Curate of Curiosities

Previously, Ramona, making use of the siren's Persuasion no Jutsu, convinced a monster to clear out a tower full of other monsters. Realizing that she and her party had been used for land development, she convinces the tower's owner to turn the place into a memorial for Devon's dead parents instead. Oh, and along the way, two adventurers got eaten when they got suspicious of Ramona's powers, setting the tone for the rest of this story route.

Our next quest involves the local crime syndicate, the same one that both killed Kyrie's father and that has a murderous loan shark in its employ, as well as the casino, which is why I went out of my way to do the arena battles earlier. It looks like Kyrie's particularly interested in this quest, like Devon was for the last one, and since part of our goal is to gain our party's trust...

Ordinarily, Quinnith would be the one leading this quest, but he came down with a bad case of being murdered in a dark magic ritual, so someone else will be taking his place.

Here I was, thinking that with Kyrie, we'd seen the last of the tryhard names.

He even looks the part of the type of tryhard that would have the last name Nightmare.

This is, I believe, the second quest that has the entirety of the Waking Stones' patronage involved. They're rightfully suspicious of Ramona, seeing as how over the past few days, no less than three adventurers have died in incidents where she was directly involved.

While we can storm the casino to put a stop to whatever they're pulling, there's some legal red tape involved, so we need to find evidence that they're actually doing something illegal. You've even got multiple ways to pick up the initial lead, since they split up trying to find evidence.

In the process of completing the lighthouse quest, a whole bunch of raccoons became abyssal chow. Stanley is reeeeal pissed about it. Too bad he's still more of an annoyance than a threat.

Now, let's pay Trish a visit one more time. It seems like she managed to conjure an entire lighthouse at the shrine, and something awaits us at the top.

Do you want to know why we were collecting all these souls for Trish? It wasn't just because the illusion in the shrine was her pet project. It's also because her real body is gravely ill and the souls have been keeping her alive.

She also wishes to use them to resurrect her dead father. But we've already seen what necromancy is capable of doing, so she can't be allowed to try. Only one thing can be done about it: defeat the manifestation of herself and reset the illusion.

This boss is pretty unremarkable. She has a multi-hit attack and can inflict bleed and confusion, but we have the party kitted out in status-blocking gear, so it's little trouble.

Defeating her not only resets the illusion, but also gives you all the items that you can obtain there normally would have to find keys in the tower to obtain.

One of them is a piece of driftwood that can be taken to this guy at the black market in exchange for Devon's ultimate weapon. It jacks up his magic stat, and causes his regular attack to be powered by that same stat, but, as the name would indicate, makes him unable to use his magic skills, so unless you've stocked him up with artifacts, this so-called ultimate weapon will end up hamstringing his abilities.

Like with Jasper's weapon, it has a reference that I could easily understand. The creator's really fond of DrakeNier, aren't they?

And speaking of Devon, we can now lovebomb him to boost his stats. The very first time that I've read this term was in reference to cult tactics. Of course this is the sort of thing that you can expect a hero to do.

As for the current quest, who better to ask about suspected white-collar crime than a jailed criminal?

Remember Helena Poma from one of the early game quests? I suppose I made the right call, suspecting a larger plot behind the angel breeding. Turns out that the head of security at the casino commissioned her to breed magic horses as part of a gambling scheme.

So how would that work? How do they make the monsters...compatible for breeding? Do they use test tubes, or...I don't want to think about it anymore.

While the Persuasion no Jutsu has been useful so far, particularly in extracting a confession from Helena, what it has achieved is not enough for the Siren. It won't be enough until Ramona is feared, as she once was. Could she at least try to be subtle with her methods for once? She's already got several people suspecting something's up!

Now that we have all the evidence we need, it's off to storm the casino!

With six party members aiding us, no less!

In order:

• Navier's got an AoE attack,
• Aki can raise one party member's defense. Doesn't seem to amount to much.
• Leyla can attack one enemy and inflict bleed.
• Jimmy has a machine gun (!?) that works a lot like one of Jasper's skills, but with better accuracy.
• Hector can poison enemies, but since we met him back at the magic club, we already know this.
• Vince has an AoE heal, and lastly,
• Sandy can set enemies on fire, providing the only way to set the burn status on enemies.

The area layout is rather simple, just has this habit of popping up barriers right in front of you to force you to take the long way around. Like with the manor, there are inanimate objects around that have been repurposed as security forces, some of which we've already encountered back at the arena.

If you were like me and kept a healthy stock of healing items before heading in, you might need to actually try to get wiped here.

The quest midboss is one of the horses that this whole scheme centers around. And just by looking at it, we can tell that it carries angel genes, or whatever the equivalent for eldritch magical creatures is.

That still leaves one question: what are these angels, how did they come to be known as such, and where did they come from?

Well, I guess we already sort of have an answer to that last question.

A child, the same one who's cleared to carry assault weaponry, is introduced to the concept of a polycule. You know kid, Ramona here's gonna build one of these too. It's going to be amazing, they're going to go around town solving problems and inexplicably convincing people to do what she wants!

Up ahead are three former adventurers who have sold their services to the casino. They're the very same ones that asked us to deal with Stanley back at the beginning. And further, they're in debt to the mob too!

Only one thing can beat the needs borne by mob debts, unholy magic from vengeful spirits.

As the Siren says, we can get them to stand down by beating them half to death. And she does mean exactly half. You only need to get them to less than half health to end the battle.

One of the bodyguards drops a testosterone pill, which you can give to Devon or the one member of the party that would conceivably want to take testosterone to boost their stats.

That's it? No prescription or anything? Well, I guess since you don't need one for the stat boosting pills that every enemy seems to have on them, so the same should apply to the hormone pills that this one rando had on him.

Up ahead is Brenten, the head of security. This guy will tie down your party members, starting with Ramona. He can be pretty tricky, but as long as you're diligent with healing...yeah. This seems to be a pattern with most of the late-game bosses. Seems like the difficulty has hit a plateau ever since Jasper, the one party member you couldn't get in the demo, joined us. It's like the game ran out of ways to troll the player, yet still doesn't want the player to just coast through it.

With the Siren's ability, it's no trouble getting Brenten to squeal. He's basically the fall guy for this whole scheme, which is being orchestrated by his boss so he can make a quick buck rigging horse races. But surely someone involved would eventually notice that the horses are purple and their eyes aren't where they're supposed to be, so what happens then?

Conveniently, he's in the very next room.

This boss is pretty simple. After getting to about half health, he sics the miniboss that you fought 10 minutes ago to cover for him. In the meantime, all he can do is shoot at you with his antique revolver.

Like the lighthouse quest was for Devon, this quest is personal for Kyrie, since the boss is a member of the same crime syndicate responsible for the death of her father. Of course, she shows no mercy towards the man, only stopping once Jasper tells her to.

For the very first time in this adventure, Jasper takes notice of the Persuasion no Jutsu, after Ramona uses it to try to convince them not to blab about Kyrie nearly beating yet another corrupt executive to death. So the one party member that Ramona has no plans to be in a relationship with is also the only one aware of her attempts to deceive them. I'm sure this won't have far-reaching impact on the whole party dynamic.

And that's two down. Not only did we gain Kyrie's trust, but we did it without anyone important dying, even though one person involved definitely deserved it!

Back to the bar to turn this in and...

Every hero needs a villain, Uzbek. And what better one than a criminal menacing an entire country?

This is the second indie RPG that I've covered with a major female character who wants to become a magical girl. Incidentally, both of them use knives as their main weapon of choice. Though there, it was endearing; here, it's just mildly foreboding.

Meh. We've made a lot of enemies in general. One of them tried to jump out of a car to shoot us! Plus, I bet you've never even been harrassed by walking flowers before.

Now Jasper wants to discuss something with us in the park downtown, so it wouldn't do to keep them waiting.

They've come to realize that Ramona's been using the Persuasion no Jutsu at an increasingly liberal rate, and deduces that she's possessed. Sure, the monster that ravaged the town is inhabiting her, but it's not too bad as long as she doesn't cross the line, once she does, it's off to the police she goes. But what happens if the police is possessed too? You've seen that one cop who was a flesh puppet for a monster rat, haven't you?

This Siren's getting awfully bold, trying to push her host into getting rid of her friends like this.

At last, we find out the Siren's real name: Claudine Grace. Obviously, she must have had a life before enthralling monsters to kill in her name, so Jasper's off to research her on their own time.

Great job, Jasper. Sure, you might be perceptive for a LARPing cowboy, but now the Siren sees you as a potential threat, and has some justification for wanting to be rid of you. At best, you'll be left out of the polycule that she and Ramona are trying to form, at worst...I don't even want to think about it.