Curate of Curiosities

Previously, we became a real adventurer, along the way getting stung by poisonous bugs and walking through a furry's endless hallway. With that, we're now ready to start earning some coin, and hopefully pay our rent to our mysterious teleporting landlord.

But first, some lore. I bet you would like to know how adventuring came to be a viable career option in this world, do you? It's aliens. An alien came down from space, and it's influence introduced magic to the world.

Now that Ramona's a licensed adventurer, we can take the oppportunity to fraternize with some of the other adventurers at the bar.

Oh. I guess given the nature of the job, we should expect to see some people with tryhard names like this.

I wasn't able to screenshot them, but there are a few other adventurers that you can find in this bar who are actual children. That's right, children putting life and limb on the line fighting monsters, and hanging out in a bar that quite explicitly serves alcohol. Does this world run on Pokemon logic or something?

But never mind that. Our first order of business should be to get a second party member. There's not a whole lot that Ramona can do on her own, as I learned the hard way in the demo. There's this tower you can visit, and there you find some guy missing his phone. He's not exactly willing to talk to you about it, though.

Also, there's a wolf man right at the entrance. You can see him in the screenshot.

After that, you dive into the sewers right outside Ramona's apartment. There's some treasure right next to the entrance, but it's on the other side of a grate, so we're going the long way around, bumping into dozens of poisonous sewer slimes on the way.

This was the very first time I saw the Game Over screen in this playthrough.

Of course. Of course the game wouldn't let us have the treasure, even after we nearly died trying to reach it.

Jasper Jones, huh? I'll be sure to remember this the next time we run into each other.

For some reason, the salesman at the bar is now willing to sell you a lockpicking guide.

Then, you go back into the sewer, and use a lockpick to reach an alcove where you can pick up a really dirty cell phone. Now that the gate's open it'll be a much shorter trip.

And then you suddenly get ambushed by a giant slime.

It may seem a bit intimidating, especially after walking halfway through the sewer, but in the end, it's just a basic slugfest. By this point, Ramona should have leveled up enough to learn the Spray skill, which inflicts random status ailments, so she might get the upper hand if she uses it on the first turn and manages to proc stun or something similarly debilitating.

After beating the slime and escaping the sewer, you head back to the tower and hand back the phone. This guy probably has ASD, so he needs the phone to talk.

I suppose you could do worse when it comes to first party members.

The game says that he's a mage, and indeed he does use magic to talk through his phone, but the only magic he has access to in combat at the moment is...hitting the enemy with a bat. Hey, as long as it works.

Remember the Heart-to-Hearts from the Xenoblade games? This game borrows them wholesale. Now that we have a second party member, we'll start seeing these throughout the world.

Gacha? You know, on second thought, maybe we don't really need to bare our souls to each other. You know how this line of work is...

Since we just got our license, we're only eligible for the Rank 1 starter quests. This is the first one of these. There's been a bit of a dispute between the members of a certain adventuring party, and it's up to us to solve it. One of them stole some loot they earned from a dungeon dive, and ran off into the woods with it.

This graphic would look a bit different if you accepted it with just Ramona.

Stanley, the loot thief in question, isn't hard to find. He's practically right at the entrance, so you only have to deal with one or two random encounters before confronting him.

He runs off, but not before siccing a couple of raccoons, the very weakest enemies you've been fighting, to harass you.

You again. How about annoying, LARPing thief? That good enough for you?

It's not long before we corner Stanley. Now, we could slap the flute out of his hands, which makes the ensuing boss fight a bit easier, but the flute is the reason the AL sent us to deal with him, and we absolutely need to return it in one piece.

While it's very possible to end up facing him with just Ramona, he's a lot more manageable with a second party member. You can pick off the raccoons first, but Stanley himself doesn't have a whole lot of health, so focusing your fire on him from the start is a valid option. Plus, he summons more raccoons if you don't break his flute, but they're not too dangerous.

More lore! Here's an explanation for why the random baubles you find in most RPGs have all sorts of effects that you wouldn't expect random rings or bracelets to have. That's nice, but what I really want is an explanation for the wolf men!

Next quest. We're going back to the woods to deal with a hornet infestation. From dealing with a loot dispute to large-scale pest control. I'll call that a drastic step up.

If you somehow finished the previous quest with just Ramona, this is the point where you would be stopped dead in your tracks, if Stanley somehow failed to do the job.

Now would be a good time to remind you: there are other adventurers out there that are pursuing the same quests as our party.

I guess you can expect there to be bullies in this line of work too. You don't think that this was something that Ramona had to deal with back in her old job?

This scripted phone call can happen at any time after recruiting Devon. I was wondering what newfangled young people term would be best to describe our mute partner, but I guess that might be the best one we have at hand.

The hornet queen is pretty simple to fight. It can poison you, so you'll need to come prepared by bringing juice from the vending machine at the entrance (or you could tough it out with regular healing items). What's more, it can heal itself, and has a multi-hit attack that can take off a good chunk of health! Good thing you're required to have a second party member in order to reach her!

You? When did you get here? This is our quest, piss off!

No. It does not work that way. We already killed it! You can't just waltz in and steal our hard-earned reward for yourself!

Oh, I guess that glory-hogging prick did steal an entire third of our hard-earned reward for himself! The nerve!

But hey, it's not all bad. By completing all of two missions, we've moved up to the next level! While upgrading to a higher pay grade should be cause for celebration, as we're now getting closer to paying off our rent, for some reason, I feel that this does not bode well.