part of the drain, with a staircase up and out.
This part of the Drain area is short, but it's a gauntlet.
It's also worth noting that this is all new territory for me- I've never been this far into this zone before. I've finally surpassed my previous attempt at this game!
Up the stairs is a long pathway overlooking the expanse of sky below. There's a farming patch here that nobody will ever use as it's too out of the way, and a spawner just ahead of us. They really like hiding them behind fallen pillars here.
If we head off right past the little field, we run up against a wall which leads us to a chest at a dead end. It's got some cold medicine inside of it, which I guess could possibly save me 100g in the future?
As long as Lara's around, these really aren't worth much.
Holy palette swaps, Bushman! It's a Sealy!
These are just like the other flying fish, the Sky Fish, but with red scales and higher level drops.
It's a pretty early palette swap, I can't say much more about it.
More fighting, more dead ends.
Bush is getting some good experience out of all of this though. The lifesteal off the peperoncino makes enduring the hits we inevitably take much easier.
You lack any sort of ability to dodge in this game, so the only way to avoid damage is to be very light on your feet and rely on staggering enemies.
Eventually the path to the left cuts back downwards and we make it to other side of the short wall where we went down into the drain at. You could definitely just walk past that wall, but whatever, game.
The path goes down and leads further leftwards...
We cross a bridge into a grassy opening...
Shock. And. Awe.
It's a
If these show up in any other Rune Factory game, I don't remember where.
The unidog attacks with a horn rush for the most part, but it does have a giant multi projectile green lightning attack.
They also have little wing-like tufts of hair on their haunches for some reason.
there is only room for one pony in our life
One of these grassy terraces has a farm field in it, and I believe one of these rocks is actually another shortcut back to Whale Island Cave, but I ran out of time to check.
Here's that lightning projectile in action- there's two of the unidogs guarding the entrance to this tower.
You'll have to be faster that, fake ponies!
WHALE ISLAND
TOWER OF BIRTH
Music: Whale Island Tower(If you played Rune Factory 4, you might know this as Autumn Road instead. If you played the rerelease of RF4, then you wouldn't because they changed it for some reason, apparently.
It's still a good theme though, very moody and mystical.)
At long last, we've finally reached the tower that's supposed to have that monster Mr. Whale wants us to bop out of existence.
Unfortunately it's also Bush's bedtime, so it's time to head home.
Battle Axe Lv:4 was synthesized.
Before we sleep for 5 hours, I do a bit of crafting.
Great Axe Lv:5 was synthesized with expertise!
The Great Axe is made by slapping more bronze on a battle axe. It's got 30% paralysis and a bit more damage, that's about it. Our Alldale is easily better.
It looks cool though!
This is one of the last materials we need for the Crescent Axe, all I'm missing now is some silver.
Expertising these doesn't matter as the glittering edge is only 1. We won't get higher for those until we find the mantict reskin later on.
I also spend the rest of our HP/RP on making tea, but I don't really have to show that at this point.
But I go ahead and show it anyways because Bush has officially hit 99 Cooking. It's only been 40 days since arriving here and he's now a master chef!
Now it's time to wake up fully rested after 5 hours of sleep. Bush's Earthmate abilities really just help out everywhere, I guess.
I know last update I said this was a single day update, but I severely misremembered how much actually happened this day.
Music: Visions
(Another dream! I'll just name these characters by the color of their text.)
RED: This isn't good! Even the readings of the Basic Experimental Facility are dropping fast!
VIOLET: The readings of the Cryogenic Facility are below critical!
GREEN: Release the Runes from the backup units!
RED: We already are! The readings are still dropping! At this rate...
GREEN: ...?! Don't look at me like that. There is nothing to worry about.
GREEN: Just be the innocent self you always have been. If you don't....
:GREEN: Why in the world are the Runes diminishing for no apparent reason?!
GREEN: At this rate, this plot of land will die, and people will no longer be able to live here...
GREEN: No, this is bigger than that. If this phenomenon spreads, Runes will completely disappear from the world...
GREEN: When that happens....
Music: Trampoli Daily LifeJeez, Mist, if you're gonna send us your weird dreams, then at least make it the one that aren't anxiety inducing.
Green, whoever they are, isn't having a very good time of it, it seems.
To clear his head, Bush goes about reorganizing his inventory.
I follow up by grinding some more Forging skill by doing the scrap iron upgrade recipe on our chopping axe.
Chopping Axe Lv:5 was synthesized with expertise!
I manage to bring it up to level 5, so that's not half bad!
I'm still going to throw all that away upgrading it into the next tier of axe anyways, as it'll break stumps very fast then.
...Or maybe not, I'll see if I can get the materials to make it work.
A new, good ol' sunny day!
Unfortunately I missed collecting some of our harvest yesterday.
I blame the Runeys.
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~"I'm not gonna lose!" - Marco~
Hey! I heard you're even stronger than before. I better work harder so that I'll be stronger than you.
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I'm not really sure what prompted this, maybe Bush's overall level going over 30?
Marco's not going to be stronger than Bush in cooking, that's for sure.
...but then again, he does have an oven. Which we still don't.
ANETTE: How are you?
Anette has nothing new to say today again...
A little bit of mornin' fishin'. I'm stocking up on cooked fish so I can get to cleaning up these fields at some point.
By the time I finish the morning work, it's time to go bug people for conversation. Bianca's not around in the manor when I stop by, so she's probably at the beach.
Music: Kross' ThemeKROSS: My birthday? I don't have one because I don't remember.
BUSH: I didn't think you knew how to joke, Kross.
KROSS: When did you come to this village?
BUSH: 2nd of Spring.
KROSS: Heh... I see. What a coincidence. My birthday is also on the 2nd of Spring.
KROSS: On that day, one man went away and I came here.
His life changed for the better when Bush arrived, and this is a new him, I guess?
EUNICE: It feels nice to get more friends. Every single day becomes really fun.
EUNICE: I used to feel lonely but I have many more friends now.
EUNICE: Selphy looks so happy whenever I bring the meals to her.
I can't imagine it was too great before. The only people vaguely close to her age before Mist arrived were Danny and Erik. Marco was around too, but he was probably out swinging his practice sword somewhere. But, seriously, did your parents just never hang out with you at all either?
Selphy's probably just happy to get any food at all though, really. While she may be able to subsist entirely on literature, I don't imagine it tastes good.
TSUBUTE: Listen, Milady. You mustn't forget following the qualities of Yamato Nadeshiko.
BUSH: Um, what's Yamato Nadeshiko?
TSUBUTE: That is a good question, Bush.
TSUBUTE: Yamato Nadeshiko refers to women who are modest and traditional by nature.
BUSH: That sounds interesting.
TSUBUTE: What?! Do you prefer women of that sort, Bush?
TSUBUTE: Hm... I see.
At this point Bush has just learned to tell cicada dad what he wants to hear. It results in less threats and angry samurai cries.
Yamato Nadeshiko is apparently a metaphorical name based on the old name of Japan and a flower. As cicada dad says, it's basically an idealized concept of a woman personality-wise that boils down to the usual pure and noble things you'd expect.
Having distracted cicada dad long enough, we can finally talk to Uzuki.
UZUKI: Bush, have you found any clues to my elder brother?
BUSH: Not really...
UZUKI: I see...
TSUBUTE: Where can Brother be...? He should at least show up seeing how milady is so worried about him...
Yeah, we should probably get to looking for Brother at some point.
...It'd help if we had any idea where or what to even look for.
ROSETTA: *phew* I'm so busy.
BUSH: Your store seems to be really successful, Rosetta.
ROSETTA: It's all thanks to customers like you. But I guess I have some talent in running a business after all.
She's a veritable business tycoon. Capitalism runs through her veins!
...I wonder how her dad's doing after all this time. I'd think he gets enough business from the people in Kardia alone, so he's probably fine.
Ah, the Trampoli Book Club is meeting again today!
CINNAMON: I hate cucumbers. Don't bring them to me...
She hates them enough to muster an expression for them!
CINNAMON: There are magic items for people who have no talent for magic. If you have one, anyone can use magic.
CINNAMON: But, you'll never compare to real wizards.
Bush can cast magic without a staff! He just needs a spellbook, which nobody seems to sell anymore.
LARA: Ouch...
BUSH: What's wrong, Lara?
LARA: I scraped my knee.
BUSH: Really? Are you okay?
LARA: Yes. It happens all the time.
LARA: It's embarassing to say this, but I trip often.
BUSH: I see... You really don't look like a clumsy person, though.
LARA: I get that all the time.
You'd think being such a helicopter doctor she'd have treated the scrape by now, but "doctors are their own worst patients" as the saying goes I guess.
LARA: Whale Island seems to be getting bigger to my eyes.
LARA: I just hope nothing bad will happen.
I'm getting to it! Darned unstable runes.
You know, while this game models shadows for time of day, it doesn't model the shadow that Whale Island would cast.
I suppose that's fair, this whole place would be shadow at noon if that was the case.
LARA: My father and Sister Stella have known each other for a long time. I came here as a sort of messenger for them.
LARA: Right when I thought you hadn't come for a while, I find you collapsed in front of me.
LARA: I felt my heart jump!
BUSH: Haha... Sorry about that.
Bush is a problem patient, but can you blame him? He can change the weather by overworking himself. He can outright stop natural disasters, a little bit of time travel or meteorological provided
I'm just glad Lara doesn't really seem to realize how beat up we get on Whale Island.
MELODY: I know that I don't have the talent for magic. It's just fun to learn it.
MELODY: I think Cinnamon is really good at teaching magic.
CINNAMON: ...I'm only okay.
MELODY: You don't have to be so modest!
Being able to enjoy learning a hobby while lacking the talent for it is a great thing when it happens.
Also wow, we're getting a lot of expressions out of Cinnamon today.
MELODY: I'm actually really picky about my hat. Did you know that I wear a different hat everyday?
How many exact copies of that hat do you have?Does everyone in this town have duplicate clothing? Bush never changes!
We find the Coquille crew on the beach today.
TABATHA: Sweeping and dusting must be done every day while waxing is done twice a year. That's the trick to keeping floors clean.
That's a lot of work, but I suppose that sounds about right for the super fancy manor.
TABATHA: Miss Bianca seems to be more cheerful than before. I believe this is all thanks to you, Bush.
When you're deathly bored, you need someone as strange as Bush in your life, I guess.
Speaking of Bianca...
BUSH: You're not going to swim, Bianca?
BIANCA: The beach is there for people to relax on, not a place to swim. Understand?
BUSH: Oh...
Relax on sand?! But it's coarse and rough and irritating and gets everywhere!
BIANCA: Don't you think Francoise is a great name?
Franswah? Sure, I guess.
Despite it not doing anything, here, have a Tree Runey. I've literally got more than a full stack of these buggers.
If I ever got around to cleaning up my fields, I could just start spending them on Lumber Days from Candy. That, and they make good fodder for Rune Stones.
SELPHY: I've always wanted my own library. This library is just the best!
But... you're outside.
SELPHY: I think that a love story between two characters of different rank is classic. Do you like those stories?
BUSH: Me?! I don't know any princesses or people like that so I wouldn't understand...
SELPHY: Hm... That's a really safe answer.
Selphy just really likes The Princess Bride. This topic wasn't brought up for any other reason, I'm sure. Anything else is inconceivable!
Following this literary talk of princesses and stable boys, Bush goes to collect some silver from the Lava Ruins. Time to make that Crescent Axe!
Alright, let's do this.
Crescent Axe Lv: 2 was synthesized.
Pretty rad, it's like two axes melded together into some wicked cleaver. This axe usually just looks kinda like a shortened halberd in the other games.
Bush drops back down into the spicy water cavern to beat up ghosts for a thin stick. We've got another axe to make!
but first
oranges
NOLAN: Hot springs are very nice. Not only do they warm your body, they warm your soul as well.
We've probably seen this line, but this is really more of a reminder that Nolan even exists.
After a bath, I check the runeys and notice that, amazingly, South District is close to prosperity through what I guess is natural means?
I do some intensive Runey management for 3 hours and go ahead and scrape everything needed to put it into prosperity as well. Normally, you'd turn this into another Grass Runey farm, but whatever.
It's kinda bothersome to gather from this area anyways, so I'm just gonna take it while it's free. I make enough extra water and rock from our homestead's growth that I can probably supercharge our one grass farm if I felt like it.
The operative state there is feeling like doing it, which I don't.
Detours done and out of the way, I can finally make that Lumber Axe. This will destroy stumps very quickly, so I can get around to both getting more lumber and cleaning up the field some.
Lumber Axe Lv:5 was synthesized with expertise!
With all the materials at hand, I'm able to craft it at level 5. Not bad, not bad at all! It's only a few points of RP saved, but for such an RP intensive actvity, I'll take it.
With big, fancy shockwaves just like our combat axes, it wipes stumps in only 3 special attacks compared to the, like 9 it needed before.
Oh yeah. This is good.
Field's getting cleaner already!
I go ahead and till that section so it doesn't get filled with natural growth again, then head up to Iris.
New batch of turnips are done! Phew, had me sweating there. I don't want Bush to get called in for not contributing to the root racket.
I plant some more for good measure.
Unfortunately Iris had nothing new to say, but she'll hit LP 5 tomorrow, I think.
Yeah, that fast. She's already overtaken Rosetta, and will pass Mist tomorrow. Melody's on the edge of getting LP 6 already too- favored gifts accelerate this by so much.
As the day comes to a close, Bush prepares some more gifts for the coming days. It's a never-ending job until they hit 10 LP or they get voted out!
The bar is still open at this late, I so drop on by to nab some more supplies. Even though last update I ran us completely broke, we're back up to being as rich as ever.
STELLA: There are some monsters that are skilled and they sometimes make some strange things.
STELLA: I'm sure there are people that like those things, but I just don't like holding onto the possessions of monsters.
STELLA: That "Warrior Medal" just seems really ominous.
Stella tells us her hated gift, and the viewpoint behind it. Kross, Cinnamon, and Kanno are the only people who like monster drops anyways.
Since we've got over 30,000g, I go ahead and burn some more cash on peperonico supplies. Even though our new Crescent Axe has lifesteal, the food itself is pretty decent on both HP and RP fronts, and we can also share the lifesteal with Pony. Should help her stick around longer.
With that, it's time to call it for today. We've got two more days I think, before I start the first round of Bachelorette voting.
Even once it's said and done I'll still probably talk to the losers of said vote and give them gifts from time to time, but I won't be going out of my way to do favorite gifts. If there's days I've got stuff to do, then I'll be able to leave them out if they're out of the way.
Music: GoodnightSee you next time folks!