Low-life scum and gullible musicians save the day
Everdred runs Burglin Park, the open-air market in Twson. It’s suggested that he’s something of a mobster, and NPCs explicitly state that he’s tied to kidnappings and burglaries, and not someone to mess with.
When you tread deeply into Burglin Park, Everdred jumps off the roof of his own house and challenges you to a fight. His actions in combat include stealing consumable goods from you, knitting his brow, and biting you.
Once Everdred finds out how tough you are, he tells you about Paula‘s whereabouts. Evidently, in the Japanese version of the game, he lets on that he owns the cabin that Paula is being held in. Everdred rents out a cabin in the wilderness to people without scruples.
It’s unclear precisely why he informs you about Paula’s location – and he also suggests that he heard you were looking for her. And he asks you to bring her back here when you find her. Jesus, what does he want?
When you do bring Paula back to Everdred, he is impressed, again suggesting he has informants about town.
I heard that you’ve been pretty proud of yourself since you saved Paula’s
life… I was going to ask you to be my partner, but I know you’ll refuse. It’s
written all over your face. If you accepted, I was going to give you some
money. Actually, I can’t keep the money now anyway. Let me give this to you.
It’s 10,000 dollars. Use the money any way you like. You cannot refuse my
generosity. Just accept it.
Ha ha! Okay. And then you receive an item called Wad of bills. What do we do with this money? Hey, y’know who else wanted to see Paula? That band at the theatre: the Runaway Five!
While you’re backstage, you find out the band is indebted to the owner of the theatre, Mr. Poochyfud. I dunno how talent booking works exactly, but I guess the Runaway Five sells a lot of tickets, and that’s why the owners wants them to stay.
But guess how much their debt is? $10,000! When you give Poochyfud the wad of bills, the Runaway Five line up to express their gratitude, then they pile into their bus to go to Threed.
Oh, but you can’t get to Threed. The tunnel is inhabited by zombie goasts.
Our tour bus is too loud for any ghosts to bother us, say Lucky of the Runaway Five. The coolness and funk emanating from the bus does indeed repel the ghosts in the tunnel to Threed.
We almost see the same relationship between Everdred and Poochyfud as we did between Frank Fly and Mayor Pirkle back in Onett. Everdred and Frank are both the guy on the street with bad reputations, and Poochyfud and Pirkle act as “the guy behind the desk” who restricts progress for other people.
Like Frank Fly and Carpainter, Everdred acts against his reputation after he’s defeated in a fight. Fighting Ness seems to bring out the best in people. Must be something about the purity of combat with the Chosen One that makes them see the truth.
But Everdred almost anticipates being on amicable terms with Ness from the top, introducing himself by saying, “Why don’t we chat later-after we’ve locked horns!”
It’s not clear if he’s truly changed at all because for every nice thing he does for Ness, he also gets something in return. By helping you find Paula, he’s also clearing his name in regards to her disappearance. By giving you $10,000, he is also getting rid of money that is clearly dirty.
And who’s only too happy to take the money? Why, Poochyfud, the unscrupulous owner of the Chaos Theater. And that is how organized crime helps save the world.
So you came to Twoson to smash the cult to find Paula to impress the guy to get the money to pay the debt to free the band to get to Threed.
What’s great about Twoson is that, we get to see how quests start neatly dovetailing into each other. The reward for the previous objective becomes the means of overcoming the next objective. Every event and character in the game is tied together simply by doing the next thing you need to do to progress.