The Longing-ist Playthrough: Day 8 – 08/01/22 – 386 Days, 4 Hours, 44 Minutes and 3 Seconds to go…

Let me begin by saying that I was an idiot for forgetting to screenshot the new questions that Monty wanted to ask The Face on Day 7. And let me follow up by saying that I made an even bigger, and more bone-headed mistake on Day 8. One that, when you read it, will lead you to despair of me the way that I regularly despair of myself. 😅😅😅

The play session for Day 8 was a pretty short one; it was Saturday and I didn’t have a lot of time until really quite late in the evening, but I thought I’d jump on and hang out with Monty for a little while just to keep the flow going.

Booting up the Switch I found Monty where I left him, in the [green mushroom tunnel], in the mines. After doing some purple mushroom planting yesterday, I had left Monty there with the plan to replant some green ones first thing today. Right away something intriguing caught my eye. Well that’s a big boy! One of the green mushrooms on the ground had ballooned in size, standing now at Monty’s nose-height rather than the ankle-height that they normally grow to! Is this what happens when they regrow? Can I expect massive purple ones too? He shuffled over to it and Monty let me know that he could destroy the ‘abomination’ (his word) if he had the mattock, and that the mushroom was ‘pretty useless here’… So where would it be useful then, pal? And why is it an abomination exactly? 🤔

Again, the lack of mattock was proving a pain, but I wasn’t going to let that get to me today – it was only a short session and I didn’t want to spend it grumpy. Monty and I worked through the green mushrooms in the tunnel, picking and replanting them, just as we had with the purple ones the day before; perhaps burying five or six in total. Excited that maybe we’d have some massive purple ‘shrooms too, we went down to the lower tunnel to check, but sadly they were all normal sized. 🙁 There was a silver lining however, and that was that tonnes of the little pink fungus had sprouted since last night – there were maybe twice as many as yesterday! Happy days! Just don’t eat them all at once! 😵

I asked Monty to pluck just one of the new mushrooms, planning on planting it somewhere else in the tunnel on the way out, but when we couldn’t find any unused fertile ground, I just asked him to eat it…

And he dreamed again! Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! 🤩

I excitedly hammered the ‘Home’ button on my Switch so I could ready my phone and scribble some notes in real-time. It wasn’t until I opened my phone, navigated to the Notes app and returned to my Switch that I realised the utter idiocy of what I’d just done…

As we know, folks, The Longing is an idle game; one that continues whether you’re playing it or not… like when Monty read through Moby Dick while I was at work – remember? 😫

This realisation didn’t dawn on me until I awoke my Switch, eyes wide, phone in hand, only to see a shaded image of a ladder simply fading out, then Monty waking up to say, “What a strange and beautiful dream.”

I missed it. 😫

I missed the damn dream! 😭

I’ve gotten so used to being able to pause a game – even during an un-pausable cut scene – by navigating to the Home menu, that I completely missed an important piece of the game. I was furious with myself. The next few minutes were spent swearing under my breath and trying to decide what to do about it. I could go on YouTube – I’m sure someone has videos of the dream sequences… but what if I see something spoilery? That would really suck… Could I just carry on without knowing what happened? Probably… but I don’t want to…

In the end I felt like knowing the full picture was more important than the potential of seeing something I shouldn’t, so I headed over to YouTube. I made sure to put in as specific a search as I could, in the hopes I’d filter out anything except exactly what I was looking for…

And thankfully, I was successful (though, once again, I can’t share any screenshots with you). 😅 You’re incredibly lucky not to ruin something – you a complete and utter donut! The dream, it seemed, showed the young troll carrying a pail of water through the forest and past what looked to be the collapsed entrance to a cave or mine. The camera then panned down into the depths to show a series of muddy tunnels and a ladder leading ever deeper before fading out… This is definitely the right dream – that ladder scene is what I saw when I turned my Switch back on. Is that troll past-Monty, or someone we might meet if we make it topside? Will we dig our way out and find these people up there? I’m still not sure...

Disappointment in my stupidity aside, another dream felt like big progress, and I was excited to see things moving forward, albeit in cryptic fashion. The troll looked cute and harmless enough, but I couldn’t help but think about the Mountain King’s instruction to stay in the caves, and how The Face had warned about trusting outsiders…

Feeling buoyant from the dream, I sent Monty back down to the big drop by the [crystal mines] as I wanted to check in on the moss situation. The journey passed without incident, and arriving at the precipice I could immediately see that the pile moss was growing higher than it had before, but Monty said that things still weren’t quite ready. I’m going to come back daily until I can jump down and get that goddamn mattock.

As I said earlier, it was already late, so I sent Monty home so that we could settle in for the night. Walking through the door, I encouraged Monty to play the horn a little more… Come on – it’s not like we have neighbours… and he actually mixed things up a little bit tonight. The first performance was three long notes, the second was his masterpiece – a six-note repeater, and then finally those three long notes again. Was he getting better? I honestly didn’t think so – but I can’t play an instrument either, so who was I to judge?

Wanting to add to the louse gallery, I looked at the options in the lapis lazuli menu, but there wasn’t an option to draw a louse in blue. I’m actually a little sad about that. So we messed with a bunch of colour combinations until we stumbled upon a mushroom picture titled ‘Dreamer’, which seemed like a pretty apt picture to document our day. Monty finished up the picture in black, white and blue in just a few minutes, and I hung it above the desk while Monty sat down in the armchair to read. I suggested he take up the first volume of Thus Spoke Zarathustra and then said my goodnights until tomorrow.

(Yes, I realise now that I never went back to get those questions from The Face… damn it. I’ll make sure I check them first thing tomorrow. Peace out everyone.)

Continue reading: Day 9