W.T.F. Japan: Top 5 hand gestures that Japanese people don ...

Contents:

• Roadmap
• Recommended Key Spending
• List of Bonus Bosses
• Links to Summon Recommendation Guides
• Miscellaneous Notes

Greetings from the Church of Isuka! It's feels like forever since I've put one of these out. Unfortunately I had to remove the TL;DR chart due to hitting the 40k character limit so I replaced it with a summary for recommended Green/Red key spending instead. Compared to the last version, I've also added in Lost Tome, Sword and Wings, Jade's 5 star quest, P5R2, "Tales of," and GoT Part 3. There's been a lot added and it's definitely possible I may have overlooked something so let me know if you notice anything incorrect/missing or if you feel some things should be moved around.
The ^Hopefully Most Efficient Method for "Finishing" the Game:
※ Important Note: Aside from the Two Knights and Azure Rebel side episodes, everything else that is not part of the Main Story is optional. This means that if you do not want to fish, mine, or do Otherlands, etc., you are free to ignore those parts of this roadmap.

1. Start the game
   
   1. As soon as you have control, open up the Menu, go to Other, and Activate ID Transfer. Screenshot your Transfer ID and password and then e-mail the image to yourself. This way you can recover your account in case of catastrophic failure. The Transfer ID is permanent and reusable.
   2. For the tutorial summon, I recommended choosing Bivette as your character. Other popular options include Miyu and Ciel. All three have 5 star potential and can unlock bonus content specific to them, but Bivette has the most use in combat.
2. Complete the Main Story up to Chapter 2
   
   1. If you haven't created a Transfer ID yet, go do it NOW. Linking to Facebook doesn't count. Linking to Google Play doesn't count. You are still at risk of losing your account if you need to reinstall.
   2. Get your daily Chronos Stones. Remember to do these every day for a minimum of 50 extra Chronos Stones.
      1. Open up the Menu, go to Inbox, and grab your 20 Chronos Stones.
      2. Open up the Menu, click the '+' at the top of the screen next to your Chronos Stones and watch an advertisement for 10 Chronos Stones from the shop.
      3. The first time you log into the game after 1500 UTC, you will have the opportunity to watch a single ad for 20 Chronos Stones.
      4. Open up the Menu and click the icon at the top left for the opportunity to watch 5 more advertisements for additional rewards.
   3. Open up the Menu, go to Records, go to Symphony, and begin the prologue for the Persona 5 Royal (P5R) Collab: Bound Wills and the Hollow Puppeteer.
   4. Open up the Menu, go to Records, go to Symphony, and begin the prologue for the "Tales of" Series Collab, Tails of Time and the Brave Four: Tales of Chronographia (Cress Series).
3. Complete the Main Story up to Chapter 3. Go to Symphony from the menu to begin the prologue for Tales of Chronographia (Velvet Series).
   
4. Complete the Main Story up to Chapter 4 which should unlock the orange icon side quests. I recommend doing all the side quests in an area for the Chronos Stones before continuing on. In addition, finish any blue icon character quests available to get Chronos Stones (and later unlock more powerful abilities on the Skill Board).
   
5. Complete the Main Story up to Chapter 8. At this point you should have enough Chronos Stones for your first 10-pull. Pull on whichever banner you want. Your main goal is simply to get enough useful characters to form a 6-man team.
   
6. Complete the Main Story up to Chapter 9. Go to Symphony from the menu to begin the prologue for Tales of Chronographia (Milla Series).
   
7. Complete the Main Story up to Chapter 11 (characters should be around level 20)
   
   1. Upon finishing Chapter 10, you should have gotten a Holy Prayer Spirit. To spend it, go to Menu, go to Dreams, and go to the Regular tab. You will have a choice of four 4 star healers. I would rank them as Erina > Krervo = Prai > Pom. If you already have a 5 star healer, then this choice isn't a big deal.
   2. Go to Acteul near the Man-Eating Marsh. Begin the 1000 Year Ark to unlock fishing and begin to slowly fish pools at your level (If you're trying to fight a turtle, you've gone too far). Ponds refresh every half hour.
   3. Begin spending your Green Keys on Hard Another Dungeons in the Blue Door (H-AD).
      1. Doing main story dungeons (such as H-Moonlight Forest, H-Industrial Ruins, H-Nadara Volacano, etc.) will get you EXP, materials for equipment, tomes and scripts for upgrading certain characters from 3 stars to 4 stars, and a 10% chance at light/shadow in specific dungeons for specific story characters.
      2. Doing the H-Sealed Realm: Transitory Time Space (commonly called the EXP dungeon, found by tapping the purple icon to the top right) gives you about 1 million EXP, EXP badges, and EXP scrolls. However, you will not get any materials, tomes, scripts, or light/shadow.
   4. If you get a White Key at the end of a dungeon, it unlocks the White Gate (Phantom Crystal Dimension). Go run it immediately because you can only have one White Key at a time. It will give you git and character upgrade materials as well as unlock the Paw Stamp Album. Once you have the Paw Stamp Album, make sure to talk to any cat you come across inside the PCD.
   5. Begin fighting Uquaji (found at the far left door next to the fishing spot in the Spacetime Rift). He comes back every 24 hours with a few more levels.
   6. Begin filling out your Cat Catalog (obtained after returning to the Moonlight Forest).
   7. Return to the Mayor's House in Baruoki to do his tutorial missions. Completing the tutorials will reward you with +EXP badges up to +30%.
8. Complete the Main Story up to Chapter 13 (characters should be around level 32)
   
   1. If you've completed the P5R prologue from Step 2, go to the Baruoki Tavern to start the P5R Collab event. Complete the entire Collab to get 5 star Joker and 5 star Morgana. Make sure to get all the badges from the dungeon (including a +20% EXP badge!) as well as their level 60 personal weapons.
   2. Go to Unigan near the gate to the Karek Swampland. Complete the Two Knights side episode until VH-Miglance Labyrinth (Unigan) is unlocked. Begin spending your Red Keys here to start getting the rewards. Completing this side episode is required to continue the main story past Chapter 26.
   3. Go to Symphony from the menu to begin the prologue for Tales of Chronographia (Yuri Series).
   4. If you've completed all the "Tales of" prologues, go to the front of the Unigan Tavern to start the "Tales of" Collab event. Complete the entire Collab to get 4 Cress, Velvet, Milla, and Yuri. You can get their personal weapons and 5 star tome by going to the Citadel of Time Ruins and selecting the respective trial (see here).
   5. If you have Miyu, begin Other Story: Little Princess' Little Big Adventure in Miglance Palace. Just go as far as you can and if you find yourself underleveled, put it on hold and come back later.
   6. Keep fishing.
   7. Ignore the Lost Tome side episode for now.
9. Continue the Main Story
   
   1. Once you hit level 40, go to Elzion Theta District. Complete IDA Part 1 until VH-Saki's Dream World is unlocked. Stop spending your Red Keys on Two Knights and begin spending your Red Keys here instead to start getting the rewards. Make sure to also do all the bonus activities related to IDA Part 1 (see here).
   2. Farm the two overworld Horrors in Miglance Labyrinth every 6 hours to finish off Two Knights and get all the rewards. They are located down the well next to the Unigan Tavern on floors 2 and 5.
   3. After completing IDA Part 1, complete the 1000 Year Ark until VH-Dragon Palace is unlocked. Begin spending your Red Keys here to start getting the rewards. Don't forget to check the sparkles hidden throughout the VH dungeon for black pearls. The number of stacked turtles at the start of the dungeon will let you know how many there are. Make sure to also do all the bonus activities related to the 1000 Year Ark (see here).
   4. Begin challenging Azami and Cerrine. They start at level 40 and respawn with 10 additional levels up to a maximum level of 80. Azami can be found in the Serena Coast. Cerrine can initally be found on the 2nd Floor of IDA School H Block after you complete IDA Part 1, but will move to the 3rd Floor Classroom for the 2nd-4th fights and the Sky Terrace for the 5th fight. Defeating them will recruit them to your roster.
   5. Did you remember to keep fishing?
10. Complete the Main Story up to Chapter 16. Begin challenging the Flame Eater (Gariyu). It starts at level 40 and respawns with 10 additional levels. It can initially be found in the Zol Planes but will move to a different location every time it respawns. You can find the locations here. Defeating it will allow you to fight Gariyu to recruit him to your roster.
    
11. Complete the Main Story up to Chapter 18. If you have Ciel, begin Other Story: Foreign Skies and the Ship to Freedom in Elzion Gamma District. Just go as far as you can and if you find yourself underleveled, put it on hold and come back later.
    
12. Complete the Main Story up to Chapter 21 (characters should be around level 45)
    
    1. Visit the various locations offered on the Riftbreaker's main deck to unlock access to Nilva and Rucyana Sands (which leads to Zarbo). In Zarbo, go into the rightmost house on the center lane and tap the straw dummy (it does not have an exclamation mark) to gain access to Sarupa and Charol Plains.
    2. Go inside the Mayor's House in Baruoki. Begin the P5R Part 2 Collab: Bound Wills and the Hollow Puppeteer: Promises, Vows, and Rings. Complete the entire Collab to get 5 star Violet.
    3. Begin the Time Mine side episode. You'll want to stop by here every half hour or so when the sparkles respawn.
    4. Go to Elzion Gamma District. Begin the Lost Tome side episode to unlock the Treasure Quests. Continue to work through this episode as your level allows.
    5. Go do the hidden quest chain for the Adamantine Weapon. You can get only get two weapons, one now and one later, and your decision is permanent so choose carefully. Commonly recommended options are Sword, Katana, and Lance.
    6. You may consider using your Green Keys in H-Tower of Stars to farm materials needed for level 52 and 60 equipment to complete your collection catalogue. Otherwise, use them to farm points for side episodes (other than the 1000 Year Ark) or to farm EXP in the Transitory Time Space.
    7. Are you still fishing?
13. Complete the Main Story up to Chapter 22
    
    1. Go to the Unigan inn. Begin the First Knight and the Holy Sword side episode (requires completion of Two Knights). Completing this side episode gets you a free 5 star character, Deirdre. Make sure to also do all the bonus activities related to the First Knight (see here) which can reward you with things like VC grasta, armor, and a second Adamantine Weapon.
14. Finish the Main Story (characters should be around level 55)
    
    1. Go to Unigan near the gate to the Serena Coast and unlock the Royal Theater. You can cast your characters in different roles of a play and you are awarded chronos stones the first time you get a Disappointing, Excellent, or MAX review for each play.
    2. Go to Baruoki in the Mayor's House and do the two part quest chain beginning with To You of Days Long Past to get the ULTIMANIA Hammer. It can be upgraded through fighting specific enemies so keep an eye out for them as you continue to play.
    3. Go to Derismo Highroad just outside Palsifal Palace. Begin the Sword and Wing Mythos. Complete Chapter 2 to get 4 star Clarte. Complete Chapter 3 to craft Anti-lightning Armor which give +10 SPD.
    4. Go to Baruoki in the Mayor's House and do the quest for The Cat's Tale Beyond It's Territory. This will let you explore new locations as Varuo. You can get grasta and cat equipment this way.
    5. After doing Step 3 above, go start the Cat Battles. Your goal is to finish the quest "Dance the Paw-Rondo!" located in a hidden extended area east of Last Island. If you have Bivette, come back after finishing the quest to unlock a second quest and additional Cat Battles. Finishing the second quest will unlock Bivette's 5 star potential and leveling cat!Bivette to level 40 will give you enough Flame Witch Psalms to upgrade Bivette to 5 stars.
    6. If you have not gotten all the rewards from the Two Knights, IDA Part 1, P5R Part 2, or "Tales of" side episodes/collabs, use your Green Keys to finish collecting points.
    7. If you do not have any points to farm, use your Green Keys to farm H-Ruins of Rucyana for levels, EXP scrolls, git, and scripts.
    8. Begin spending your Red Keys to farm VH-Moonlight Forest, Industrial Ruins, and Nadara Volcano for levels, materials, tomes, scripts, and (if you're doing VH-Industrial Ruins) light for Amy. You also want to try and get the Sun Tome, Empress Tome, and Flame Lord Tome from these VH dungeons respectively.
    9. You will also unlock the VH-Sealed Realm: Transitory Time Space and Ephemeral Time Space. Doing VH-Transitory Time Space gives you about 1.7 million EXP, EXP badges, EXP scrolls, and a chance at treatises. Doing VH-Ephemeral Time Space gives you about 800k git, Git Badges, Gold Lumps, and a chance at treatises (it is recommended to wait until after Chapter 51 when you gain access to Gold Weapons). However, neither of these dungeons will give you any materials, tomes, scripts, or light/shadow.
    10. You will begin earning Tsubura's Gems for completing VH dungeons. You might want to consider saving 400 of these in case you need to buy treatises for an Another Style sidegrade. Any extras are best used to buy Red Keys to run additional VH dungeons. On average, this is superior to buying Chant Scripts with them. It is NOT recommended to use these for buying psalms to upgrade your story characters. You can earn up to 120 Tsubura's Gems a week.
    11. Finish challenging Azami and upgrade her to 5 stars.
    12. Finish challenging Cerrine and upgrade her to 5 stars.
    13. Finish challenging Flame EateGariyu and then upgrade him to 5 stars.
    14. Begin to fight the original bonus bosses for the achievements/Chronos Stones (Goblin King, Red Dawn, True Chronos Menas, Imbrium Basin, Level 90 Flame Eater). Note that Red Dawn and Imbrium Basin are part of the ULTIMANIA Hammer upgrade quest so you might want to hold off on killing them until you reach that point.
    15. Once you reach around level 60, if you have any characters that are capable of getting a Manifestation Weapon, go do the initial battle in the Spacetime Rift located in the room furthest in the back. Once you get the weapon, keep it equipped on anyone in your currently active party so it gains EXP up to level 10. The fastest way to level them is through the Sealed Realm: Transitory Time Space AD. The current list of characters able to get a Manifestation Weapon are: Anabel, Azami, Bertrand, Cerrine, Cetie, Claude, Deirdre, Dewey, Elga, Ewan, Felmina, Gariyu, Isuka, Laclair, Lokido, Mariel, Melina, Mighty, Mighty AS, Myrus, Nagi, Renri, Shanie, Shion, Shion AS, Suzette, Suzette AS, Toova, Tsukiha, and Yuna.
    16. The fish ponds miss you. T_T
15. Begin Ogre Wars, Part 1 (requires completion of Two Knights) (characters should be level 60+)
    
    1. Once you get to Konium, talk to the trader in the tavern. Collect all the Cruel Angel's gear and begin upgrading the Staff and Necklace. You can find a map for all of the special materials here.
    2. Go to the Elzion Cargo Station. Complete IDA Part 2 (requires completion of IDA Part 1) until H-Mayu's Dream World is unlocked. Begin spending your Green Keys here to get all the rewards. Make sure to do all the bonus activities related to IDA Part 2 (see here).
    3. Go to the Charol Plains towards the north end of the map. Complete the Celestial Tower until H-Dogma Tower is unlocked. Begin spending your Green Keys here to get all the rewards. This side episode has extremely high requirements for the final rewards so feel free to take your time once you've finished the side episode.
    4. Finish off Other Story: Little Princess' Little Big Adventure. You can run VH-Forest of Forgetfulness (Miglance Palace) to farm Princess Psalms to upgrade Miyu to 5 stars but it is NOT recommended since she is underwhelming as a character.
    5. Finish off Other Story: Foreign Skies and the Ship to Freedom. You can run VH-Hanging Garden (Garden Island) to farm Melodist Psalms to upgrade Ciel to 5 stars but it is NOT recommended since he is underwhelming as a character.
    6. Finish the Lost Tome side episode if you have not done so already to get Sophia to 5 stars.
    7. You have new fishing pools in the Ancient Battlefield and Snake Neck Igoma so take advantage of them.
16. Finish Ogre Wars, Part 1
    
    1. You may consider spending just enough Green and Red Keys to run H- and VH-Snake Liver Damaku in order to finish upgrading the Cruel Angel's Necklace to +10. Note that a fully upgraded necklace will grant +20 SPD while doing the Sword and Wing Mythos will allow you to craft a comparable +10 SPD necklace without needing to use Green and Red Keys.
    2. You should be able to start challenging the trials inside Mementos AD. Finish all 10 trials to get 5 star Skull. Finishing the trials will also give you Violet's and Skull's personal weapons and VC grasta.
    3. Work toward getting Aldo to 5 stars as you will be forced to use him in a later chapter.
    4. Just keep fishing.
17. Begin Ogre Wars, Part 2
    
    1. Once you get to the Haunted Cheateau and Toto Dreamland, collect all the Toto's gear and begin upgrading the Ring. If you use Renri, upgrade the Ax. If you use a bow-based support (e.g. Ciel), upgrade the Bow. If you use a hammer-based healer, upgrade the Hammer. If you use a spear-based tank, upgrade the Spear. You can find a map for the locations of the Toto marks to get the weapons here. You can find a map for the locations of the armor here.
    2. Work toward getting Amy to 5 stars as you will be forced to use her in a later chapter.
    3. Just keep fishing.
18. Finish Ogre Wars, Part 2
    
    1. Go to Ratle to unlock the jump rope minigame in Konium and Baruoki.
    2. Hopefully you've finished the Time Mine side episode and collected all the rewards. If not, keep working at it.
    3. Go to the Riftbreaker's main deck. Complete the Azure Rebel side episode until H-Former KMS HQ is unlocked. Begin spending your Green Keys here to get all the rewards. Completing this side episode is required to continue the main story past Chapter 44.
    4. Go to IDA School H Block outside the IDEA Operations Room. Complete IDA Part 3 (requires completion of IDA Part 2). No keys are required. Finishing this episode rewards you with a an extremely powerful yet free level 60 5 star character, Mana. After finishing this side episode, take your time grinding out the rest of your friendship points in Lord of Mana to collect all the rewards.
    5. Go to Rinde and begin Devilishness Revived (requires completion of Celestial Tower). This event consists of a series of battles that spawn in a different location each time. Do this 5 times to unlock Cyrus's 5 star potential. Feel free to move on and come back later if the fights are too difficult.
    6. Begin Rebirth of the Beast King. This event consists of a series of battles in different locations. The first 4 battles can be done in any order but they must all be cleared to gain access to the 5th battle. After the 5th battle, you unlock Guildna's 5 star potential. Feel free to move on and come back later if the fights are too difficult.
    7. Begin IDA Part 2: After Incidents in the Elzion Cargo Station (requires completion of IDA Part 2). This event consists of a series of battles that spawn in a different location each time. Do this 5 times to get AS Saki. Feel free to move on and come back later if the fights are too difficult.
    8. Begin One Other Ordeal in the Elzion Theta District (requires completion of the Azure Rebel). This event consists of a series of battles in different locations. The first 3 battles can be done in any order but they must all be cleared to gain access to the 4th battle. After the 5th battle, you unlock Riica's 5 star potential and personal weapon. Feel free to move on and come back later if the fights are too difficult.
    9. Begin Jewel in Shade by the front desk of IDA School H Block (requires completion of IDA 2 and the Lost Tome side episodes). This event consists of a series of battles in different locations. The first 3 battles can be done in any order but they must all be cleared to gain access to the 4th battle. After the 5th battle, you unlock Jade's 5 star potential. Feel free to move on and come back later if the fights are too difficult. After promoting him to 5 stars, make sure to go to the IDA School H Block - Sky Terrace to get his personal VC grasta as well.
    10. Go do the hidden quest chain to upgrade your Adamantine Weapon. You can only get one type of upgrade and your decision is permanent so choose carefully.
    11. Go to Unigan and begin the AS Gariyu questline (requires completion of all three of his character quests as well). This event consists of a series of battles. Do this 5 times to get AS Gariyu. Feel free to move on and come back later if the fights are too difficult.
    12. Just keep fishing, fishing, fishing...
19. Begin Tales from the East: Return of the Goddess of Time, Part 1
    
    1. Go to the Izana Tavern and start investigating the rumors. It takes the guy 30 minutes to finish investigating each rumor.
    2. You will be able to begin farming grasta. For more information, check out this post. (Guide courtesy of u/Typical-Cookie)
    3. Go to Nagsham and participate in the minigames to farm Silver and Gold tokens. Silver Tokens can be traded for souvenirs. Collecting all the souvenirs will only reward 5 Chronos Stones so it's not quite worth the time investment. Gold Tokens can be traded for Gold Weapons that boost the amount of gold earned in battle. It's best to equip these weapons before entering the Ruins of Rucyana or the Ephemeral Time Space.
    4. What do we do? We fish, fish, fish... (There aren't any new fishing locations so just keep fishing the old ones).
20. Finish Goddess of Time, Part 1
    
    1. Begin to equip your main units with Cherry Blossom weapons and Discipline/Tempered armor (crafted from materials that come from the new zones in Garulea) and then start upgrading them. For weapons, the Staff, Sword, Bow, Fists, and Hammer are all worth upgrading. The armors increase max HP/MP. Note that there is only one Master of the Attic (Horror), which means you can only get 1 Steel Mouse Skin every 6 hours.
    2. Use your Green Keys to farm Present Garulea Continent AD (PGAD) for high level grasta. Even if your light/shadow level is low, you can still collect Junk/Paint Materials/Cat Emas inside the dungeon to trade for rewards. Make sure to bring Azami so she can gain light. Your goal is to collect all the T3 grasta from trading Junk at Nagsham and Cat Emas at the start. In addition, buy any Power of Nothingness grasta that you find at Nagsham.
    3. With Present Garulea Continent AD unlocked, you should also start buying Green Keys with Tsubura's Gems from the Nopaew Emporium.
    4. Farm any remaining Psalms needed to upgrade your story characters. This should be done together with VC grasta farming for your other characters. Aldo and Amy should be your priorities to upgrade to 5 stars. Guildna is also a very good option. Riica, Cyrus, and Helena are low priority.
    5. Oh ho ho! How I love to fish! (I'll stop the Finding Nemo reference now...)
21. Begin Goddess of Time, Part 2
    
    1. Make sure to do all of the sidequests as you progress the story. One of them in Chapter 61 will give you a Jadeite of Attack plus a Power of Agony (Lance) grasta.
    2. After Chapter 55, you will gain the ability to create VC grasta from your unused 5 star upgrade tomes at the present time Cat Shrine.
    3. After Chapter 58, you will gain Strawboy. If you level him up to at least level 60, you can return to Zami to reincarnate him. Each reincarnation increases his starting level by 1 (up to a maximum of starting level of 60). Each reincarnation at level 80 will also increase his light value by 1.
    4. After Chapter 60, you will gain the ability to create True VC grasta at the future Cat Shrine. To unlock this ability, you will need to complete a short quest requiring the collection of 88 charms. A map of the charm locations can be found on the wiki here.
22. Finish Goddess of Time, Part 2
    
    1. Once you finish collecting all the limited grasta from Present Garulea Continent AD, switch over to farming Antiquity Garulea Continent AD (AGAD) instead. Make sure to bring Gariyu (NS or AS) so he can gain shadow. Your goal is to collect all the T3 grasta from trading Femurs at Zami and Dogus at the start. In addition, buy any Power of Poison or Power of Pain grasta that you find at Zami.
    2. Begin to craft Dragon Bone weapons and Active/Silence armor (crafted from materials that come from the new zones in Garulea) and then start upgrading them. For weapons, the Ax and Bow are worth upgrading. The armors increase HP/MP regen while in reserves and have the same stats as the Discipline/Tempered Armor.
23. Begin Goddess of Time, Part 3
    
    1. After Chapter 70, you will gain the ability to upgrade your grasta at Nekomasa's House in Itoise.
    2. Continue to upgrade the Icicle Bow using Auretium. Upgrading the bow will allow you to break through additional seals scattered around Kunlun Mountains and Demon Sea Caverns.
24. Finish Goddess of Time, Part 3
    
    1. Once you finish collecting all the limited grasta from Antiquity Garulea Continent AD, switch over to farming Future Garulea Continent AD (FGAD) instead. Make sure to bring Cerrine so she can gain light. Your goal is to collect all 3 unique armors from the vendor at Angal and all 4 unique (seafood) weapons from the vendor at Eeza. Then continue to farm for grasta upgrade materials.
    2. Finish collecting the other 4 seafood weapons scattered around the new areas.
    3. Begin to craft Crafted weapons and Might armor (crafted from materials that come from the new zones in Garulea) and then start upgrading them. For weapons, the Fist is worth upgrading. The Lance is good for Tiramisu and the Staff is good for anyone in the same party as AS Rosetta. The armors increase damage by +15% when at Max HP.
25. Endgame stuff (in no particular order)
    
    1. Use your Red Keys to finishing collecting all the rewards from the side episodes/collabs. Afterward, use your Red Keys to farm for story character light/shadow to reach the AD reward thresholds (Ruins of Rucyana: 96, VH-AD: 120, Otherlands: 180, Garulea AD: 240 and 360).
    2. While you can try to farm for VH-Otherlands weapons, farming the Garulea Continent ADs provide an easier and faster power boost for the same number of Green Keys. If you still want to farm VH-Otherlands, your choices are: Baruoki, Ratle, and Elzion. Which one you do depends on what weapons you want and what team composition you have. While difficulty is subjective, I'd rate them Baruoki > Elzion = Ratle (from hardest to easiest). Note that there are other weapons with similar (but slightly weaker) effects for far less grind.
    3. If you have finished leveling your Manifestation Weapons to level 10, go back and do the second fight to finish powering them up. This fight will be much more difficult!
    4. Go to Konium and talk to the elder to refight the armors from Rebirth of the Beast King to upgrade the Sword of Despair.
    5. Go to Purgatory and refight the Elementals 3 times each to upgrade the elemental weapons.
    6. Finish fishing by catching all the Lake Horrors and then go fight Leviathan.
    7. Finish 1000 Another Dungeons to fight the Nameless Girl.
    8. You didn't forget about Uquaji, did you?
    9. Fight the Present Garulea Eight Demons from the rumors to get their weapons. (Guide courtesy of u/Living_Green)
    10. Fight the Antiquity Garulea Eight Demons after solving their riddles to get their weapons. (Guide courtesy of u/EdenBoy03)
    11. Fight the Velvet Twins, Justine and Caroline, in Lucniva. For every 25% of their HP you take off for the first time, you will get rewards. For example, the first time you bring them down to 75% HP you will get Joker's and Morgana's personal VC grasta.
    12. Fight each of the True Spirits individually (Rogi, Fornjot, Aegir, and Kari). Each spirit you defeat will give you the personal VC grasta for the respective "Tales of" character (Cress, Velvet, Milla, and Yuri).
    13. Fight the remaining superbosses: Insula Ventorum, Mimi, Rotte Rivel, Zennon Shadow, Melvillithan, Regenwurm, Terra Nivium, Ice Jailer, Kudang, and the Baruoki Mayor. Note that Insula Ventorum is part of the ULTIMANIA Hammer upgrade quest so you might want to hold off on killing it until you reach that point. Farming Rotte Rivel and Regenwurm is the most efficient way to get everything from the Cat Road vendors in Moonlight Forest and Sarupa respectively.
    14. Finish all your collection achievements (including the armors from H-Otherlands).
    15. Finish leveling and upgrading all your characters.
    16. Find all 108 cats and level them all to level 50 through cat battles. Don't forget to go back to the Spurr-ace Colony to fight the Four Heavenly Kitties.
    17. Reincarnate your Strawboy all the way to 255 light.
    18. Buy out the entire Auction House including all 3 of Sophia's VC grasta.
    19. Go back and finish getting max friend points for every companion in Lord of Mana, even if you've already gotten the final chant script, for bragging rights.
    20. Fully upgrade your fishing gear and catch 150 of every single fish including the Lake Lords and Rinde Sunfish.
26. Mourn the loss of your social life as you wait for the next patch to drop.
    
27. Go get yourself a VTuber avatar and stream yourself replaying the game from the beginning with story characters only
    

※ Important Note: Aside from the Two Knights and Azure Rebel side episodes, everything else that is not part of the Main Story is optional. This means that if you do not want to fish, mine, or do Otherlands, etc., you are free to ignore those parts of this roadmap.
Recommended Key Spending

• Finish Chapter 11
  • Use green keys on storyline ADs or the EXP AD
  • No place to spend red keys
• Finish Chapter 13
  • Use green keys on storyline H-ADs, the EXP H-AD, or side episode/collab H-ADs (except for 1000 Year Ark and First Knight)
  • Use red keys on side episode VH-ADs (especially 1000 Year Ark and First Knight)
• Finish Chapter 25
  • Use green keys on side episode/collab H-ADs or Ruins of Rucyana
  • Use red keys on storyline VH-ADs
• Finish Chapter 55
  • Use green keys on PGAD
  • Use red keys on side episode/collab VH-ADs or storyline VH-ADs
• Finish Chapter 66
  • Use green keys on AGAD (if PGAD is fully cleared)
  • Use red keys on side episode/collab VH-ADs or storyline VH-ADs
• Finish Chapter 74
  • Use green keys on FGAD (if AGAD is fully cleared)
  • Use red keys on side episode/collab VH-ADs or storyline VH-ADs

List of Bonus Bosses:

• 1.0 Bosses
  
  • Goblin King (Moonlight Forest, deepest area, requires Goblin Loincloth)
  • Red Dawn (Zol Plains, northeast corner)
  • Imbrium Basin (Last Island, northwest corner)
  • True Chronos Menas (Records Room Chronos Umbra, Elzion Pathway boss room)
  • Flame Eater (Corinda Plains, up the southwest vine, requires recruitment of Gariyu)
  • Leviathan (Ocean Palace, requires completion of Ocean Palace and victory over all Lake Lords)
  • Nameless Girl (Spacetime Rift, requires completion of 1000 Another Dungeons)
  • Uquaji (Spacetime Rift, westernmost door)
• 1.5 Bosses
  
  • Insula Ventorum (Hidden passage behind Macminal Museum, requires key from final room in the museum)
  • Mimi (Toto Dreamland)
  • Zennon Shadow (Records Room Ogres Spike, boss room)
  • Melvillithan (Ogres Spike, east of Dominion Spire, requires Resonance Box)
  • The full power 4 Elementals in Purgatory without using the items (there are no actual rewards but they're still a fun challenge)
• 2.0 Bosses
  
  • Rotte Rivel (Moonlight Forest, extended area east of the healing point, requires travelling there first as Varuo)
  • Regenwurm (Cat Road, extended area in the northeast corner of Sarupa, requires travelling there first as Varuo)
  • 8 Demons (Present Garulea, all over the place, requires talking to rumor monger at Izana tavern first)
  • 8 Demons (Antiquity Garulea, all over the place, requires talking to man in Gadaro first)
  • Terra Nivium (Sky Fortress Eeza down the elevator, requires code from KMS)
  • Baruoki Mayor (Baruoki, complete all the tutorial missions given by the mayor and find the cane in Moonlight Forest)
  • Celestial Mushroom (Rippling Forest, hidden area immediately east of the exit of the northern most map)
  • Berserk Tempered Hound (Parallel Unigan Underground Path)
• 2.5 Bosses
  
  • Justine and Caroline (Lucniva, glowing flowers at the very top)
  • True Spirits (Citadel of Time Ruins, basement after finishing all 4 trials)
  • Ice Jailer (Kunlun Mountains, unlocked with a level 5 Icicle Bow)
  • Kudang (Land of Ro: Dungeon Ruins, in the back of Level 5)

F2P Summoning Guides:

• Guide by u/TheMike0088 up through 2.7.70

Miscellaneous Notes:

• Go set up your Transfer ID right now if you haven't already. You have been warned!
• Use your food! You can always get new food by resting at an inn.
• Only use your chronos stones on pulls! If you die in battle, you can force close the game and reload before the battle as long as you don't go past the defeat screen.
• Gear isn't an exceptionally big deal before endgame. Just wear what you can get. If you're running Another Dungeons, you should be getting a decent amount of materials. Also, look into getting the treasure chests hidden behind Horrors to lessen the amount of materials you need to grind. Once you get past Chapter 26, the Cruel Angel's and Toto's gear should last you until the Eastern continent.
• These are the best dungeons for battle EXP aside from the EXP dungeon:

Dungeon	Total EXP	EXP w/o Horrors
VH-Snake Liver Damaku	662094	558318
VH-Riftbreaker	641835	540567
VH-Toto Dreamland	634225.5	525421.5
VH-Beast King's Castle	611173.5	507397.5
VH-Miglance Castle	609550	513310

Additional useful links if you need more details on anything mentioned above:

• The Megathread of Megathreads
• The AE Wiki
• Altema (Use Google Translate JP>EN)
• Global Notice API
• Japanese Notice API

Changelog:

• Added Lost Tome side episode
• Added Sword and Wings Mythos
• Added Jewel in Shade
• Added Persona 5 Royal Part 2
• Added "Tales of" Collab
• Added Goddess of Time Part 3
• Rearranged some stuff
• Removed TL;DR chart due to character limit
• Changed History to Previous Version due to character limit

Previous Version:

• v.2.3.100

Edit: Added additional info as suggested by u/Typical-Cookie and u/Oldnoob36

Two important notes before we start
-First of all, this involves SPOILERS for the ending of the manga Bleach. Do not read further if you wish to remain unspoiled (this is also double important due to the anime returning in 2021 to adapt the final chapters) -Second, you'll notice I put 'Part 2' in the title. Where is Part 1? Well, I was going to originally tell the story of the first HOAD in relation to Naruto's ending but doing a search in the subreddit to see if it had been posted before, it appears that story was summed up pretty well over here by coffee-mugger. Please read the section about the Shipping War of 2014 to understand that one. After some deliberation, I realized that thread covered the story more or less pretty well and decided it would be better to cover Bleach's since I couldn't find it. Okay, now that that's out of the way let's begin.
What is Bleach
Bleach is a very popular Japanese manga by Tite Kubo. The third of the fan-titled Big 3 of the magazine Shounen Jump, the other two being One Piece and Naruto. While not having the same level of sales of those two, Bleach was no slouch in popularity and sales overall during it's long run, leading to it having quite the large fandom. It's very likely you know of Bleach or at least Bleach in relation with the other two if you grew up in the 2000s
For those who don't know, Bleach tells the simple yet massive story of Ichigo Kurosaki, a human who can see spirits and ghosts. One fateful day, a "Shinigami" or Soul Reaper appears in his room named Rukia Kuchiki who explains she is there to hunt down a Hollow, basically corrupted Souls who feast on regular Souls. Through a series of twists and turns, Ichigo himself becomes a Soul Reaper by accidentally draining all of Rukia's power and becomes a "Substitute Shinigami" carrying out Rukia's duties in her place. Through these events Ichigo inadvertently gets a few friends involved, meets more people and from there on, the story goes from a simple "Ichigo fights Hollows" to a much wider scope story involving the various worlds of Souls. There's a lot of ups and downs in the story and generally opinions of how things turn out range across a wide spectrum
But enough of that, let's talk about shipping drama
The relevant parties
The setup here is pretty simple. Ichigo Kurosaki works with Rukia Kuchiki as teammates. One of Ichigo's school friends and another teammate, Orihime Inoue, is head-over-heels for him. On the other side, one of Rukia's fellow Soul Reapers and antagonist-turned-rival-turned-friend to Ichigo, Renji Abarai has feelings for Rukia who have known each other since childhood. Despite Bleach having probably less than 5% of its manga dedicated to any kind of romance at all, the popularity of the manga meant that there would of course be a shipping war. These would be divided into
-IchiRuki: The main one who preferred Ichigo and Rukia to be together -IchiHime: The second main one who preferred Ichigo and Orihime to be together -RenRuki: The third one who was smaller than the first two but no less passionate who preferred Renji and Rukia to be together
(personal bias, I was very much into Renji and Rukia being together due to their backstory and held onto that for years)
In a few ways I would say this ship war was worse than Naruto's as while that author actively stoked the flames of romance occasionally, Kubo seemed largely disinterested in developing romance outside of a couple key moments and scenes. This isn't really that weird as since Bleach is a shounen anime focused on battles, it's common for the author to care more about said battles and characters over romance and toss in the occasional shippy moment here and there. I need to clarify how little romance focus there was in the manga so you can properly understand how disproportionate the future events that will play out were compared to what actually happened in the story.
Ichigo and Rukia's relationship and speculations over the manga's run
Ichigo and Rukia had a very unique relationship in the sense that their interactions were basically completely platonic. The early part of the series had the two of them work together as partners and share comedic banter due to their opposite personalities. Despite this, Rukia did live in Ichigo's closet, the two did have a good bond and the second arc of the manga involved Ichigo and friends rescuing her from "Soul Society" where she was taken to be executed for giving Ichigo her powers. In this regard, it is not hard to see why so many people would go for IchiRuki as a main pairing as their interactions were positive and led fans to believe that one day Ichigo would realize that he loved Rukia all along or something. On top of this, Tite Kubo as an author very much liked to use symbolism to represent various things such as rain representing sadness and when Ichigo is sad, it literally rains in his actual soul. As another example, in my previous image of Ichigo I posted, the volume title is "The Death and the Strawberry". The "Death" meaning Rukia and the "Strawberry" meaning Ichigo as it relates to his hair. Point is with such abstract symbolism in various places across the manga, this meant that fans would see evidence for their pairing in practically any interaction or conversation or panel as far as they could stretch it and this led to MANY theories on how x character would end up with (or be involved in some way) with y character. These theories are what drove a lot of the war (because the manga wasn't giving it them directly). What also didn't help was that Ichigo looked identical to Rukia's former Captain, Kaien, and it was a little ambiguous whether she was in love with him but due to some unfortunate events he died so this led IchiRuki fans to believe Ichigo was a "fix" for this (there's other reasons too notably with Ichigo's ancestry but that would be too long)
There's other side things I could go on about too like how the anime clearly preferred Rukia or how Kubo made comments about the characters or the UlqHime ship (where main antagonist Ulquoirra was paired with Orhime even though he kidnaps her and clearly she doesn't show that kind of interest but it satisfied that bad boy/good girl aesthetic teenage girls tend to like and it took Orihime away from IchiRuki so it would get paired a lot) but this is getting long enough so let's get to the meat
The final chapter, chapter 686
Similar to its compatriot Naruto, Bleach's ending involves the final big bad guy being defeated and a long timeskip to show the characters as adults. Opinions of the manga at this point were very mixed as reactions to the final arc weren't 100% glowing due to story events. However, the fandom was on edge to see who would end up with who. Something to note also was that there was a lengthy hiatus between chapters 685 and 686 which led the fan speculation to go...a little nuts. Fake spoilers, fake summaries, fake doctored images were abound during this period and everybody could either take them at face value or wait until the proper details came in.
And so it was that fateful day, when the first images of chapter 686 leaked, this was the first one to be seen. It wasn't a clinch yet but it was a girl with dark hair, Renji's ponytail and was a Soul Reaper. It was starting to become clear who this was. As more spoilers and images came out, it was fully clear. Ichigo married Orihime and had a boy, Kazui and the girl from earlier was Rukia and Renji's child, Ichika
Enter: The Second Hall of Anal Devastation. A large collection, but merely a microcosm of the eventual fallout. Tumblr blogs, shipping forums and even 4chan's /a/ board were ablaze with rage, confusion and gloating winners of the shipping wars.
The insanity
Over the course of the next few days and weeks, there was nothing but noise from the Bleach fandom about this ending. People were happy, people were sad, people said goodbye, and people thought some story questions didn't get answered but above all else the shipping discussion took center stage. "How could Ichigo not end up with Rukia?", "Orihime is so annoying", "Who cares about Renji, how could that baboon end up with Rukia", "RUKIA DRIED ICHIGO'S RAIN, HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN", you get the general picture. And of course as things do, the drama went to Twitter, where fans unloaded on Tite Kubo for not letting their pairing happen. Some people burned their volumes in protest. It was a big mess for a while. What especially didn't help was that Kubo later supervised a light novel epilogue with details for Rukia and Renji's wedding which was good for expanding that sense of anger.
In the end
Bleach was in a unique situation compared to Naruto's HOAD. Whereas Naruto continued into Boruto in which people essentially had to really get over it, when Bleach's manga ended, that was it. There was no followup sequel manga, no continuation, the anime had been dropped years earlier (until very recently when it was announced it would come back to adapt the final chapters next year as I mentioned earlier) so there was nothing to distract this. It just ended and Kubo took a long break before moving on to his next manga. Because of this, the anger that jilted fans felt continued to fester for a very long time. Indeed, even on /a/, you'll still see threads today complaining about how Ichigo should have ended up with Rukia with multiple posts arguing about it, though it has settled at this point. That being said, with the anime returning next year, who knows how things will turn out when we get to the finale for a second time.

PART 2 PART 3 PART 4
Like any other person approaching thirty, I’d had my share of disillusionment about my career. Well, if you could call it a “career” – I’d been stuck in the same low-level marketing job for years and the closer I got to my thirtieth birthday, the more I felt like it was time for a change. But I never would have thought my next employer would be Hell.
The past three years of my life have been monotonous. Alarm rings at quarter past eight, sometimes it’s still dark out, sometimes not, depends on the season. I shower, stare at the grout between the tiles until I wake up, make my toast before my housemate comes downstairs and takes over the kitchen. I put three coats of mascara on, pick a jacket according to the forecast for the day, and walk half a kilometer to work in the foggy dawn.
Every morning went exactly like that, so much so that my state of autopilot seemed impenetrable. I doubt I would have noticed if aliens landed, I was so busy not-focusing with my hands stuffed into my coat pockets, looking forward to my second cup of tea which I always had at quarter past nine. But then, in late October a few days before my thirtieth birthday, something unusual happened that rocked my state of self-induced fugue.
It was 4:15 on a Friday, I was sitting at my desk as Rob, one of the accountants, passed me on his way to the canteen.
“Heya, Sarah,” he said cordially, clutching his empty mug and stack of photocopies almost defensively. “Any plans for the weekend?”
“Not really, no. There’s some gig on my boyfriend wants to go to but that’s it,” I said while still staring at my computer screen. I considered briefly whether I should add that it was my birthday on Monday but decided that it seemed outside the question and I didn’t want to come off self-absorbed.
“Did you get that email from Gerry about the training next week? Were we supposed to get the materials for that today?” Rob said.
“Oh, Jesus, yeah,” I said, bringing my hands up to my face, “I was supposed to get the fecking training pack from their office across the way.”
I rushed to get out of my seat, “No worries, I was just wondering,” Rob said. He was clearly flustered that he’d caused me such a fuss.
“No really, thanks for reminding me.”
I left my jacket on the back of my chair and headed for the door. As the events manager, I was supposed to distribute materials for training to the rest of my co-workers which essentially made me a glorified delivery boy. Thankfully, the office that distributed the materials was just across the shopping centre and still open.
I collected the twenty plain, manilla envelopes and rushed back to our office across the car park with the papers spilling out of my arms, hurrying to get them distributed before everyone started peeling off early for the weekend. In my fervor, something caught my eye. It was a man, slowing down as he walked under the overpass. There was something hunched and motionless at his feet. On first glance, I thought it was a cat, but looking closer, I saw it was a pigeon. It looked like it was struggling – the wind mercilessly ruffling its pearlescent feathers as it teetered back and forth on its semi-outstretched wings. The man eventually left and continued walking down the street, leaving the injured pigeon in his shadow.
Fifteen minutes later I was back in the car park walking towards the pigeon with a bulk bag of cheese crackers from the euro store. Please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead I thought as I approached the bird. It looked dead. Its head was bobbed over, dirty beak scraping against the pavement. The feathers of its wings were roughed up, bent at odd angles from trying to scrabble across the car park.
I crumbled up one of the diamond-shaped crackers between my fingers and placed it in front of the fallen bird. No interest. Its eyelids lazily opened and closed like the doors of an empty elevator shaft. Mechanical and lifeless.
Yet the poor creature was still clinging to life. Every time it became still and I thought maybe it was dead, it jerked around its wings and tried to lift its head up off the pavement. I could feel tears welled in my eyes although I was willing myself not to cry, not in the car park outside the office. People occasionally slowed down to see what I was doing, although most of them just shot a pitiful look at the girl who was trying to save a bird that death had seemingly already claimed.
I would’ve taken the pigeon home to die somewhere warm if only I’d had a box or something to carry it in. I didn’t want it to die alone here. Nothing deserved to die alone and frightened, not even a bird. I secretly longed that it would just die to minimize its struggling, or that someone would be able to come along and rescue it.
Then came the death rattle. I never thought a bird could breathe so heavily, but out came a raspy, belabored breath that shook the whole thing’s body in a rhythmic convulsion. It reminded me of watching my Nan die in the hospital.
Suddenly, someone came up behind me. I could hear their footsteps slowing.
“It’s you!” A female voice cried.
I pivoted around. Above me stood an aging woman with tight brown curls pinned haphazardly around her head, streaked with wiry grey hairs. She was wearing a reflective purple puffer jacket, her age-spotted hands sticking defiantly out of the sleeves. She looked at me with a dumbfounded smile, some of her teeth grey and decayed.
“What?” I said.
“It’s you!” She pointed gleefully at me, “I knew it was you. You’ll be perfect for the job. You already have your first soul.”
She hobbled around front and gingerly scooped up the wilted bird with her firm hands, tucking it under her arm carefully.
“What – what are you on about? What are you doing?” I said and raised to my feet.
She smiled a tremulous smile. “Come with me, girl. What’s your name? When were ye born?”
She teetered towards the road and I followed her, not wanting her to whisk the pigeon away without figuring out what she intended to do with it.
“Uh, Sarah. I’m Sarah. I was born on the 31st of October.” I paused before giving her the year.
“Perfect, just perfect. I knew it!” She raised one hand in the air, the one that wasn’t tucked underneath the bird.
Suddenly, she spun back around and shook her finger under my chin. “We have a job for you. A job offer. Wonderful job, lots of money,” she waved ecstatically, “but I can’t take you now, on account of it being light out.”
“Wha-? Who’s we?” I said.
She shushed me.
“Never mind that. What you need to do is meet me down by the quays in two hours. You’ll know the place - beneath the blinking streetlamp. I’ll take you to the job.”
I stared at her, dumbfounded. She looked back and forth across the road, attempting to cross it, then looked back at me and said, “In the meantime, I will take care of this one, he’s not gone to the other side yet. I’ll make him a nice nest in a box next to my radiator.” She stroked the pigeon’s head gently with her thumb, and then she tumbled off across the road and evaporated.
I stared at the empty space where she had been. Every nerve in my skin was tingling.
When I got home, my boyfriend Derek was in the kitchen stirring a mug of tea.
“How was work?” he asked quietly. His dark hair hung limply in his eyes. He was wearing a cream and blue jumper with a distorted argyle pattern that seemed, to me, overly festive for a bleak October day.
“Oh god, don’t get me started,” I moaned, peeling my trainers off of my feet and reaching to hang up my jacket, “I had the weirdest experience as I was leaving today, it was bizarre.”
He motioned for me to join him at the kitchen table. I sat down in the wooden chair across from him.
“I think I got offered a job,” I said.
“Well, that’s wonderful!” he said, “What kind of job?”
“Well – that’s the thing, you see. I don’t know. And it was a lady who seemed kind of, uh, insane. So, I honestly don’t know.”
Derek’s congratulatory expression melted into a quizzical one. “So, was this in work, like? Or, on LinkedIn or something?”
“No, it was in the car park.”
He raised his eyebrows speculatively.
“I stopped to rescue this pigeon who was hurt. Maybe it had been hit by a car or something. Anyway, this older woman came up to me all excited like she recognized me or she knew me or – you know. And then she went on about how I was going to be perfect for this job ‘we’ have and to meet her down by the river in two hours.”
“Well, are you going to go meet her, so?” Derek asked.
I stared at him, “I mean no? She was a header I’m pretty sure.”
He sipped his tea, “You never know. It could be a real job. I mean you’re always on about how much you hate your job now.”
“What if she sells me into human trafficking?” I exclaimed, “Or – or murders me?”
“Do you really think she could murder you? I thought you said she was an old woman.”
“Well, yes, but what if she’s the bait? Don’t human traffickers always use women as bait so you, like, trust them more?”
Derek snorted, “I’m not really familiar with the whole human trafficking protocol. I think you should go, though. I can come with you to make sure she doesn’t murder you.” He winked.
“You’re hardly serious,” I laughed, rolling my eyes, “Speaking of jobs, how are we for making the rent this month?”
His eyes lost the playful glint for a moment, “Should be grand. I’m covering for David Saturday, so I’ll have two double shifts this weekend now.”
“Right,” I said. I felt a hint of shame gnawing at my stomach. In a way, I felt guilty for Derek and our reliance on his toilsome work as a runner, the hours he spent absorbed in the chaotic ambience of the bar, subjected to the more experienced bartenders’ chronic stress and mismanagement and the late-night brawls of college students. At the same time, I felt a kind of envy in the sense that his long, back-breaking hours never dampened his spirit in the way that my paper-pushing job felt like it was breaking mine.
Derek and I had met in college through a mutual friend we’d since lost touch with. He was an eclectic music major who played in a trad band on weekends and I was a mercurial journalism student who spent too many hours in the library and then too many hours drinking on weekends. I had always admired him for his dedication to music and his belief that one day he’d make it his career. As the years rolled on and I was forced to give up my interests in order to make enough money to survive, that admiration had slowly festered and grown into resentment.
I could feel my spine arched against the wooden chair and realized it hurt.
“Alright, I’ll go meet her,” I conceded, “Who knows, could be a job I’m actually good at.”
The rain had already started by the time we left the flat. Puddles gleamed with neon reflections along the street. The city lights made the sleeting rain shine green, red, and yellow.
I pulled my scarf tightly around my ears so I could see nothing but what was directly in front of me. I pivoted on the top of the steps to make sure Derek was following behind me.
“She said to meet her underneath the blinking streetlamp,” I said plainly. He gave a stumped shrug as he closed the gate to the courtyard behind him.
I made my way down the slick steps. Ivy glistened, wet and trailing over the cement walls of our neighbors’ gardens. Abandoned crisp packets and shards of naggins melted into the footpath at every turn, reflecting light into my eyes. There seemed something so forbidden about the city in the rain.
We only lived about ten minutes up the street from the river. A series of arterial bridges connected the Northside to City Centre; streetlamps and moldy, faded life buoys dotted the quays in between. For the life of me I had no idea which quay the woman had wanted me to meet her at, nor did I know of any flickering streetlamps this side of the city.
“I guess maybe we should just walk along the quays until we see a blinking light?” Derek suggested.
My hands rose up to my face, hovering around my damp polyester scarf, “This is so mental,” I said, “I can’t believe we’re walking around in the pissing rain to meet a crazy woman.”
We walked westbound for about ten minutes without talking. I could hear the river rushing with all the accumulated rainfall – I was starting to fear it’d burst its banks. I was hyperaware of all the lights around me – reflections of neon signs in puddles, the flood of light from doors opening and closing, car headlights misdirected in the mist. There were no flickering streetlamps.
“Think we should call it a night?” I asked Derek, “Walk around in the rain some other time, maybe.”
He pointed ahead of him, “Is that it?”
I looked up. I saw the ground reflecting soft yellow light ahead of us, a shorting-out streetlight hunched over it.
“No way,” I said, “No way, no way, no way.”
I scanned the area for any sign of the woman. There was nothing around, just the white-capped, tumultuous river to our left and a derelict web of rain-soaked alleys and an old Japanese café with a blue dragon painted on the shuttered storefront. No sign of life besides the buzzing of the dying streetlamp.
“Sarah!” I heard a distorted hiss coming from the river. It was her, sporadically lit by the lamp, her rain jacket reflecting beams back out into the night. She wasn’t underneath the streetlight or even in the street, but beyond the iron guardrails on the top of the concrete steps that led down to the thunderous river.
I spun around to Derek to judge his expression. His eyes were as wide as mine.
“I’m just going go over and see what she wants and then we will leave,” I tried to keep my voice steady.
“I will be right here,” Derek said, “Right behind you. She won’t be able to do anything to you.” He grabbed my shoulders - it was only under his grip that I realized I was shaking.
I approached the guardrails and looked over at the woman perched on the steps.
“What do you want?” I said aggressively. Her hood was pulled down over her face. Spume from the raging water lapped up onto her wellies, reaching up from the dark, churning abyss below.
“Sarah, I knew you’d come,” she said, “But there’s not much time, I must take you to the job, come!” She reached over the guardrail to grab me with her slippery hand. It was then when I noticed a wooden rowboat, tall at either side like a gondola, tethered to the base of the steps. It bobbed, frenzied, on the unrelenting waves.
“No!” I screamed, “You’ll drown me! You’re going to kill me! Derek!”
“He can’t hear you,” she said, “Now, go on.”
She pulled me harder so that my ribs were pressed against the cold metal of the guardrail. I was crying now, like a petulant child having a fit, but my crying made me less resistant as the woman placed my hands on the rail and urged me to climb it. Weakened and somehow willed to follow her, I scaled the guardrail. Its paint was rubbing off and black flecks became embedded in my hands. I could feel the spray of sloshing water in my face as I looked down at the black riptides. I tried to look up and find Derek for help, but I couldn’t make out anything through the soft, illuminated cloud of mist.
The woman had already descended the steps and was waist-deep in water. She seized the gondola with both hands and steadied it so I could crawl in. Seeing my hysteria, she gripped my arm with a cold, slick hand and guided me in. I did not have the strength to resist; I was a weak and lifeless buoy embraced in the never-ending water.
Wherever she was taking me, I didn’t know. I could not register much of our voyage to the other side, mainly because it was eerily calm even with the tumultuous weather that night. I kept my eyes closed firmly, seeing nothing except the multi-colored lights that bled through, buzzing like electric sparks from severed wires.
When I finally opened my eyes, I could hardly see anything. Green and purple blobs dotted my vision. As the real world started to give way, I could see that we were eastbound. I could see the back of the Port of Cork sign, its white support beams looking like the threads of a spider web in the soft light. The water was calm now, gentle and rippled like indigo silk. It looked like dawn even though it surely couldn’t be later than eight o’clock.
The woman faced away from me, hunched over and churning the oars on either side of the boat like a Viking. She seemed unphased, which somehow comforted me. I could see people streaming along the bridges, headphones on, staring at the ground.
“Why is no one looking at us?” I asked in a quiet, resigned voice.
“I told you,” she said melodically, “They can’t see us.”
She curved her oar gracefully like the fin of a fish and steered us over to where a barnacle-covered ladder ejected out of the river and onto a tall brown wall. Her fat hands reached out to slip a thick, frayed rope around the corroded metal.
“Climb,” she instructed me, dully.
“You’re joking?”
She looked at me sternly, “Now you think I’m joking?”
Already defeated, I grabbed onto the gritty, rotting ladder and hoisted myself up. I tried not to look down as I scaled it.
Above me was an old orange shipping container, bigger than a small house. The woman climbed up after me and banged on the door, which echoed back in a thunderous rattle.
I felt her hand on my back, pushing me towards the entrance, “That was just for courtesy’s sake,” she said sweetly, “We can go in.”
The container was dim and empty inside, shades of grey coloring the whole expanse. Three fluorescent bulbs hung from the ceiling, illuminating a long, cluttered desk standing squarely in the middle. A short man was hunched over it, filling out paperwork.
“Ah, Mary,” he said, not looking up from his incessant scribbling, “You’re here. Who have you brought me.”
“It’s her!” Mary said enthusiastically, “She’s our one!”
The man squinted up at me. He had beady eyes that shone behind thick, black-rimmed glasses. He was bald, with a flat, wide nose and thick lips concealing the remnants of nubby teeth. He was wearing a blue two-piece suit that shone in the light with a houndstooth dress shirt peeking out underneath. He sniffed.
“And…?” he said.
“And, well, her name’s Sarah!” Mary added, hesitating.
The man’s thick brows knit together. My hair dripped water onto the floor. The shipping container was drafty, making my damp clothes cling to my skin.
“Alright, Sarah,” he turned to address me, “are you prepared for your interview?”
“Interview?” I asked.
He looked amused, and frustrated.
“Mary,” he said, “Please stop bringing people to me when you haven’t even told them what they’re here for.”
She nodded submissively behind me.
“Very well,” he continued, “I will fill Sarah in. Mary, you can leave us.”
He gestured a thick, blocky hand to the seat in front of him as Mary left. He shook my hand firmly as I sat.
“I’m confused,” I said instead of introducing myself.
“I know,” he said, flattening the lapels of his jacket with his palms. He had a thick, nasally accent.
“All she said was that she had a job for me. And then she well, kind of abducted me and brought me here.”
“Yes,” he said absently, “Well, Mary is a skilled recruiter but I hope you can understand that I can’t just hire anyone she brings me. So, if it’s alright with you, we’ll still have to go through the standard interview process.”
He produced a bland file folder and opened it to reveal an empty form.
“And, what exactly am I interviewing for?” I asked.
He leaned forward across the desk, “I am representing my employer, Hell. We need someone local for, um, well I guess it’s more of an administrative role.”
He got up and stuffed his hands in his pockets, spinning around to look at the nondescript walls of the container, “You, Sarah Horgan, certainly meet the minimum requirements. Born on the day of the year where the veil is thinnest, you certainly have the ability to see and speak to the dead – but you’re going to need to have demonstrable proof of your decision-making skills and your initiative.”
I gulped, nervously. I never spoke about any of this, not even with Derek. I hardly even believed it was real.
“I mean, I speak to my Nan sometimes. More of a comfort thing, really. I never really know if it’s her speaking back. I don’t really see the dead.”
He strolled over to the end of the container and retracted a sheer blind to reveal a makeshift window looking out across the river.
“Do you see him?” he said, pointing to a young man walking across the bridge on the far side of the river, wearing oversized jeans and a puffer jacket, dragging one of his legs as if he had a slight limp.
“Well, yes.”
“Dead!” he exclaimed, lifting his arms like he’d scored a goal, “Six months ago. Overdose. Found under a bench in Bishop Lucey Park. Pigeons had already gotten to him.” He snapped the blind back down and sauntered back to his seat behind the desk.
Sitting down he said, “So I want to know, Sarah. How do you see yourself in this role?”
“I-I don’t know,” I stammered, “I mean, I do have a lot of administrative experience.”
“Have you ever played God?” he asked.
“How do you mean?” I said.
He folded his hands in front of him, “You know, executive decisions. Life and death. Have you ever given yourself the power to make those kind of choices?”
“I mean, sometimes I send out the newsletters without getting someone else to proof them?” I offered cautiously.
He smirked, “What about when you were young?”
I stared at my feet, making soggy puddles on the cement. “My grandfather used to take me fishing,” I said, “He was big into boats and all that. We’d always bring some fish home to eat. Sometimes, when I caught one, I’d hold it in my hands and decide if I should bring it back or let it go.”
“How did you decide?” he asked.
“Just a gut feeling, like. I mean, I was a kid so I guess sometimes I just chose the one I thought were prettiest or most interesting,” I shrugged.
He nodded, quiet for a minute. I took advantage of his silence to ask a question.
“So, are you, like, Satan? Or something.”
He laughed, pulling out a silver name plaque from the clutter of his desk. Melvin Twomey, it read.
“No,” he chuckled, “You can think of me as the regional manager. Northside. As you can imagine, I’m pretty busy,” Melvin said, gesturing to the paperwork surrounding him. His flat nose pointed down as he laughed, making him look a bit like Voldemort.
“Alright!” he exclaimed, “Onto the practical bits. What are your salary expectations?”
“I mean, I make a little less than thirty grand now, so…”
“How does one thousand euro a week sound?” he emphasized each word with confidence.
“Um, yeah, I guess. That’s grand.”
“Alright,” he said, back to scribbling maniacally, “You meet me beneath that streetlamp, where you found Mary, at sunset tomorrow. I will give you a walk-through, if you will,” he smiled, “show you how the job is done.”
“So, I’ve got the job, then?” I asked.
“It’s probational,” he said, “We’ll see how you fare tomorrow.”
“Do I need to bring anything?”
“Just a good attitude and a strong work ethic,” he said, smiling to reveal his square, irregularly spaced teeth.
Melvin stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled, “Mary there will ferry you back. See you tomorrow.”
He nodded curtly before Mary reappeared and guided me, smiling, back down the ladder.
“I knew you’d get it! I knew you were the one,” she chirped.
“Thanks,” I offered, forced, as I lowered myself back down into the boat.
The journey back down the river was serene. The oars undulated in the silken waters, propelling us deeper and deeper into the purple night – much darker now than it had been when I climbed up to meet Melvin in the shipping container.
For a moment I wondered whether something inside me had compelled me to meet Mary under the street light after she so strangely approached me, why I hadn’t resisted more as she dragged me into the churning river, why I had even entertained a job interview in Hell. Was it some intuitive sense within me that knew that my fate was to be a herald of Hell’s admin team? Or was it just a part of me that hoped that this strange encounter could actually end the monotony of my earth-bound obligations?
I could see the blinking streetlamp shine off the water as Mary abandoned her oars in favor of her hands and pulled us close to the steps of the quay.
“Do you need a hand up?” she asked me, a sympathetic sparkle to her eyes.
“No, I’m grand,” I said, wrapping my damp scarf tightly around me and trying to steady myself as the boat swayed under me.
I managed to crawl onto the first dry step and pull myself over the guardrail without plunging back into the river. Immediately, I saw Derek standing in the street, arms out by his sides with his palms facing out like he was waiting to be hit by a car.
He ran to me, grabbing my shoulders. He was crying.
“Sarah, Sarah!” He shook, embracing me, “Oh, Jesus, you’re all wet.”
He pulled away and started sputtering, crumpling down into me like a child.
“I swear, I lost sight of you for a second. I was behind you and the next second you were gone. Oh, God, I thought you’d been pulled into the river.”
He hugged me again. I held him until his breathing slowed, then asked “Wait, how long was I gone?”
He looked at my face, confused.
“What do you mean?” he said.
“How long was I gone for? Like an hour? Two hours?”
He shook his head “I – I don’t know. I lost sight of you for a second and then you climbed back over the rail.”
“You’re saying no time has passed, so?”
“Yeah – I mean, it’s only been a minute.”
I sighed, pressing my wet palms into his face, pushing his hair back where the rain was dampening it.
“Derek,” I said, “I think I just got hired in Hell.”

PART 1 PART 3 PART 4
It was silent in the apartment other than the thunderous roll of water boiling in the kettle. Derek waited for it to click off, then poured water into two mugs on the counter.
“I believe you,” he said, “For the record.”
He discarded the tea bags into the bin and poured milk into the tea.
“You don’t have to,” I said, “I know it’s crazy.”
I hugged the blanket I had taken from the couch tight around my shoulders. I was too shaken to change out of my damp clothes, the only heat I was getting was from the blanket, the old radiator, and the steam from the mug of tea Derek placed in front of me.
“You don’t have to believe me,” I reiterated, “I know you probably don’t even believe in Hell. Much less that they’d be recruiting in Cork.” I took a gulp of tea and burnt the roof of my mouth. My eyes welled with tears.
Derek look unphased. His skin looked sallow under his eyes, now that the tears had dried. He stared into his mug of tea.
“No, I do believe you. I don’t know if I believe in Hell, really. Or Heaven. I’ve just never thought about it. But I do believe in strange things, things we can’t really see and don’t want to see. I know you believe in that, too. And what happened tonight was strange, but I think it’s real.”
I gulped. My hands felt clammy around the mug. Derek had seen the woman, Mary, pull me over the guardrail into the river. For him, it seemed as if I had disappeared but for a few minutes. But, to me, I had been ferried down the river and given a job interview for a position in Hell only to be returned to the very spot I’d disappeared from. I wanted to grapple with how inexplicable this was, but we had both experienced this breach in the limits of reason – of time, of realms, and of reality. It seemed easier to accept that the reality we had lived in for the past twenty-nine years had just been shattered.
“When I was at, uh, the interview,” I said quietly, “He seemed to know everything about me. He knew my name, he knew that – I don’t know if you know this, actually – that I still speak to my Nan even though she’s dead.”
Derek nodded, “I know,” he said, “I heard you talking in your room a couple times after she died. It genuinely sounded like someone else was there.”
He locked eyes with me now, looking up from the reflection in his mug. His jaw was set.
“That’s why I know this is real,” he said, “I know you see things that other people don’t. If there’s a Hell, or some magical place, it would make sense that they want you on their team. You see everything.”
I nodded, taking another sip of my tea. I wondered what it meant that Hell wanted me. Did it mean I was evil? Bad and unfeeling enough to work for the archetype of an evil place?
Just then, our housemate, Lily, came into the kitchen. She spent most of her day smoking fags and herbal cigarettes out the window, only coming down to make pasta at odd hours. She was dressed, as always, in a purple satin nightgown that clung to her stomach and slipped down her arms like she was about do a striptease. Her hair was piled up in a disheveled bun.
“Woah,” she said, “You okay? You look shook up.”
“I’m grand,” I lied, clenching my lips together in a forced smile, “Just got caught out in the rain, that’s all.”
Derek helped me peel off my damp clothes and get into the shower. I savored the three minutes of hot water, feeling it trickle down my back and legs, droplets collecting on the fine hairs of my arms that were crossed firmly across my stomach.
My mind whirred when I got into bed and Derek turned the lights off. Cloaked in darkness, my stomach filled with dread at the idea of meeting Melvin again under the flashing streetlamp. My head was filled with plans to get out of the situation, my thoughts flipping one after the other like a rolodex.
As much as I was consumed by electric panic, I could not deny that a small corner of brain was excited with the power I now wielded, whatever it may be.
The next day, I woke up early and sat at the kitchen table violently shaking over my cup of tea. My eyes refused to focus on anything. About an hour later, Derek stumbled in, pushing his fingers through his knotted, rumpled hair.
“You alright?” he said groggily. I could not bring myself to answer him.
“Ready for your big day?” he tried again, as if he was referring to Debs or a graduation.
“I’m just not really sure what I’ve gotten myself into, to be honest,” I whispered. Steam curled up from my cup of tea even though it had sat untouched for a good part of the last hour.
“You could always blow it off and come to that gig with me,” Derek suggested.
“Oh, shit,” I said, “I forgot that was on tonight, I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright,” he said, opening the fridge, “I’m sure they’ll be playing another time.”
Fifteen minutes before sunset that evening, we left the house. Derek was wearing his leather jacket that had been a staple during college but now hardly made an appearance. I had convinced him to go to the gig without me; knowing that he was enjoying himself in some dimly lit venue would inevitably help me get through my first day on the job in Hell.
This time, we made a beeline towards the streetlamp in question. I could see it flickering from up the street now, cautiously illuminating the painted dragon on the front of the Japanese café across the road. As we approached, I saw Melvin underneath, wearing a tan, canvas trench coat over another coordinating suit – this one made out of a deep, satiny burgundy material.
When he saw us, he checked his watch. “On time, I suppose,” he said.
His eyes flickered to me, then to Derek, then back to me, “I don’t suppose this mortal boy will be joining us this evening?” he said gruffly.
“No,” I said, turning to Derek. He gave me a bone-squeezing hug and I clung back as if my life depended on it.
“I’ll be at the gig, but I’ll have my phone on me the whole time if you need to ring me,” he whispered.
“I don’t even know if I’ll have service, but don’t worry,” I reassured him. His eyes were wide and worried, but in a strange way he seemed proud of me.
“Off you go,” I said, giving his arm one last squeeze. He nodded at me, and then at Melvin, and sauntered off into the dusk.
Melvin didn’t say a word, just watched Derek recede down the street until he was satisfied that he was far enough away.
“Right,” he said, “Now we can get to work.”
He produced a thin, leather briefcase from behind him and set it down to unlatch it. Inside were a smattering of papers and bound reports. He handed me a shiny, laminated manual with cheap, plastic binding. The Delivering Process: A How-to Guide for New Recruits it read.
“There’s some light reading for you,” he said, “Now, our first soul should be arriving soon.”
I looked at him plainly with the manual perched in my hands. “What do you mean, soul?” I asked.
“You’ll see, they’ll look normal to you,” he said, fishing a carton of pre-rolled cigarettes from his coat pocket and lighting one.
“Shit! I nearly forgot,” he exclaimed, bending back down to fish something else out of the suitcase. His lit cigarette bobbed in his mouth, the illuminated tip bouncing around like a buoy in the dark sea.
He pulled a piece of smooth, rounded wood out of his briefcase and handed it to me. It was a skull – or, rather, a mask in the shape of a skull. It had two small eyeholes and grey, circular teeth attached to the bottom. It looked ancient and tribal.
“You have to wear this,” he said.
I stared at the primal-looking relic of death in my hands. “Wait,” I said, “Am I, like, the grim reaper?”
Melvin looked at me with an air of disgust, flicking the ash off his cigarette.
“Don’t be so conservative,” he said, “Plus, I find scythes a little dated, don’t you think?”
I strapped the mask around my face just as someone approached the streetlamp. It was a younger man, maybe late twenties or early thirties, with a jagged haircut and a long, languid walk like he was drunk.
“Alright,” he greeted us as he stood under the sporadic light of the streetlamp, “How are things?”
Melvin gave him a once-over.
“Can I have a fag?” the man asked, gesturing at Melvin’s cigarette.
“No,” Melvin said, “Open your mouth.”
The man obeyed, revealing a mouthful of chipped and silver teeth, some missing.
“Check under his tongue,” Melvin instructed me.
I shivered and wiped my hands on my jeans.
“Can you lift your tongue, please?” I asked him hesitantly, like I was a teenage dental hygienist.
He lifted his pink tongue to reveal a flash of gold nestled in the crevice of his gummy soft palate.
“Pick it up,” Melvin instructed.
I reached into his mouth and pulled out a coin webbed with strings of saliva.
“This coin pays for his passage to the other side,” Melvin said, “Flip it over to see what’s on it.”
I flipped it, getting mucous-y spit on my fingers. On the other side a five-pointed star was engraved in circle.
“He has the pentacle etched into his coin, so he’s going to Heaven,” Melvin said, “When there’s no pentacle, that means they’re ours to take to Hell.”
I rubbed the coin between my fingers. It was smooth and striated. I could see the diffused reflection of the flickering streetlamp in it.
“The problem arises when a soul arrives to you without a coin,” Melvin said in a slow, cautionary tone, “Sure, we’ve been having that problem a lot recently. It means that they’re not to be taken or, conversely, the coin has been taken from them. When that happens, you may need to call on the family of the soul. We’ve had a good amount of lowlife family members stealing coins from the dead and trying to pawn them off. That is not acceptable under any circumstances, for obvious reasons. It is up to you to retrieve the coin if it’s been stolen.”
Melvin then made a long sweeping gesture into the river. It was then that I noticed that the gondola – the boat Mary had forced me into the night before – was once again tethered to the stairs in the river. Its miniature Viking-esque masts bobbed up and down, looking at the current.
“Shall we?” Melvin asked.
The soul said nothing as we ferried him along the indigo river, Melvin and I standing near the helm of the little boat, taking turns rowing. I was acutely aware of the skeleton mask adhered to my face – the wood was soft and worn, melded to my face like the calcified hand of an ancient god. Instead of heading to the shipping container that was his office, Melvin explained, we were following the river all the way east to where it fed out to the sea.
The dim moonlight, obscured by a thick fog of clouds, made the scenery blur together in a dream-like montage. It was hard to make out anything definitively – I saw Blackrock Castle, its regal stones fused to the sky. Driftwood washing up along the beaches, leaving ripples of sand. The glint of sea glass along the shore, much nearer and brighter to us than the shuttered churches and homes that lay cloistered inland – it was very clear that these earthly mirages of daily life were of another world, laying far beyond our reach.
I looked back at the soul to see if he was perceiving this as well, and if he was frightened by the realization that this city may never be real to him again, but he seemed peaceful. He looked at the passing scenery reflectively, his hands folded in his lap, oversized brown trousers rippling in the night winds. Whatever he was leaving behind in that ghost-world that now lay behind the shore, it did not disturb him.
“Alright,” Melvin said abruptly, handing me the oar, “You see that blue spot on the horizon?”
I squinted through the eyeholes of my mask. An orb of light, like a star, reverberated at the edge of my vision.
“Yeah,” I said, “I see it.”
“Row us there. That’s where we make the hand-off.”
The oar split the water with ease. I rowed us forward towards the light, feeling giddy and powerful like a kid swimming belly-down on a kickboard. We were gliding along in a river that was ambivalent to space and time. As the little cliffs and sandy banks of the Lee gave way to the ocean, the tide seemed to pull us outward with intensity. Melvin kept smoothing his jacket as we got closer and closer to the blue light which now appeared flat and spread out like a bioluminescent pool. As we approached the edge of it, I noticed there was another boat in the middle.
“Alright, stop,” Melvin said, holding his hand up to halt me. I stopped rowing and felt the boat give way to the buoyant waves of water. We bobbed side to side on the surface.
Some distance away was the other boat, perfectly still. It was a gondola the same shape as ours, but only one person stood in it. They were wearing a mask, not like mine, but square almost like a welder’s helmet with a silver strip wrapping around the eyes. Affixed to their back, something silver glinted in the moonlight, like branches.
“I’ll take it from here,” Melvin said, motioning me to hand over the oar.
The blue light shimmered below us, like it was being lit by a moon underneath the sea. As we approached, the figure in the other boat remained motionless. So did the soul – he did not seem frightened by this otherworldly masked figure anymore than he had seemed frightened by me.
“Alright, we’ve got one for Heaven!” Melvin announced, a little too loudly.
The masked figure didn’t react as Melvin ushered the soul up and supported his shoulders as he stepped clumsily from one boat to the other.
With the soul transferred, the masked figure raised his oar and dipped it into the water.
Melvin looked decidedly at his watch, “Right, cheers. We’ll be seeing you later then,” he said, not making eye contact with the silver band where the figure’s eyes would be.
“Off we go,” he whispered to me and sliced the water with the oar, reeling us backwards.
Once we retreated from the glowing pool, I turned to Melvin.
“Who is that?” I said through clenched teeth.
“Ah, yes. That’s Heaven’s messenger, doesn’t talk much. Think your job, but Heaven.”
“Like, an angel?” I asked.
He turned around and shot me a concerned look mid-row.
“You’re quite wed to those kind of archetypes, aren’t you?” he said.
I shrugged. It was getting cold now.
When we docked beneath the streetlamp again, Melvin told me I should take the lead with the next soul. The mask was still securely tethered to my face; I could feel my cheekbones pressing against the wood of the skull.
I stood there, fists balled so that my nail dug into my palms, waiting for someone to arrive. I watched people crossing the bridge, one by one, trying to discern if any of them were headed to meet me. It was like waiting for a bus to come around the corner. Which one of these people would be the one I ferry to the afterlife – was there anything in their face that would give it away?
Melvin said nothing as I stared through the mist rising up from the river and settling around the low buildings. He stood under the light, chain smoking cigarettes and flicking the glowing, orange butts into the river where they fizzled out in a bubble of ash.
I was watching him partake in this ritual of lighting, taking purposeful drags, and flicking when I felt someone approaching me. I looked away from the bridge and over to the cement stairs – the same set that I had traipsed down two days in a row to meet my colleagues from Hell. There walked a boy with black hair, his cheekbones pushed out like he was biting the insides of his cheeks. He looked directly at me.
He was no more than 16 or 17 – though the dark made it difficult to tell. His black hair hung in jagged peaks around his face as he sauntered towards me. His eyes were watery, but they were dead set on me. He came to a stop under the flickering light. It cast long, diagonal shadows down his body like scars.
I looked to Melvin for reassurance, but he just nodded at me and flicked the ash from his cigarette. I balled my fists.
“Open your mouth,” I instructed the boy. My voice was quiet but firm.
He obeyed. His canine teeth were pointed, front teeth ridged where the enamel had eroded away.
“Lift your tongue.”
The gold coin was there but it looked dull and green in the shadow. There was nothing engraved on it. I took it in my fingers, shutting my eyes as I flipped it. I longed to see the safety of the pentacle etched on the other side. I wished to see it so badly that I burned its image into my vision hoping that I would manifest it when I opened my eyes. But when I looked, the other side was blank. I flipped it between my fingers again to make sure but nothing. This boy was going to Hell.
The breeze off the river seemed to garner a new chill. I was grateful that I was wearing the mask, for if I was not, the boy surely would’ve seen my face drop and surely guessed his fate.
“Get in the boat,” I said firmly, pointing to the gondola drifting on the water.
Melvin let me row the whole way, though my hands were unsteady and I kept unintentionally steering the boat from side to side. I tried not to glance back at the boy. He emitted an air of uneasiness that I could sense without looking at him. As we neared the mouth of the river, I turned to Melvin.
“So where do we, you know, hand off? Is it the same?” I asked, trying not to betray the boy’s destination.
“No,” Melvin sniffed, “This is your job. You are the messenger. Row out to where we were before and stop. I’ll tell you what to do.”
I obeyed him without another word. Briefly, it occurred to me that I may actually see Hell. How does one prepare for that kind of thing? I nearly dropped the oar into the river contemplating the esoteric realities of my new job.
Soon, we approached the blue, nebulous waters where I had given over the previous soul to the angel. However, we were still the only boat as far as the eye could see.
“Focus,” Melvin said, “Very hard. Close your eyes.”
I looked back at the boy, which I instantly regretted. His Adam’s apple was throbbing visibly, the only clue to his discomfort behind his stone expression. His face was twisted in determination, like he had been stabbed in battle and he was kneeling, clutching his insides, as he tried to die with honor.
I clenched my eyes, tight. Visions out of Dante’s Inferno burned behind my eyelids. I pictured the Hell I was delivering this boy into, the gnashing of teeth, all flames and fire and blood and muscle being ripped from bone. I thought about what he must have done to deserve such a thing, what I must have done to deserve the Devil as a colleague.
I heard a sound like water rushing over a dam, though there was nothing of the sort around. I opened my eyes and saw a crack in the world, mere inches in front of our boat. A black line stretched across the mouth of the river, currents of water folded into its depths the way pages fold into the spine of an open book.
The crack widened and widened, pushing us back and spilling water into the boat. It now resembled a waterfall on either side, mist rising up from an immense blackness.
The boat rocked and I looked to Melvin. My mouth was ajar although you could not see through the mask.
Melvin shrugged at my stupor, “This is it,” he said, “This is where we drop him.”
I turned to the boy. His pride was gone and now he looked at me in terror, his jet-black hair pasted to his face by the mist. He clutched the bottom of his shirt with both hands as he crumpled into the back of the boat.
“Th-this can’t be right,” he said, shaking his head feverishly.
“Sorry, boy!” Melvin offered, a little too enthusiastically to be sincere. He extended his leg and motioned to the boy with the tip of his dress shoe, “Up you go,” he said.
The boy was crying now, his façade shattered, and he slowly raised himself up from his knees with his hands firmly grasping the sides of the boat. He shifted his gaze up to me.
“Will it hurt?” he whimpered, glancing from my skull mask to the cavernous black depth before him.
“I don’t know,” I said, honestly. I looked at him a moment and then extended my hand to him.
“You can take my hand, if it helps,” I offered. He looked at me, then my hand intently. His sight hovered on my nails, which I forgot I had painted pale pink earlier that week. My office job didn’t appreciate us painting them bright colors.
He grasped my hand, his grip was damp and cold but firm with desperation. I planted one foot firmly on the front end of the boat, feeling it sway slightly beneath my weight. Melvin urged me to be careful. I envisioned the boat capsizing into the crater, the three of us tumbling down into the darkness for eternity.
The boy shuffled to the front of the boat. We teetered precariously on the edge of abandon, the bow teasingly lapping at the darkness.
“Are you ready?” I asked the boy. I gave his hand a maternal squeeze.
He looked at me, then bit his lower lip and nodded.
He put one foot out of the boat – feeling around on the air like he was trying to find the last step of a staircase in the dark. He let go of me and braced both of his hands on the side of the boat, slowly shifting his weight over.
In one movement, he swung his whole body over, releasing his grasp, and plummeted into the abyss. He cut through the air like a knife, arms straight by his sides like he was doing a pencil dive. The air rippled his black hair as he fell down, descending and descending until he was just a blip of flesh in the darkness and then nothing. It was like watching a rocket being launched into space – watching its tangibility slowly dissolve against a background of black infinite until it is so impossibly small you struggle to remember how real it was when it was right in front of you.
I braced myself to hear a thump of impact as the boy struck the bottom of the crevice, but it never came. I looked to Melvin, conscious there were now tears welled in my eyes.
“Well, we’re done here,” he said, peering down his nose into the abyss, “Might as well get going.” He slapped my back and my whole body reeled from the force. I picked up the oar and started rowing.
We went most of the way back in silence, nothing but the gentle lapping of the indigo river serenading us. It irritated me, and I decided I could not row in silence anymore.
“What was so bad about him?” I asked, staring straight ahead. My mouth was so rigid it was hard to get the words out.
“I beg your pardon?” Melvin asked from the back of the boat.
“That boy. What was so bad about him that he had to go to Hell?”
“I don’t know, I’m not a caseworker,” Melvin said. I refused to face him, but I could hear his lips were wrapped around a cigarette.
“He didn’t seem bad. Seemed a pure cruel thing we did to him there. He was scared.”
“Yeah, well, aren’t we all,” he muttered.
This time I turned to face him, “How do you think it’s fair throwing children off a cliff like that? I mean, couldn’t we at least - ”
“He killed a kid.”
I stared at Melvin as he puffed the cigarette. Billows of smoke came out either side of his mouth.
“What?”
“I don’t usually see the files but I saw this one. Yep, he killed a kid. His foster brother. The poor lad was five and he was ten. Tortured him mercilessly until one day he threw a brick at him while they were playing. Hit him right here,” Melvin pointed to the base of his skull with his thumb, “Died instantly. He didn’t regret it either,” he looked up at me, locking my eyes. I was too engrossed to look away.
Melvin continued, “Three months ago he was up drinking with the boys, fucked up on drink and whatever else he was taking. Started bragging about it. Said he should’ve won a medal for his aim. Said the kid was terrified whenever he saw him, eyes got big as saucers. Said it was funnier cause the kid’s parents had been junkies, used to rough him up, too. When he hit him, the kid just dropped. Parents had covered it up for him at the time, of course.” He exhaled smoke from both nostrils. Dawn light danced off the water.
“Guess one of his friends was just as violent cause he beat him to death a few weeks later. Serves him right if you ask me.”
I said nothing for the rest of the way. The currents shone in white stripes where the dusky light illuminated them. I sliced each one in half with my oar, appreciating how it engulfed them in shadow. How dare there be light left in this world.
The rope bristled my palms as I knotted it and prepared to dock the boat under the flickering streetlamp. As I looked up, I saw Mary standing under it. She had a hood pulled over her head and a box in her hands.
Oh Jesus, great, I thought to myself.
Melvin ascended the staircase before I’d docked the boat.
“Mary has a little surprise for you,” he offered, “The first days are always difficult, we thought this might help.”
I walked up to them, scrambling over the guardrail. Mary was smiling so intensely it looked her face might crack. She opened the box, to reveal a bird laying on a nest of straw. It was the pigeon I had rescued from the shopping centre when I had encountered her. She stroked it, and its feathers slowly rustled, brimming with energy. It’s eyes slowly peeled open, crests of feathers separating on its neck as it got up and looked around. It perched on the edge of the box, then flew up in the shadow of the streetlamp and up, up, up into the purple sky, drifting on the updraft of the river with its wings outstretched.
“It made it,” I whispered to myself.
“See?” Melvin said, patting my back more gently this time, “It’s not all bad. That’s all for tonight, so.”
I lifted the mask off my face and went to hand it to him, the gleaming wood of the skull flashing under the shorting streetlight.
“What are you doing? That’s yours,” he said, “Besides, you’re on your own tomorrow.”
“But what if I have a question?”
His lips twisted into an uneven smile. “Just ask me. I can still answer.” Then he walked off, hands in the pockets of his trench coat, disappearing along the river.
My skull mask hung limply in my hands. I looked at Mary. She was beaming at me.
“Good on you,” she said, “the first day is the toughest. You’re strong stuff.”
“Cheers, Mary,” I said, “I’ll see you later.”
It was dark again; the clouds were inky against the sky. Unlike last night, Derek wasn’t waiting for me this time. He was probably still at the gig, I reminded myself. No time had actually passed since I left him at the streetlamp. I climbed the stairs onto the street and walked myself home in the company of the night.
I let myself in and peeled off my jacket and shoes. My head was whirring, electrical and empty - like the way the wind whips around the plains before a storm. I went to make myself a cup of tea but came to an abrupt stop when I saw Lily clattering around in the kitchen. She was wearing a grey dressing gown. The steam from a pot of boiling water was making her baby hairs curl and stick to her face.
“Hey,” she said flatly.
“Hey,” I said, tucking my mask behind my back so she couldn’t see it.
“Something came for you in the post,” she said, “I put it on the table there. Looks like an invite or something.”
I looked down at the thin, red envelope on the table.
“Cool, thanks,” I said as I picked it up and retreated to my room. My cup of tea would have to wait.
I shut the door behind me and flipped the envelope in my hands. There were no addresses written on it – just my name, Sarah Horgan, in gentle black slopes. The flap was sealed with dark red wax. It looked like blood.
It opened cleanly. The envelope was so flat and thin that it couldn’t have held more than a sheet of paper. I reached inside and withdrew a fifty euro note. Upon fishing it out of the envelope, I realized it was in fact a stack of many fifty euro notes. They swelled in my hand – fifty, one hundred, two hundred, three hundred, five hundred – a thousand. How the hell had they fit in the envelope?
I let the money fall to the bed. The mattress gently buckled as I sat, staring unfocused at my closet doors. The pink blouse I had picked out for work on Monday was hanging on the knobs, a reminder to iron it over the weekend. I got up and put it back in my closet, hanging my skull mask in its place. The empty eye sockets stared up at me, the white of the closet peeking through them.
I wouldn’t be needing that pink work blouse anyway, I thought.

1-800-SUPER takes place in the moderately nearish future of 2056. You have recently been hired by a hotline for superheroes and supervillains. You got hired thanks to your stunning, though typo filled, application...and because nobody else applied. The hotline has been redirected to your cellphone. You will help guide the heroes and villains. However, you must also mind the balance between good and evil. Maxing out the meter on either end will result in bad things. If there is too much good, then the city will be turn into a surveillance police state where the superheroes rule as autocratic dictators. If, on the other hand, there is too much evil, then the city will descend into anarchy, and the villains will have free reign. Each choice you make will impact the balance, so choose wisely.
I was approached to review 1-800-SUPER by Markus Witzlhofer. He contacted me on behalf of Pangolin Park; a small indie company based in Berlin. They had come out with an interactive audio drama game, and were wondering if I'd be up for reviewing it. He also mentioned that the team were all fans of my blog. As I've mentioned before, I'm a big fan of interactive media, especially Choose Your Own Adventure-type games. Adding an audio component seemed like the next logical step for interactive media. I happily said yes, and Markus sent me a free download code. The game is $2.99 for the rest of you, but honestly, I'd say that's a fair price for the quality and replay potential of this game.
I've already talked about the general mechanics of the gameplay, but let's talk specifics. This is a mobile game available from the App Store. The home screen of the game looks like the interface of an iPhone. You have an email app where the heroes and villains will send you emails about how your advice turned out. You'll also get news emails if the heroes or villains caused collateral damage as a result of your advice. I should mention that the amount of collateral damage you cause doesn't affect anything, other than pushing your meter more towards the evil side. You'll also get emails from Mr. Souls, your hotline mentor. He'll give you tips and tricks to help you out.
There's a notes app that gives basic information on each of the heroes and villains you encounter; their names, strengths, weakness, archenemies, and their mental diagnosis. Be sure you read all of this and keep it in mind; it will be important later in the game. There's a music app so you can listen to some music while you work and wait for calls. You also have a Twixta, the in-universe equivalent of Twitter, app. It lets you keep tabs on the various heroes and villains, even ones who don't call you. It also helps you influence the balance between good and evil. You can like or thumbs down tweets. Like three tweets that lean good, or dislike three that lean evil, let's you move the meter slightly towards good. Doing the reverse tips the meter slightly towards evil. You can even do a combination of liking and disliking as long as you get three tweets that lean in the same direction.
Finally, there is the meditation app. Just press it, if you don't have anything better to do, and the next thing you know you'll be receiving a call. Otherwise, you'll get calls at random while you do stuff and wait around; though usually you don't have to wait long.
Okay, now let's discuss the story itself. There are two distinct aspects to the story. First, there's the main plotline involving Ear. He's blind, but his superhearing more than makes up for that. He's a hero, but isn't above using harsh tactics and roughing up is opponents, so I guess that makes him an antihero. He's the first hero you help and the only hero you help multiple times. The main plot with Ear is kicked off when another hero named Scarab is murdered. He's a hero who has the power to grant good luck to other people, but can't bring any luck to himself. In fact, he's been plagued by terrible luck his entire life, and is living on the street when he gives you a call. It only just now occurred to me that it's pretty weird that he was able to call me despite being homeless. Did payphones make a comeback by 2056? I mean, I guess he could have asked to borrow someone's cellphone. In the grand scheme of things, I suppose it isn't important.
Scarab and Ear grew up in the same orphanage, and Ear considers Scarab his oldest and closest friend. Scarab's death hits Ear hard, and he makes it his personal vendetta to find Scarab's killers and bring them to justice. You have the option to tell him to work alone or team up with other heroes, but this doesn't affect the plot of Ear's storyline. As a side note, sometimes the option you get for answers aren't good answer vs evil answer, but polite answer vs jerk answer. I could never pick the jerk answers with Scarab. He's such a nice guy, despite everything he's been through, and I just felt so sorry for him. That was especially bad from my second play-though onwards, because I knew what was going to happen to him, no matter what I did. And apparently he's the third person to wield the power of the Scarab. Apparently it passes between individuals, though he has yet to find a successor. Actually, looking back now, certain bit of dialogue he gives suggest he knew his time on this mortal coil was about to expire. I wish there had been an option to somehow give him a hug.
We'll get back to Ear in a minute. For now, let's talk about the other characters. We'll start with the ones that are the most important later in the game. Why is this? Well, let's wait until the spoiler section for that. For now, I'd like to take a moment to praise the artwork and character design. The artwork looks like something out of a professional comic book. It's just static images, no animation, but very well drawn static images. One aspect that I particularly like is that the characters all feel genuinely original. They aren't just thinly-veiled versions of pre-existing superheroes and supervillains. Well, for the most part anyway. They feel like original organically created characters with their own backstories and personalities.
Also, the voice acting is absolutely phenomenal. I'm not familiar with any of the voice actors, though a few, such as Ear, sounded somewhat familiar, just can't think why that is. Anyway, though I'm not familiar with the voice actors, they all did excellent jobs. I see bright voice acting futures for them all. Despite the game being designed by a German company, the voice actors are all American. I suppose that's fitting, as many have noted that superheroes are something of a uniquely American phenomenon. You don't really see superheroes from other countries unless they're consciously modeled off of American superheroes. The only exception to that rule I've encountered is Japan, where you have stuff like Super Sentai/Power Rangers, Sailor Moon, and various mecha series.
I've always wondered why Europe never really developed its own superheroes. You could argue that many heroes of Victorian penny dreadfuls were proto-superheroes of a type. My guess is that the cynicism that resulted from enduring two world wars soured European readers on the idea of superheroes. Britain tried to produce superhero comics in the 1960s, but they quickly fizzled out. France has a very robust comic book industry in every genre but superheroes. It's interesting to speculate, but we're getting off-topic.
Our first hero of note is Mister Shine & Sparkle. He's got a power set and costume evocative of Superman, but couldn't be more different in terms of personality. He's an arrogant showboating prima donna who cares more about his social media following than actually saving people. There are a few timed decisions throughout the game, and he's one of them. You have to decide if you want him to put down the phone and be a hero, or use his current crisis as an opportunity for streaming to his followers
The next notable hero is Blood Sister. She's a vampire, but uses her powers to fight crime. Though she's constantly having to fight the urge to give into her primal instincts. You'll have to decide if you should let her take a bite of the delivery boy. She claims to have ordered a rare steak, but if you do encourage her bite the delivery boy, you'll get an email from the local pizzeria about how they have a job opening due to one of their delivery boys mysterious disappearing. Maybe it was a fancy pizzeria that also offers steak? Or maybe the delivery boy was struggling to make ends meet and was working for multiple restaurants? Or maybe "rare steak" was a euphemism. Though, if you do encourage Blood Sister to bite the delivery boy, the end credits will mention that a pair of vampire hunter named Van H. and Simon B. are sharpening their stakes. I guess Buffy S. had prior engagements.
Interestingly, she's one of the only heroes with more than two potential endings to her call. You can tell her to leave the delivery boy alone, tell her to bite him, or tell her to rob a blood bank instead. Though, only tells her to note bite the delivery boy, and nothing else, results in Blood Sister learnibg to controlling during ending during the credits. More about the credits in a bit.
Our third person of note is Dr. Know How. Imagine Tony Stark, only he's a villain rather than a hero, and that's Dr. Know How. He's got the most options, out of all the characters, for how his call turns out. Depending on which way you tell him to drive his car he'll encounter either Sakura Flame or Pool Boy. You can help him get away from Pool Boy by converting his car to flight mode and flying to the Moon, or by running over Sakura Flame. Alternatively, you can have him try to reason with the heroes. Sakura Flame will torch him, but getting covered in third degree burns will convince Dr. Know How to turn his life around and use his inventions for good.
If he confronts Pool Boy, he will drown...and then turn his life around and use his inventions for good. Uh, how could he turn his life around if he's dead? That is particularly odd given that Dr. Know How has three possible ending for the credits; confronting Pool Boy or Sakura Flame being the only option that lead to the same outcome. Seems like there was lack of proofreading during the script writing. But let us move along.
Fast Justice doesn't have superpowers, but that doesn't stop him from enacting justice fighting against the criminal underworld. If only he weren't complete and utterly insane. I got some Kick-Ass vibes from Fast Justice. He certainly looks like something out of a Mark Miller comic. Fast Justice does make at least some good points. He's right that Mr. Shine & Sparkle probably shouldn't be considered a hero purely because he has superpowers. Unfortunately, Fast Justice being completely batshit crazy, and having a completely black and white outlook on life, undermines these points. You know, now that I think about it, in terms of mentality he isn't too different than Rorschach from Watchmen.
Alpha Nukleus is some sort of cosmic entity who has chosen to take human form. This hasn't helped him connect with humanity. In fact, he feels lonely and isolated, because he feels nobody can truly understand him. He's decided to destroy his human shell, which will have the nasty side effect of irradiating millions of people. You must decide if you let him go through with it, or tell the other heroes to stop him. I recall a hero from Astro City, named Atomicus, who was somewhat similar Alpha Nukleus. Not sure if it was intention or coincidence, but if the former, good on the team behind this game. Astro City is an awesome comic book series; I can't recommend it enough.
On one play through, I think the game glitched and I got a call from Alpha Nukleus before Ear made his first call. I told him to break his shell, as I'd already picked the other option, and I was curious what would happen. Million were bathed in radiation, but Mr. Souls sent me an email congratulating me on a fantastic first day, as he usually does after Ear calls for the first time. I repeat, millions of people received massive radiation exposer because of me, probably fatally so, and Mr. Souls considered that a good first day. Well, he did say it was less about right vs wrong, and more about keeping the balance. It may have been a glitch, but was a damn hilarious glitch.
Imagine Cthulhu, only he's an evil business mogul, and that pretty much Vlad Xthul. He wants to expand his business empire, but is having trouble navigating modern social mores. Specifically, he wants to knockout the competition, namely Dr. Know How. You can tell him to either buyout the company, or have him break Dr. Know How's leg. If you pick the first, it will encourage Vlad Xthul to go into politics, and he will be elected president of the Atlantic Union...which is a thing by 2056. I'm guessing it's a union of North America and Europe. Of course, as Ear notes, he can't be much worse than the politicians they already have.
Our last person of note among the really significant characters is Luzida. She has the power to enter people's dreams. Lately, however, she's been plagued by dark visions ever time she goes to sleep. She tried to stay awake as long as possible, and the waters look so inviting. No matter how many times I played this game, I could never tell Luzida to go in the water. I just felt so bad for her, and I couldn't coerce her into potentially committing suicide. I know that seems odd, given that I encouraged Alpha Nukleus and Sakura Flame to kill millions of people just to see what would happen. Well, you know what they say; one is a tragedy, a million is a statistic. And in my defense, the game doesn't try very hard to make you care about killing that many people. Luzida winds up teaming up with Ear later in the game. This will be important later on.
Okay, those are all the characters who will be important later in the game. As such, they're the ones you are mostly likely to encounter, though you won't get all of them in one play though. We will discuss why this is in the spoilers section. Oh, but we aren't done talking heroes and villains just yet. This next batch are mostly just there to help you adjust your karma meter, but they're still pretty fascinating in their own right.
First up is Sakura Flame. We've already briefly discussed her, but her issue is that the other heroes give her no respect. The supervillain Glaze has frozen the city's pipes, and poor Sakura Flame has to thaw them. She's planning on getting revenge on the other heroes by "accidentally" blowing up an oil refinery while she tries to take down Glaze. As previously mentioned, should you encourage her to do so, millions will die in the explosion. Personally, I'm still surprised they have oil by 2056. Also, millions die in the explosion? Just how densely populated is this city? Interesting fact, Sakura Flame was not part or the original release of 1-800-SUPER, but was added in a later update. I'm also slightly confused by her name. I get the flame bit, but why sakura. She doesn't have pink hair, she isn't Japanese, and she doesn't have a cherry blossom motif.
Glaze is also a character you can encounter. He is pretty much the living embodiment of cold. His mother was a glacier and his father was a sea of ice. However, as his power grows, the planet's ice caps shrink, and global warming certainly isn't helping matters. He wants to conquer Antarctica, but is it worth potentially sacrificing his parents? I wouldn't think it would be terribly hard to conquer Antarctica; nobody there but a few temporary scientists, and of course the penguins and leopard seals. Well, unless people have been establishing colonies in Antarctica by 2056.
Timelooper is trying to get out of the hero business. She has the power to time travel and rewind time. However, every time she does this a miniature black hole opens shortly afterwards. They collapse before long, but they do cause collateral damage. She's on a flight to her new life, but wouldn't you know it, Dr. Know How has decided to bomb the plane. Will you encourage Timelooper to use her powers, despite the risk, or take a gamble on Mister Shine and Sparkle actually showing up to help? You can have Timelooper rewind time, stop Dr. Know How, but then a building gets sucked into a black hole. However, if you tell her to rewind time, wait to see what happens, which enviably puts you back at square one, and then call Mister Shine and Sparkle, it will be treated as though Timelooper never used her powers.
Geist.app is an A.I. that is on the run, metaphorically speaking, from its creators. They fear it will turn evil, but Geist.app just wants to preserve its existence. You must decide if it should keep a low profile, or if it should defend itself by any means necessary, consequences be damned. I liked that Geist.app isn't depicted as evil; just scared, and trying to survive. And if you encourage it to keep a low profile it decides to optimize email speeds; that was nice of it.
Maxwell's Hydra is a cyborg monster serpent, and Ear's sworn nemesis. At one point, Ear even calls you while he's fighting Maxwell's Hydra. Despite the fact that Maxwell's Hyrda gets killed at the end of this call, it can still call you later on. Yeah, this game has some issues with continuity. It can't talk, just roar, but you can still help it out. Give it advice on how to how to treat a sore through and it will turn tame, and fight on the side of the heroes. Dr. Know How will, essentially adopt it and give it regular oil changes. Of course, this end will imply that Dr. Know How turned good, even if your choices result in an ending where he remained a villain.
You also occasionally get calls from people who aren't heroes or villains. Big Bang FM is a news station. They give you information about the happenings of the various heroes and villains. Most of it is irrelevant to the game, and most doesn't involve the heroes and villains you council. Still, some of the stories can be amusing. Speaking of amusing, you can also get people who call you by mistake. One person butt dials you. They don't actually say anything, no matter what you choose, so you can hang up on them without taking a penalty. You can also get a call from a guy who firmly believes that he has called the pizza shop. He will hang up, but you'll get an email from him about how he's leaving a very bad review for the pizza shop. Man, that dude had determination, I'll give him that.
Okay, I think that should be everyone. Now we're going to be discussing the spoilers for the ending of the game. As such, turn back now if you don't want any of that.
Last chance. You sure you want to continue?
Well, okay. If everyone who wants out is gone, let's get into it.
So, Ear discovers a cult who worship Gallion, the Demon of Misfortune. Naturally, they weren't too keen on a good luck charm like Scarab. Turns out that Gallion has taken a human host. Nobody, not even the one hosting Gallion, knows who it is. With some help from Luzida, Ear tracks down the host of Gallion. It is someone the heroes completely trusted, and who had access to them at all times
So, who is this mysterious host...you are! There is no option but to kill yourself so that Gallion will die. If you can't do if yourself, Ear will help you out. At this point, Gallion will reveal itself to you. Gallion will quiz you on the six heroes and villains I mentioned at the start of this review. Get all or most of the questions correct and Gallion will be defeated. Well, after you shoot yourself in the head that is
Against all odd, you survive the whole shooting yourself in the head thing. I like to think that Ear is right, and that Scarab watching out for us from beyond the grave. You'll get a few more emails from Ear, and he will also send you a new music file. Press play on it, and the credits will begin The credits begin by showing how all the heroes and villains you helped fared.
Which endings are good, and which are bad, are a matter of personal perspective. I will say that some of them are counterintuitive. For example, if you let Alpha Nukleus shed his human shell, he'll find a heroine who actually understand him. Stopping him makes him turn hostile to the heroes, and it's clear he still has the capability to do it, and is just licking his wounds for now. Similarly, having Sakura Flame blow up the oil refinery, and kill millions of people, gets her the validation she craves. Convincing her not to causes her to get assigned to a penguin research station in Antarctica, though it is mentioned that she is content and happy. Oh, and this can happen even if you encourage Glaze to take control of Antarctica. Amusingly, even the guy who tried to order pizza gets an ending tell how he is doing.
Mr. Souls ending always has him get promoted to managing a hotline for demigods. Is that hint about a potential future game. Because if so, that sounds like a totally awesome idea. You could have the callers be children of different god; and not just the Greco-Roman gods, you could also have children of the Egyptian, Norse, Japanese, Yoruba, Maya, Celtic, or any other pantheon. Trust me, there is a huge untapped market for a game like that. I will rally the Percy Jackson fandom in an instant if you guys are seriously going to make a game like that. But I'm getting off track again.
You can still look around after the credits, though you won't get any more calls. You will still get emails from heroes and villains remarking on how boring everything is now. I guess it's the game going "You're still here? The game is over, go home." Ear will even decide to leave the city as he feels it no longer needs him. Of course, you can replay the game as you wish. I will say that, after about five or six play throughs, I'd experienced pretty much everything there was to be experienced.
Okay, so overall I greatly enjoy this game, but are there any improvements I would suggest? Well, as I've noted, there are several continuity errors that get downright nonsensical at times. Granted, it didn't bother me too much, but I think it would feel more like the choices had actual consequence if this was fixed. It might also be nice if there were more storylines than just the main one with Ear. Maybe there could be certain events or choices that triggered different storylines. It would add to the replay value of the game. I do hope future updates add more characters, as there are several mentioned in passing, or on Twixta, that sound potentially interesting.
Also, despite the setting supposedly being dystopian, I didn't really see it. Well, other than the whole irradiating millions of people being considered a good first day thing. Yeah, there is collateral damage from fights between heroes and villains, but that hardly makes things dystopian.
Still, overall these are minor criticisms. I was very impressed with 1-800-SUPER, and I had a lot of fun playing it. I'd love to see the world of this game expanded upon either in updates or maybe in a sequel game. And I'd just like to reiterate that you guys really should give thought to making a demigod hotline game. I'm just saying, huge untapped market to cash in on. But getting back on topic, I strongly recommend you download 1-800-SUPER today. Believe me, you will be glad that you did.
Link to the original review on my blog, but it is just the same as what is here: http://drakoniandgriffalco.blogspot.com/2020/12/video-game-review-1-800-super.html?m=1