Earthbound – Day 36

–Day 36–

After opening up the last couple presents in the maze, I figured it would be a good chance to use the Exit Mouse and follow him out of the cave. However, that’s not quite how he works. I was expecting him to physically lead the party to the exit, but instead the whole party was simply teleported away. It’s admittedly much more effective than I thought it would be, but I still can’t help but feel a little cheated that I wasn’t able to follow the little mouse with a sign out of the cave. At least the photographer was waiting for us at the entrance to capture the moment of victory.

We tell the digger all the monsters are gone now, and he seems pleased. Now he’s going finish digging and maybe give us something for our trouble. Maybe we’ll get a giant gold nugget worth $1 million? You know, like the amount we need to save the Runaway Brothers again? Or really just any kind of reward…

I’m not sure if I did something wrong, or if he’s hiding or something like that, but after resting I can’t find the digger at all. I start looking around in the maze again, but he’s nowhere to be found. There aren’t any new paths open, there aren’t any other diggers, there aren’t even any monsters left, there’s just nothing anymore except for the family of exit mice.

With no other hints towards what I’m supposed to be doing, we start heading back to Fourside. We’ve barely started crossing the bridge when we’re stopped by one of the diggers. As it turns out, the diggers didn’t manage to find any buried treasure after all. They did however find a large diamond. As a thank you, they want Ness to have it. It’s not the gold we were looking for, but a diamond might be just as valuable.

We continue across the bridge and just as we’re about to enter Fourside the photographer shows up AGAIN to take our picture. Enough is enough dude, you just took our picture a few minutes ago!

Anyway, we quickly return to Fourside and head straight to the Topolla Theater to free the Runaway Brothers from their contract. It might not be gold, but the manager seems more than willing to accept it as payment to cover their debt. Although, she does value the diamond at MAYBE $50, so she’s giving us a good bargain. Since we never actually get to SEE the diamond, I’m not sure if she’s telling the truth or not, but going off her other reactions, I’m going to assume she’s lying.

Once again, the Runaway Brothers show up and say their farewells to the manager. Considering they manage to rack up a million dollar debt in just a few days with this person, they were all very civil to her as they left.

Of course, we paid for a ticket to see their show, and we’re going to see their final performance. This time around, they performed much better than last time. Not only that, but they are joined this time by a female dancer who I can only assume is Venus who we’ve heard talk of. As the show comes to an end, they drive their tour bus on stage, load into it, and drive away.

Unfortunately, that’s where I lose them. Unlike last time, no one is waiting outside the theater to thank us or anything. We start searching all around town for them, but they’re simply nowhere to be found. They mentioned before that we would need their help to take down Mr. Monotoli, but they aren’t anywhere near his building either.

We head back to the theater to see if maybe they’re still hanging out there. To our surprise, we are instead treated to a solo show by Venus. I can’t tell very well due to the small character sprite, but In person she must be very attractive. I say this, because half way through her performance someone runs on stage and needs to be taken away by security…

Ultimately the Runaway Brothers weren’t at the theater either. So once again we’re a bit lost for what we’re expected to do at the moment. I think we’ll just sleep on it for the moment and pick it up again tomorrow. Join me then as we once again search the city for clues.