When we last saw Benjamin, he was just about to walk through the last "real" door in the Focus Tower.

Squee.

Oh if you don't say something useful after that bullshit you pulled the last time I swear to God I'm going to *thwack* your smug beardy face off.

If my memory serves correctly, Spencer was digging towards Mac's Ship because the lake dried up and it ended up on a ledge. He seems to have got that problem taken care of. Why do you need us to look for it?

Oh. Of course.

Fine we'll look out for the damn ship then.

Down the stairs, we wind up in the basement. A short featureless corridor takes us somewhere new.

Welcome to Doom Castle. Possibly the best background music in the world. Just listen to it while you read this. Do it. To the right, you'll see a Minotar Zombie. Wait, what?

Huh. Now this is odd. We've got the Chimera, a brand new enemy, the Shadow, a reskin of an enemy from the last dungeon, and the Minotar Zombie, an enemy from the first major dungeon.

Come on kids! Do you remember what the Minotar Zombie's weakness(es) is/are?

That's right! Cure!

The Shadow's now weak against Blizzard and Thunder, and the Chimera doesn't have any exploitable weaknesses. They also have unusually high amounts of HP. Sucks to be the Minotar Zombie then, who has the same amount he had way back in Bone Dungeon, which makes him very weak now.

Inside the chest we have Aero, a wind attack, completing Benjie's Black Magic collection! There are but two Wizard spells left and then the collection will be complete!

There's more to this room, but we can't get to it from here. Presumably we'll be able to return at some point in the future (which may explain the overpowered enemies).

So now, we'll stand around for a few minutes listening to the music, then head back upstairs into the Focus Tower. Just around the corner from the stairs into the basement, there's an exit.

I imagine the Rope Bridge used to cross a lake as opposed to this bottomless abyss. And no, I'm not sure how you fill a bottomless pit with water either, but THEY FOUND A WAY DAMMIT.

Wow the bridge looked a lot less dilapidated from a few feet away didn't it?

I do believe this is the first instance of a non-boss monster talking, which I think leaves me perfectly within my rights to ask "the fuck?"

Good old Reuben, still just as heroic as always!

Whoa look out there Reuben.

Aw hell no. If it could take down Reuben, this Zombie reskin must be pretty powerful!

But it's not a boss. It doesn't have that much health. It's weak against Cure, Aero, Blizzard and Thunder. It's no harder to kill than any other monster. What's going on here‽

Why the hell did Reuben have so much trouble? Maybe making Reuben the hero of this story isn't such a good idea after all...

Anyways, after taking care of that Mummy, we climb down the vines and see if Reuben survived.

Reuben: I'm all right! Keep going, and I'll catch up!

This game seems to greatly underestimate the damage caused by falling from large heights. Apparently the amount of damage caused is none.

Let's do an experiment. Jump out of the nearest window. Right now. Go on.

...

It is now:

• A few minutes later, and you just stepped out of the window onto the ground.
• Several days later, and you just returned from hospital.
• An eternity later, and you still aren't undead yet.

So yeah.

You may have noticed that Kaeli, Tristam, Phoebe and Reuben have now been in our party once and exactly once. By the end of the game, they will each have been in our party exactly twice. And there isn't a lot of game left to do that in...

Back upvine, some familiar jazz music plays.

Aha, it's Tristam! Last time we saw him, he was assisting us in breaking into to Reuben's dad's friend's dad's son's house. FOR FREE. His ethics haven't improved much, but he seems to like Benjamin more, so that's good...

Benjamin: Yes, but he's okay.
Tristam: All right, then I'll tag along with you for a bit.
What? No ridiculously high service charge? No bizarre deal? Nothing? You're just doing something for the sake of being nice?

Looks like Tristam's gunning for Reuben's job, which is "gunning for Benjamin's job".

This is confusing.

Anyways, it's been a while since we last had Tristam in our party. In the interim, he's jumped from level 7 to level 23 (with the increased stats that come with that), and he's picked up a Charm. Presumably he picked it up around the same time he got completely derailed as a character?

Along the bridge, there's some vines leading to platforms with treasure boxes (containing Cure Potions and Seeds) and some vines leading to nothing. At the end of the bridge, there's an exit. There isn't anything particularly important on the Rope Bridge, but if you leave it, you can never return. Ever. I'm not entirely sure why it's made this way. If I had to guess, I'd say that they couldn't set up an flag preventing the Reuben/Mummy event from happening more than once, for whatever reason.

But I have absolutely no expertise in the subject whatsoever, so it's possible, nay probable, that I'm completely wrong.

This forest is more bumpy than the other one, but the other one is more dead.

I can't draw any other parallels between "Alive" and "Level". Oh, wait! Three of the letters are the same! That's right, they managed to reskin a word. I don't know how, but they found a way...

So the first thing you encounter in Alive Forest is an arrow directing you to the entrance. I have never worked out the purpose of this. Maybe it's easy to lose the exit after *thwack*ing a lot of the trees down? I've never had that problem, but apparently someone did, and they put an arrow in to remove yet another aspect of difficulty from the game.

And up here we have the return of the NOT QUITE INFINITY tile from Fireburg.

Just to the right, there's a single tree, with another NOT QUITE INFINITY tile on it. We can't actually use it yet, but knowing things is nice too, right?

Heading south, we get to a rope bridge guarded by a Mummy. Tristam should be terrified right now.

Nah, not really, because the plot doesn't call for Tristam to leave the party for a completely contrived reason.

Is this a Ghost reskin? I do believe so!

Ah it's a Spector. Not a Spectre, oh no. Let's stick another mark in the "things that aren't spelled right for no discernible reason" column. They're weak against Shoot (i.e. Ninja Stars) and Wind (i.e. Aero) attacks, as well as the standard undead redeader that is Cure.

Ooh, an OMEGA tile! If we find the other end of this, we can actually use it!

Down to the left, going through some trees and a Spector, we find the tile! What's inside? Who knows?

Who cares? Evidently, we're warped inside the tree, despite there being a tile on top of it.

Outside the tree, we head back around to the tree, then down and to the right. After *thwacking* some trees, we come across something interesting that we MUST HAVE.

Neat! This is the best axe in the game, and has an attack power of 170. Just so you know, the Battle Axe currently has an attack power of 127. Oh, and the Mega Grenades have an attack power of just 162.

This axe is a very powerful axe. We're in a forest. The inevitable Mad Plant/Plant Man reskin is FUCKED.

We'll back up and head through one of those two Mummys. Further ahead, we can kill a Mummy or a Spector, but it doesn't really matter.

Ooh! It's a giant tree!

This is the only tree in the game which Benjamin will not immediately attempt to destroy, let alone try to start a conversation with. I mean seriously, if little trees are standard enemies, you'd think this giant tree would be a boss, but nooooo, that would make too much frickin' sense, wouldn't it?

...

Look Benjamin I'm not sure what response you expected I mean you basically killed all his children or something.

You're shitting me.

That's right! It's a good suggestion but it does raise the question of just when the hell Tristam met Kaeli? And what the hell did that meeting go like?

"Hello. I'm Tristam. I kept the cure for the poison that was killing you so I could force the man who wanted to help you into helping me search a huge skull for treasure."
"Uhm, that's bad."
"OH MY GOD YOU'RE RIGHT. I'll be a good person from now on. I must go and help now!"
"Right OK."
"HEY PHOEBE! Where'd that Benjamin guy go?"
"Oh it's hopeless. He went to Fireburg all by himself! I'm going home."
"You are home."
"Well... get out then."

And that explains how he met Kaeli and why he was in Fireburg and why he's nice now OH MY GOD I just fixed this game.

AGREEMENT DOES NOT COUNT AS AN IDEA.

Meanwhile, further to the right and through a Zombie...

It's an HOURGLASS tile!

Ninja Stars! Oh and the actual tree was just to the north but that's not really important.

What is important is that now we have to get back to Aquaria, which means we have to walk back through these woods.

Or does it?

No.

It turns out that Exit has an application outside of its normal use of "Kill basically everything instantly". You can use it to return to the World Map instantly.

Wait, if everything that we kill using Exit is actually just teleported outside, shouldn't we have to fight a whole pile of enemies after we finish the dungeon?

Anyways, let's head back to Aquaria. Specifically, Phoebe's house...

...which, presumably, she hasn't left since ditching me in the Ice Temple.

Because Grandpa lives a million fucking miles away!

...

FINE.

Spencer: I can't dig a tunnel that far! We need Otto's help. He's in Windia.
Don't lose hope!

Remember when you said the exact opposite earlier? Remember how nothing's changed since then?

Hmm...

I wonder if Multiple Personality Disorder is hereditary?

Spencer: By the way, who's that with you?

Spencer: You don't say. Listen, I recently heard a rumor about some amazing armor...
Tristam: Let's go! Sorry Benjamin, I'm going treasure hunting with him. Later!

"B-But... I thought you'd changed..."

... I'll give you this Dragon Claw. Don't worry, it's on me. Bye

Oh Tristam. I knew you weren't an unlikeable fuck anymore!

*sniffs* I think I might cry. What an amazing parting gift. It's as though he knows he won't be joining us again...

...

YOU RUINED THIS TENDER MOMENT YOU SON OF A BITCH.

Anyways, now we finally get to see just what the Dragon Claw can do. It's attack power is 145, which makes it the weakest of the higher tier weapons we have (possibly overall). What makes it useful is the status effects it can inflict. In addition to the Sleep, Paralysis, Blindness, Poisoning and Confusion carried over from the Charm Claw, it also inflicts Silence and Petrification. Petrification is basically instant death.

And if that weren't enough for you, don't forget that the Dragon Claw also does that totally frickin' sweet extendo-grab thing.

Ooooh yes...

Oh hey, it's Phoebe, what's she doing here.

Well maybe you'd stand a better chance of catching him if you weren't moving the opposite direction?

This is very good advice. You should li-BOOM

And Phoebe runs out of the tunnel as fast as her little legs will carry her. And Benjamin follows just as fast because he can run that fast in cutscenes.

Ugh.

Yep. Spencer's tunnel will take care of Mac's Ship...

Allow me to explain: The plot needed to advance and it wasn't going to let something silly like "common sense" get in the way. But hey, Magic Cid saw it coming, why the hell didn't you?

Let's take care of Kaeli then, shall we?

Kaeli: Yes, but did you hear about my Dad?
Benjamin: Yeah, Spencer told me. He said I should see Otto in Windia, and I was hoping you'd come too.

...

"I assume that's a yes then?"

She's picked up a Moon Helmet, and upgraded her axe to a Giant's Axe. She's also picked up the Cure, Heal and Aero spells. All in all, pretty good going for someone who's been bedridden for basically the entire game. Maybe that lovable rogue Tristam got/taught her them as an apology for almost killing her and all.

So, now we're done here, let's head back to that giant tree!

Giant Tree: I'll let you through if you can whack the monsters inside of me.
Kaeli: If that's the way you want it!

A giant tree, with a face, and the ability to dislocate its lower jaw.

Let's just hope its bite isn't worse than it's bark.

Next Chapter