The cave is not only filled with light, but with ChuChus of every color and creed. Leaving aside the question of why they live on Pawprint Isle, rather than the ChuChu Archipelago or something, there doesn’t seem to be much to this place–Twink must simply fight his way through the gelatinous horde to get to the treasure at the end of the cave. The music would have you believe this is a task which requires extreme daring and courage on Twink’s part, but really. ChuChus. Not scary.

The chest at the end of the cave contains a Piece of Ass. God. I killed what felt like twenty thousand Jizzrobes and got Rupees, but a gaggle of wimpy little ChuChus give up the Piece of Ass? Who rationed this shit out? This must be some kind of cardinal law of videogames: the harder a task is to complete, the less worth your time and effort the reward will be. It’s this guiding principle–let’s call it the Law of Inverse Proportionality–that brought us racing Chocobos to power up Tidus’s best weapon. Thanks, game designers.

After all this, Twink is more than a little sick of collecting shit and sailing around with only a guffawing, bearded boat to keep him company. Twink is truly desperate for some human contact, and it shows, because he’s suddenly longing to take a break over at NPC Island. What the hell, maybe Liberace’s up for a game of Twister.

It’s nighttime on NPC Island, which means none of Twink’s sexy pals are playing outside at the moment. Of course, he could just play the Song of Passing, but instead he decides to check in some of the houses for some company. Inside the mansion of the Rich Asswipe family, Twink does not find Maggie the Moblin Fancier or her leprosy-ridden father–you know, the people who actually live in this house. He instead comes across Eskimo Guy, standing expectantly in the back of the room on the first floor. He explains to Twink that he is renting the house on a nightly basis to hold auctions. Who rents out the first floor of their home for public events? They went from being homeless to being the richest people in town, and they’re still greedy enough to whore out their lavish home for more money? Maggie’s father must be trying to save up for some expensive skin treatment.

So yeah, Eskimo Guy is using this place as an auction house, and he invites Twink to participate in the Rupee-blowing fun. Eskimo Guy has ponied up some pretty cool shit for Twink in the past, and with all the silver Rupees Twink’s been dredging up, he isn’t poor anymore, either. Knowing Twink’s particular kinks, EG says with a wink, “…Do I detect a hint of curiosity? I believe I do! Fortunately, we welcome bidders of all ages! Both kids and adults!” Well, if there are sexy older men involved in the bidding on fabulous prizes, sign Twink up.

Once Twink agrees to take part, EG dims the lights as the camera slowly pans over Twink’s competition for the mystery item. In-the-Closet Anton is here, along with Chickenwuss and those two chicks who were enamored of the gossip about Lenzo having sex with women. In other words, not exactly a choice group. Even worse, for dramatic flair, Eskimo Guy whips off his hood before addressing the bidders. To deal with his thinning hair, EG has apparently decided to take a tack opposite to the combover–he has tied what’s left of his coif into tiny pigtails above each of his ears. The pigtails are secured with little red bows. Sweet merciful crap. Twink had previously been critical of the hoodie as a fashion accessory, but he has to admit: if his hair looked like that, he’d hide it, too.

Eskimo Guy’s follicle disaster distracted poor Twink from the item up for auction, and before he knows it he’s in the middle of bidding on a goddamn treasure chart. As if jumping through hoops in dungeons for the things wasn’t degrading enough, now the game designers want Twink to pay for them, too? But it doesn’t matter that Twink thinks the whole thing’s a crock of shit–what matters is that I won’t be able to live with myself if I don’t get everything in this game, and that means shelling out the little colored jewels to get the rolled-up parchment. Deal, Twink.

Of course, Nintendo’s game designers can’t just do a straightforward auction system–nope, it’s gotta be a mini-game. In order for Twink to place a bid, I must build up an erection a bar at the bottom of the screen by tapping the A button like my life depends on it. When the bar is full, Twink can place a new bid. If it’s high enough, he even stuns the rest of the bidders with the amazing power of his fat wallet. (In the short time that other bidders are wobbling drunkenly around him, Twink gaily jumps up and down like he just found a pair of red leather stilettos at half price.) But until that bar is full, he can only watch in horror as the crazy assholes of NPC Island drive up the price by thirty Rupees within ten seconds. The “trick” to this, if you can call it that, is to make outlandish bids to stun the other bidders, so they can’t spend the entire auction driving up the price. Yes, this means having to drive up the price yourself. Shut up.

Twink ends up paying 140 Rupees for the treasure chart, and if he could talk to his invisible controller, he so wouldn’t be right now. The other bidders do nothing but grouse at Twink for daring to put more money up for that shitty prize than they could, so Twink doesn’t particularly feel like sticking around. Unfortunately, that obsessive-compulsive bitch controlling him knows there are more prizes to be gained from the auction house. Before Twink knows what he’s doing he’s waving his Wind Wanker to the tune of the Song of Passing, to fast-forward to a new evening of spending money. Poor Twink–I’m so mean to him.

The next night brings a much less exciting prize: one measly Joy Pendant. Pfft, Twink’s only looted about five hundred Bokoblin corpses to find those things for free–why would he waste his money on one here? With that knowledge, he sits back and lets In-the-Closet Anton’s girlfriend, Linda, and Minenco, Miss NPC Island 1956, go to war over the thing. Likely that whoever wins it will just give it to Mrs. Seymour in exchange for the keys to a party boat or something. Eventually, the chicks in the crowd bolster the price to an insane 167 Rupees. Twink giggles at the suckers and leaves, ready to skip to the next night and hopefully to a better prize.

…Well, look at that. The item of the evening is, again, a Joy Pendant. Bad draw on my part? Not quite. Eskimo Guy explains: “My dear! Oh my dear me! As you no-doubt see, this is the item that Vera won in our last auction… And yet, for reasons I cannot fathom, Vera has since parted with this fine item, and thus it is once again appearing in our auction!” The asshole also tries to convince his audience that this only means Vera must think it’s worth more than the exorbitant amount she paid for it.

What the fuck.

Just so we’re all on the same page: this means, to get the prizes I actually want, I will also have to spend Twink’s hard-earned money (and a lot of it, at that) on stupid shit I have no use for. This Joy Pendant will keep popping up for auction until Twink commits to pay for the goddamn thing. It’s like that horrendous white elephant gift at your office Christmas party–no one wants it, but someone has to take it. Except that in this situation, that someone is always Twink. Because all the NPCs get to magically return the shit they don’t want.

And yes, I realize that this hitch is in place so that, if one of those dastardly NPCs outbids Twink for a treasure chart or a Piece of Ass, I can get another shot at it. It is hard for me, though, to appreciate this, considering how easy it is to win an auction. Expensive, sure, but simple enough from a gameplay standpoint. I don’t really need a failsafe. All this is doing is costing Twink money. And he didn’t spend all that time fishing for Rupees just to blow them all on a necklace he has fifty of.

Twink fully depresses himself by paying 135 Rupees for the Joy Pendant. So much so that his spirits actually lift when he sees that the next item is a treasure chart. Who would have thought he’d ever be happy to see one of those again? Even “better,” he manages to win the chart for what seems like a steal: 100 Rupees. I mean, these people put up more for that for the freaking Joy Pendant. Well, I suppose Twink got lucky, for once. I shouldn’t gripe about it.

Opening his new chart outside, Twink sees that the treasure it maps out is located offshore of NPC Island. May as well dig it up and see if it’s worth the 100 Rupees Twink just paid to find it.

The chest contains a Rupee.

A green Rupee.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Moving on–because if I stop typing, my idle hands might attempt to smother me with a pillow–Twink plays the Song of Passing and returns to the auction house one more time. The final item worth bidding on, a Piece of Ass, is now up for auction. I’ll even forgive that it costs Twink 187 Rupees, because I could have been forced to pay that much plus the inflated price of five more Joy Pendants. Sadly, actually paying a crapload of money for the tiny thing I wanted seems like a privilege right now.

All of a sudden, Twink’s not really in the mood for the company of others, least of all anyone on NPC Island. Go figure! Time for some more solitary sailing, deep reflection, and general self-loathing. Twink is all about the self-loathing these days.

East of the Angular Isles, Twink and Sean come upon a pair of small islands with a festive crimson banner staked between them. And standing below the banner is a tanned, muscular man in a tight white tank top. Helloooo, nurse. The banner has some golden writing on it which, for all I know, is Hylian for “Skinny blond studs wanted, will do oral.”

Fabio here is actually a boat nut (he calls Sean Connery a “pretty slick boat”–ew), which is why he’s out here all by his lonesome, running the Boating Course. He asks Twink if he would like to play a “boat game,” for the low low price of thirty Rupees. Well worth the price of admission, if it’s anything like the “boat game” the Minnesota Vikings played on Lake Minnetonka. (A football reference! I can only hope I haven’t stumped all of you.)

Color Twink disappointed, though, when it turns out this game has nothing to do with illicit orgies. It’s just a race against the clock to collect Rupees from the tops of barrels on a roped-off course. It can actually be pretty profitable, and Fabio sure is a babe (though a bit lazy-eyed), but hot Muscle Beach attendant or no, the game’s just boring as hell. If Twink wants to waste time sailing around, he can do that shit for free, thanks very much. Twink humors Fabio by running the course once (and at least making up the money he lost in the green Rupee fiasco from earlier), before heading off to find a lonely man with something more…interesting to pass the time.

At Five-Star Isles, while trying to pull a Piece of Ass out of the water, Twink is knocked out of his boat by a very effective Kargaroc Princess/cannon boat combo a whopping sixteen times in one minute. After the first nine or so, I seriously start to consider letting Twink drown and putting him out of his misery. The added bonus for Twink would be that he would wind up back at the last place he touched dry land, the Boating Course. And then Fabio would have to give him mouth-to-mouth.

Twink faces the most ridiculous treasure chart shenanigans yet at Cyclops Reef, the last of the dice reefs he has to visit. This one, per the name, has a single eye, and on Twink’s sea chart it looks like a blocky penis head. Twink wipes out the cannons and cannon boats in the reef with, surprisingly, a minimum of fuss, causing a treasure chest to appear on the eye. I shouldn’t even have to tell you at this point that the chest contains another treasure chart. But the fun doesn’t stop there!