Earthbound – Day 34

–Day 34–

Having explored every other area of town, I supposed it’s time we went and talked to Mr. Monotoli. He’s not hard to find of course, he has his name plastered on the side of the tallest building in town. I am a bit surprised how easy it is to get to him though. Especially considering he practically owns the police force. The elevator operator however seemed to have her own issues with me unrelated to us wanting is see Mr. Monotoli.

I didn’t catch it at first in the elevator, but another familiar name has started to pop up, Porky. It would seem he has somehow weaseled his way in with Mr. Monotoli and is profiting off of his recent success. Not only that, but he seems to have hired rather trigger happy guards. Before I even have a chance to do anything they are already threatening to shoot me if I do anything suspicious.

Inside one of the office suites, we actually run into the tubby little devil himself. After flaunting his new status to us and pretending not to remember us, he states that he is in fact Mr. Monotoli’s partner. Apparently he gives him Political and economic advice. I would like to point out that Porky is supposed to be 13 years old, and any business man that takes political and economic advice from a 13 year old needs to have their head examined.

After he is done bragging, he sets his guards on our party and has us forced out of the room with the threat never to return. I mean, you can return if you want to, nothing actually happens, he just says the same thing and then throws you out again, but still…. NEVER RETURN!

Anyway, just down the hall we find that Aloysius Minch, Porky’s father, is also benefitting from this whole situation. I don’t remember much about our last encounter with him, but I do remember that he was pretty money obsessed before. He seemed to detest the fact that his family had sunk down the lower class from their once elite status. I guess he got what he wanted at least.

Sadly, we have to call this visit a failure, due to the fact that we never did actually get to see Mr. Monotoli. In fact, we didn’t really get any new information at all out of that visit. It looks like we’re going to have to hit the streets again and hope to find some kind of clue. Unfortunately, nothing much really surfaced. The best I saw was someone mentioning a dig for treasure out in the desert. But we’ve already been to the dig site and it wasn’t anything special.

It might not be a very good lead, but it’s the only one we have right now, so we head back to the dig site to investigate. And weren’t we surprised to see that quite a bit of work had been done since the last time we were here. The main hole has been expanded to a sizable crater at this point. Not only that, but there is now a crowd gathered to watch the dig as it progresses.

Of course, things have hit a snag down below ground and it looks like it’s up to us to fix it yet again. Apparently while digging, the miners discovered a maze full of monsters. Not only that, but there are 5 Big Moles apparently acting as leaders. In order for work to progress, we’ll first have to defeat all 5 of the moles and rid the tunnel of all monsters.

Heading north from the entrance and down to a sub-level, we happen to come across the first of the 5 moles. It is indeed a rather large mole, and if we’re to believe what it says, it is the 3^rd strongest of the 5 moles. That’s perfect actually, it will give us a good benchmark for the battles to come.

As it turns out, the third strongest mole wasn’t all that hard to defeat. Don’t get me wrong, its attacks are powerful, and could easily kill a party member if we’re not careful. However, it doesn’t have a whole lot of HP of its own, and it is easily defeated within only a few rounds of battle. So that’s 1 down and 4 left to go.

The maze however does end up being rather problematic for me. Not to mention the high number of enemies in the area constantly slowing things down. Between Gigantic Ants and Dry Coil Snakes, it’s difficult to take even a few steps without getting into another battle.

So for now I think we’re going to call it a day. Join us tomorrow as we continue ridding this cave of its Giant Mole problem.