Earthbound – Day 42

–Day 42–

We return once again to the Monotoli Building, outside of which the maid is waiting for us to return with the Gourmet Tofu Machine. Before we even get a chance to offer it to her she has already taken it out of our hands. At the very least she invites us up to her room on the 48^th Floor to grab a piece for ourselves if we want it.

You may remember, or perhaps I never mentioned it, but the floor Porky is on is actually the 47^th floor. Now that we’ve been invited up to the 48^th we can finally use the other private elevator. The maid was even kind enough to tell the elevator girl to expect us. She did forget one thing though. She forgot to tell us the code to deactivate all the Sentry Robots roaming around the building.

Without that code, there’s really nothing we can do but to fight our way through to Mr. Monotoli’s office. I would like to note that the 48^th floor seems much larger than the 47^th. It also seems to have a somewhat impossible and maze like floor plan with more rooms in it that you would expect. Really, the ground floor was just a small lobby. Not many buildings get wider like this the higher up you go…

We eventually make it to a room with a tiny little robot that doesn’t really look like it is even capable of causing us much harm. In fact it can barely stand up. It doesn’t seem to be actually attacking either of us. And on the few occasions it might have done something bad is when it falls over and accidentally shoots off a strange beam, which ultimately fails to affect anyone.

Even when it’s not shooting off beams at us, it does simple things like cleaning the area around itself. Or on occasion I have seen it eating a bologne sandwich. I didn’t think robots even could eat…

We never do actually defeat this robot, which I’m kind of happy about, he’s a cute little guy. Instead, after several turns “Some guys rush into the room.” It’s the Runaway Brothers here to help us. They jump behind the robot and flip a switch on its back, shutting it off.

Where the heck did you guys run off to before? If you wanted to help, I could have used a lot of it before now. Whatever, they’re here to help now in whatever way they can. The only problem right now is that they have to use the bathroom… Couldn’t they have done that before?

Well I’m not going to wait around for them and we rush into the office without them. Finally we’ve found Paula and the Evil Mr. Monotoli. That’s what we’ve been led to believe anyway. After talking with Paula, she insists that he’s not a bad person after all, and we should really hear him out before we judge him.

Monotoli assures us that he hasn’t done anything to Paula, she’s a nice girl after all. He even insists she rejoin our party before continuing on with his explanation of what happened. As we already knew, the Mani Mani statue has the power to create illusions. But it also attracts evil spirits and weakens your heart. That power scared him, so he hid it behind the bar, where we ultimately destroyed it.

He apparently went there often to pray, and while doing so cryptic words would appear during the illusions. He would hear things like “Stop Ness, and do so by your own hand.” or “Don’t let them go to Summers.” or “Make sure they know nothing of the Pyramid.” The finally thing he mentions is Giygas’ name. So it would seem Giygas was behind this as well. Monotoli doesn’t fully understand what they all mean, honestly I don’t fully understand them either. But I do know one thing, this means we’re going to have to go to summers soon, and we’re probably going to find a pyramid there…

Now back in his right mind, Monotoli strongly encourages us to go to Summers in defiance of the evil messages he’s been told. To aid us, he even offers to let us use him helicopter to get there. Before we can even accept his offer, he pushes aside the stuffed bear by the door, which somehow opens a secret staircase in the wall to the helipad on the roof.

Wasting no time at all, we head up the stairs, but somehow we are too late, someone else is flying away with the helicopter already. Somehow Porky managed to slip past us and is now taking it for himself. Now that Monotoli is back to normal, he has no use left for him and he’s getting out of here.

This appears to be a pretty big problem for us. Summers is somewhere across the ocean. Without a helicopter, we have no way of getting there, at least no way that I’ve seen yet. Just as we’re about to leave Monotoli’s office, Paula gets a sudden feeling and informs us that we need to go back to Threek if we want to get to Summers.

I’m not sure what we can do back in Threek, but the Runaway Brothers are still there to help us. After hearing what needs to be done, they offer to drive us back to Threek in their tour bus. We all start to make our way downstairs when we get another unexpected call from Apple Kid.

It would seem he has identified the enemy of all humanity and the only way to defeat him is to build a “Phase Distorter” whatever that is. He needs to find Dr. Andonuts to help him build it, so he may be gone for a while. I’m not sure how any of that really helps us right now, but I’m sure we’ll find out.

Not to be outdone, we get a call from Orange kid not much later. Unlike Apple Kid, Orange Kid’s current project seems to be, shall we say, less than helpful… For some reason he is working on a machine that will change boiled eggs back into raw eggs. Thanks, I guess, but of all the inventions you could make, I really don’t see how that one is going to help us any…

After many delays, we finally make it downstairs to the tour bus that has been waiting for us. We all pack inside and enjoy a pleasant road trip back to Threek. When they drop us off, one of them tries to help us figure out what could possibly be here in Threek that we need, perhaps some important item or gadget that we left behind.

That’s when I remembered, we did leave something important here. Jeff’s Sky Walker is still crashed back in the graveyard. Maybe he’s finally smart enough to figure out a way to fix it now. As it turns out, we might not have to fix much at all. Upon our arrival we see that two other people have already mostly fixed it up for us. It just needs a few final touches before it’s back up and running, which Jeff easily performs.

At the moment, the Sky Walker still can’t get us to Summers though. It can however get us back to Dr. Andonuts lab back in Winters. Once we’re there we’ll just have to see if he’d be willing to modify it for us to get us the rest of the way. With that hope in mind we all climb inside and off to Dr. Andonuts’ lab.

It’s a relatively short flight, and we arrive to the lab to a warm welcome from the two monkeys Jeff previously encountered. Since we’ve been gone, they’ve actually gone and gotten married. They didn’t waste any time did they. They also strongly hint towards our next destination. Now that ness is in our party, it would seem we’re supposed to claim the My Sanctuary location Jeff passed by before, the one just north of Stonehenge. After that they are off, it is their honeymoon after all.

Dr. Andonuts’ reception isn’t quite as warm and welcoming. Out of absolutely nowhere and without even a hello, Dr. Andonuts informs us that Jeff wets his bed sometimes, but is otherwise a good boy… How long has he been alone out here in his lab, because that is way beyond simply being “Bad at small talk.”

Now that Jeff is on suicide watch after that terrible introduction to his father, I think it would be best to take a break. Join us again next time as we help Jeff overcome his bed wetting… I mean… reclaim another My Sanctuary location. See you then!