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!"