Earthbound – Day 17

–Day 17–

After yesterday, there actually isn’t a whole lot more to explore in this town. There are however two mysteries that stand out. First, there is apparently a Suspicious Woman walking around that has been seen with the zombies. And second, there is apparently a secret way out of town through the Graveyard.

The Graveyard is actually a pretty big area, so it’s a bit hard to choose where to search first. However, one oddity stood out to me, a lone tombstone outside the fenced areas at the end of a walkway. It just screamed secret tunnel. Instead what I got was YET ANOTHER photo-op for the mysterious cameraman.

So I guess that wasn’t the secret tunnel after all. That just means we’re going to have to search through the whole graveyard to find it. Of course, the graveyard is full of monsters, though perhaps not the kind you would expect. Instead of finding waves of zombies, we instead ended up fighting various trashcan monsters like the Putrid Moldyman and the Smelly Ghost.

These enemies were good for some nice experience, but not much help for finding any secret exits. As it turns out, I was over thinking the whole thing. The solution was in fact as simple as going to the far northwest edge of town past the graveyard. Unfortunately, the path is being guarded by a pair of monsters which stare into my soul.

These monsters won’t let us through, which is to be expected. However, they won’t fight us either, so I guess for now that path is still off limits. All that searching through the graveyard ultimately just made us tired, so we head back to the hotel for some rest. That’s when we get a lead on our other mystery, the Suspicious Woman. We see her walk into the hotel just ahead of us and we can’t help but follow her. Inside, all the hotel staff are missing and the music has become somewhat distorted. I think we’re onto something here.

This is very suspicious indeed. Naturally, we follow her through the hotel and right into her room. But it was a trap! As soon as we enter her hotel room, we’re surrounded by monsters. What have we gotten ourselves into?

The monsters quickly close in around us and knock us unconscious. Much to our dismay, it would seem we’ve been kidnapped and are now locked away in some underground cell. It would seem all hope is lost now.

As I was allowing despair to set in, Paula used her psychic powers to call out for help, just as she had done before to call me to her. This time however she is calling a new friend who we’ve never met, Jeff.

Far to the north, in the town of Winters, inside the Snow Wood Boarding House, Jeff manages to hear her calls for help. He might not know it yet, but he’s about to join us on our quest to save the world.

While trying to leave his dorm room, Jeff accidentally wakes up his roommate Tony. Thankfully, Tony is fully supportive of his running away from school to save the world. In fact he didn’t even give him a chance to explain that he needed to save the world. Maybe Tony just wants him to leave so he can have the room to himself.

Anyway, Tony does give us some good advice. It’s dangerous outside lately, so it would be best if we arm ourselves with equipment from the locker room. After this, he decides to join us in our search.

Considering it’s the middle of the night, it’s kind of surprising that so many people are awake and just hanging out in the hallways. Either way, we glean some helpful information off our fellow students. For one, we learn of Tessie, a mysterious creature that lives in the lake to the south. Obviously this is a nod to Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster.

In addition to that, we hear a rumor that there is an entrance at the center of Stonehenge. I can only hope that is the other end of the secret tunnel out of Threek. It looks like we have out next destination set for us. Let’s just hope the Bigfoot rumors aren’t anything to worry about.

We also had a bit of evil fun when we entered one of the other dorm rooms. Apparently tomorrow is Tony’s birthday, so one of the other classmates was wrapping up cookies as presents to give out at the party tomorrow. That’s so nice of them. It would be a shame is someone came along and opened all of those presents.

There isn’t much else to do inside the boarding house, so make our way to the locker room. Unfortunately, every locker seems to be locked. Who would have thought? Thankfully, there is one other person in the school willing to help us, Maxwell. After gushing to us about how great Jeff’s father is, he offers us the key to the lockers.

Something doesn’t seem quite right thought, this key looks all bent. Sure enough, the key is too badly damaged to actually open any of the lockers. I hope Maxwell knows how to fix this.

Lucky for us, he already knew this might happen. So while we were out he invented the “Machine that Opens Doors, especially when you have a slightly bad key” which is, well, a machine that opens doors, especially when you have a slightly bad key.

Maxwell also gives us some life advice in the process. As the son of the great Dr. Andonuts, we should be able to fix small tools like this on our own eventually. That really shines some light on what Jeff’s role in the party will be. He’ll be the nerdy mechanic.

Anyway, Now that we have the Bad Key Machine, it’s time to raid the locker room for supplies. There isn’t a whole lot to choose from. Just a Holmes Hat for a little protection, and a Pop gun to defend ourselves with. There’s also a Broken Air Gun in one of the lockers. It’s obvious that Jeff should be able to fix this, but I can’t figure out how. I’ll just have to hold onto it for a while until I figure it out.

We’re finally equipped and ready to tackle the world outside the Boarding House. That means we’re going to have to jump the fence. Tony is willing to give us a boost, but that unfortunately means he’s going to be left behind and we’re going to have to go on alone.

Outside the gate, the first thing we come across is a small shop. Jeff doesn’t really have any money right now. And even if he did, everything is really expensive here. I’ll have to come back here at some point after I meet up with the rest of the party.

There is however a lady that is VERY insistent that we buy some gum and get a free monkey. That’s an odd promotion, but who am I to judge. As it so happens, I have always wanted a helper monkey.

Apparently that monkey REALLY likes bubble gum. So much so that he’s willing to follow us around just because I gave him a piece. He also manages to blow a bubble so large it lifted him right off the ground. I’m not sure yet how useful he’ll be, but I guess it’s nice to know I won’t be wandering around alone.

So join us next time as we head south and try to rescue Ness and Paula.