Going deep inside Drippy's mom

Since the team is going to be on this island for a week, may as well see what's here. 

Teeheeti? Was Ha-hawaii already taken?

Not a while lot, going by the map, just a location we can go to in the centre. This turns out to be the Fairyground, modelled very much after a Japanese festival.  

And everyone here talks like Drippy.

This is where Drippy is from, and apparently why he was so against going around exploring, not from having part of his heart stolen (which i learn later can't happen to faeries). Once the locals spot Drippy, they celebrate his return and carry him away, against his will, to see his mother.

Try not to look so broken up about Drippy being taken away, Swaine.

Drippy's mom, and the mother of all faeries, is so big that she doubles a mountain. She seems nice enough, if not a bit inattentive of Drippy explaining where he's been. The rest of the party catches up and she greets them too.

Now THAT'S a huge bitch!

She has an odd request though, she wan't Oliver inside her. Not in a sexual way (at least, not intentionally),  but more a Jonah and the whale situation. Turns out that she's way over due for a new batch of faeries to pop out, so she wants the crew to pop inside of her and figure out what's the hole up. The good guys agree to help of course, and they set about making that happen.

"You are huge! That means you have huge guts!"

On the way back the fairy town, I run into the ghost kid again. He's got another spell for me in exchange for another riddle. This one was much easier than the last time since he ask's what the key ingredient in making a hamburger with alchemy. I first try the obvious answer of beef, which was wrong, and then I looked at the ingredients listed for the various kinds of burgers in the wizard book. It turns out that all the kinds of burgers share the same ingredient of lettuce, and that was the right answer.  

Step up your game next time!

Not only was it a simple question, but he doesn't even have the spell for me, he apparently lost it. how does a ghost lose things? How does it keep physical pages in the first place? So he tells Oliver to go look around for the spell and gives him a new alchemy recipe in the meanwhile. 

Thanks for nothing.

Back to the main problem, it turns out that they can't just get the fairy mother to open her mouth and hop in, since nothing is ever easy with faeries. They have to get he to laugh so her mouth is open long enough for them to enter. Down side to this is that the best comedians in the fairy town are currently missing parts of their arts, which is like part of your heart but with more fairy bullshit.

They would have gone with Mr. Smiley and Mr. Frowney, but that name was taken. 

 So Oliver has to go around the fairy town and solve problems using his magic to get "Pieces of Art". t least it finally gives a use to that sweeping spell, even if it is off camera.

One down, seven to go...

Along the way  I came across a bird that found the ghost's missing spell. Turns out that it's a float spell, which you would think would come in handy for exploring, but like most spells it's very situational.

Can't I just fly everywhere now?

After collecting all 8 art pieces, we head back to the comedians. This is where I notice that their stage is set in a giant creepy head attached to a tree, and it's alive!

Yeah, this looks normal.

Drippy delivers the 3 art pieces with a hadoken, and the comedians are soon right as rain, ready to get the fairy mother laughing. 

"Kame-hame-HA!!!"

But before I get to that, I decided to take a last search around the town for any hidden treasure, side quests, and stay at the inn, just in case I can't get back to town after this. At the inn, I get yet another page talking about the island. 

Those little islands with the key holes look interesting.

Now I'm ready to plunge deep into Drippy's mom. The comedians put on their show, and while it's not laugh out loud funny, it is kinda silly. The main this is that it gets the fairy mother to laugh.

Umm, that's not really my bag, but you do you!

Just to make things more over the top, The party is shot out of a cannon into the fairy mom's mouth. The fact they had a cannon ready and pointing at her suggests that this is a common event...

Aim for the uvula!

Now things get really silly. Inside the mother's stomach is a full Japanese style preschool. Complete with painted walls, doors, drawers, fully furnished class rooms, and a teacher's lounge.  

Also the whole thing is 2D side scrolling.

As the group lake it through each room, they have to face a sea monster of increasing size to save the fairy eggs and unlock the next room. The only room not unlocked (aside for the first) is the teacher's lounge, which includes a save point and stairs leading up to the mom's "back door". So there was an easier way, but Drippy insists that making a grand entrance was more important.

How the heck did that even get through the door?!

With all if the fairy eggs saved, they head off deeper into the mom's digestive tract, where they find the source of all the trouble, a giant electric jelly fish. Of course. 

Are they breathing underwater or is that thing floating? Magic!

The first half of the battle is pretty straight forwards and easy, just keep hitting it, but then it changes things up at half health. It launches a whole bunch of mini jellyfish to cause havoc and get in the way of attack.

Thanks for the Pro Tip, Drippy

The upside is that not only is the jellyfish stunned after this move, but it releases a gold power up that restores a characters health and lets some familiars release a powerful attack. This would have been really helpful, if GoGo,  Esther's dumb familiar, didn't run infront of it and take the power up. I tried swapping over to Esther, but GoGo didn't have a super move to use and by the time I tried switching back to Oliver he was dead. Not long after that the whole party followed.

I blame GoGo!

The next attempt went much matter, since I knew to stick close for the golden power up. With the power up all the baby jellyfish are knocked out quicker than they showed up. Repeating this a few times and the jellyfish was toast! 

Now we just need a giant peanut-butter fish.

 So with that dealt with, the only way out is to be born along with the fairy eggs. Fortunately, fairy biology is rather different than humans, or else this would suddenly become an M rate game! 

Even faeries get awkward when talking about their reproductive bits.

In this case, the faeries are blown out from the little volcano at the top of the mom's head. She certainly seems to get worked up about the process though.

Sounds like they're not the only ones coming.

So after much yelling, she finally spews out from her top the fairies, the party, and long thick reams of ribbon (festive!).

Best not to think about what they just went through.

The fairy mom is very grateful for the explosive delivery, and gives Oliver a whole whack of new spells. A bunch of them are transformation spells, turning into a cat, turning into a fish, turning into a copy of any creature, copying yourself, and shrinking as small as a mouse. The rest of the spells are a bit more questionable in their morality, making poison apples, reading people's thoughts, sounding like other people, and diapering into shadow. At least making bread from nothing is useful and positive (hope it's not situational). 

So many choices!

Before leaving the fairy town, the group stays at the local inn, and Oliver has another strange dream/ memory. In it he's much younger and crying that Philip was mean to him. Not sure if this is the same Phil that's his friend later or some one else.

Flash back time!

Oliver's mother tries to cheer him up by talking through the Drippy doll, giving him his distinct accent and phrases, saying that's how faeries talk. She also says that Drippy is a tear fairy, so Oliver shouldn't cry, which is the first time this title is used. An odd thing is that when she mentions making the doll, Olive says that nobody made Drippy and that he's always been Oliver's friend. Oliver's mom plays along with this, but it does set up Oliver supplanting what is real with his own fantasy. 

I think the doll looks better than the real one.

After they wake up, the group sees how well Drippy is getting along with all the other faeries, and they decide that he'll be happier their and they should leave without them. This is rather stupid and just adds a bit of false tension for all of 2 minuets. Then Drippy runs after the boat, even over water, and jumps on before it can get away. Things get a bit weird when he mentions they him and Oliver were always friends, like said in the dream, and he unlocks a tear related ability. 

It more and more looks like there's some connection of this world and Oliver's mind.

Notification box is just a little snarky.

Then finally, from all that they went through, another short story is unlocked in the book, and it's about a crying fairy...

I should read this next time.

Meanwhile back at Evil HQ, the big bad wizard is getting bitched out for screwing up killing a 12 year old boy. In his defence, he thinks that the sage that's a soul match for Oliver's mother is some how protecting Oliver, even though she's sealed in a bubble. He then says that it doesn't matter if Oliver is alive or not since he can't save the world without the super MacGuffin wand, which the wizard has sealed away out side space and time. 

"Oh, right. The wand. The wand of the king, the wand made especially by the Wizard king,  the king's wand. That wand?"

 This begs the question, why go through all this trouble if there is no way Oliver could win any ways. Could have avoided the whole mom killing part, which removes his motivation to go to this world, and if even then he still manages to hero up, there's nothing he can do. Oh well, I guess this game needed boss fights.

Also, it looks like one of the fancy pants council members is spying on the White Witch, and learning about this ultra needed wand...

"Yes! That wand!" 

Eye sea what you did there

Picking up where I left off yesterday, I continued exploring around old areas to see what new stuff I can unlock. I got a few more green chests with nothing all that interesting in them, then I remembered an area in the starting map where it looked like you could place a bridge, and I new had a bridge spell! I cast the bridge and wander over, quickly coming across a new enemy that's like the uni-flaaffy, but pink and with a halo. I attack, and it kicks my party's ass. I was barely able to run away with 12HP left. A few more tries and several ass kicking later, I figure that I am no where near ready for this area and it was blocked off for a reason.

How do I un-cast the bridge?! Before they come across and kill us all!

So with no more delays, I finally head off in the boat to the new area. The boat turns out to be an odd mix of sail boat and paddle wheel. I kinda get the feeling that those two don't really mix well, but then what do i know about boats?

Just pick a propulsion system and stick with it!

Then the game cuts back to the White witch and the zodiac council. They are bitching at the bad wizard dude for screwing up and relying on that lava monster to kill Oliver (the kid has ice magic, it was a bad plan). He says that he'll take care of them personally this time, to make sure he doesn't screw up again, the white which grants him the 'power of the storm' before he poofs off.

14 bad guys in this room and so far only one of them has really done anything, and it's not the witch in the title.

Getting back to the boat trip, it's not an automated trip like I expected, I get to have full control of the boat and sail around where I like. I guess the captain is taken a nap while I take over. Along with an achievement, this also unlocks the full world map. I was kinda let down by the size of the place. The starting plains and desert areas make up the biggest continent  and about a third of the map. The rest id just a mid sized continent that looks mostly mountains, two smaller land masses, and a bunch of islands. 

Oh well, still greater freedom to move about than before.

Right after getting control of this new ship, we run into some monsters on the water. One was an odd angler fish type thing, and two pot monsters. I was able to capture one of the pot monsters and it gave the great announcement "You tamed the Potty". Insert your own toilet humour here. 

A while later I also managed to catch a water based monster similar to Rumble.

Two more for the box!

On with the exploring I came across a golem like monster that was another bounty. It hit like heck, so I spent most of the fight as Oliver and hurling magic at it.

At least not as tough as the Dragon Quest golems.

Just past where the golem was, I found that shrine in the forest, a lot sooner than I expected to get there. The catch was that it's all locked up, so it's still something to return to later.

Doh! I should have tried the lock pick spell. Oh well, likely wouldn't work

Next up on the bounty hunt, it's Puss In Boots. Sadly not voiced by Antonio Banderas. This was a simple enough fight, mainly focusing on taking out the back up cats so he's all on his own in the end.

Yay for public domain characters.

Last, and most least, of the bounties was a small whale like monster called a Hubber Blubber. There was only one of them and didn't have much in the way of offence or defence. So It was mostly just a matter of attacking it until it died.

Does this count as whaling?

With all the bounties accounted for, it was time to head back to port and collect the rewards. An odd thing about how the boat works is that you can only land at beaches. So even though Castaway Cove as a dock, you can't disembark there, you have to stop at a near by beach and run around to the front of the town. 

An odd thing when I got back, Oliver was wearing the swim trunks again. I guess he only breaks the rules when it's story related. While heading to hand in the bounties, I spot the ghost boy on a bridge and go over to say high.

You look pale, you could use some sun.

The ghost sage has another quiz for Oliver in exchange for another spell. Instead of reading a story, I have to translate the words written in the wizard language on the page for "The Tools if Wizardry". I go to the page in the book and the only wizard text i see is something scribbled in pencil by the wizard's head. So I start to translate that. 

"I smell"?

Not really what I expected, but I got to tell the ghost what it said. Before the boy lets me enter the word though, he makes it clear he wants the words that are part of the image, not what some one else may have scribbled later. So it's back to looking, and on zooming in I noticed wizard letters along the side of his robe.

They are not even visible here unless you zoom in...

 Turns out that the message is some kind of subtle advertisement for the quality of robes he's wearing. Putting that into the text box, I successfully pass the quiz! 

At least it wasn't "Drink More Ovaltine"

On a side note. Using the wizard word translation guide in the book, I was able to translate the inscription on the first wand that Oliver gets at the start of the game. 

It says "bring hope"

This could be just a figurative message, for Oliver to bring hope to the people of the fantasy world.  But, given how this game uses emotions as exchangeable items, it could also literally means that Oliver needs to bring along a portion of hope to give to some one who had their hope removed. 

Back to the present, the ghost kid gives Oliver a new spell for getting the quiz right. This one is let you be able to magic you way out of a fight, hopefully with better success rate than just running away. 

This would have come in real handy at the start when I was getting my ass kicked!

With that done, I finally hand in the bounties, getting lots of cash and some nice new weapons. I also managed to clear enough of them to get a trophy for it!

Trophy Get!

Nothing left to do on the main land, it's time to sail (and paddle wheel) off to the other country where the next Sage is. Just as the boat gets close enough to see land, the big evil jerk wizard shows up to get all up in Oliver's face.

Ok, let's do this!

He's actually not all that tough, and i'm able to knock him down to half health with just constant attacking. But then the fight ends and goes back into cut scenes. Oliver insists the wizard tells him where the soul match of his mother is, and the wizard goes all obiwan.  

Could the wizard be the mom's soul match? ...nah!

No more information is had though since the wizard then summons a freaking huge disc in the sky with an eyeball in the middle of it. This is apparently the 'eye of the storm', and if it looks at you you're toast. Of course, it's looking right at their boat....

Didn't i see this at the end of Final Fantasy 9?

The eye shoots a white beam of light towards the ship and the screen flashes white. It then returns to Olive back in town and Pea is there too. Pea says that he's safe now and it's time to go to where the others are. 

"So... am I dead?"

Oliver then wakes up on a beach. The ship is trashed but everyone managed to make it out alive, an impressive feat for going against the Eye of the Storm.

"Nope, not dead"

So while the boat captain and his crew work on fixing up the ship, should take a week, the rest of the group head off to find some food on the island they are on. Oddly enough, Drippy seems uncharacteristically dejected and moping that they shouldn't be taking any risks. I wonder if a part of his heart was stolen during the fight. 

When has that stopped us before in this game?

Also for surviving the massive storm, I got another one of those story pages.

There won't be a quiz on this will there?