GUYS. WE MADE IT. DAY TWO. HOLY CRAP.

I’d like to thank the Academy, my family, the dragon who made all this possible by killing fracas-ing with my dad, thus causing me to inherit a giant debt and be forced to resort to opening a business…

Actually a really good question. What I’ll be doing now is continuing with Part 3 of the ongoing and extremely epic Let’s Play of Recettear. As I’ve mentioned, I’ll be aiming to cut down a little bit on the amount of screenshots I need to insert by instead summarising what’s going on a bit more. It’s not that I don’t want a billion screenshots – if I had the capacity to do this in video form and thus not miss out on a single moment, I would – it’s just that it takes too darn long. Also, I’m only on the free WordPress plan (for now) and therefore don’t have that much storage space to play with.

Alternatively, we can re-organise the shop, or go and look for new stock around town ‘… or elsewhere’. Ominous. Obviously, I don’t need to re-organise, because my shop organisation skills are freakin’ top-notch, so I’m thinking I might see if I can find some phat lewt. I haven’t got much money to play with, but if we can get some more items for free then we’ll be able to start raking in the cash.

Recette’s a little fazed by how many options she has, and asks how she should choose what to do. Tear’s response?

Holy shit, Tear, you couldn’t be any more helpful if you tried.

We opt to leave the shop. For some reason, the Adventurers’ Guild is flashing on the map, so I figure we’ll check it out. When we arrive (an action which takes NO ARBITRARY UNITS OF TIME, y’all), Recette asks Tear what this place is. You’d think she’d have figured it out from the flashing logo, but whatever. Tear explains that it’s the Adventurers’ Guild, surprising nobody, and that they’re responsible for managing the various dangerous areas around the city, commonly termed ‘dungeons’.

Recette’s on the same wavelength as me on this one; I was hoping we’d just be able to bumble in to the nearest dungeon and loot the hell out of it at no cost and for maximal profits. Unfortunately, Tear explains that while it is a good idea and many people have got super-rich doing exactly that, we can’t go in alone and we’ll need to hire an adventurer.

Even if we pay them, most adventurers won’t be willing to risk their life for a stranger, so our best bet is to get to know a few adventurers and build up some trust with them (presumably by selling them stuff). Once we’ve done that, they’ll give us their business card, and then we can all mosey on down to the dungeons together.

Seems like dungeon-crawling isn’t exactly the safest of businesses. Maybe we’d be better off actually having a dinner party with our adventurer friends, then nicking all their shit.

Anyway, we’ll have to befriend an adventurer before we can do anything… and conveniently, there seems to be one hanging around right now.

Heavens indeed. Tear’s unbelievable deduction abilities kick in at this point: her analysis of the situation is that this guy seems to be a rookie adventurer who’s mad about his inability to complete the required guild test and earn membership. Yup, there’s a test: they won’t just let anyone in, after all. Apparently, the Adventurers’ Guild is a bit stricter about its entrance criteria than the Merchants’ Guild, judging from the fact that Recettear managed to get registration without having any credentials whatsoever. All of this gives Tear an idea. You’d think Recette would be concerned, since Tear’s last idea was to enlist Recette for what amounts to child slavery, but whatever.

Oop, she’s off.

Now I’m hungry! Thanks a lot.

Tear sure knows how to make a good first impression. If she’s not threatening you with repossession, she’s insulting you to your face. Anyhoo, she explains that we’re a couple of merchants who just happened to be eavesdropping passing by.

Recette astutely observes that the guy isn’t a plant, which I’m sure will put us back in his good books. Tear suggests that it might work well for all involved if we go with him to the Hall of Trials, since we can supply equipment and items as required. In return, he agrees to act as our escort into the dungeons next time we want to go on a loot run. Recette takes this deal to entail eternal friendship.

How the fuck did he work that one out?! This guy’s practically Sherlock. As he’s got nothing to lose (always a good sign) he’s up for our little business offer.

My thoughts exactly. We trade names, learning that his is…

… not what I was expecting, but okay. (I was thinking ‘Seedy Stevie’.)

Ah. This might be a problem, since we’ve got pretty much no money whatsoever, but I would like to have our first sojourn with Louie ASAP, so let’s see what we can do. Might be that we need to pop back to the store, sell a couple of bits for some quick cash, then come back. Actually, now I think of it, who’s manning the store while Recette and Tear are both gone? The place could have been cleaned out by the time we get back!

Well, to the market it is, if only to see what we can get.

Apples are 210pix apiece, which is a bit hefty for us. Walnut bread, however, clocks in at 70, meaning we can afford to pick up two loaves and be left with the kingly sum of 15pix. I do so, hopeful that Louie likes walnut bread.

The market sells a few other bits and bobs, but none that we can afford right now. I head back over to the Adventurers’ Guild.

Louie’s a-waitin’ for us, at the low, low price of free! He’s got some crappy equipment and a big ol’ smile, and that’ll do me.

We’ll bring along our precious, precious walnut bread. Looks as if we can bring a maximum of twenty items each time we go to a dungeon, which ain’t bad.

LET’S DO THIS

so stoked y’all

Well, this place seems friendly enough. Also good to note: Tear’s a fan of Guns N’ Roses. We’ll remember that, in case we need to bribe her at a later date.

Good point, actually. Why didn’t we just pay Louie to go in alone and bring us back whatever he finds in there?

That is amazing.

Tear explains that we’re completely invisible to monsters, basically, but at the cost of being able to directly interact with nothing. We’re pretty much intangible.

Okay, I have a few questions about this… but I’m willing to go with it. I don’t think it’s a perfect solution to the gameplay problem the devs must have run up against, but it’s not terrible. Basically, Louie’s not intangible, which means he can pick stuff up and fight monsters and whatnot. We can’t interact with anything, but we’ll need to keep track of the items he’s collecting, and if he should be seriously wounded we’ll just pull him back into our Super Field of Invincibility and hotfoot out of there (although we’ll only be able to carry one item out if it comes to that).

Recette, ever happy to just roll with it, is perfectly satisfied with this explanation, so let’s get to it!

Heck, I don’t know. Do we want to equip walnut bread? I go with yes, if only because I haven’t a clue what the right answer is.

NEXT TIME: We actually do a dungeon!