The Longing-ist Playthrough: Day 14 – 14/01/22 – 368 Days, 16 Hours, 36 Minutes and 16 Seconds to go…

Friday is always a bit of a whirlwind of a day, so I didn’t get a huge amount of time with Monty again, as seems to be becoming the habit lately 😅. That said, it was a short but incredibly sweet play session, especially in comparison to some of the sour notes left by experiences the past few days. I remembered something rather important that made for a very interesting session indeed, though I won’t know the payoff until tomorrow…

I opened up The Longing and was met with the sight of Monty standing with a lump of coal at his feet and seemingly no change showing to the wall of the mine. I surmised that this wasn’t an area that Monty would be able to dig through regardless of how long he spent here, and that it was simply a place that allowed us to harvest as much coal as we could be bothered to gather. I had him scoop up the coal (which turned out to be a large lump that was worth five units), and headed back to the sulphur pit to dig out another three pieces there too (giving us a total of five).

Looking up at the number of days remaining, I suddenly had the realisation that more than 30 days had passed in-game… The drip should have filled up the hole by now! We’ve passed a month! I’d become so preoccupied with finding and using the mattock, and questing for bed parts that I had entirely forgotten about it! I pulled up my remembered places and immediately had Monty head for the [moss room], which was the closest place I had registered to the [deep divot].

It took a while for Monty to make his way out of the [old mines] and back into the kingdom proper – it’s a long way to go and, as we all know, Monty isn’t ever exactly in a hurry. After a while I glanced down at my Switch and saw that Monty was passing the [Map of the Kingdom], and I thought we should stop to have a quick glance at it since we hadn’t looked at it since we’d done more exploration.

After waiting for Monty to decipher the map and the camera to zoom out, I wasn’t hit by any new revelations, but a confirmation that we had seemingly been everywhere that the kingdom had to offer… At least for the time being. I now recognised how all of the small, seemingly random corridors and rooms in the [old mines] fit together and what lay beyond the [crystal pool]… We can’t have been everywhere – what are we going to do for the next 370 days?

“Maybe I should head home?”

Monty

Don’t worry matey, you’ll have some creature comforts tonight – just a little exploration to do first. Leaving the map, we headed for the [moss room] and gathered up some more squishy lichen for the bed… If there really is a bed 😒… And then – it was the moment of truth – we headed through the doorway and was immediately met with a loud and keenly identifiable *drip… drip… dripping* sound… That’s a good start. The [deep divot] came into view and, while it was definitely pretty full, it wasn’t exactly filled to the brim; I wasn’t entirely convinced that Monty would be able to climb out on the other side.

But I was wrong. Once again. Monty shuffled into the water and glided his way through the water before nimbly pulling himself up and out on the other side.

“Thank you, little droplet.”

Monty

Thank you, indeed. At this point I was pretty excited to have made it across the divot, as I was almost certain that this led to the backdoor the [library]. Who knows what books are in there that might hold secrets to the kingdom. I hurried Monty through the next doorway and he emerged at the top of a staircase, looking down on an ornate azure door that was flanked by pale blue pillars. We went down the stairs and flung open the large door…

“This looks like the entrance to the library. I can’t wait to see what it holds!”

Monty

Jackpot 🤩. You and me both, buddy! We strode inside and took in the majesty of the King’s library, which was one of the most ornate places we’ve visited. The bookshelves were spread three floors, each held up by decorative pillars and well-made brickwork. The place wasn’t overflowing with literature, but there were plenty of books still on the shelves for us to go at. Monty and I went up and down the floors, collecting dusty and battered tomes from the shelves until we had completely cleared the place. We gathered 14 new books in total and Monty was enthused by each of them; he speculated at what might be inside and how long each had gone unread as he tucked them under his arm. It’s nice to see you happy about something for a change 😊

On the bottom floor we came to the other doorway to the [library], which had seemingly been blocked by a large boulder. I had hoped that Monty might be able to roll it out of the way or smash it with the mattock, but there was no such luck. Damn. Being able to travel through the library would have been a handy time saver. With all the excitement of the library over, it was time to head home… but not to bed… 🧂🧂🧂

Monty made his way through the kingdom and finally returned home just a few minutes before I planned to finish for the night. I saw that the bookshelves were brimming with new material but I didn’t want to get sucked into those right now, since it was getting pretty late. I decided to move the moon and mushroom paintings down into the bedroom burrow (since they feel like nice nighttime pictures) and rearranged the various gemstones into a pentacle in the space they’d freed up. Just feels like the right shape to display crystals in – there’s something mystical about it.

Only two more things to do; I wanted Monty to head to the bedroom burrow for a little more digging, but first…

🎵—– 🎵—– 🎵—–

🎵—– 🎵—– 🎵—–

🎵-🎵-🎵-🎵-🎵-🎵

Will you ever get any better? 😅

Continue reading: Day 15