Now this is a party!

And after taking a couple days off, due to being too tired to game (crunch time is hell...), I'm back at it and off to make some cheese!

I'm much more concerned as to where is comes from. Still hoping magic

Popping back to the fantasy world, I figured that Oliver would be using his newly acquired alchemy skills to turn the milk into cheese, but nope, He just uses the 'Secret Ingredient' spell. What's the point of having whole part of the game have alchemy while Oliver can just poof anything out of anything else? Not only does he turn the milk into a giant hunk of cheese, but also several large candies and pieces of cake, just because Esther mentioned them while he was casting the spell. Can just cast the spell agin and think of a +3 sword of ogre slaying.

Don't have the ingredients? We'll just have to cheese it.

So they lug the giant chunk of cheese off to Queen Lowlah (the candy and cake just disappear after the cut scene) in hopes that it will get them on her good side and get a letter of passage on the boat. Turns out that the queen is a rather large woman, and I don't mean fat, I mean gigantic!

 That's a huge bitch!

She eagerly takes the cheese, a little too eagerly (tried getting a video but the audio wouldn't record for some reason), and then immediately throws a tantrum when she doesn't get more. Drippy /finally/ clues in on that she had her restraint removed by a curse, so now we just need to find some one with a whole lot of restraint. Lucky they have that amulet that glows any time they are nearby some one with an excess of emotion.

Nope, nobody with a lot of restraint here, according to the amulet

The group decide to ask the local merchants if they know any one with a lot of restraint, instead of just walking around watching for the amulet to glow like all other times, because reasons. While they go off, the creepy guy that stole the pot before is talking to a guard about the group of heroes, apparently he's paying them off for information. These guards are crooked!

Yeah, this guy is totally legit...

 As the camera panned over the fountain to them, I noticed that sage ghost from the other town there. The kid has green hair and a glowing aura, I wonder if that means Pea is also a ghost?

Apprently the talk to ghost spell is one time only, and has to be recast to talk again.

He chats with Oliver for a bit, and then tells him that he has a new spell fro him, but he has to first pass a little test. He gives Olive one of those short stories that I got before, but this time i actually have to read it to get the spell.

Reading is fundamental.

It's a really odd little story about a prince that doesn't want to be king, so he wanders off and gets eaten by a lion. Doesn't end there though, from the Lion's stomach he tells the lion that since he's not inside the Lion, the Lion has to be king, The lion goes along with it, giving a big tough exterior while the prince makes the actual decisions from inside the lion. Then one day the kingdom is attacked by two dragons, so the Lion with the prince go off to the bigger dragon and get eaten (great story for vore fans). This was part of the plan since now the dragon is king, the dragon goes along with this and defends the kingdom from the smaller dragon. The lion then sneaks out of the dragon while it's snoring and goes back home. 10 years later (how slow is this lion's digestion?), the lion tells the prince that it's time for him to be king and that he's had the ability to rule the whole time, he hasn't need the lion around him for years. 

Hope you paid attention.

The the test is kinda a trick question, but not too hard. The ghost kid asks who was the third smallest character, which is the same as the second biggest. Typing in the 'dragon of the west' in the text box that comes up gets me a new spell! The 'Draw Poison" spell, would be useful if poison wasn't just a minor anoyance that goes away after a fight, I already have loads of poison-be-gone items.

A, kinda, useful spell.

Back to the main quest, after asking a few merchants, they found out that Abull, the queen's servant, has a huge amount of restraint from dealing with the queen's shit. Abull, the same dude that was standing right beside them when they talked about how the amulet would glow near some one with a large amount of restraint! What the hell amulet!?

Any ways, they take Abull's restraint and give it to the queen, who is quickly up on her feet. I kinda wonder if she's always been that huge, or was the constant eating what made her big? Likely she was always giant, but who knows with this silly game.

"We didn't even have to run all over town to do it, we did, but turns out we didn't have to..."

So they manage to get the letter saying that they can set sail, and also a photo of the sage they are looking for. It's mentioned several times that he's a good looking pretty boy, so i'm betting that when they find him he's either old, or unattractive, due to some curse.

Guess they have magic cameras here.

And to top things off, the queen also gives two new spells, one to talk to animals, and one to make things heavy. Clearly these are more for puzzle solving than combat.

Here's some spells, you'll use them one for a puzzle and never need the again.

With permit of passage in hand, it's off to the port town and set sail. Along the way, I wound up catching a few familiars. Since they are heading straight for the familiar box, I just gave them simple names.

I also caught a trumpet bird I named Noot-noot, but the screenshot didn't save for some reason.

As they enter the port village, there's a cut scene where Drippy says that they just need to get on the boat and they are all set. They also mention that they are not going to bother with the swim suit law. I guess that whole thing was just so they could put  Esther in a two piece for that one shot...

Yup, nothing can stop us now, clear sailing ahead. 

Just then the creepy guy runs past them and bumps them, sealing the photo and letter of passage.

Dammit Drippy, I blame this one you!

All is not lost since the boat captain knows this guy is a local thief, and that the queen would not give some one like him permission to use the boat. Creepy guy gets really pissed and insists that he has to sail to the other land and that there some one he really needs to see.

??? plays the pronoun game so the big reveal later can happen.

When Oliver's group show up asking for the letter and photo back, creepy guy gets extra creepy and gets those purple and black stink clouds. Surprise boss fight in bound!

Great... not like I haven't saved in 2 hours and at half health...

Time to fight Swaine's (guess that's creepy dude's name) nightmare, the Void of Restraint. It's basically just a winder version of the last nightmare, and while its sleep spells are annoying, it's generally not as tough as the first.

Again with the googly eyes...

After kicking its butt in short order, nearly everyone levels up, woo!

Get with it Esther!

But even with the nightmare defeated, Swaine is still missing part of his heart, so it's off to find some one with a lot of restraint. No need to ask around to merchants, they follow the pendant right to the governor, who has tons of restraint from enforcing his pervy swimsuit law. 

Yeah, apparently he now doesn't really care they are not in swimsuits.

After popping the restraint back into Swaine, he's back to his normal self, which is still creepy and shifty. He tries to lie, cheat, and even buy the photo from them, but they won't have any of it. After they explain to him that they are on a quest to stop the dark jerk wizard, he admits that he knows the Sage (likely the 'he' mentioned before) and will take them to him.

Don't they have magic photocopiers in this world?

I was not expecting at all this creepy thief will be the third party member. Since Esther was the soul link to the girl from the start of the game, I really expected the soul link of Phil (the boy from the start of the game) would be the next one. Figured it would be 3 kids saving the world. Not 2 kids and a creepy adult.

Umm... yay?

But Swaine establishes himself as a great addition almost right away, thanks to his handy grapple gun! Turns out that to open the green chests I saw before didn't need some special spell, they are opened by the grapple gun.

Time to go back to the previous areas...

The second skill that makes him useful is that he can now steal items from monsters while in combat. He currently has a low success rate, but he still managed to snag an item I need for the last side qest in the area!

Better alchemy through stealing!

So with lots to back track and do in the previous areas, and a while new land just a boat ride away, I figured this was a good time to stop (since I was a half hour over). Resting at the local inn, I got a another page of local history and saved my game. 

No quiz? eh, I'll look at it later then.