Curate of Curiosities

Previously, Alicia and the gang explored the inside of a UFO. Except it wasn't a UFO at all, it was a section of Vedim Space meant to look like one through the power of one of the Inner Evocations. Even worse, said Evocation's host turned out to be a load-bearing flesh vessel for an eldritch god, and killing him caused the area to collapse in on itself.

Good thing our Evocation powers give us a convenient emergency exit.

An even better thing is that Viola and Erick were right nearby to where we came out.

As I mentioned before, unlike in most RPGs, enemies do not drop money when you defeat them, instead they drop Obols, which can be used to learn skills. The only way to earn actual money is by either finding some lying around, or for a slightly more reliable method, by selling random trash you find dropped by enemies or just lying around. Naturally, the amount of money you can get over the course of the game is rather limited.

Anyways, the last place anyone saw Dottie was at her middle school, which is fortunately not very far. In the meantime, let's look at some graffiti.

First we have some featuring a recurring enemy from the Mega Man games. I was wondering how this will fare from a legal standpoint, but then I remembered that this game is free, so there will likely be no consequence for the creator.

Then we have the three psychic elements. We've already encountered Terror and Rage, but we've yet to see anyone dealing with the Sorrow element.

And we've finally caught up to the opening cutscene.

While there's a good chance that Dottie's here, did you really think that getting to her would be as simple as picking her up at the front door?

And then we are without warning, transported to a prison within Vedim Space. Yeah, this is definitely the work of another Inner Evocation, and not even half an hour after we dealt with the last one. Guess the game's trying to fast-track introducing its rogues' gallery.

Good thing there just so happens to be another Outer Evocation inside the school.

Meanwhile, inside the school, some kind of ghostly clown is terrorizing a classroom.

Fortunately, the teacher, Lamar Anderson, is here to help by.

Though, being for now an ordinary human, his only course of action is to try to hit the ghost with a math textbook. As you would expect, it doesn't work at all.

Then, all of a sudden, it does starts working.

This means that we now have a character whose normal attack is effective against ghosts, something that neither of our previous party members had.

Pretty much immediately afterwards, he finds himself in the Vedim Space, face to face with Ginyago the Inquisitive, the Outer Evocation mentioned earlier. Compared to his fellows, he's a bit...chummy.

What's the best way I can describe his appearance? Like that "biblically accurate angels" meme from a while back?

Well, it could be worse. At least he probably won't leave you to die or hijack your body or anything like that.

So not only can Lamar hit ghosts with what was probably some random textbook that was lying around, but he can also use other skills with other random books.

The textbook he was holding, now transformed into a Grimoire, gives him an attack buff.

And it's that one miniboss from the clinic again! Sure, he's on his own, but that doesn't make things any harder.

Aside from specializing in the Sorrow element, among the first skills that Lamar can learn are shields that block attacks from each of the three elements. While normally, these kinds of skills are incredibly situational at best, it is highly recommended that you pick up all three of them at the first opportunity, since you'll end up needing them soon enough.

That aside, he also starts out with a basic attack spell, as well as, most crucially, a healing spell! This makes him the first party member to have a reliable healing skill (Alicia also has one, but it has a cooldown)

He fights a Delegate too. This one's so much of a throwaway, that he doesn't even get a video.

It isn't long before he reaches the school entrance and catches up with the others.

To recap: our third party member in a game inspired by Earthbound is an intelectual who gets a brief gameplay segment on his own, and ends up rescuing the first two party members from a trap set by the villains. Sound familiar?

And with that, after an interlude of about 15 minutes, we can finally explore the school.

This dungeon has several gimmicks:

• From a storytelling perspective, this school has been set up to look like a fairytale kingdom, with the principal as its queen.
• Adding to this, every section of the school is named after a fairy tale, as seen in the image below:

• Throughout the area, there are colored vines blocking your way, that are only destroyed by defeating the giant plant monster serving as the area's minibosses.

Here's the first one. As you might be able to guess by looking at it, it has a powerful Terror-element attack that it charges up for a turn before using. Now if only we had some sort of temporary elemental barrier with high priority that could block this attack.

One of the few enemies of note in this area is the Obol Baggie. True to its name, it drops a lot of Obols upon defeat, but it won't be willing to part with them so easily. It only takes 1 damage from most attacks, after a few turns, splits into several other enemies that don't give nearly as much of a reward.

Another Fool's Space. Nothing remarkable here, except we get chased by the Phantos from Mario 2.

I guess this Delegate has realized that he's basically condemned to an existence of being a throwaway miniboss, so he just gives you a key needed to progress without any fuss.

Now your party has no thumbs. Good night.

There's another plant monster. Same as the last one, but with the Sorrow element, so use Sorrow Barrier.

How sweet, the monsters have figured out how capitalism works.

The newest weapon available for Miriam references a cult 70's movie. Just remember, the gun is good, the...other thing is evil.

While we faced a couple are a couple forced encounters in this area already, this is the first time that the boss warning goes off. I guess the plant monsters weren't as much of a threat to warrant it.

Miniboss time. Our opponent is Gary, Inez's toady and the former school janitor. He's more annoying than difficult, what with his debuffs and status effects, and in the end, he's just a step above the Delegates.

Meanwhile, in City Hall, Nancy, the girl we saw bullying Dottie in a flashback earlier, is brought before her father, the mayor.

I knew that the mayor would eventually get hijacked by whatever force he was invoking earlier, but I didn't think this would happen well before we meet him.

Third and final plant monster. It uses the Rage element, so use Rage Barrier.

With that, you're likely to have fully explored the school, so you're directed to the principal's office to wrap things up.

While on the way back, we encounter another youkai!

Not to mention, get another loredump from Zlonyth. The harmony that the Evocations felt was suddenly shattered when an outsider came and killed Xelanyel.

Looks like our brief stint as volunteer gardeners has opened the way to the office near the school's entrance.

You walk into the office, but the only thing there is a portal to what looks like a castle, in keeping with the fairy tale theme. Of course there's an entire second dungeon right underneath the school.

There are quite a few friendly NPCs here, but the most important ones that you have to talk to to progress are these fairies that tell you the boss' backstory. Inez, the school's principal, was lonely as a kid, and her parents had high expectations of her. So she wished not to be lonely, which seems to have resulted in the warped "kingdom" you see here.

This place also has it's minibosses, in the form of two animate dragon statues. Upon their defeat, their severed heads turn into stat-boosting items.

Eventually, we reach the castle's throne room, where the queen awaits us.

Right before the confrontation, a horrible truth is revealed: the vines that the party cut down actually contained the souls of the children that were pulled into the school's "garden." Sure, we also find out that the mayor is responsible for bringing the Inner Evocations into Daybreak, but still, our party unknowingly killed children!

But the most pertinent and least suprising reveal is that Inez is bonded to Moror of the Inner Evocations.

The first phase has her accompanied by her jester, who seems to be a bit healthier that the last time we fought him. I take him out first, after which

Side note: you'll notice that Alicia knows Lumin Flash, which inflicts random statuses to all enemies. It operates exactly like PK Flash from Earthbound, in yet another homage.

In the second phase of the boss fight, she is transformed by the Evocation into an enormous spider creature. Unlike what happened with Clayton, Moror doesn't take any chances with his host's sense of will, and just eradicates it altogether. As for the boss fight, there's nothing too remarkable about it other than that at times, it will raise its defense while charging a Sorrow attack, so don't forget to put up a barrier.

At more than 20 minutes, this is the single longest boss battle so far, but eventually, the queen falls before us.

Once again, we are brought back to the entrance, and once again, Erick and Viola arrive on cue, and this time, they're met with the school's surviving students and faculty.

Most RPGs take you back to town after a dungeon crawl, except here, the town is literally just two guys and some other survivors in a single open room.

While we still haven't found Dottie, we at least have an idea on where she is--she's been handed over to the mayor as part of his plans.

Next stop, City Hall.