Curate of Curiosities

Previously, Ramona and friends fought magic CRISPR, which was being run out of a casino to create superpowered racehorses to bet on. A pretty creative use of magic creatures, I'll say. Plus, Ramona got one step closer to forming her polycule.

Now, Devon's the only one who hasn't completed his spiritual healing, due to not being equipped with defense-lowering gear. A few more run-ins with traffic ought to fix that.

We find out that his aunt and uncle basically kicked him out of the house as soon as he turned 18, forcing him to fend for himself until he met Kyrie and later Ramona.

This skill seems pretty useful tactically. Start off in this stance to build up focus, then switch to Calm Mind for the offense.

And that's the last of the spiritual healing. Unlike with the casino, there's an actual reward for seeing this through to the end: an accessory that gives us an attack that costs souls to use.

We're pretty much out of side content for this route, so it's back to the bar we go.

Look, I know that Ramona seems to have attracted unwanted attention with her antics as of late, but I'm sure that it's nothing that you should be concerned about.

So as mentioned earlier, there is a high-profile assassin at large. Obviously, the rest of the magic club is rather hesitant to help take her on, but one of them is planning on robbing a bank or something to get money, so...wait, does adventuring really pay that poorly?

I knew that the Siren was basically a villain of a previous adventure, but I didn't think that the terminology used would be this, well, blatant about it.

Here's our third tier 3 quest, and the last to be listed on the bar's bulletin board. What could be better for our reputation than raiding the headquarters of an evil necromancy cult?

We've met this guy before. He hung around this other adventurer who was a massive health nut. While she did introduce us to healthy healing items, she's also really insufferable about health, to the point to trying to push alternative treatments on her teammates. While we first met her pretty early in the game, it's been a while since we last saw her.

Ramona takes the opportunity to ask about the Siren's former identity, and surprisingly, they recognize the name, and are willing to tell her what they know about her. So at the very least, we now know that they were present during the Siren's rise to power.

How long ago was this incident, anyway? And come to think about it, How old are they, anyway? In fact, we don't know the exact ages for a lot of the adventurers. We know the main cast is in their 20s, and those kids are considerably younger than that, but that's about it.

Oh wait, I forgot! Devon's parents were killed by the Siren, so it can't have been too long ago. Probably a decade at most before the events of the game.

The Lonely Hearts have set up shop in a special section of the Tower. You still won't be able to enter the tower proper in this route, though.

This place has "final dungeon" written all over it. Or at the very least, pseudo-final dungeon.

Oh, new party members:

• Roddy has a stun attack that always procs.
• Ty has a multi-hit attack, but with balls rather than a machine gun.
• Seki has a stun attack that hits harder than Roddy's.

The three of them remind Ramona that she doesn't need to act like she's the main character of this quest. Well, the best I can hope for all of them is that they don't end up in a horrible accident.

On the floor you encounter those two guys from the last time we tangled with the cult. Nothing to say about them, other than that they've gotten stronger due to level scaling. Like with the bodyguards at the casino, you only have to get each of them to around half health to finish the battle.

As mentioned before, both of them have lost someone they were close to, which is what attracted them to the cult. But that gives Ramona a way to talk them down.

As if having a dead kid fueling her magic was bad enough, now his mom's gonna find out that he's being used to fuel her plan to form a polycule. She is not going to like this at all.

At least we get an instant death skill out of the deal.

Yeah, I know my RPG tropes. No need to point them out for us.

Now there are clearly two exits to this room, but due to...circumstances...we can only take the one on the right.

Here's Ramona's instant death skill in action. In typical RPG fashion, you get it at least five hours after it would have been useful.

To unlock the door at the end of this area, you need to avoid stepping on the dirt, forcing you through one-tile-wide paths lined with spear traps. Good thing the cultists drop hoodies that protect against the traps. And no, you can't use them to get to the inner sanctum early: Sheya's still blocking the way.

At the end is the health nut, who has offered her skills to the cult. She says that their leader can somehow improve upon the methods that created the Siren, but anyone with a brain can tell you that a bunch of scrappy cultists can't even come close to the same results that a career scientist achieved. Even the Siren herself thinks so!

Ramona tries to talk her down, but it does. Not. Work.

Side note: You know those European comics that I had been reading on Google Play? There just so happens to be one called Cedric. It's about this Dennis the Menace (US)-looking kid who gets into shenanigans. Yes, it also has a Best Of Album, just like a few other comics by Dupuis.

This boss is a real annoyance. She regularly summons mandrakes, then after a few turns, sets them up to explode in the party's faces. Good thing three of our four party members have crowd control skills! (And Jasper can also pitch in, I guess.)

After a while, this other, really old adventurer joins in. I don't think I've ever been properly introduced to him in this playthrough.

Once again, get them to below half health to force them to back down.

He recognizes Ramona's power as the exact same as that used by the monster that talked his protégé into killing herself.

Look, before we move on, are there any other people who have been personally affected by this Siren? Chances are, she's taken out more than a few adventurers or people close to them.

Back to the main hall...

Here's the leader of the local branch of this necromancy cult, and the mother of the child who's ghost is now fueling Ramona's powers. First off, just how much of her dead son is still present inside Ramona?

See those coffins next to her? Those contain the fruits of her experimentation: the reanimated bodies of a few adventurers who died in the tower...

Oh. Of all the people that she could have used necromancy to resurrect, it had to be the one whose death our teammate has yet to move past.

Now I wonder what it would be like if it was someone else that was close to one of the party members, like Kyrie's dad, either of Devon's parents, or Ramona's...wait, she's the only one who hasn't lost anyone close to her.

He's...far from the most intimidating of bosses, as it turns out, despite the emotional damage done to Jasper. He's got an AoE attack, but that's pretty much it.

In their moment of weakness, Jasper at last surrenders to Ramona's and the Siren's influence. Not only does this grant Ramona a new skill, but also removes another obstacle to their plans. Plus it was either that or Jasper commits suicide in front of everyone here.

Up next is the cult leader. She uses the same damage traps that we saw in the garden.

A long time ago, I compared a character from an indie visual novel I played to a bootleg version of Hecatia from Touhou. Why bring this up now? Because Cassandra over here reminds me of a bootleg verson of Nue.

So you have noticed Ramona's unwanted stowaway. You're what, the fifth person or so to catch on? It doesn't matter what you try, you cannot stop a true hero, or the angry ghost inside her.

Don't tell me she wants a cut of whatever the Siren's been offering?

But it's not like she can do much with the Siren no longer in her statue prison, so let's go home to rest up...

This may seem unwanted at this point, but we've planned this all along. Before starting this quest, we took out another loan downtown, and then spent all of our money at the black market. Time to settle the score with Miss Loan Shark.

Whoa, look at that HP total!

To start with, my party was starting to get tired right when I faced her, and I've already told you how it affects their combat effectiveness. Furthermore, I wasn't sure if the save file keeps track of whether or not you have a debt to pay, so I wasn't willing to take chances retrying.

Her main gimmick is an attack that grows stronger the bigger your loan was. I took out a rather small loan to make things easier.

She also hits on both Devon and Kyrie while beating the party down. Hands off, lady. They're mine.

Even worse, her lackey suddenly popped in partway through the fight. While this isn't the first time I've met him in this playthrough, I haven't explained who he is yet. This is Kim Sayon. You can sometimes run into him if you wander out onto the street downtown.

Somehow, despite all this, I managed to beat them first go.

Like both Wallace and Cassandra, she recognizes the voice inside Ramona after defeat, and so drags her into the woods.

So you do know her after all. Is everything in this game tied to this overgrown mermaid's rampage?

"On rails," huh. You know, I was wondering when this indie RPG would start getting meta on us.

All right, let's rumble, one-on-one. I'm sure miss Morrow over here won't mind.

This battle is basically scripted. Without her fancy sword, there's not much that she can do to you.

And sure, she may shake people down for the debt they owe, but at least she doesn't need a Faustian deal to go about doing so.

She claims that the Siren did far, far worse, before Ramona cuts her down.

Hey, what's one more big villain dead? Besides, if anyone asks, we can just say it was in self-defense.

No really, she dies for real. And no, no other major player seems to acknowledge it.

You know, maybe this hero thing isn't all it's cracked up to be. After we deal with the assassin, we'll se if we can't get the priest to get rid of her.

For now, she just dropped something that we can turn in as a bounty. Let's just head downtown and...

Oh. Maybe I should have done this earlier.

Now where were we? Oh right, taking down an insane cult leader.

You face her in the exact same place where we met the Siren for the first time. Unfortunately, the Siren is occupied at the moment, that is to say, she's currently occupying Ramona, so no dice.

Second verse, same as the first.

Not only is she no more difficult than the first time, but at the end, Ramona uses the same power that she sought out to end her for good.

Yeah, I saw that one Chainsaw Man panel too.

That's the last of the Adventurer League quests! Time to turn this in and accept our accolades.

Now, let's have a quick rundown on all the people who died around Ramona. Quinnith was in the warehouse with Ramona when he died, so one could reasonably assume that he died as a side effect of whatever supernatural stuff was going on with the arcade machine. The fact that Ramona gained magic in that same incident makes it seem more plausible. Ziva and Solace were, of course, eaten by the abyssal, so no cause for suspicion here. And then of course we have Hannah, who is optional and thus unacknowledged, and Cassandra, who was in league with a necromancy cult, so one could reasonably assume that she killed herself to avoid being turned in to the police.

In fact, I'm willing to consider this a good sign. That is, if you're one of those people who's obsessed with gaining glory at any cost. Isn't that right, Claudine?

So here's a sign we're approaching the endgame: when several ongoing plot elements start getting tied together.

Looks like our party's squarely in the assassin's crosshairs. But hey, we've already pissed off both criminal groups at the same time, so what does it matter? Besides, what would ruining her do other than make her more motivated to send her to her grave?