The party could simply walk south of here to THE GRINDERY, but the heroic sacrifice made by the big magical rock in the sky has spurred some of Lunar’s other citizens to help our heroes. Alex first teleports to Lann, his new honorary home he doesn’t want, and visits the town elder. “Alex! I was hoping you’d stop by!” the old man says. “The other day, a fisherman down at the docks was cleaning a fish when he found this inside its stomach. We don’t know what it is…but we guessed that you might be able to determine its purpose.” So some dude found a pretty rock inside a fish he was gutting and they all thought, “This seems like something the Dragonmaster would like!” Everyone in Lann is a five-year-old boy at the beach, and Alex is their dad. Anyway, this rock–blue, raindrop-shaped, and glowing–is called Ghaleon’s Tear. Who exactly decided this? The man gutting the fish? The elder? The town singer, working on some new lyrics? Unless we are to believe this thing is literally a magical emo Gary Stu teardrop Ghaleon cried when he was living on Vein and it fell to the surface and was swallowed by a fish. Anyway, Ghaleon’s Tear is a pretty great item–it allows its wearer to hit all enemies at once with their attacks. Nice. But wait: it’s a potent magical item shaped like a drop of liquid and it allows one person to stand in place and spray attacks all over the battlefield?

You heard the man, Alex.

Now that the party has acquired Ghaleon’s Cum, the next stop for this loot train is Reza. Everyone’s favorite Gams-worshipping cherub, Lily, also has a gift for brave Dragonmaster Alex. “Everyone’s been saying that [Gams] is a bad person, but they don’t know her like I do!” Lily says. Who exactly has been saying this? Did the residents of Pao migrate here just to drag Gams for giving them the Mary Suebonic plague? Lily’s counterargument to all these surely real people is not the best, either: “Someone with such a pretty voice can’t be mean!” To be fair, she also says that Gams was nice to her during their captivity, but still. Alex, for some reason, thanks Lily for saying this, like he has also just had it up to here with everyone bagging on Gams. SERIOUSLY, WHERE ARE THESE PEOPLE. I NEED NEW FRIENDS.

Round of applause for this dude, who is about to win the Thieves’ Guild office pool.

So Alex can better help Gams, Lily hands over the Gale Ring. Mia feels the need to say she can feel “strong magic” from the ring, like Lily was going to hand over some non-magical ring to the fucking Dragonmaster, like an amateur. “It was pretty, so I took it when I found it in the scary place!” Lord. At least now we know the singers had enough freedom in THE GRINDERY to wander into Ghaleon’s parlor and rifle through his jewelry boxes. The Gale Ring provides an extra attack to its wearer, so I’m sure Ghaleon is thrilled that whichever Slag Sister was babysitting that day let Lily pilfer it and gift it to his mortal enemies. I guess they were all too distracted posing with zoo animals for their yearbook photos.

Finally, the gang leaves Reza and walks south to Damon’s Spire, since the White Dragon Wings can’t get them there directly. Which is silly–critical locations like Fartnoise’s Tower and the Transmission Spring were important enough to make the list, but not Damon’s Corporate Retreat? Doubly irritating is that I’ve forgotten the various damage immunity gimmicks for the monsters in here, and I don’t manage to avoid battle with them all. Damon’s present better be awesome. And, well, it is: after Damon offers his condolences to Mia on the fate of her home, he sighs, “I record history…I do not attempt to directly influence it. But this case is special. If I refrain from assisting you, there may not be a future to record…” The perfect tired-ass platitude for this tired-ass geezer: “I observe, but do not interfere…except when I do.” Like, there’s always going to be a reason to break this rule, so you may as well just do it more. Put up some local election yard signs out front, Damon! No one cares. Anyway, this is his excuse for handing over the Hell Ring, which sounds like it’ll affect damage or fire magic or something, but really just halves MP cost. Surprisingly nerdy, given the name.

As for how I’m equipping these items, a caveat. My initial instinct, because I am old and forget stuff now, is to put both the Gale Ring and Ghaleon’s Cum on either Alex or Kyle, giving one of them a mass of attacks that will hit all enemies. It isn’t until the party’s imminent entry into THE GRINDERY that I realize Ghaleon’s Cum limits its wearer to a single all-enemies attack, and thus, the only thing not to do is to give one character both of these items. I promise I have played this game before. So fast-forwarding to when I get my shit together, Kyle gets the Gale Ring, and Jess gets both the Hell Ring and Ghaleon’s Cum, by virtue of having a decent regular attack but having way fewer of them than the party studs. There isn’t one right answer here–and I’m rethinking my configuration even as I type this sentence, as it is tempting to put Ghaleon’s Cum on Nash both for gameplay reasons and for my own amusement–but that’s what gets me through THE GRINDERY. Thanks, old people and deluded little girl! Dragonmaster Alex will be sure to thank you in the acknowledgements of the tell-all memoir he writes after this is over and he needs a hobby to give him precious alone time away from Gams.

After the party teleports to Althena’s Shrine to walk south and pour one out for Vein–Squeak says Vein “fell,” which is a funny way to pronounce “got blasted out of the fucking sky”–it is time to face THE GRINDERY. The teens just stroll on up to its base, and though there is an incredibly obvious chute that’s about to open right in front of their faces, Squeak goes, “Alex, how do we get inside? I don’t see any doors…” But let’s say there were no obvious doors–what about their original plan to fly their zeppelin in and make a landing somewhere near the top? Sure, that may not have worked either, but the only thing stopping them from doing it before was the barrier that Mia just sacrificed a city to disable. I assure you, I’m only harping on this because it’s a superior plan, and not at all because our heroes carrying it out would save me from an hour of fighting monsters.

But Squeak’s dumb words have barely tumbled out of his mouth when the aforementioned chute pops open and sword-wielding, armored Vile Tribe monsters start pouring down the ramp. “One group of ugly mother-scratchers straight ahead, compliments of Ghaleon!” Kyle declares with a grin. I don’t know what “mother-scratchers” means and I am not going to waste time parsing it. Jess snarls, “I hope you fight as well as you swear, Kyle!” I hope he fights…significantly better than that? Why would she choose a time he overtly avoided swearing to say this?

The party is surrounded by eight “Death Armor,” tubby knights in canary yellow plate armor holding pink-tasseled halberds. Another perfect name! They look like foil-wrapped bunnies in Easter baskets. Despite my aforementioned idiotic assignment of Team Dragonmaster’s new swag, the Easter Armors go down easily enough, but they are soon replaced by a fresh set emerging from THE GRINDERY. “I’m suddenly not having any fun…” Kyle says. It seems like he stops having fun whenever things get difficult! Jess can’t hear me, and thus has no idea why she’s nodding fervently. Nash says this is useless because Ghaleon must have “legions” of monsters ready to pour out of THE GRINDERY’s ass. True! “We have to get inside and cut them off at the SOURCE!” he insists. Mia’s fear that they won’t even survive the next wave is a bit pessimistic for a lady fresh off Supersized Phallus Combat, but the fact remains they can’t do what Nash says when monsters keep emerging from that source. My “divebomb into the tip” idea is still available, just saying!

That second wave replaces two of the Easter Armors with two Elemental Master(bator)s, purple-faced clowns wearing horned helmets, at least three scarves, and riding orange goblin heads, like if Hobgoblin designed Bowser’s Koopa Copter from Super Mario World. It’s a lot of look for a couple of guys about to be wiped out in one hit because they’re weak to physical attacks. But by the time the party defeats this group, a third group is already running out to replace it. Kyle says, “Alex, it’s been an honor and a privilege to fight beside you. Too bad you were such a wuss we couldn’t finish as winners!” That is tough but not entirely unfair. But…I can’t help but feel like there’s something familiar about our heroes being attacked in waves of seemingly inexhaustible foes like this, and being overwhelmed by the third round. Weird! Like it’s happened before!

You mean the guy who is a six-foot-tall pistachio now?

Since this has never happened before, let alone very recently, you are forgiven for the shock you are about to feel. Just as everyone is falling into despair, all of a sudden, massive arrows fly in from the east, wiping out the enemy. But they’re not being fired from a scorpion designed to murder dragons–no, they’re being fired by Tempest! Holy shit! That we would all live to see such a thing for the first time!

I mean, fuck, guys. Is this lazy as hell, or is it a well-constructed callback to barely two dungeons ago, and I’m being a salty butthole about it? The arrows even flew in from the same direction, so they didn’t have to reverse the images!

Tempest, Fresca, and several random Pao elves rush in to meet the party. The monster flow from THE GRINDERY slows enough for everyone to exchange pleasantries and for Alex’s squad to express their thanks–namely, for Jess to tell her savior Tempest he’s “gorgeous” so Kyle can briefly be jealous. Gotta make time for what’s important. Fresca says they will “fend off” the monsters as thanks for what Alex did for Pao, and Tempest finishes her sentence for her, “while you find the Magic Emperor and fulfill your destiny!” Look at these two, rubbing their simpatico relationship in Jess and Kyle’s faces. I love it. What I love a lot less is this plan, which turns out to be the Pao tribespeople remaining out here to fight the few remaining monsters still standing while Alex and company run inside. But…but! The monsters out here were not the problem! The problem was the ones that kept coming out of the hole Alex is now running into! The hole that only just now stopped spewing goblin sprites so Tempest could get his dick sucked for a minute! The endless army of monsters is coming from inside the house!!!

This reminded me of something else.

Okay, I feel better. Onward, into the bowels of THE GRINDERY. To my surprise, just kidding, there aren’t hordes of monsters crowding the door–rather, they’re just wandering around the steel grate floor at their leisure. The background theme is still the same as Ruid’s, so it’s basically a continuation of that hot faux-industrial mess. Great! The first round of enemies Alex encounters includes two of the Masturbators from outside, only now they are called–no, really–Soul Yankers. I only point this out because they are not even palette-swapped versions of the Masturbators–they are literally the same model. But these guys make me labor less for a funny name, which is cool of them. They’re accompanied by Magic Machines, which look like the R2-D2 tanks from Talon gained flight, lost their treads, and evolved into the floating orbs of doom they were always meant to be.

The Soul Yankers, by the way, use an attack called “Red Dragon Fire.” HMMM, WHAT COULD THAT MEAN.

After pilfering a goddamn Healing Nut from a treasure chest and wondering what asshole put that in there–oh, right, Ghaleon–Alex finds himself staring down the dark opening to a purple tube set in the wall. Well, he probably doesn’t know it’s a tube, because he doesn’t have a top-down view through the walls like I do, but it’s not like he hasn’t seen this dungeon setup, again, very recently. Is the entirety of this recap going to be various plot and gameplay beats from two recaps ago repeating themselves? Should I just write “Go read part 11 again” in this space and go have a beer?

So, as in Fartnoise’s Tower, I’m obviously consulting the guide to figure out which tubes to use. But unlike in Fartnoise’s Tower, these tubes are a one-way trip, and I realize precisely one millisecond too late that this wall womb is not the one I wanted Alex to traverse. So one Escape Litany later, Alex is back at the entrance…only for me to unrealize this and see that I read the map correctly the first time. And all the wandering monsters reset after Escape Litany! Fucking wonderful. Alex is likely wondering why his invisible controller is drunk before noon. (Here’s a hint: it’s 2017, who isn’t?)

Three packs of Easter Armors await Alex in the chamber on the other end of the tube. As dumb as they still look, they are much more straightforward to handle than the other stuff the party has encountered, since they stand in a nice line that’s easy to target for Mia, Nash, and Alex, and don’t have irritating competing strengths and weaknesses like the R2-Death Stars and Soul Yankers. Past this roadblock, another tube sends Alex west to another fucking Healing Nut in a chest, pointlessly guarded by a gang of five Soul Yankers. Ghaleon, buddy, Lily already gave Alex the only good thing you had in here–you didn’t need to double down by posting up monster guards on all your garbage.

One last tube on this level leads to the northeast corner, where the unmistakable taloned foot of the Red Dragon is strapped into a machine and surrounded by snaking cables. Even though this section is more or less built to be an observation deck for the teens to gaze at this imprisoned furry red haunch and wail, “Noooooo, what have you dooooone, Ghaleon,” the party strolls right on past this abominable display like it’s not even there. Alex instead beelines for a chest containing Saint’s Clothes (for Jess, LOL) and for the tube labeled with a handy yellow up arrow that will send him to the next floor.