Chapter 3

Chapter 3 opens with Col. Saturn in his room of what used to be Elmadan's mansion, which has now been cleaned up and established as the Applechaser's home base.

## **Home base**

Elmadan wanders in and pleads his case to the Colonel, claiming that he didn't know what he was doing in a way that's hard to explain, which he tried describing as a "great shadow" (a familiar sound and red light briefly flashes for the player, implying that the Mook was brainwashed). Elmadan begs to not be kicked out, swearing that he can prove his usefulness.

If Col. Saturn forgives him and lets him stay, he graciously gives thanks, then re-claims his previous spot up on the roof. If Col. Saturn kicks him out (or the game is on Hard Mode), he leaves angrily (but peacefully) claiming that the Applechasers haven't seen the last of him.

Several Mr. Saturns live at the base now, and one of them mentions that 'Discface and Slimy' (Zarbol and Alinivar) haven't been seen for a while. Larice explains that their orders are to be with Alinivar, so they join the Colonel on the task of finding him.

## Canyons

The two of them journey up through canyons, using Larice's bagged eraser to reach spots they couldn't before.

The two of them walk in on Alinivar and Zarbol, who were having a pretty heated conversation with Giegue, who was demanding they hand over the apple if they want him to leave Saturn in peace. When he finds out that the Applechasers don't have the Apple, nor do they know where it is, he gets very upset and starts a fight.

### **Giegue battle**

He wipes out the team.

*"A wandering alien from another galaxy. He is troubled about something. It doesn't seem like you can beat him."*

**Attacks:** Inexplicable Jolt, Incomprehensible Zap, Unnatural Wave, Insanity Fog, Anger

As everyone is sprawled out in the grass, knocked out, playing the standard defeat music, Niiue calls Larice which presumably wakes the Starman up.

After realizing that Giegue must be going off the deep end if he's ripping up a planet looking for the Apple, Niiue gives Larice their newest mission: once they can move after such a radical wipe-out, they're to gather up the others and head toward Satralia Tower. Once again, he doesn't elaborate why, but following orders is very important to Larice so they follow through.

## Satralia

Once they all reach Satralia, they find it beat up and deserted after Giegue had apparently tore up everything looking for the Apple of Enlightenment here. There aren't many remaining townsfolk here, but they're all too terrified to talk about it.

### **Satralia Tower**

Traveling up though the tower to the roof, the group sees a piece of the Apple there, but Greyface descends before it could be grabbed.

### **Greyface battle**

*"He is a mystery but not unsolvable. Packs lots of powerful weaponry. A favorite is the Heavy Bazooka."*

**Attacks:** Flamethrower, Gunfire, Grenade, Fear of Government

Once enough HP is gone, it ends with Greyface claiming he should have brought more explosives. He grabs the Apple piece and takes off.

Niiue calls saying he saw the whole thing (thanks for the help, Niiue). He says the grey-faced person is a human, the dominant species on planet Earth, yet Earth hasn't developed reliable space travel yet. "*Not only is he a long way from home, he's got tech he shouldn't be anywhere near."*

He gives Larice (and by proxy, the rest of the Applechasers) a new mission: use refugee parts to build a space ship, because their next place of interest is Jupiter. Though he doesn't mention why they need to head there, he does say that Alinivar should check the Unity Star every now and then since the sounds it makes will change as it gets stronger.

The Applechasers can scrounge up some spare parts from the crashed ships that are in the area, so they head out to do so.

### **Back at it again in Satralia**

Though there's not much left in this town, Col. Saturn can recruit the leftover citizens to join their crew. The shop keeper and Dr. Saturn gladly agree to meet up with the Colonel back at the home base in Sataene.

Zarbol scoops the Life support system out of the crashed ship in the gardens before they head back toward the swamp.

## Old Sataene

After Zarbol harvests the robot blocking the path for it's scrap metal, the Applechasers head through the peak fungus flooding toward the western part of Old Sataene.

After gathering up the Navigation system from Larice's old wreck, Niiue calls them to check in before babbling about going to Jupiter again. Now that there's actually a ship to talk about, Malik will gladly (if he's capable of being glad that is) drag the Combinulator with him to accompany the Applechasers if they stop by his cave to recruit him.

## Back at the Applechaser's HQ...

Back at the base out on the balcony, either Elmadan (if he was spared) or a Mook mechanic that Niiue had hired will be waiting for the spaceship guts you recovered, which they will promptly install. The mechanic will charge the gang 150 B
before taking off, though Elmadan will hook his new crew up and do it for free before hopping on the ship himself.

## Finally it's space time

The whole crew piles on the ship before it's time for the first lift off. Niiue left the gang 5 units of fuel, which is just enough to get to Jupiter. Flying northwesterly, they should reach the planet with a sliver of fuel to spare.

## Jupiter's Roadways and Bolos

As soon as the party descend into Bolos, some Starmen show up with orders from Captain Deepsea to raze the town. The Applechasers are attacked on sight, by a Ghost Ops Starman, and a Blue Starman. The fight is relatively easy to other forced encounters, so there shouldn't be any issues with it.

After they're defeated, the scene instantly transitions over to Niiue.

## Back to you, Niiue

Niiue's nondescript spaceship pulls up to earth, and some of his crew express their concern about how such a primitive planet could be Giegue's bane. None the less, they're eager to get this mission over with.

*"Don't spend too much time down there Commander, head straight for that polestar place \*whirr\*"* they say. *"That's where the PSI readout's coming from."*

Niiue drops down into Twoson, apparently undisguised judging off the citizen's reactions when he approaches them. Remaining focused on the mission (making sure to *not* stop by the Exploding Gourds concert or any pizza joints despite temptation), he heads to the Polestar Preschool.

### **Polestar Preschool**

Niiue eavesdrops on Paula's parents narrating the scene as they give a young Paula an old teddy bear, and they comment that it feels warmer than a stuffed bear probably should. A psi-sounding flash gleams across the screen, implying that Paula set it on fire. Chapter 3 ends here.

### **Softlock Warning (Not yet confirmed, but better safe than sorry...)**

Here is a warning about a softlock I discovered. When you encounter Giegue, you get the entire team. However, instead of fighting Greyface, you use Zarbol to scavenge the robot early. Then, you go to Larice's ship and scavenge it. This puts the game into a softlock because Niiue doesn't call you then which makes the story progress, as you haven't fought Greyface, but now the trigger that causes the Niiue call which is needed to go through the story is gone because you already triggered it. However, the softlock allows you to fight Greyface, but after that, you can no longer progress in the game, thus you need to reset. Hopefully ,you have more save files to fall back on if this happens.