Part 33: A Clean Bed of Dirt
Update 33: A Clean Bed of Dirt
Music: SummerWe return, in medias res, to the events following Bush stranding his date on an island. What a charmer he is!
KANNO: Do you know what day the 8th of autumn is?
BUSH: The 8th of autumn? I don't know.
KANNO: Then let me tell you. It's my birthday. Don't you forget that.
8th of Autumn isn't nearly as catchy as the 21st of September, but we'll remember it.
Since we're here and still have time to burn before the bath opens, we go ahead and check the gem room in Lava Ruins. Neither reward is a gem, therefore this name is proving insufficient. I'm leaning towards "Room of Frequent Disappointment," myself.
Pony's not with us as starting the date automatically sent her back to the barn, so there's little reason to delve any further in here right now.
So instead, I warp back out to the homestead and finish up the rest of the gardening before we nab that bath.
On the way there, I stop by the archives to buy one particular book: Farm Master. An advanced guide on making farming tools, apparently written by a perfectionist, it costs a massive 12,000g, but it's also the last book we really need. We've also got 50,000g in pocket, so it's not that much of a dent.
This will teach us the rest of the recipes for the better tools, and while the ones we've got now are more than serviceable, a better axe and hammer would be appreciated. We can also work our way to the endgame watering cans that pretty much water half the field in one go.
Melody has somehow made it off the island in Lake Poli, and doesn't begrudge Bush at all for taking the boat and leaving without her.
Cleanliness!
I also burn time until Rosetta's daily event as it was already close enough until then.
Just the same discussion of tomato salads as last time, but I'll take the free little bit of LP even if the Cherry Pie makes it pretty much irrelevant.
RITA: The area around her is just so peaceful...
RITA: But, somewhere in the world, they're still having wars.
RITA: I think that everyone could get along if they just shared a drink with each other...
Maybe the Sechs Empire is only waging war because they're incredibly bored and somehow have no other hobbies than magitech and designing world domination plans. Alcohol might give them something to do.
Then again, it might cause some drunken brawl that spirals into a political incident anyways.
Anyways, one of the reasons I came here is that Rita's supposed to give you a free drink after getting a house extension or after securing a date, but it seems they both have to be the day of it's happening.
I buy a bunch of bags of flour, as we've got a lot of baking to be doing in the coming days.
Since it's a Holiday, we've gotta stop on by the Lake again to get to Iris.
IRIS: Bush, I think it's more befitting for you to hold the hoe raher than the sword.
Iris encourages a pacifist approach to life. Luckily, Bush doesn't use swords!
IRIS: Are you always visiting me because you are worried for me or...?
To be fair, I have no idea what you're eating outside of the tomato juice I bring. Maybe all those generic crates are filled with a lifetime supply of granola bars or something?
Back home, it doesn't look like we'll be getting an upgraded can just yet, as it would take Gold ore, something we haven't seen a lick of, and is presumably in the next dungeon.
Speaking of dungeons, let's go blow up the giant chicken again. The gem room has failed to give me an emerald, and I know this boss is likely to drop one.
It absolutely melts. While we have far surpassed this boss's upgraded form, Lava Ruins still manages to hit like a train at times.
I also use this opportunity to dupe more Wine. Profit-wise, I'd be best served doing it with level 2 sandwiches, but I'm mostly doing this for the fun of duping items in the first place.
If I end up needing tons of money to show off content at the end of the LP, then I guess this'll be my nest egg for that (despite the fact I could just Action Replay my way to max money at that point).
Oh, and also Pony makes this really easy to do now, as instead of firing a fireball from a long enough range to fit in the hotbar input, I can just wait her lunge on the final blow.
There's that emerald
With a good deal of RP leftover and more time left in the night, I set about doing some of the final cleaning on the field.
I'd say this would make lumber harder to get, but there's just tons of fields elsewhere I can source it from that I wouldn't otherwise visit.
Roughly two hours of work and plenty of food later and this patch is cleared out.
There is still this 3x6 patch on the far southern corner left to clear, so it won't all be done tonight. Tomorrow for sure.
So, we shall progress to tomorrow!
And with the gentle rustle of rain we awake on Monday, Summer 20th.
Guest track time!
Music: Rune Factory 1 - SummerA call back to Summer days in Bush's past, here's the appropriate seasonal track from the first game.
I had other submissions to give today, but they were smote by the dark force known as copyright strikes.
Blooming botanicals, Bush-man! The wild plants are already retaking the spot I cleaned last night!
I didn't have time to till it all last night, so this is to be expected. The free 11 lumber is nice though.
But first, mail time!
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~"The Moon" - Cinnamon~
Apparently, the moon is made of cheese.
How do they know that?
How did they get to the moon?
It's a mystery.
I don't quite believe it. Do you?
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Cinnamon thinks the mouse astronauts and rodentkind based space program is a bit hard to believe. Our options are simply to say "I believe it" or "I cannot believe it".
A tough call, but we'll agree with her on this in case it is a hoax, then we won't look so silly if it does get disproven.
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~"I knew it!" - $@%&~
Oh, stars in the heavens, I decided what I really
want to be is a teacher, after all.
If I become a teacher, I can stay in school forever!
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Looks like more of that strange mail is showing up again. It's been a long while since the first one, I'd half forgotten about it.
Staying in school forever is just the worst pitch for a spam mail I've ever seen, where's all the dying Sechs Princes needing our help to donate money to a good cause?
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~"Question" - Selphy~
I wanted your suggestion for my next book.
Should I make the protagonist a prince or a lowly peddler?
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Well, if you're gonna do it about a peddler, call him a hawker. Such a good word.
Our options are thus:
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1. Maybe a prince?
2. Maybe a peddler?
3. How about a princess?
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Bush, knowing that Selphy likes stories about princesses and farmhands, reasons that option three is probably the best choice here. Probably to write what you know than what you don't know, although it never hurts to branch out. It's easier, at least.
ANETTE: It seems like all I do is deliver mail, but it's actually hard because of all these exams.
The Noradian postal system has exams? Or, well, I guess she did mention textbooks last time, so she's in school for something?
For what, we still don't know, but what I also don't know is how you manage to juggle this job and schoolwork at the same time, girl. Yowza.
Bush, not knowing what exams or education are, opts to go inside and make a slightly better Feathered Hat using the materials from the Chickogriff we fought last night.
These have an alternate recipe using the Giant Cockscomb and Bird Feathers it drops, so it's not a bad way of getting some skill/good headwear.
If only I didn't waste that level 10 comb from so many updates ago.
And, by 8:18 in the morning, the last of the field is cleared and tilled to make sure no wild plants will ever get in the way of our farming operations.
Typically, weeds and such will grow faster over tilled soil thanks to the act aerating the soil and propagating microorganism growth which accelerates the cycling of nitrogen and other nutrients. Luckily for us, Norad is a place where smiley-faced sprites cannibalizing one another in an unstable cycle governs biological growth so it doesn't follow realism.
CINNAMON: I tried to reflect on my previous mistakes and attemped to bake again.
CINNAMON: For some reason, Candy and Grandpa stopped me. It's a mystery...
Our drowsy magic teacher may have high skill in magic, but her cooking skill is little to none. Don't worry, Bush was once reducing turnips to char with just a knife, you'll get it eventually!
STELLA: Do you know about the "Four Leaf Clover"? They're supposed to bring you good luck.
STELLA: I have some good memories about "Four Leaf Clovers." It's all when I was young.
Unfortunately, clovers take 40 days to grow, and that's just not something I feel like doing.
Stopping by Rosetta's, I decide to finally grab some Pink Cat seeds. I've got all of that field cleared, I might as well make use of it. Like Moondrop, they show up in a couple of recipes you wouldn't expect.
DANNY: What's this? Well, I guess I'll still take it.
I decide to give Danny our old Feathered Hat (the new one has a few points more defense) but he doesn't even wear it.
Dannnyyyyyy
Fine, over to the tavern we go.
Music: Tensions(This isn't the official title, because spoilers for something later.)
UZUKI: What are you saying? You mean to say that you have lost your spine?
TSUBUTE: It is not that. I merely think that we should return once to gather clues before setting out on a journey once again.
UZUKI: Why go back? How is it different from here?
TSUBUTE: It is not that! The villagers are kind to us. However, we are still in foreign lands.
TSUBUTE: You seem tired so I believe we should start over by returning once.
UZUKI: I will not return there. Brother... Brother is all I have left!
TSUBUTE: Only your brother...? Are you truly speaking that from the heart?
UZUKI: I...
UZUKI: Of course! If not, I would not have come so far if it were not for that!
TSUBUTE: I see... I... I...
*He flies away!*
UZUKI: Oh...
BUSH: Uzuki...
UZUKI: Bush... You caught us at a terrible time.
UZUKI: Tsubute said we should return. It ended in our usual quarrel.
BUSH: Are you sure about this?
UZUKI: Hmph... He is a nuisance anyway. I am glad that he is gone!
BUSH: Uzuki...
Well, that's some drama I wasn't expecting to happen yet! I guess Cicada Dad is gone.
UZUKI: Trampoli is such a vast place...
UZUKI: Oh? Oh! It's you, Bush. Would you please leave me alone for a little while?
I, uh, wouldn't define it as "vast", but maybe her hometown was just really small. Uzuki won't be in a talking mood for quite some time because of this, she won't even accept gifts!
So, we'll do what she asks and go bug Eunice instead.
EUNICE: I just don't like fish...
EUNICE: I know it's bad to be picky about food, but I just can't eat it.
I guess she didn't eat the fish we sent her the other day. I was kinda thinking she wanted it for herself given the second letter, but I guess it did go to some guests.
I don't like most fish either, but for me it's mostly that fish doesn't have much of a taste. Now crustaceans, those can go. Far, far away.
TABATHA: What is my ideal man? *giggle* Why do you ask?
TABATHA: Let's see... My ideal man is...
TABATHA: A secret.
Sheesh, Bush, did your hidden conversation skill level up or something? Such bold questions!
TABATHA: It's so lively with all the monsters at your home, Bush.
Outside of Pony and Grant, pretty much the other 8 just party in there or something.
TABATHA: Fruits were cheap today, so I tried making a different sort of sauce.
TABATHA: Miss Bianca often makes dinner requests very suddenly, so it is up to me to cook something with cheap ingredients.
BUSH: Oh, so you don't buy ingredients in accordance with what Bianca requests.
TABATHA: That's right. Cheap ingredients are cheap because they are in season... and I believe one should never waste money.
TABATHA: Even if you may be affluent, you must be frugal wherever you can be.
BUSH: I guess so. I'll try to keep that in mind.
This feels like two different conversations stitched together. Unfortunately, being frugal and rich can mean less money is going back into the economy, which isn't so great. Capitalism!
BIANCA: I rode on a horse a long time ago. It wasn't very good. It never listened to me and it shook a lot.
BIANCA: Horse drawn carriages are much better. Manipulating animals should be the servant's job.
BIANCA: Riding on top of a monster is very fitting for you.
Horses? What's a horse? Bush only knows of
BIANCA: I've seen a lot of maids in my time, but Tabatha is the best.
BIANCA: I will only have Tabatha as my maid.
I suppose it's a good thing Tabatha enjoys her work, as I imagine she'll probably be doing this until she retires 40 years from now.
Or maybe longer? I don't really know if elves are that much longer lived than humans in this setting.
BIANCA: It seems that you have money saved up. You're better off now.
That... actually means a lot coming from the person who pretty much has the infinite money cheat code enabled somehow. Of course, it's all thanks to the thriving tomato and corn business.
Down at Erik's, I decide to take a risk on buying some pumpkin seeds. They take 12 days to grow, but there's only 10 days left in the season. I'm hoping the Runey prosperity will bring that down into a growable range.
Doing a quick little review of our current relationship status, Melody still stands tall in the 9 LP range, while Cinnamon's just about to hit 5. Those crystals have really helped!
Bianca's close to 2, and Tabatha's recently crossed the 5 mark. Even Lara is about to make it into the 3 LP range for once! This means that while conversation's been a little dry recently, we should start to see some new conversations across the board soon.
plant pumpkin
SELPHY: The bathhouse here is really nice. I can feel Melody's love for baths.
SELPHY: Compared to it, my bath back home was just huge, but I couldn't feel any love from it.
BUSH: What kind of place is your home, Selphy?
SELPHY: Don't worry about that! It's not manly to go snooping!
BUSH: Wait, why am I getting yelled at?
I see Bush's streak of passing conversation checks may have come to an end.
SELPHY: Hm? I'm reading this book right now so I'm not selling it!
Unless it has crafting recipes, Bush isn't buying.
SELPHY: I heard that there's an island made of ice all the way up north.
SELPHY: I wonder if it melts in the summer... What a strange island.
I think that's called the North Pole.
Since I spent a little too much time faffing about town today, I might as well burn time until the bath is open.
So I burn time by magicking the giant chicken out of existence again, in a very pacifist manner. (i also dupe more wine because why not)
Music: Rune Factory 1 - Early BossTo continue the theme of RF1 music for today's update, have the original boss theme that Chickogriff's is remixed from.
It goes about as expected. Alas, I have yet to get another particularly high level cockscomb, but I do still have a level 7 feather leftover. We could get a pretty strong hat!
The flavor text description suggests placing this on other people's heads for fun, but forgets that it's severed from giant chicken right next to me. It may be fun to do so, but I doubt their reaction will be.
MIST: You defeated the monster in the Green Ruins? Not bad.
Bush has done so about six times at this point. You have said this about five times as much at this point.
One thing that I've felt less with this game than in it's two predecessors is stale dialogue, but I will not deny that people bring up the Green Ruins or going into Lava Ruins almost every other conversation.
I imagine it's by design, RF1 and RF2 do this as well.
MIST: Oh, no!
MIST: Now there are two ducks in my garden! I wonder when they became friends...
A reminder that these ducks explode.
Well, anyways, there's another level 2 hat. Yay.
Looking through the other things we could make, it seems we've got the materials for a Cat Ears headband. It does happen to be a decent MAG boost, so why not?
In goes one of those Katusha we made, a Monster Hide, a Sharp Talon, an Emerald, and a Magic Powder.
Cat Ears Lv:1 was synthesized.
This thing is barely in our skill range, so no expert craft on this.
Apparently Bush is forbidden to strike cat poses while wearing these. Fine by me, I think that might make Pony angry if we did.
Heat Axe Lv:3 was synthesized with expertise!
We also make a Heat Axe while we're at it. It's just a Battle Axe with a Fire Crystal slapped into it. Not too useful right now, but it'll be useful as a material for the fire aspected branch of axes.
Pumpkin Tart Lv:1 was synthesized.
We also make this, Anette's favorite gift, the pumpkin tart. When she does her end of route exclamation about food, I don't remember her saying anything special about this one, but it is her favorite.
Still, requiring two pumpkins makes this very valuable, and very expensive without our own source of pumpkins. The two I used for this are sourced from Erik, which costs more than it should have, but price never stands between Bush and gifting.
Here's to hoping those pumpkins we planted a few days ago are getting close.
a spot o' fishin'
MELODY: If you sweat a lot from going into the dungeon, come to my bath, okay?! ♪
Well, we will be sweating a good deal soon. With little else on the schedule, it's time we plunge the depths of Lava Ruins once and for all.
A bath to get HP and RP sorted, and it's high time we make our way to the final floor of Lava Ruins. I'll be happy to see what's past it, it pretty much stonewalled my original playthrough.
The gem room nets us a Ruby, and in celebration, I switch our soundtrack to another retro track as the lava and heat brings back some old memories of a similarly flaming cavern.
Music: Rune Factory 1 - Clemens Cave
I do take the opportunity to farm some more Ignis briefly. Gotta keep up on those Magic Crystals!
It paid off!
I will not deny that I'm having to use savestates to get some of these, the drop rate is atrocious.
Another reason I have for being down here is to obtain a Thick Stick. I somehow can't find where I turned in the Emerald to Kanno at, but he wants this next.
In my defense, every day is usually about a 70 minute recording, and that's with me using frame delimiting at points. There's 40 hours in this game file already, and we're not really at the midpoint of the game just yet.
A bit of delving later and we're back to the last spot we were at with the Troll spawner. Riding on past this and down some stairs...
Another Troll and some stairs down! At last, I'll finally see floor 4 of this dungeon!
LAVA RUINS B4F
Alright, let's see what's in store here. There's a path down to the left, but I'm feeling like going right, as that would be more in line with the shortcut staircase.
Right here, we can one of the new mechanics: bomb catapults. We just hit the little target with a hammer and it'll launch the bomb in the appropriate direction. These static ones don't do too much, but we'll find some soon that we can manually rotate for puzzle's sake.
The left brings us to this jagged side path, blocked off by some small rocks- our hammer takes care of them easily.
Chest had a free Fire Crystal in it, will be good for making our Heat Hawk at a later date.
Up ahead is many more trolls and a massive boulder precariously held in place by some sort of gravel or something. We can clear these with our hoe.
We've got two paths to the south, so I take the rightmost one.
Whoa, it's a whole lot of bulls! Or, rather, Buffaloo!
These are basically recolors of Buffamoo, but they can only be ridden, not used for the dairy industry.
They somehow managed to completely box Bush in, so I had to slap one across the head with the hammer to make my escape.
Staircase!
...down?
I guess this isn't the right way to the shortcut staircase.
LAVA RUINS B5F
Well, I guess that's all for floor B4F. I'm sure there's more there, but I've got a feeling I'm close to the boss room, and there's guaranteed to be a shortcut there!
To our north is a boulder we can knock loose down a staircase, but as we approach...
Flying in at supersonic speed are Weagles! Sometimes localized as Weegulls, these fast moving red birds are longtime dangerous foes, and for whatever reason cut lumber as their farm job when tamed.
They have two attacks, one is a sonic screech they use while grounded, and the other is their very fast flying charge. Neither feels particularly good to get hit by, but they're not lethal.
Pony ends up going down, but it was inevitable. As I clear out the leftovers, another set of Weagles spawn, so I rush to unleash the boulder. Said boulder clips a Weagle for nearly 300 damage!
It's safe to say we don't want to be standing in front of these when they go. Luckily they start up really slowly, giving you time to bail.
It ends up smashing some rubble at the bottom of the staircase and also deletes the monster gate in the process.
This brings us to a long room with three exits, all of them blocked by rubble in some manner.
The way forward is through rotating this catapult.
Oh, and there's also Dark Slimes here, but they're just stronger recolors of the normal slimes.
Recolors are common in RF, alas.
Although it doesn't look like it lines up exactly, we can fire the catapult left to explode this one broken door/wall.
It just leads to a small farm area and a debris blocked downwards staircase.
Launching the bomb south clears some more debris and gets us to a lower platform with exits on all sides..
Heading right-
WHOA WHOA
CHILL
Pictured is 1 Dark Slime, 2 Weagles, and 2 Minotaur. The Minotauros hit like trains, as their massive muscles and huge axe would suggest. Featuring a high damage bull charge and a deadly axe swing, oh gods this room is full of death
An incomprehenisble brawl ensues and Bush barely scrapes his way back to the 4-way intersection downing full bowls of Udon as he does so.
The south is blocked by another Indiana Jones boulder, so left it is.
The left brings us to the room south of that little farm area, while also bringing us face to face with two more Minotaur.
Further south, the room branches off to a right passage and a south passage, both guarded by Weagles. This floor is just packed with monsters.
Running south, the staircase ends on a large platform with a staircase going right. There happen to be two more Minotaur here- it's like we're assaulting a fortress or something!
Up that staircase is another spherical boulder and a meager amount of dirt holding it in place. With no more apparent path forward, Bush unleashes it and dives down the staircase to narrow safety.
And then a Weagle comes diving in from the previous room and just headbutts the boulder, instantly deleting itself while just narrowly missing Bush's head. If it had flew in a second earlier and hit, it would have staggered us into the boulder and we'd be the one taking 300 damage.
Retreating up that staircase, Bush swiftly ducks past the various axes and birds flying his way to find yet another farming area.
Seeing no immediate path but to the right, we head up and find more cross sections. Ignoring the continuing procession of enemies, we dive downwards to find...
The shortcut stairs, at last!
With the door opened, we're out of this warzone for the night. With that shortcut on our side, we're not far from the boss at this rate. We'll be done with Lava Ruins soon, I think!
Music: Whale Island OutsideBefore we call it for the night, I still need to go up to Whale Island. I do not have much time at all, so I'm going to be cutting this close.
Quickly water the crops...
Meh, I don't even need that crop of tomatoes, they'll be fine without water for a day.
IRIS: I hope you'll be my model again, Bush.
Right now he probably looks like he's been caught up in a flaming tornado, so tonight's maybe not the best night for it.
Aside from cautioning us about monsters stronger than we are again, something I think we've had enough experience with today, she's got nothing else to say.
Home it is, then!
Time to do some cooking. We've still got a good deal of RP leftover from all that emergency Udon eating, so we can fit in a bit of gift making before we hit the bed.
A little bit of fridge management...
And some more butter to close out the night. What do you say, Bush?
...Whoops.
Well, this'll put a bit of a dent in tomorrow's plans. And Lara's LP bar.
On the bright side, it guarantees no tornado tomorrow if there was going to be one?
Well, catch you next time where we salvage this mistake and maybe finally put an end to the Lava Ruins! Some real interesting stuff is going to go down before we make it to Autumn- this is going to be a very eventful next 5 days.