Prayer for the minors

I like games with save titles. I can just sample them.

The pope was a waste of time, so let's follow up with Septimus. It's mostly just the obvious stuff: Alundra can enter peoples' dreams. This is good because a number of people in the village are in a constant state of nightmaring. So much, in fact, it's what drew Septimus to Iona. He wanted to cure everyone, but his knowledge has ended at where we currently are. This was a fruitful conversation, but it's time to leave. As we do, though, an earthquake shakes the town. Sep notices that something happened at the nearby coal mine.

The only person who survived the quake is Olen, who's recuperating at the mayor's house. I investigated the mine, but nothing much was there. Instead, head to Olen. Before he collapsed, he muttered about the monkeys and blamed them for the quake. They invaded the mines and caused the caves to become unstable. For some reason, no one believes him. Septimus suggests we enter Olen's dream. I suppose it was worthwhile because we're taught the lever code to turn the power on. Which makes me realize that there must be electricity in this world. Why else are they digging coal? We see the final peaceful moments of the miners' life, but it's done in a way that seems we were genuinely there. It is confirmed that Olen was correct. Sadly, his body cannot survive any longer. We leave the building and see a love interest silently mourn his passing. Her brother is afraid to tell her the truth, but I think she understands.

We head back home and see Jess working on a bomb. The tragedy has spurred Jess to work again, and he wants to get back to helping people. I wish he'd make me a better sword, but this explosive device works. He goes to scout the mine to see if the bomb will work, but he doesn't want us to do anything. We ignore that, take the bomb, and blow our way into the coal mine.

The path to the engine is locked, so follow the only path you can. This was a painfully long dungeon, and I started getting frustrated. It's simple early on, so quickly find Lyman. Use the infinite bombs to destroy the turtles and keep heading down. Lyman's being attacked by monkeys in a basement, but we chase them off. Sadly, we arrived too late. His dying act is to give us the key to the engine. Turn on the power using the code the foreman taught us in Olen's dream. This allows us to use the carts and reach deeper in. Jump on, and the cart will blow through the rocks in our path. And this is when I first got stuck.

Head through the left door first and climb up. Rocks will fall to block our path, but they'll also blow up the wall across from us. Go back and through the right door to find a dumb maze. More rocks fall as we traverse, but I couldn't find a good way to get through unscathed. In the back are very hard to see stairs that lead us up. They're nearly impossible to see, which is why I got stuck. Jump across the gaps and use the lever. This opens the path south from where our mine cart is. Use the new lever there to reach another new level. There's yet another switch to hit, which opens a door to the right. I got lost there, too. In that room, we'll need to jump across the poles to find the dead minor and take his key. This key opens the new area we should go to.

Return to the start, flip the switch in the second room, and take the cart there. The purple glyph will take you to a save room, which also fan restore HP. This area will have us pushing filled minecarts to use them to reach higher areas. There's another switch in the lower left that drops a block next to us. Jump towards that block to reach another new room. There's a switch here to open the way for another minecart ride.

There are a few jumps that are pretty hard here, which is why I got lost again. I didn't think I could make them. There's also a missable golden beak here. The rest of the path is obvious, so let's skip to the end.

We'll see monkeys being scolded but their leader, Zazan. Zazan is a giant, naked gorilla who speaks English. I really hope that's his tail there... He wants everyone to find seven sigils as ordered by Malzas. But they've only found two! He pirouettes out, and we kill the four remaining. We get a heart piece for doing so! Follow the paths south, chasing monkeys, until you climb a massive tower that overlooks Yggdrasil, where the monkeys live. We can go no further, so go back home. We'll see a few people on our way, but a woman is waiting for ha outside Jess'. She won't let us save until we talk to Sybil.

Sybil shows us a waking nightmare she has. Kline is hunting a monster through the town. We can't see it, but we can hear it. Suddenly, he turns into a werewolf.
The second dream consists of the monkeys and Zazan dancing with Meltas behind them.
There's a third, but I don't remember it.

Jess tells us that this area used to believe in household gods, but the lord stopped that. Then his castle sank into the lake. Now, though, he asks us to place flowers at Olen's grave. But we can save now, so I'll do that. We'll attend a funeral...

... tomorrow!

I could only open one blocked path with the bombs, so that's disappointing. Can you see that I didn't enjoy this dungeon?