I'm back, and my party is now at a much, much higher level than before, except Etna. Socrates is at level 41, and the others, like Aristotle and Punchmaster, are nearing level 30.
A zombie gave me a hint as to where the Prinnies are going: The Lunar Snowfield. The first stage is the "Theatre of Death", which I assume contains a lot of death.
Well, this level isn't going to be fun. All of the Geo-Panels have "Enemy Boost x3" on them. Youch. Hopefully I can take down a few of these guys before dying in a most horrible fashion.
I do, in fact. While Tacitus dies and in general I take a ton of damage, I'm not doing too bad. Flonne's healing abilities aren't great, but they're enough for now. I'll have to find out a way to improve them soon. Perhaps by leveling her up?
There are just two more enemies left, but they're tougher than the tree dudes I fought. Laharl tries to solo one of them, and Punchmaster, Aristotle and Socrates work together on the other.
That one is on a bridge, so I have Punchmaster use one of his specials to knock it back, and make Aristotle toss Socrates over a chasm so that he can flank it.
Unfortunately, Punchmaster suffers a horrible death, so Aristotle takes his place.
Laharl attacks the other guy, and it does.... nothing at all! Crap. I rush Flonne over there to help him out.
Socrates runs off and destroys the Geo-Panel making the enemies stronger. I hope that helps.
It does... sort of. I'm not doing much damage, but neither are the enemies.
They try to resist, but they cannot. Socrates destroys one, and Laharl, (eventually) does the same to the other, with a little help from Flonne.
Hooray! That was a challenge for once! After I heal and buy a ton more healing items, I'm off again. The "Frigid Garden" makes me wonder why it's still a garden. Someone must be really skilled and/or patient.
Cutscene here. Laharl questions Flonne on whether or not she really knows about the Prinny situation. She even actually pretty harsh toward him. That's kind of surprising.
Monsters in this level are grouped in an interesting way. They go up from level 1, doubling until they get to level 32, in organized lines and such.
I accidentally end my turn after not doing much... IDIOT. Luckily there aren't any consequences that I can see. Flonne heals everyone to the best of her ability, then I split them up into two groups, one going north and the other going east. At least, I think the compass directions are straightforward here. Who knows.
It's going smoothly. This is way easier than the last fight. The rewards and cash aren't that special, though, which kinda makes sense, considering a lot of these guys were level 1 and 2 and so on. Oh well, money is money!
I get a new Demon Emblem thingy from the hospital, and as usual I give it to Socrates, then send reorganize the "emblem hierarchy" of sorts.
Time for "Freezing Souls". Why all the ice levels? Why!? I hate them so.
In this cutscene, Flonne inquires with no small amount of expedience as to why exactly Laharl possesses the personality trait commonly referred to as "stubbornness". She rendezvouses with Etna to devise an answer.
Apparently Laharl's mother was a witch, who talked a lot about love and all that. When da Queen died, it was to save Laharl's life, because of the arbitrary requirements of video game diseases.
This level has actual human enemies, instead of sentient tree-things. These guys use spears, so they shouldn't do too much damage. They're at a pretty high level though (28) compared to many of my characters. They actually manage to do quite a bit of damage to me.
Laharl goes to mess around with some Geo-Symbols, and Socrates is left by herself defending against the oncoming horde of spear wielding crazies.
Most of the spear enemies are dead, and one Geo-Symbol is down. I've managed to avoid any more casualties on my side.
The Geo-Symbols are gone, except one, which decreases the ledge-bound enemies' attack. Socrates leveled up, and now I'm pretty much ready to end this fight.
The enemy mages wasted almost all of their SP powering up their allies near the beginning of the fight, so they'll be simple.
I'm done, and I get a whole 20000 HL for this! That's what I call awesome! Yes, I have pretty low standards for "awesome".
I'm guessing that the next stage, "Under the Moon", is the last stage, or an average episode of Sailor Moon. Hopefully the former.
Flonne watches a bunch of balls float into the sky. Guess what? They're souls! No wai! It's not like that was obvious. This relates to the whole "Prinnies are people!!" from before.
As always, Laharl refuses to care about any of this and orders the attack. A Deathy kinda guy opposes us, but I'll mow through 'em all anyway.
Socrates leads the charge, with Punchmaster and Laharl as his wingmen, and Tacitus inside the formation. Aristotle is apart form them, going up the side of the "stairway" (to Heaven) that forms the majority of the stage.
Nearing the top of the stairs, I keep in formation. All's going quite well, except for Tacitus taking quite a lot of damage. He'll be fine, I hope. Nope! Next turn, he does. Luckily that does disrupt the formation too badly.
However, Punchmaster is also killed, and that's hard to ignore. Socrates, Aristotle and Laharl will have to cover for him.
Socrates absolutely destroys the head Death guy, but there are still two level 30s and one level 27 left. Just one left after my next turn. At last, I win, at the top of the stairs.
Laharl gets the situation explained to him, and he lets the Prinnies go.
Also, cool part here. Turns out that the Big Sis Prinny is more than likely Laharl's mother. I didn't actually see that coming. Interesting.
Flonne gives her poetic description of what's going on, then the singing from the beginning returns.
Episode End!
In the preview, Etna gives her oddball speech, in a different, very un-Etna-like accent. Time for Episode 9!
The cutscene shows a (Handsome) Man in a spaceship drinking tea. Him and his Bridge Bunny Jennifer are leaving the Earth, for some mission or other. There's also a robot, too. These are the first humans I've seen yet, and this is just a little weird.
They get a transmission from the "Earth Defense Force Headquarters" and it's all fancy and holographic and stuff. They go into hyperdrive, and they're off, to wherever.
Down in the Netherworld, a Prinny informs Laharl of some anomalies and stuff going on. Some invaders, from space! Or something like that. Laharl soon agrees to Flonne's demands to help out whoever might be there.
And you'll get the story of that next time. In the meantime, I'll be making a Knight and a Ninja to do battle in my name.
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