[And he's not a strategist, he's a pseudo-Victorian idol musician! They're doing great here. They'd probably make chessmasters cry but maybe that's a type of strategy too...??]

Mmhmm. I think I recognized most of them in the library -- apart from the story of Momotarou, which Makoto did a wonderful retelling of. Given how strange this area is, could it be... a representation of several different stories, such as the one with the beanstalk...

[Jack! And the Beanstalk!! He finally got around to reading that, praise him or something. Though the tower is not all that Beanstalk-like.]

Or perhaps it's premature to say, without looking around more.