The Longing-ist Playthrough: Day 28 – 28/01/22 – 320 Days, 1 Hour, 4 Minutes and 45 Seconds to go…

While the events of yesterday had shaken me a little, they had certainly injected some excitement into my play after a week or so of struggling with the same old problem. Despite a renewed vigour about my explorations below the mountain, I had a lot of real-world commitments on Day 28, so I thought I’d just have a look around to see if my encounter had changed anything in the kingdom rather than look to progress any further.

I turned on the Switch and was relieved to see Monty safe and sound at [home], showing no ill-effects following his run-in with the [Eyes in the Dark]. The first place I wanted to check on was the [treasure room] – the place had been annoying me by not allowing me to try and break the glass and I wondered if I was now able to try again.

Monty made his way over there and I was quickly enthused – the game offered me the prompt to use the mattock! 😁 Awesome! Let’s get those coins, baby! Keen as a keen thing, I asked Monty to start working on the crystal glass and watched in embarrassed horror as the mattock turned to dust after just one whack! I’m so glad I have two of those, otherwise I’d be PISSED. Not willing to risk my second mattock on trying again, I decided to send Monty up to the [mines]; I wanted to look around up there and see if anything had changed.

Now, I could draw this out to build some sense of drama, but in all honesty, it would be a waste of word count. Monty and I thoroughly checked all of the [coal mines] and the [mushroom mines] and found no changes to last night. I can’t say that’s entirely a surprise, but it’s definitely a good use of time to check and be sure. Next, we collected another purple mushroom and headed beyond the [tall ledge] again… I know you’re up there this time, you scary SOB.

Less tense now that we knew what to expect, Monty and I looked around in the dark again, inspecting [The Pit] and finding no change there either. It’s worth saying that I’d contemplated a lot about what would happen if Monty walked over the edge, but that I still didn’t have the cojones to try it. Maybe if I get desperate again…

With that out of the way, the only thing left to check up here was the [Eyes in the Dark], and that’s exactly where we went. We crept up to the ramp and slowly inched towards the thing but it led to the exact same outcome – the creature seeing Monty, grinning maliciously, rushing him and sending Monty back [home] with a sore head.

Suddenly having a light bulb moment, I checked Monty’s diary to see if there’s any mention of [The Pit] or the [Eyes in the Darkness], and while there wasn’t anything specific, Monty did mention a ‘darkness’ he could feel beneath the mountain which definitely piqued my interest. It was then that I remembered [The Face in the Wall] had spoken to me about how to overcome the darkness, so I delved into my screenshots to see what he had to say.

“The way to light is blocked by total darkness. You will only overcome darkness if you learn to become darkness. This way you will be invisible to it. But you will only achieve this if you delve deep, deep into your conscious loneliness.”

The Face in the Wall

I mean, that sounds like something Ra’s al Ghul said to Bruce Wayne about becoming Batman. It’s interesting but isn’t exactly a road map to success… Unsure of exactly how to proceed, I decided to check something out that had been on my mind for a few days – I wanted to see if I could plant mushrooms from our mushroom garden anywhere in the kingdom. I picked a ‘shroom and sent Monty off to the [moss room], which felt like the most likely place that this plan would work, if at all.

I then set my Switch down and went about some chores before my girlfriend and I planned to leave the house for the day.

“What a strange and beautiful dream.”

Unattended Monty

I returned to find that Monty had seemingly been unable to walk through the huge doors into the kingdom, and left unattended for a while, had decided to eat the mushroom of his own volition! 😲 What the hell, man?! Did I miss a new dream, or a repeat of an old one? I was definitely going to have to check that out tomorrow! As annoyed as I was that I might have missed a dream, I was happy knowing that I couldn’t take my mushrooms anywhere else in the kingdom… That crosses of a lot of possibilities.

Almost done for the day, Monty and I headed home and I had him settle down the third volume of Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Enjoy the read buddy – we’ll talk about that mushroom thing next time, don’t you worry!

Continue reading: Day 29