Speaking of the statue, Indy gathers the rest of the party for a group huddle and whispers “The statue this drunken fool is talking about…could it be…?” No, of course it couldn’t. FUCK’S SAKE. Cesuelia adds to my pain, once again using her psychic Sue powers and concluding “The statue is here. I know it…” STFU, Cesuelia. To wrap this scene up (because I’m afraid for my sanity, keyboard and forehead if I don’t), the party agrees to venture into the Maze of Death to retrieve the ‘Crystal Bud’. And fight about twenty-billion monsters too, but that goes without saying.

Before setting out, though, I notice a completely new section of town hiding away behind the pub, meaning I get to play Talk to Everyone with yet another gaggle of imbecilic NPCs. I am truly blessed. The first person Rudy sees in this new area is an old lady who starts reminiscing about the good ol’ days when the Maze of Death was called something completely different. We don’t actually find out what it was once called, which is quite fortunate as I don’t care!

A man standing in place at the bottom of a stairwell starts bragging, for no reason, about how rich he is and how much he loves his party lifestyle. Nobody likes a rich person, especially a rich person who’s such an ass about it, so Rudy flicks him a V sign and, again for no reason, bombs a large crate nearby. Bizarrely, another NPC was hiding inside the crate, and he offers to do the party a favour as thanks for releasing him. This moves the marker up yet another scale on my Weird Shit-O-Meter, but I’m always up for a freebie, so I accept.

Without another word, Crate Guy dashes in a circle around the rich douchecanoe nearby, then hands something…suspicious over to Rudy. It’s the dude’s bulging wallet, and amazingly it only takes Indy about two seconds to realize Crate Guy is a pickpocket. Predictably, Miss Goody Two Shoes snits “We won’t take dirty money.” Don’t speak for me, bitch. But because Cesuelia is apparently some kind of moral compass for the player, I don’t even get a choice — Crate Guy reluctantly slips the wallet back in Rich Dude’s pocket. Fuck.

Luckily, this scene isn’t a complete waste of my time — as an alternative to giving them somebody else’s money, Crate Guy rewards our moral guardians with a ten-second verbal lesson in pickpocketing. This is somehow enough for Indy to learn a new Fast Draw ability, through which he can send Scabbers to root around “in the monsters’ pockets” and pinch any items they may have. Poor Scabbers. Also, stealing from humans = evil, whereas stealing from non-humans = A-OK. Glad that’s been cleared up.

A female NPC — who, incidentally, is an exact clone of the magenta-haired bar girl — muses that Captain Bartholomew “doesn’t have a normal sense of love”. As a recapper, my default response to this would usually be “Duh, that’s because he prefers dudes”, but as we’ll see shortly, her observation has distinctly more…sinister undertones. But I’m getting slightly ahead of myself here — after all, I have a bud to find!

The Maze of Death is a bitch to locate. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before, but on the world map the camera zooms in on Rudy (or whoever is currently leading the group) the closer he gets to a town or dungeon. This is usually pretty redundant, as the locations in question are obviously visible (the face-clawing radar system was only introduced in the sequel). But because the game designers hate me, the Maze of Death is fucking invisible, meaning that I have to trawl every God-forsaken inch of the desert to the west until I see the camera do its tell-tale zoom. Then and only then can I actually press X to be transported inside the dungeon. Fuck off, game designers.

The Maze itself somehow manages to be dull, frustrating and needlessly long, all at the same time. All you need to know is that the place has a confusing layout and is filled with puddles of bubbling…acid, I guess? Stepping on these puddles reduces the party’s HP, and as luck would have it, they’re all over the damn place, even in places where there’s no way to avoid touching them. The new monsters — living gemstones, deformed miners, and demented dolls wielding scissors — are easy enough to defeat with a combination of Cesuelia’s magic and Rudy’s Jism Ray, but the enemy encounters happen with such frequency that even this becomes irritating.

To get to the heart of the dungeon, the party must locate five bronze knight statues (naturally placed as far away from each other as possible) and push them into nearby recesses. This removes five corresponding statues in the centre of the maze, finally allowing access to the chamber housing the ‘Crystal Bud’. Believe me, I’m doing you all a favour by not going into more detail than that.

When Rudy picks up the holy grail itself, the Phantom Item Describer gushes all over it, squealing “It looks like a flower. A crystalline mist covers it.” Yup, gay. Surprisingly (or perhaps not, given the drug subtext already present in the game), it looks more like a rock than a flower. However, Rudy has more important matters to worry about — it seems picking up the bud somehow activated some kind of ancient self-destruct mechanism, as the building starts shaking and a 3-minute time limit pops up on the screen. Fuck that.

A quick casting of GTFO later and the party is safely outside the temple, completely avoiding the game designers’ attempt to inflict yet more stress and annoyance on me. Unfortunately, at this point I check a walkthrough and discover that I just missed out on an optional boss fight and the reward of a new Rune (which equates to another Guardian summon). Once the party leaves the dungeon it instantaneously disappears, meaning I can’t even run back inside to correct my mistake. I don’t know enough profanities to adequately convey the rage I’m feeling right now, so I’ll just offer up a small selection: shit, fuck, twat, arse, pissflaps, Tidus. There, all better.

Of course, I could just do what normal people do — reload my last save and redo the entire dungeon, remembering to locate and fight the boss this time. But quite frankly, I’d rather gargle with a Shoopuf’s semen than subject myself to that again. Sure, my inner completionist will remain unsatisfied for however long it takes me to finish the game, but I’ll just have to live with it.

‘Crystal Bud’ in hand, the group heads back to Timney, where Captain Barty practically turns into Gollum and starts humping Rudy’s leg upon catching sight of his precioussss rock. He even offers to pay a cool £5,000 Gella for it, but I think we all know by now that these guys have an aversion to accepting money from anyone. Rudy’s all ready to hand over the bud free of charge, but Barty won’t shut up about the damn thing. Confirming that is it indeed a token of engagement “in these parts”, he whines that he’s “a fish out of water when it comes to these things”. Yes, he’s more used to giving his bud to other men. We get it. Proving that all the ale has addled his already-miniscule brain, Barty ends the conversation by chirping “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Capt. Bartholomew!” Uh, dude, you’ve already met them.

The man clearly doesn’t even know what time of day it is, giving the oft-mentioned Drake and his gang of cronies an opening to barge into the bar and start throwing around lame insults. However, they’re stopped in their tracks when Drake sees the glistening bud of his ex hated rival and starts flapping around like a fish out of water. “Good timing, Drake,” Barty gloats, his mood suddenly elevated. “Care to smell my ‘Crystal Bud’?” No, I am not making that up. Check the pink box if you don’t believe me. So, as well as being an engagement ring, a drug, or a combination of the two, it seems ‘Crystal Bud’ can also be a euphemism for ‘penis’. Not ‘PENIS’, though — that would just be silly and immature.

Unfazed by Barty’s invitation to sniff his genitals, Drake sniffs “Even if you have the ‘Crystal Bud’, you still need a mate…” God, he makes it sound so animalistic. But I bet Barty secretly likes that. “Where do you think you’re going to find someone to marry your ugly mug?” he continues, pulling the old “I bet you’re sorry you let me go” trick. Determined that Drake won’t get the upper hand in this particular spat, Barty hurriedly scans the room for a potential sham wife. As there is only one prominent female in the room, I’m sure you can all see where this is going, not that foreknowledge makes it any less disturbing.

“Are you blind?! She’s standing right next to me!” Barty shrieks, and then grabs the unsuspecting Cesuelia’s hand. Drake and his lackeys guffaw with laughter at this, while Cesuelia herself looks completely horrified. “Oh, her…? I didn’t notice,” Drake smirks. “She looks way older than your preferred age group.”

…WHAT. Just to make sure I wasn’t jumping the gun here, I just checked the WA wiki, and apparently Cesuelia is the barely-legal age of 17 at the time this is happening. Barty, by comparison, is 35. Now, whichever way you slice it, “way older” infers that Barty’s usual…type, whether male or female, is at least a couple of years younger than Cesuelia. With this information in mind, I have no option but to rename him Captain Seymour.

Not even trying to deny Drake’s accusations of pedophilic tendencies, Capt. Seymour gives him an equally-slanderous rebuttal: “I’m sorry she’s above your normal standards…I mean, having two legs and all”. Accusations of pedophilia and amputee fetishes?! This breakup must have been nasty. Capt. Seymour concludes by announcing that he and his very young bride will be getting hitched imminently. Now, we all know the marriage is just for show and that Cesuelia won’t be forced to consummate it, but this still leaves a sour taste in my mouth, as well as being completely sodding ridiculous — why go to all the trouble of having a FAKE WEDDING just to spare your embarrassment?! Just be a man and admit you lied, Seymour.

By now rolling around on the floor in hysterics, Drake holds him to his claim and declares that the wedding will be held the very next day. Wow, they must be hiring a very efficient planner. Drake and his hangers-on take their leave, allowing Cesuelia to feebly voice her outrage at being dragged into this mess. Capt. Seymour basically tells her she’ll be implicated in his scheme if she backs out (what a nice guy!), and advises that he’ll give her a tour of his ship, the ‘Sweet Candy’, where, according to tradition, the ceremony will be held. It’s quite telling that the supposedly-heroic, gallant males in the party don’t try to intervene at any point, or even offer any words of comfort to their friend — clearly, they’re hoping she’ll become domesticated after the festivities and leave the group to live out the rest of her wanky years as Capt. Seymour’s doting housewife. I never thought I’d be saying this, but…poor, poor Cesuelia.

Black Screen of Oh Shit I’m Getting Married to a Pervert in the Morning. Onboard the Sweet Ass Candy, Capt. Seymour talks his betrothed and her pals through some of the ancient customs the sailors of the Inner Sea must follow. Apparently the party must read up on all these ancient traditions before morning, as there’ll be some kind of test during the wedding. For fuck’s sake, could this get any worse? …Don’t answer that.