When we last left off, we had just filled up the barn with a number of monsters and stayed up late to stalk Sierra. Now we go to bed for a good night's sleep for an relaxing night of sleep, and are woken in the morning to Yivvy greeting us. Syntic is a bit groggy and confused at first on why Yivvy is there but this quickly turns to irritation towards Yivvy for waking him up, but it seems more of the banter variety and we quickly get on with our day.
So this seems to be the first morning where you aren't hand fed your goal for the day, meaning we can waste our time however we want. Seems to me that our first order of business every morning should be to check the Inn's board for any jobs we need to work on throughout the day, and to tend to our monsters so they are all happy and producing things that we can convert into cold hard cash.
At the boards, I am reminded that we never did find Joe last night, so I'm not at all ashamed to cancel his quest and come back later. I see that Lily would like us to run some sort of errand and as she's right here in the Inn that seems like a good first one to take. There is also a quest that looks like it involves finding a new island, and that seems like a good goal to make sure I get done early today, as it looks like it'll give me more room for monsters.
What Lily seems to want though is a piece of iron and scrap metal so she can make something. She suggests getting the stuff from the armory, but I don't really see any reason to spend the money on that right now. Plus the shops are still closed this early in the morning so I would be waiting around to long without being able to progress on other jobs. So I cancel that one and start up the job to find our next island, and am directed toward the resident dark elf to get clues on where it might be.
Talking to her she laments about there not being more nature on this island and gives us some insight into dark elf society. More importantly she tells us of an island that used to exist about an hour west of here, and suggests we look into it. She also says not to worry to much if it's not there, and actually seems fairly down about the whole thing. I guess we just don't have the reputation for the adventurer that can find missing lands, and do the impossible yet.
Now I make my way to the golem, and before I start having him head off into the ocean looking for distant lands, I finally get around to giving my animals their daily brushing. This is made easier by the fact that they are all sleeping in, so not moving around making it hard to keep track of who's been brushed already.
Heading back outside, I head over to that platform by Delzbin's head and am given a quick tutorial on how to control him before it goes into animation sequence of him starting to walk. It doesn't take me long to reach the location for the island, and I'm a little disappointed when I see it isn't there. Now mind you, I'm disappointed for a different reason than it's not there. I'm disappointed because even before I've had a chance to wonder where it is, the game gives me a tutorial on how to find the island. When I have Delzbin pull the island out of the ocean, and I have Syntic visit it, I'm again disappointed because while this island is petrified, it doesn't even give me a chance to ponder this mystery and promptly gives me the solution on how to petrify the island.
Ok, I understand the whole knowing to have Delzbin search the water for the lost island because he's done it already, but having Syntic know what's up with why the island is petrified and the two figuring out that it'll take spirits to restore it seems like it could have been something that someone in town could have told us as a job.
After using a single spirit out of my inventory, the island is restored and I'm given yet another tutorial on how to use my magic to cause sprouts to start growing. A quick run reveals though that I can't actually use my magic stick to cause anything to grow yet, and I'm left wondering why with no real explanation. In the center of the island is a tree with a couple of holes in it, with the smaller hole being apparently a storage spot, and the second being shaped like a door. Hoping that this doorway will answer some questions I take a trip through it to see what is on the other side.
In a frustrating way when I try to go through the door, I find that Yivvy won't let me leave until I've used my magic to make something sprout. So I take a look over the island again and finally find a spot to use my magic that works. This time it's explained to me that I can't do much to the sprout myself and need monsters to tend to it for me.
We are also told about monsters that produce things like wool and eggs, and are told we need to keep a good supply of monster cookies on hand. Luckily I've already taken care of that second part. Now I just need to head back to that first island and capture myself some of the other two monster types so I can put them to work here tending crops.
Now that I've used my magic though I find that I am able to go through the doorway, and that it has created a new exit out of the barn on Delzbin. I can now travel to this island anytime I want without having to first have Delzbin wade through the water. This seems handy in that I can keep Delzbin over at the first island so I can go on adventures anytime I want, and also go to the main land or here without any problem. I'm assuming that as I explore more that there will be other islands added to this barn, while there will be other islands that make more sense to keep Delzbin hanging around at.
As I try to head out the main door to the barn though Yivvy stops me again, and indicates that she has found something. This item is a harvester, and the game says I can use this on monsters like my sheep or monster to get products. Seeing no reason not to do that right now, I go ahead and give it a try on one of my sheep. It takes a bit of energy, but soon I've not just sheared that sheep, but all the others as well. Next I milk all my cows and now have nearly used up all my energy. Taking a look at the monster log book, I see that my new island can hold 5 monsters and that currently it's at 1%.
I realize at this point that only using 1 spirit on that island only restored it a touch and that was why I couldn't cause more plants to sprout. As I have a few more I head out that door and release all of the ones I gathered from that first island. Afterword, I take a look at my log book and see that the island is now up to 13% confirming my theory that I need to release a whole bunch more spirits on this island for it to be producing as much as it can. Belatedly I consider that perhaps I should have looked at the log book after I released each spirit so I could see how much the different colors affect this island. For all I know, one of the colors I used wasn't good for things and actually lowered the productivity. I doubt that but who knows.
Now looking around the island I find a bunch more planting spots I can activate with my magic, and find that if I stand in the right spot I can sometimes even catch multiple spots in a single use of my magic. I start planting sprouts until my controller starts vibrating reminding me that I really don't have enough energy for this.
I briefly consider just going back to the mainland and restoring my stamina, but recall that Delzbin has his own energy bar. I may as well have him travel back to that monster island so when I am restored on energy I can go right into catching some monsters to tend to this island. I get a bit turned around at sea, so it takes me a bit to get there, but when I do I teleport back to the inn, and notice that my stamina is about half restored from just the travel time.
Checking with Lily, I see that the only stamina recovery item is ice-cream, and that happens to be fairly expensive. So instead I use what energy I have to heat all my milk. With the five milk I got from my cows, I produce three star hot milk, and two regular. Selling those to Lily after haggling nets me 1596G. I'm tempted to sell the five small fleece I sheered off of the sheep, but as they only sell for 72G a piece before haggling I decide that I should perhaps instead see if I can craft something with them first so that I'm getting the most bang for my buck.
Heading up to the mansion to first check for accessories that can be crafted, I see that everything there takes more items than just fleece, and that the easiest to make item is a level 10 crafting item. Considering that I've not leveled up this type of crafting at all, I figure that unless the blacksmith has something, that my best bet will be to just hang onto the stuff for now. I'm not surprised at all that the blacksmith doesn't have any recipes that use fleece.
From there, I head over to the baths, and find the Dark Elf is cleaning them right now. While I'm not able to use the baths to restore my energy, I am able to at least turn in that quest and get myself the reward of some more kitchen recipes. Traveling back to the Inn, I grab a new quest taking note that there is a new storyline quest involving some rocks that are out at sea. Not being ready to take that I instead decide to get Joe's quest underway of giving him his wine bottle.
Turns out he wanted the glass from the bottle to make a lens for a home made telescope or something. As a reward he gives me a nifty fire rod for fighting monsters with. Talking with him a bit more, triggers him giving us a fishing pole. Nifty, now I can go fishing if I have nothing else to do.
Again I head back to the Inn, but this time I go the old fashioned way of walking. This slower route causes the clock to tick on over to 2pm where Odette is just starting her shift at the Inn meaning that the stamina selling foods are now on sale. So I grab a few fried squid from Odette and finally head out to capture some more monsters.
First though because I'm not sure if I can tame monsters with a full barn or not, I head over to the house and save it. My logic is that when I tame an island with a full barn, the monster should be sent to the new empty island automatically. But as that might not be the case, I would rather not waste the energy taming a monster and then the game being all like “But you still fail” and not getting that monster. If it turns out that's the case I can easily load the game, then move a few of my monsters to the new island, and then go tame monsters. Either way I can then shuffle monsters to where I want them at that point.
Sure enough when I try to tame one of those goblin things, I get told “Your barn is full, no taming monsters for you”, so I load my game and toss my sheep onto the island before trying this again. The reason I pick my sheep and not say my Cows, is that I can't be sure swapping there location won't cause them to take longer on being able to be harvested again. Clearly as I'm able to make a good bit of money off the cows milk, I don't want to mess with that production at all.
Now that that is all shuffled about, I tame a single Goblin and one of those snake flower things. It happens to be called a Spring Flower. Looking at what they produce, I decide that what I need for now is four goblins and a single spring flower. As I've already got my spring flower, it's now just a simple matter of collecting a few goblins. I should note being near a hostile flower makes it annoying to tame other monsters because of their long range attack. They though don't seem to spawn everywhere on this island, so I quickly head on over to a spawn point that doesn't have me dealing with them.
Soon, I've tamed the monsters I want, but I also notice that the vases on the island have respawned today, so I spend a bit more time on the island breaking those open for some easy loot. After that, I head back to the barn and give all my new monsters a nice brushing, then shuffle them all off to the island bringing back my sheep.
Now with the things I've looted off of the wild island, I head back to the Inn and take on Lily's shopping quest. So for absolutely no money being spent by me, I'm able to complete her quest earning me a 1000G reward. I even earn a level up in my communication skills getting me an instant (yet partial restoration of my stamina), so I decide to head back to my newest island and use that new found energy to plant more crops. Rather amusingly while I'm planting the crops, I keep leveling up random things (like my running, jumping, and planting ability) and each time I do I get a partial restoration of my stamina meaning I'm able to plant as many sprouts as I'm able to find planting points.
I have to say, I'm not a big fan of the whole planting point thing, as I don't know where one is until I'm right on top of it, meaning it's easy enough for me to miss any number of them. That and because the island isn't fully restored yet, I keep finding some that I can't use yet. So who knows if I've found all that I can on this island, but what I do know is that I do have a bunch more than I used to. Being that it's going on 8:30pm in the game though, I decide I've searched enough for now and decide to instead head over to the mansion and see about using some of this iron and what not that I've been finding.
Looking through my list of recipes I find that have enough materials to attempt to make a pair of gauntlets. They are a skill level of five so it seems like a bit of a risk to make right now, but I figure that I've got nothing all that much to loose right now. Surprisingly even though the little bar is moving super fast on the mini game, and the areas I need to stop it in are tiny, I manage to stop it successfully in the correct spot netting me a nice set of gauntlets that increase my defense by 12. Unfortunately I don't have enough to make a second pair of gauntlets or anything else for that matter. From all the clues I've been given, I'm fairly sure those would make a great gift for Electra on her birthday.
As I've still a decent amount of energy left and still haven't even used the baths today, I decide that I should spend some time hunting monsters and then take a bath before heading to bed. My main concern will be keeping an eye on the time, and making sure I don't stay out to late. While I do find a bunch of interesting loot, the bit of loot that would let me make that second pair of gauntlets doesn't drop. I do notice that one of the tree stumps with spirits has gathered some more for me, so I stop by the new island before heading back to drop them off, bringing my total up to 17% (Yellow Spirits on this island seem to raise it by 2%).
Even though it's past midnight, and I don't plan on staying up any later I decide to take a bath to restore my energy. I figure it'll be important to know if bathing after midnight causes me to be unable to bath later after I wake up because technically I've already bathed once that day. So at the very late hour of 1 am I save the game and get ready for bed.
However before I finish this posting, I figure that as I've just saved the game so close to the time when your character faints from exhaustion, I'll stay up a bit longer and just see what happens if I was to be careless enough to let that happen. To pass the time until 5 am, I head back over to the wild island and start fighting monsters. One of them actually drops the bit of loot I was looking for, and I see a second tree stump has more spirits for me. So I quickly grab up those things and head back to the inn to save the game again at 3 am. Now just to waste two more hours. At 4 am I receive a warning from Yivvy that she's getting very tired, and I happen to learn a new attack move, so once again I head back to the inn and save the game (this time under a new file).
Not wanting to push my luck any more with getting loot and skill ups from the wild island, I just jump around town for a bit goofing off. At 4:50 Yivvy warns me again, this time with clear panic in her voice, and at 4:59 I faint with Syntic saying that he'll never give up. The next morning I wake up at 9:00 am and have earned the trophy Insomniac. So that's what happens if I stay up way to late in this game. Next time we'll be loading the game from the 3 am save and continuing with our adventure. What will we encounter tomorrow?
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