Day one in the Starfish Mansion.

I wanted to get some high-level winter clothes before visiting the edge of Winter Forest, so the first room to hit with Crys, Kimono and Dancer was the Frozen Pyramid Room.

We didn't need to go inside the Frozen Pyramid and trigger the events, though. We just went in for a quick turn near the starting area of ruins in front of the pyramid.

“Sonic weapons are nice, but they are not necessary. We need to think risk versus reward. Frozen Pyramid is a late-stage dangerous place, so I don't think the relatively underpowered sonic pistols are worth our time and effort at this point. But after Caliph and Suleiman are dead, then we can take our time and squeeze these guys slowly and safely. I mean, they're not going anywhere. This roomworld is a frozen wasteland and they are trapped in their Last Redoubt.”

“I see. I trust that your assessment about the operational usefulness of their equipment is accurate.” (Crys)

“Thank you, Crys-sensei. My recommendation is to clear only the time-sensitive, low risk rooms with high rewards before Caliph and rest later.”

After we found the secret fur coat stash, I waved my hands at the upper floors of the pyramid.

The guards observing us with telescopes from the upper floors were probably quite confused.

I could imagine their report to their boss: “A group of four strange people, three male and one female, appeared from the northern glacier field wearing light clothes, but instead of heading for our warm fires set at the pyramid entrance, they went straight to the abandoned village ruins outside the pyramid, collected fur coats from the hidden stash left for our patrol unit, and then returned back to the glacier fields, disappearing in the snow again. One of these strange men waved his hand at us, like he knew we were waiting to ambush them. Surely they must work for the Outsiders mentioned in the ancient texts!”

Safety items collected, Frozen Pyramid ambush event avoided.

Next stop: edge of the Winter Forest

Caliph's soldiers tried to get rid of the twins during the Winter Forest training mission because the twins were from Fireland and cold weather was their weakest element. Thus, the twins made a rare decision to flight instead of fight – better to face the unknown dangers of the cold forest than to face the Caliph's elite troops in cold forest.

We pushed the autopalanquin outside the Starfish Mansion Radius of Influence, hopped in and traveled east.

A nice one-day road trip with my homies.

When we crossed the mountains and entered the White Forest area neighboring Loönois, the constant rain stopped. I had to reroute several times because Caliph's army had outposts around the area in unexpected places.

We came to a wide strip of green meadow at the side of a road. On the other side of the meadow, we could see the edge of the Winter Forest – a dense forest of tall spruces caked with powdered snow and a constant wind piling snow into banks resembling crashing waves at the border between the two zones.

Just subarctic frost next to a subtropical meadow. Nothing strange going on here, officer.

The cold temperature itself wasn't the problem, the problem was the howling wind that sent chills down to your bones and tried to push you deeper inside the dangerous forest when you crossed the snow banks at the threshold.

For Caliph's elite soldiers and knights, a tour in the Winter Forest was both a test of courage and trial by ordeal – the two strange and powerful tribes in the forest were in constant war against each other and instantly attacked all outsiders as well, so surviving even a small skirmish with them was worth a military decoration.

I didn't want to waste time in this ridiculously difficult area, so I hastily carved a set of hunter glyphs in the snowy trees and then ran back in the car over the slushy meadow.

And then we were off to the northern edge of the Black Forest, where I carved more glyphs to trees as a precaution. .

Drive-by tracery by yours truly in collaboration with Agents of Practical Vandalism. That's my future band name.

Hunter glyphs were commonly used by Fireland tribes. They were like a hobo code for advising and warning other tribes about hunting grounds, traps and prey in the area.

I felt pretty sure that when the twins escape, they'll notice these symbols and then they can use their tracking skills to follow our trail back to Starfish Mansion.

Another “let them find us” scheme.

If all goes as planned, the twins will appear at the road near the Starfish Mansion and I will meet them for the first time in the same place their first meeting happened in the anime – but without any of those zany misunderstandings, hopefully.

I was slightly worried that some random knight of Caliph might be able read the hunter glyphs too, although it was quite improbable. The real reason for my worry was an old rumor in the Mu-Ur game forums about a secret ending where Caliph Tze finds the Starfish Mansion. According to the rumor, you could get that secret ending by following a certain path of triggers in the Winter Forest, but since there was no video evidence of the scene, it was probably just a weak trolling effort.

But there was still that smaller than small probability of disaster ending.

If we can't kill Caliph before he gets the Egg, he'll probably find the mansion sooner or later in the future.

...We should probably take another road trip to erase the glyphs after the twins have joined the party. For safety.

After the road trip, I drove the autopalanquin to a glade on the northwestern side of Starfish Mansion.

This wide clearing surrounded by birches was at the end of an old logging road. It was used as a preliminary gathering place for street gangs during the Gathering episode in the anime, and also as the landing zone for our airship.

“Using unprotected clearing like this for the airship project seems risky.” (Crys)

“Yeah, but no random events happened here according to my knowledge. This is the safest reassembly area near the mansion I can think of. We'd have to carry stuff outside ROI and use the car, if we build it in the hills near the lake, and that might be just as unprotected.“

“Dancer and Kimono, take turns guarding this area during the airship construction.” (Crys)

“Yes, brother.” (Kimono)

“I will, Crys-sensei, sir!” (Dancer)

“Alright, we'll move it here then. Remember to stay hidden and work like shadows in the rain. We don't want some random patrol passing by to think that if there's a guard in a forest, there must be something worth guarding in the forest.”

When the night fell, I spent some time drawing detailed room maps for Crys and Rain. I used my own numbering system for rooms that didn't have specific names in the series.

Then I prepared some late night snacks for everyone in the kitchen.

It certainly wasn't a healthy diet for growing girls and boys to eat military rations all the time, even if we did move around with backpacks and weapons like professional soldiers.

“Don't worry, morning musumes! Papa will make nutritious bentos for everyone!”

“What are you blabbering again?” (Kimono)

“Just talking to my imaginary imoutos, don't mind!”

Kimono cooked and checked every crumb of food that her brother ate, so I didn't made anything for Crys, but for some reason Kimono kept hovering in the kitchen when I was making my new improvised specialty: horse meat curry.

“Like the aroma? Interested in modern cuisine, Kim-chan?”

“What's in those vials? What spice did you put in there?” (Kimono)

“Starfish Mansion specialties from under the floorboards. This is coriander and this is turmeric–”

No need to make that face, Kim-chan, these are not poisonous.

Kimono and I actually had some cooking skills, unlike Rain and Mirim, who mostly ate whatever they could find or what their slavers happened to throw at them. Maybe I can impress these young ladies with my food now when there's an actual Victorian kitchen with pans, pots, kettles and spice potions available?

From bag carrier to map maker to stay-at-home-dad. An interesting résumé you have there, mister applicant.

...My improvised food strat didn't work.

Dancer liked the taste, Mirim said my horse curry tasted weird, Kimono refused to eat, and Rain sent the bone porcelain plate back in pieces. Too spicy and exotic for people accustomed to bland flavors?

I should probably put Rain's portion in a metal bowl from now on.

Day two: I opened a door to the Cloudpoint Room.

Cloudpoint Room was basically a large warehouse slash airship hangar floating in clouds. It was full of wooden boxes, just row after row of large and small boxes, and one complete airship.

I classified this roomworld safe, but there was a small possibility that some of the boxes might have something dangerous inside, or something unexpected might fly in from the thick clouds surrounding the floating warehouse.

Both in the anime and in the game, this disassembly and assembly of the airship happened off-screen, so if there were unexpected encounters in this roomworld, the enemies probably weren't strong enough to be worth mentioning.

In the game, you weren't supposed to get the airship until the few last missions in Reignland; even if you got the Cloudpoint Room early, getting the airship outside to the main world behind the scenes took a "flexible" amount of in-game time that always stretched to the last missions. This world can't have such limits, right? Right?

In the anime, the completed airship was seen in full action only once in the fourth season episode called Climbing Fortress, when Reavertooth and Ivorythief attacked Suleiman's seven-layer dragon mountain stronghold at Te Csji Henne.

Speaking of Suleiman's Climbing Fortress, that mission was the biggest timesave for Ivorythief in the full campaign run. It skipped about 90% of the level plus a whole autoscroller sequence as a bonus. You started the level by glide-kiting down from the airship at night and continued to roll down the roofs of the wooden fortress all the way down to the lowest layer, crashed through a glass skylight and climbed back to the top layer – or that's how it was supposed to go.

But if you used Ivorythief's special skill and kept strafing the edge of the cliff above the highest layer, you could break the rolling sequence and land immediately on the roof of the boss room.

That's a lesson level designers should have learned by now: never place the boss room next to the starting point.

If this were still the game, I would say that airship-before-Rukhkh was a complete game breaker, far above the Roof Roll Skip.

On top of that, we had dynamite before Rukhkh as well. With airship and dynamite were overpowered like Zeppelin raid of London during Victorian era.

We had a movable starting point above every boss room. We could nuke the whole area from the entrance.

If the twins take the wheel, they can mess up Seitheargnagh and Te Csji Henne like (please excuse my egregious comparison) Enola Gay and Bockscar messed up Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Anyway, we – Dancer, Crys, Kimono, Mirim and me – started the hardcore project of pulling apart the dirigible airship and hauling the parts out of Starfish Mansion.

The ellipsoid-shaped airship had to be turned back into its components, pushed through narrow doors, carried through corridors, pulled uphill to the forest, and finally reassembled at the forest glade under constant rain.

Rain helped with the airship project occasionally when large parts had to be carried out, but she got easily frustrated with precision work and started breaking things, so she didn't take part in the reassembly process.

Usually she kept looking after Sorry Man in the Petrified Garden, and Sorry Man spent his days touching petrified trees with his fingertips just like in the anime.

Hard physical work wasn't my specialty, so I was more like a project supervisor. I made quick sketches of the airship from every angle and ascertained with the confidence of a scale model replica painter that we could put it back together.

You really don't want to have a bunch of "unnecessary" cables and screws lying around after rebuilding an airship.

“Yosh, lunch break! We still have plenty of curry from yesterday, I'll just go heat it up quickly.”

“Ah, I'll just have a cup of tea...” (Mirim)

“Non non, Mirim, you need to get your proteins.”

“Yes...” (Mirim)

“Don't worry, Mi-chan, I'll make your portion extra mild. And then warm tea and sugar for dessert, say hurray!”

“...Hurray!” (Mirim)

Day three: Operation Achlop.

Party members: me, Crys, Kimono, Rain, and Sorry Man.

Since it might be bad for Rain's mental health to stay out of action for too long, I decided to break the airship construction routine for a while and clear the Pillar Room.

Side mission: solve the king's poisoning case and talk to princess Achlop in the afternoon, then return for evening meal. Nothing fancy.

“Ready? Everyone has their keys, just in case?”

“Why should I care about some primitive tribe that doesn't even know about guns?” (Rain)

“Well, they can be trained, and when princess Achlop leads the tribe, they are trustworthy allies. Even if we don't give them firearms, it's nice to have a battalion of archers and spearmen waiting behind door number 1106 ready to help, isn't it? We can use them as guards at the airship reassembly site, for example, or use them as meat shields, and so on.”

“...Whatever.” (Rain)

“The warrior guards at the other side of the door are afraid of Outsiders. That's their name for ancient legendary people who come through the door, and they call it Sacred Door. Rain, don't attack them if they don't attack us first, okay? They have only spears and bows, after all. We can just shoot in the air and they'll get scared of our magnificent thunder power. When we get in the palace, I'll take it from there because they talk a bit weirdly. I'll convince them that we come in peace or I'll give them a practical demonstration to assert dominance. Their etiquette or whatever is to automatically surrender to a stronger tribe. So, after showboating our power, they become very submissive and we can then convince them that we are their allies. Well, force them to be our allies; Gunboat Colonialism is the fastest strat here. I'm sure no one feels like taking the slow and boring diplomacy route–”

“Fine, let's just go! Your prattle puts even wild horses to sleep!” (Rain)

Yeah, Rain is the wrong target audience for Mu-Ur lore.

When the Pikatrate tribe warriors (standing in their orange-red robe-uniforms) saw that the Sacred Door (guarded by their forefathers for centuries without any contact from the other side) opened, they started screaming out of happiness and fear at the same time.

Rain gently pushed Sorry Man forward, then stepped in the Pillar Tribe room after him, and I was right behind Rain.

We were on top of a table mountain surrounded by white mist, in a sturdy bamboo hut built around the indestructible door.

I started my speech immediately after stepping out.

“Polite statement about our arrival! Warriors of Pikatrate, we come in peace! Put down your spears and arrows, we are not Builders nor Squatters! We are explorers of Ancestral Hallways, originating from the Living Room! We wish to talk to your king, Bakhou entirely!”

The warriors were surprised and confused by my speech that included extensive knowledge about them, but soon the confusion turned to celebration.

“Praised suns entirely! After all the somehow closed generations the Sacred Door to Hallways have been opened by descendants like us! Our blood sacrifices somehow have not been in vain!” (warrior)

After some joyous dancing, the warriors decided to lead us straight to the palace to meet the king.

“Well, this went better than expected, but stay on alert.”

“Tell me later what your speech meant.” (Crys)

“Oh, of course.”

Everything in this roomworld looked the same as in Mu-Ur Quincunx: long flight of stone steps down from the table mountain, endless sea of sand around the oasis plateau, long rope bridge over a wide valley with blue ponds, gem tunnels, fruit gardens and bamboo forests, and magnificent stone palace on the other side of the bridge.

Pillar Tribe Room was a strange mashup – like a Polynesian tribe teleported from the Pacific and forced to live as rice farmers in a place that resembled Potala Palace at Tibetan Plateau, with a system of hereditary monarchy similar to those of medieval Europe.

When we reached the main hall of the palace, king Bakhou was already sitting on a throne. He looked old, thin and frail under his gaudy garments and gold ornaments.

Nice timesave, Bakhou. None of that “you must wait for royalty, royalty must never wait you” crap.

I looked around and saw many familiar characters among the king's retinue, but I didn't see princess Achlop.

A female servant wearing bright blue wig made an announcement. Her name was Celal Nony, one of Achlop's future supporters.

“Explorers from the Room of the Living somehow, His Majesty Bakhou is pleased entirely! Declare somehow your names and state your purpose before–” (servant)

Somehow and entirely this and that – that's how these people talked; like there was a need to emphasize the certitude levels of sentences, somehow.

“Yo, hear me somehow! We are your friendly neighbourhood Revolution Movement and I am somehow the Prince of Living Room, Speedrun! King Bakhou, I've come to somehow tell you that advisor Arcaczel, that bald guy there, is trying to entirely kill you with a Slow Poison.”

The bald advisor standing next to the king went pale.

“Entirely surprised, are you, Arc-kun? Flustered suddenly, advisor, hm? Your next line is–“

“How dare you entirely! Somehow you accuse me with nothing but empty hands! Your Majesty, this person a liar entirely!” (Arcaczel)

“Oh, I thought you would say: these are not the explorers we are looking for.”

Enough chitchat, time for hot weapons demo.

“These are not–?” (Arcaczel)

BANG

I took a shot at white humanoid sculpture on the right side of the hall. The statue's head exploded into shards and dust.

The crowd gasped in horror. The head of their great ancient founder king was gone.

Soldiers raised their spears and bows, but Rain and Crys had their revolvers pointed at the king and his bodyguards already.

“Hush now, Arc-kun, I'm talking here! Behold, members of Pikatrate! This is my boomstick and these are my droogs! Our clamorous weapons bring destruction to those who bodyblock us! If you don't want to entirely die, you must listen carefully and surrender to our demands! Lower your primitive weapons and keep your hands where I can see them! Understand you can, hm?”

There was suddenly complete silence in the hall.

Good. One shot was enough. We don't want to waste bullets.

I don't usually damage culturally and historically valuable artifacts, but when I do, I do it to inflict maximum psychological impact to a superstitious and cowardly lot.

“Okay, so this Arcaczel somehow calls me a liar and demands evidence... Oh, what was that? Did I hear the word evidence? You two warriors over there, go to this baldyman's room. You will somehow find that there's a secret drawer under his desk where he entirely keeps Slow Poison in a waterskin.”

The scared warriors looked at their king and king Bakhou looked at me. I tapped my revolver. Bakhou swiped sweat off his forehead, looking even more sickly, and then told the warriors to do as I ordered.

The warriors ran out to get the evidence.

“Slow Poison is not very useful or profitable, but maybe you want a sample, Crys?”

“Every poison has its use.” (Crys)

When Crys and Rain originally came to this room in the first season episode, Bakhou was already bedridden and Arcaczel was running the show. He didn't want to kill the king, just keep him weak enough and play the room from behind his back.

Achlop's royal faction was the only one standing against Arcaczel's soft coup, but since Arcaczel had already made a preposterous proposition to adopt the teenage princess as his daughter and the court was on his side, Achlop would have surely lost the battle of stratagems without Revolution Movement's violent interference.

“Good somehow, excellent entirely. By the way, that blonde woman standing behind the pillar is part of the conspiracy. You should question her, if Arcaczel doesn't entirely confess himself.”

“Please... Great Thunder Prince of the Room of the Living, somehow...” (Bakhou)

“Yeah, yeah, we're not going to kill you entirely, if you behave. So, where's princess Achlop? She's the one we want to talk to. No, don't bother getting up, you look a bit tired. She's in her room, right? I know my way around the palace. Let's go, team, we don't need to bother with their rituals... Celal Nony, come with us – yes, you bluehead entirely, one of Achlop's closest aides in the future.”

“Bakhou, you will prepare bread, fruits, wine and ores as a gift to us. Order your men to carry them back to the door in baskets.” (Crys)

“Oh, good idea, Crys-sensei. Prepare those for us somehow, Bakhou! We will later talk about how this room can become an independent colony of the Starfish Empire of Hallways, and you may somehow stay as the governor of– quickly now, guards, move out of the away. You don't want our boomsticks to go bang bang entirely, hm?”

Fuu, really, what should I do tonight? Soup or casserole?