Part 14: The City of Chismest
Update 14 - The City of Chismest
MUSIC: Act 4
MUSIC: The Bard and The Sadness
Cool if I call you that? Lil b?Is it cool if we call you Lil l, you liar?
Still mad huh?
You lied to me, you said I could save the world... but you never really believed in me. And the Earthsong doesn't even work. It COULD work! It just never has. Learning it is more than going around collecting stuff, it's like all spiritual. Whole world in harmony type stuff, and that part is really hard. 
Watchin people try and fail to save their world. I've seen it play out so many times Why do you even care? Because I like you. And even though I didn't think you'd make it, you proved me wrong. 
I'm done not believing in you! Even if Audrey's the hero... I don't think I wanna see her again. Yeah she can be a lil intense... but she's actually really cool!A "lil" intense?? She flung a freakin lightning bolt at us! The so called hero of the gods shocked us for no reason other than to taunt us!
If you two hung out more... You'd totally love her.HARD pass.
Says the liar.
Ok I'm gonna get back to her now, why don't you get outta bed at least? Don't give up, lil b.
MUSIC: Order March
As soon as we get back control, we notice a couple of things. First off, bard is sad... like really really sad. That face is staying with us for a long time. The poor guy has not taken the hero business well. Second of all, is the gigantic clock in the top part of the screen. I'm sure you can figure out what's going to happen... but I'll explain it more in detail soon.
For now, let's leave this room and find out where we are.
Just to emphasize the sadness, the color wheel is now very muted, and Bard himself can barely manage a singing voice louder than a squeak of a mouse. It's a really nice touch.
Heading downstairs, we find a babushka awaiting us. Are we staying at a relative's place?
Hi mom
You're finally out of your room! And you look terrible! Are you going out with that look on your face? I dunno. Well don't! You'd look so much cuter with a smile! ...
That's more like it! Your friend Miriam wanted to speak to you... She said she'd be outside of town. Why don't you go find her?So just to recap, Bard found out he's not special at all, came home to stay with his mom, spent the past few weeks laying in bed depressed, and only got out of bed because of an act of God. He is now currently putting on a fake smile in a conversation with his mom.
What I'm saying is Bard is now the most relatable character in all of the history of media.
Our mom does have a few things more to say before we head out the door.
I'm glad to have you home after so long... but you've really been... sticking around! Doo hoo hoo!
Now go find Miriam outside of town!I guess mom... jeez don't tell me what to do!
Before we leave... I really need to show this off.
It's such a little detail that we'll never see again and I love it to death.
Ok, it's finally time for us to leave our mom's house for the outside world. Also in game too.
MUSIC: Happy Kid
How are you doing today, friend? ... Ha ha! Why, I'm glad you asked! I'm Happy Kid, the newest toy sensation! The latest and greatest from Mr. Baron... produced at the factory of smiles, the Happy Factory! Get a Happy Kid, and you can have a friend just like me! You don't know happy until you know Happy Kid! Buy YOUR happiness today, at participating stores! ... Ha ha! Have a happy happy day, friend!
We'll uh... do that... away from you, preferably. Before we have our happy happy day, Happy Kid has a couple more lines I'll happily extract before we get down to business.
Ha ha! Happy happy, friend! That's how I'm feeling! Get your own Happy Kid and you can feel it too!
I love walking around Chismest, spreading my happy happy to everyone! Chismest is where Happy Kid started, after all! Happy Kid is Mr. Baron's gift to the world! Ha ha! Happy happy! Happy kid!I think the poor guy in the costume has lost it, sadly. With Happy Kid dealt with, we are now free to explore the city.
MUSIC: Chismest
First things first, the clock at the top has jumped forward to 7:30am compared to the last time you saw it. The Chismest area works on Majora's Mask rules. Every couple of seconds, the clock moves forward 15 minutes when we aren't inside a building. The entire town, and its townspeople are all programmed over that 24 hour period to be doing something. Walking around, at work, at home, whatever. They do this every day, and can be expected to be at a certain spot at a certain time. There is no way to slow down the flow of time, but there isn't a timer we need to do things by, every day just resets at 7am. It's somewhat groundhog's day, but triggering flags doesn't reset at the end of the day (which would be a nightmare if it did).
With all that in mind, we need to meet Miriam on the outskirts of town. But... we can take a trip around town first. She can wait a little bit longer.
Heading right from our mom's house, we can see a man playing a guitar on the roof. We have no way of reaching him yet, so we'll just have to keep him in mind as we continue to explore.
The next area has a path leading downwards, which just leads to the outskirts of the city - where Miriam is currently. As we have decided to take a tour around the city first, she'll have to wait.
The upper path has a bench, if we interact with benches we can move forward time by two hour intervals up to 14 hours in the future. As there is no timer limiting us here, we can move time forward as much as we please. Though, we are going to elect, to not move time forward right now.
This is Beth's diner, and the woman we are standing behind of, is Siobhan (shiv-an) - the mail lady. It seems we caught her in the middle of her shift.
Oh! Ice to meet you!
SFX: Slidewhistle
It's pretty cold outside, isn't it? 
While we were talking with her, a townsperson decided to rudely get in front of us.
...Which meant Siobhan decided to head about on her shift again. This ended up being in accident in recording, but I decided to show if off regardless because I really like this! Despite the fact that the characters are rigidly programmed to react to the time, it still somehow comes off as organic. Majora's Mask was the same way for me and is one of my favorite games, so needless to say, I absolutely love Chismest.
Continuing our exploration, let's check out Beth's Diner while we're here.
MUSIC: Chismest Indoor
Ah, we've caught Siobhan again! And Beth herself is at the counter. There's nobody else here besides them so let's chat em up.
H'lo Beth! Knife to see you!SFX: Slidewhistle
See, it's a joke beca-
I got it. Gotta stay bundled up in this weather! Don't want to get all sneezy and... coffee!SFX: Slidewhistle
Mhm. How's the mail? Pretty busy! I've got a lot on my plate, hoo! ... Eya's chords...That's it for Siobhan until we catch her outside again. Though we haven't said hi to Beth yet! And she looks like she needs someone to distract her!
Welcome to Beth's Diner, open... S I G H . . . 24 hours a day.
We can in fact get some grub and then eat it, but uh it doesn't do anything so let's skip that for now but still put that knowledge in the back of our heads.
Lotta fun characters come through here, oh yeah. That astronomer from outta town's always here, middle of the night. Like, midnight till 5AM. Always orders the same thing. Why? Who know. Who cares.We got our first rumor! Some people across town will give us rumors and hints as to where we need to be at certain times for things to progress. So if we come back to the diner from midnight till 5AM, we know the astronomer will be here.
Y'go in a lot of mental circles, workin' this job. Stay in the same 2 walls, say the same thing to the same people... Food service is a hell of an industry. And I do mean that in the very literal sense.
We leave the diner and... how can we not pet the dog??
Let's continue on with our exploration.
This is the great Happy Factory that Happy Kid was talking about. It... does not look so happy.
At the front entrance is... what I would hesitantly call a man standing guard.
Well hi there!! You look young and able! Hee hee!
Uh... Elmer here is offering us a shift in the factory. We are going to decline, and hope that we get to keep our lives.
We do, but only for the moment. We will eventually take a shift in the factory, but it is not yet that day.
Right outside the factory is a toy store, selling an overabundance of Happy Kid toys. Let's head on in and window shop, since we still don't have any money.
MUSIC: Happy Kid
It shouldn't be a shock, but nobody's here except the employee. Let's brighten up their day by chatting with them a bit.
Hey, welcome to, like...The Gift House... We have, like, all the greatest toys for sale here... I'm not interested in buy- Including Happy Kid, the most popular toy ever... produced right here in the factory, woooooo... Take Happy Kid home with you today and put a smile on your family's face, or whatever......I don't think we cheered Katya up. In fact, I'm pretty sure giving that canned sale line dropped Katya's life expectancy by a couple weeks.
Happy Kid... it's just, like... pure joy... in the form of a kid... Wow... buy it... Everyone loves Happy Kid... Everyone... wants to be Happy Kid... become one with Happy Kid...Ok now it's just sounding like a cult! Fantastic. This city sucks, no wonder you moved away Bard.
As we leave the toy store and head to the next part of town, we meet a man who is crying profusely on his own trip about town.
SFX: Winston Cry
This town sucks. It's too cold and full of smog... and that stupid factory is always running!! Nobody understands... This crying fellow's name is Winston. He's obviously not happy, but maybe we can help him out with that?
Have you seen the cute little doggy that wanders around town? She's all alone... just like me. I try to pet her every night, at 9:30PM... right in front of the Clocktower Pub.SFX: Winston Cry
BUT SHE WON'T LET ME!!! Even a lonely dog won't be my friend... What do I do to make her like me??? My life is completely aimless. "Go work in the factory," everyone says... 
There's nothing in this world for me... Winston has a surprisingly real reason as to why he's quite upset. He has no friends, he has no direction in life, and the only thing he knows for sure is what he doesn't want to do with his life. For a game that just spent an hour or two dealing with pirates, heroes, and adventure... this act decides to get a bit deeper.
Winston had mentioned the Clocktower Pub and, as it so happens, we're standing right in front of it! It's still early in the day, but we can still go check it out.
There's only two people in here right now, and we can only talk to one of them. Since we can only talk to the man behind the counter, let's chat him up and see what's his take on this city.
The factory here determines the schedule of everything. The flow of people in and out during the day and night... it's the lifeblood of this city. This is a city of sad and lost spirits. They march in line, as if driven by machinery. To see a new face here is a pleasant change.This is Vlad, the pub owner. He is notable, if only because he's the only person in town to own anything. Everything else is owned by the factory. He's also notable for one other thing...
Some say the Baron of the factory is an evil man. But I once knew him as kind and gentle. That was a long time ago... He was once friends with the man who has ruined everyone's life! Which may be the reason he's allowed to continue to own property while everyone else gets bought up.
There's not much left of the town, so let's finish exploring real quick.
As we finish the tour around time, we nearly collide with... Siobhan. Who does in fact have more
I'm in charge of making sure everyone gets their mail. Rain or shine, there's snow way I'll miss a day! I'd never... letter that happen!SFX: Slidewhistle
'Cause I'm no flake!SFX: Slidewhistle
(OK, I'll chill out with the puns).You're hurting me Siobhan, you're actually hurting me and now I'm at the hospital crying profusely and the doctors can't figure out why.
Everyone's a critic. ... Fancy themselves pundits... Guess I'm just pushing the envelope!Please... make it stop... I used to love puns and now I'm a humorless pile of mush thanks to these.
You know, it was always cold here, but the factory made it even colder! The smog blocks out the sun... It's one hail of a problem! Hehe, am I going to be punished for my word crimes? I just can't stop...
That's exactly how I feel Bard. Just endless pain...ENDLESS.
We have officially completed our tour of the city of Chismest...'s street level. As we saw earlier, there was a man on a rooftop. Which means, there's a way for us to get on the rooftops as well. And it's actually located just right here!
Exploring the top of the town will be much quicker than our streetside exploration, I promise.
Would you look at that! Mask was waiting for us up here on the roof! How's he doing?
Well hey now, wanderer, it's been some time... What are you doing here? ...Hmm... I don't know... I think it's invigorating to move around early in the day. What do you think, wanderer? I know a special place, in the forest past the telescope... and if you're there right when the sun rises at 7 AM... Well... maybe I won't say. You should discover it for yourself. We'll have to keep track of another rumor now. So far they are: astronomer at the diner from midnight to 5 AM, Winston and the dog in front of the pub at 9:30 PM, and the field behind the observatory at 7 AM. The first two end up being mandatory, but this one leads to something special that we should definitely follow up on.
Times are tough here... You can feel the sadness in the air. But me... I'm just chillin. Heh... do you get it? Chillin?
...it's because it's cold. You must be really down, wanderer. Mask, we just dealt with an avalanche of crappy puns. We don't have the fortitude to withstand any more.
Time's wild, isn't it? Sometimes it speeds right by... sometimes it drags forever. They say time isn't even real, you know? But it's hard not to feel anxious when you see the clock ticking down. It feels like our paths are destined to be crossed... Hope you find some inner peace, whenever we next meet. Thanks Mask. Hopefully we can cheer Bard up somewhat soonish, his depressed face is really getting to me
We're on top of the factory now. There's a cool little clock on top of the factory that matches up with the clock at the top of the UI. Just to further drive in the point that this town lives and breathes by this clock and the factory it's attached to.
MUSIC: Chismest Balalaika
We arrive to finally meet the man at the top of roof. He who so inspired us to take to the rooftops as well. Well... does he have anything to say to not make this whole trip pointless?
So... you've found me. Drawn in by my sorrowful music, were you? It's no show. I play from the heart. I play for a city, its heart replaced with machinery... cold as the snow that falls upon it... and for love, unrequited. I'm sorry. I can't speak of this now. Talk to me... another time.Hmm, well he seems interesting but just teases us with whats to come. If you were like me my first time through, you may think that "talk to me another time" meant another time of the day. But he actually means "Progress the story first." So we're done with Peter here for the time being.
That's it for the rooftops and for the city as a whole! Now we could just fall down and continue on, but this game is actually really nice.
We can now use that door whenever we want to head back up to the rooftops without having to make the whole loop around town. This is handy considering there is a clock keeping track of us and all.
Now we could head out to the outskirts of town and talk to Miriam, but uh, the clock is now post quitting time. The town has gotten off work and has decided to take a load off!
MUSIC: Chismest Nighttime
There's new people to talk to! New faces to see!
We'll start on the right side and work our way out the door. The man with the orange hair can't be spoken with, so the uh... very tired looking guy is up first.
Holy CRUD! I hate this friggin head! My daily prison, that's what it is! It's so stuffy! All day, I'm sweating in this stupid thing... don't smell it if you value your life!This guy Miles was the one in the Happy Kid costume who greeted us this morning. Poor dude does not seem like he enjoys his job...
If my boss knew I was out of the costume... It wouldn't be pretty. Keep it secret, okay? I need this job... ... No matter how terrible it is...The alternate title for this update could also have been "The update where things get too real." Since I imagine there's a good amount of people for whom Miles is a stand-in.
Happy Kid is such a load of garbage. Can't believe they have me selling this crap. Happy happy?! Give me a break... At the very least, we can help Miles out by keeping his secret. Worker solidarity and all that cool jazz. Our next contestant on the conversation spree is the barkeep.
Well ain't you just a lil sweetheart! Something to drink, hon? Like... juice? ... No.Bard may be depressed as hell, but still has that naive and simple view of the world that makes us love him! At least he's got that still going.
Anyway, back to Ms Tanya here.
Life's stressful here. Folks come here to relax after a long day. Well, except that one guy. The whiner who's always crying. He ain't worked a day in his life, I think. Still comes here to relax though. Can't imagine what's stressing that slacker out.Hey Tanya, give Winston a break! I'd betcha he'd work if it wasn't at the factory!
You seen that stray dog around town? She sleeps outside here every night. Sad, ain't it? Wish she had a friend... The poor pup... we've got to do something about her when we can!
The next person on the list is that lumberjack looking fellow in the plaid shirt.
Ho! my muscles are rippling from a long factory day... It's that good ache!!! Hard work to harden a man!As someone who is currently typing this while mega-sore... the aches... are a good ache. I can confirm alongside Johann.
The factory was once just a small toy shop! But then... HAAA! The Baron built it into something far greater! He must be the strongest man in this city... HUOOOOOO!... my arms hurt.Johann has probably the only words of praise for the Baron out of everyone, and it's more admiration for his business skills then any kind of personal loyalty.
The final person in the bar right now is Carl from Aqua Teen Hunger Force, who seems to have had a poor couple of years since the show's cancellation.
I vonce vas champ of boxink arena. Title, it come and go... but family, it stay. I vorkink for Baron now, makink Happy Kid toy. My papa, he vonce had chachki store in town. But Baron bought store, knock down, make more factory. For man like me, factory is only place for vork now. Someday, I vill leave here with family. But vee are needink money. SO I stay, and I vork. Carl seems to have changed his name to Boris, and also has a different backstory to his life... one where he's from Russia, apparently. That would be it for the Pub... but on our way out, we find someone else who's about to join the townsfolk in their... sad revelry.
Hey... I remember you from the gift shop... I hate it there... but it's a job, I guess... There's, like, this big push to sell Happy Kid toys right now... But... I don't think anyone wants Happy Kid... In fact, I think everyone is sick to death of Happy Kid... especially me... The factory owns, like, this whole city... so everyone's life revolves around the factory... And the factory just makes Happy Kid... So it's like... all this city does is make Happy Kid... It sucks... Happy Kid was invented by the Baron... who runs the factory... He must be a really weird dude... ... Maaaan.. I just... I wish I had anything to talk about besides Happy Kid.Katya... really... really loves her ellipses.
I was going to head to talk to Miriam now... but it's almost 9:30 and we're standing in front of the Pub already. So we'll wait for that event first before we go. And while we're waiting...
Doggo needs love!
Finally.. at 9:30 PM...
SFX: Winston Cry
What do you want from me???Awww, poor doggy is just hungry! Winston seems to lack the dog-mind-reading skills we have and can't figure this out on his own. Though we'll have to wait another day, I think we can solve this conundrum. But first, Miriam has been patiently waiting for us...
Oh no... another new person. Ok, Miriam can wait a teensy bit longer. Let's talk to the street sweeper.
Just doin' my nightly sweeps! Us late nighters got a special bond, eh? Ya ever get a chance to meet the astronomer? She's at Beth's diner from midnight to 5AM, every night... Never talked to 'er myself, but I'd give 'er a knowin' nod when we pass! Say hi to the astronomer for me if ya ever meet! Sweepin's quite soothin, don'cha know! Takes yer mind off things. And every little sweep makes the town a little cleaner... Lori the street sweep is a nice mid-western girl in this city filled with eastern european sterotypes. It's kinda hard to grasp what area this city is supposed to be a cipher for, since it seems to be a mishmash of european and american cultures and histories.
Oh right, Miriam! She's been waiting a while, hasn't she? Ok nothing will stop us this time!!
...Ok nothing will stop us after we talk to Vlad again!
I once was friends with the Baron... He left his life behind when the factory grew. He must be very old now. By day, the workers march into the factory. And by night, to my pub. Such is the clockwork of this city. ... Ah, the air is so brisk... and putrid.Vlad, you didn't tell us anything new! We are going to be late to Miriam because of you! Ugh!
Hi Miriam! We came straight here! We didn't stop for any reason whatsoever! Our house just takes that long to leave!
Well lookie who it is!!! Finally done with all your moping? No... Oh. ... What brings you out here? Think you might be ready to meet the next Overseer? ...There's an Overseer here...? Uh. Yeah!
Oh! So we just need the Overseer song! I already figured that out! I got a lot done while you were busy being useless. ...Oh. It's the lullaby your mom used to sing to you. I already know that song! Yeah, total plot twist, I know. So I just have to sing it... That's what I'm saying. Ready when you are.Welp! Act 4 is already about to come to a close. We just have to sing the lullaby and head off to see the Overseer. A shame that, I was enjoying Chismest.
VIDEO: Mom's Lullaby
Uuuuugh. I was afraid of this happening... The nexus point is blocked! It's all these disgusting clouds in the sky... ...Guess I wasn't useful after all. Don't be like this right now!! This smog is definitely coming from the factory... We have to find a way to shut it down!
Oh, come on. Stop looking at me like that!! Seeing you like this is making me mad. I for one am not gonna sit around... while the hero prances around killing Overseers! So get back in there! And help me figure out... how to shut down the factory!Shut down the factory, huh? We may actually be able to build some grassroots support for that based on how many people dislike the place. But where would we even start...?