When I last left off, Ammy had allowed the Lucky Mallet to shrink her to Issun's size. As such, Issun offered some helpful advice, such as using him to open the occasional treasure chest wrapped in chains (by drawing a line from him to the chest with the Celestial Brush). I do question why this area contains tiny chests wrapped in chains, but I get the feeling we're not supposed to question these things, so I guess it'll remain a mystery.
So, being the heroes we were, we decided to start exploring this strange new world. We didn't get very far before horrible things started showing up, though.
So, on the left we have a door we can't go through because we don't have an Exorcising Arrow Key, and on the right we have a horrible spider guarding a doorway. Which do we choose?
Oh, I thought it was a Horrible Death Spider. Same difference, right?
It looks like it wants to eat me...
Fortunately, the spider was in a "leave us alone" kind of mood. I'm sure that'll change later at an inappropriate time.
Once we proceeded through the spider's doorway, we found ourselves staring at a giant foot.
It's one of the guards. I hope he didn't have athlete's foot or something, because we would have gotten a noseful of it. Being the rational actor I am, I jumped onto the foot.
Well, we have to get past the foot, and we can't jump over it, so...
Fortunately, the foot's owner didn't try to scratch us off or anything, so we were able to continue on our merry way. Eventually we came to an area with some nasty-looking water.
It sounded like somebody was crying, too.
Someone crying? Okay, the crying is getting old...
Of course there is. Try to keep up.
So we looked over at the handy jail cell across the way, and...
ZOMG! There's someone in there! And it sounds like a GIRL!
And it looks like she has blond hair? Weird.
SHH! Your misogyny is showing again!
Okay, yes, That is a valid point. Why couldn't you have said that in the first place?
So we decided to ignore the girl and keep moving...until we got attacked by another one of those wheel things. This time it had a picture of a guy on it instead of lips or eyes, though.
It moved really, really fast, but other than that, was pretty easy to defeat. Okay, moving on.
After making our way past another Blocking Spider that paid no attention to us, we found ourselves in an open area...with more guards in it.
There was something glowing in that little cave off to the left in the above picture. Like moths to a flame...except we were also ants trying to avoid being stomped on by the guard...or something.
But there was nothing useful in the cave except for some treasure chests, so we went back outside. This time we heard the guards talking!
Roach? HOW DARE YOU CALL ME A ROACH? I AM YOUR GODDESS AND- Is that an Exorcising Arrow Key?
That IS an Exorcising Arrow Key! Woo!
And quit calling us bugs, if you know what's good for you! Stupid guards.
You said it!
So we made our way to the Exorcising Arrow. To do this, we had to get the foot-stomping guard to move his foot over in front of the cave. Then we had to jump onto his foot and jump from there into the cave where the Exorcising Arrow was sitting. Fun stuff. Damn guards and their stomping.
There was another guard there with a broom, but the broom moved too fast for us to get past it (Foreshadowing?) so we made our way back to the locked gate. Issun must have made too much noise while we were passing the prison cell, though. Probably mumbling about boobs or something.
Damn! She heard us! Should we hide?
Mallet bearers? Well, we did use the Lucky Mallet to get in here...
Mallet bearers? Lucky Mallet? It shrunk us?
Who do you think we are? Silly person.
Tiny passersby. You know, like ants or something.
Ever the smooth operator...
Why are you insulting her?!
Dammit! Your hat isn't made of tinfoil! Stop acting like it is!
Well, she is monster-sized to us right now...
So she started explaining that her grandfather had sent her to Sei-an City to sell his bamboo ware. Which was all well and good until the Emperor threw her in jail for no apparent reason.
Apparently Mr. Bamboo is the only person in all of Nippon who makes bamboo ware. I wouldn't have guessed it by the name or anything, but YMMV.
I see. The plot thickens!
Moonlight Beauty? Uh, okay...
Unfortunately, the poor girl could only tell us her name. She didn't know why she'd been imprisoned.
Well, that's helpful. Or not.
Ugh. Really?
What are you implying here? That Mr. Bamboo is ugly?
Ugh. Did you even hear anything she said?
Look how puffed up he is. You're two inches tall! You can't do anything!
He went on to assure Kaguya that as soon as we found the Emperor, we'd thrash him, or something. He also told her about Ammy's true identity. Why does he have to keep blabbing that to everyone we meet? That's going to bite us in the ass one of these days...
After we were done talking to Kaguya, we found our way to the gate with our Exorcising Arrow and opened the door. Inside, we found a room with some bugs in it (ugh) and a suspicious hole in the floor. A hole so suspicious, I put a Cherry Bomb on it.
When the Cherry Bomb blew up, it revealed a mysterious hole.
Down the hole!
How do we know the Emperor is even the one that hid it? I'm confused. Is that a spider?
That's definitely a spider.
Fun!
Stay on their backs? So they're like little elevators? Menacing little elevators that try to eat you? Um...no thanks. I'll just jump to the bottom of the hole...
Hmm. The trail of acorns leading to the mysterious hole served as a clue that I should use a Cherry Bomb.
And this is what we found inside the hole!
And then the Blocking Spider that just happened to be in the room sprang into action.
Argh! Is it going to eat us now? Is this the end? I don't want to die in this hole where no one will ever find us!
You said it. Well, I suppose we should investigate this mysterious jug hanging from the ceiling. That rope it's hanging from looks awfully slashable...
Success! Now we can go inside it! I'm not sure why we'd want to, though...
It's full of...mist? Okay then...
Yeah, I noticed...
I noticed that too. Say something useful!
But, of course, he didn't have anything else useful to say. After a few minutes of blundering around inside the jug, I finally remembered I had a Galestorm technique and used that to blow the mist out of the jug! Success!
That's a blurry picture of us being blown out of the jug along with the mist. Woo!
Thanks, I guess.
Of course, then he started bitching about the Emperor some more.
Okay, first of all, I don't think the Emperor was "hogging" the mist, since it was, you know, hidden in this flask and all, not being used. Second of all, "comforting?" Um...how is mist comforting? Maybe I'm putting too much thought into this...
And then, improbably, the ceiling of the room turned into a night sky, complete with stars. I was too slow to get a picture of it, though.
Well, clearly it has something to do with the mist we just freed. Duh.
Is that a sheep?
That's a sheep with some kind of jug on its back...
Weird. Okay then. What are you here to teach us, funny drunkard sheep?
Well, I suppose mist could be said to do that...
Right, that's what we figured. Can you give us your brush power now?
Yes? Yes? The power of...
The power of...mist? Glisten over all creation like fleeting dew? Uhh...what does that mean exactly?
I guess so. Seems like a weird place to put it, though.
Oh. Well, that might be useful, I guess...
That would definitely be useful.
Yeah, okay.
So, according to Issun, my new brush technique could be used to slow down any monster threatening me. He suggested trying it out on the Blocking Spider that was blocking the exit to the room. Okay then.
An equal sign? I draw an equal sign to do this? Okay...
So, basically, when I drew the equal sign, a bunch of mist showed up and made everything slow down, just like Issun said it would. For some reason he was surprised by this. Well, whatever. We made use of our new brush technique to get past the Blocking Spider, and then went back to the room with that guy sweeping.
Using our new brush technique, we slowed down the broom's movements enough to slip past it. Woohoo!
And then we found ourselves in a magical wonderland of poisonous water and deer scares. Interesting.
Interesting...
Unfortunately, the deer scares were like see-saws, so I had to use my mist technique to slow them down long enough to jump to the next one.
I had to do the same thing again to be able to jump on top of the pipe that was gushing out the foul water.
From there, it was simply a matter of climbing up some broken bits of wood to get to the hallway above, where we saw a bizarre sight...
That's, uh...well. I think we found our mist source.
With how weird everything has been in this game, you probably should have expected it, really...
I would suggest going in there and dealing with him.
...Right. Good point.
So we made our way into the hallway outside the Emperor's room (which was infested with more Platform Spiders, ugh)...
...and began using the Platform Spiders to make our way into the rafters.
This involved a lot of carefully-timed jumps to land on the Platform Spiders so I could advance. Fortunately, the spiders didn't seem to be too inclined toward trying to eat us, so we were safe.
Unfortunately, the spiders in the rafters had apparently just decided to be jerks and swing back and forth really fast. Good thing I had a plan!
The plan was using mist to slow down the spiders so I could get past, but it's kind of hard to get a good picture of that. The photo above shows a particularly asinine part of the rafter area, where I had to get past three spiders in a row that were progressively swinging faster. Oh, hell, here's a video.
Thank goodness for the mist, right? Heh heh.
And here's a convenient entrance into the green mist tornado, or whatever you want to call it.
That looks fun.
Well, here goes nothing, I guess...
Tell me about it. Well, there weren't really any alternatives...
I guess. Is this a throat? I don't think this was a good idea...
So we explored the throat and found something that looked an awful lot like a sphincter...
...except it was a door. Well, that works, I guess.
You have a bad feeling about this? WE'RE INSIDE A GUY. You'd have to be insane not to have a bad feeling about this!
Especially with a corridor like THAT facing you! Look at the mist! And all those bulgy veins!
So, after we traveled down a couple of long hallways, we found ourselves in the Emperor's intestines, apparently. At least, that's kind of what it looks like.
Looks like we're going to have to jump. Well, we've come this far...
A sword?
And some swirly green mist? What am I looking at here?
It's alive! IT'S ALIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE! IT'S-
A guy who's been stabbed with too many cocktail swords?
That's a lot of cocktail swords. You know, those little plastic swords that come with olives skewered on them when you're getting drinks at the bar, and then you get into tiny sword fights with your friends
and lose - well, you get the idea.
I bet he's mad because he's lost so many tiny sword fights. I count 29 or 30 swords sticking out of him.
Well, that explains a lot.
HOW DARE YOU?! ISSUN, HE CALLED ME A MUTT!!!
Goldnail, the mighty sword? Dude...it's an inch long.
YEAH! You'll pay for calling me a mutt, you, you...you VIRUS! I've got your antidote...RIGHT HERE!
You tell him, Issun!
I mostly wanted to use this picture because I just want to point out that Denkomaru is a way more badass name for a sword than Goldnail.
And then it was fightin' time! But because I'm an idiot, I forgot to use the mist technique on Blight, so the battle probably took longer than it should have. But a lot of jumping around and Power Slashing later, we were victorious!
Woohoo, a new weapon! I'll probably forget to equip it for the next few posts, but whatever.
With that, it was time for the narrator to take over. He explained that the mysterious green mist came from Blight (but we already knew that), and that Blight was no match for Amaterasu and Issun despite the fact that he was full of so much anger and hatred. Woohoo!
Woohoo! The people aren't dying anymore!
Yay! The Emperor's not going to die!
Again? And we don't even get to watch it happen this time? Lame.
Well, um...at least it left?
You said that last time! Say something new for a change!
What the?!
Quit mouthing off to the narrator! He'll do bad things to you in the narrations!
Insulting him is even worse! Stop it!
And with that, I've reached my stopping point for today. Check back next time for a follow-up to our encounter with the mysterious Kaguya, which involves taking control of the Emperor's body. I mean, no it doesn't. Why would you think that?
Until next time, heroes!
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