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... What? You didn't honestly think that I was just going to leave you hanging halfway through a dungeon for two weeks, did you? Also, that day happens to be right before a pair of exams, so... One restful RL sleep later, and now we're prepared to take the steps necessary to bag us one boss of Mordor. When we left off at the save point, we came to a 4 way intersection... Heading up takes you to a door with a nasty-looking monster motif with one of those bird statues again, heading left or right apparently takes you to dungeon segments... Hmm... What to do...?
- I went to the bird statue. He will give us a test. I squeeze my way through it is to stand.
In the third circle from the top until it's been filed. (Note that a circle is the symbol 3.
To match the symbols on the walls).
- Warp back to the save point.
- Save it to the right side. Dan is a statue of two birds at the top to the bottom.
- To find a statue of a bird before. You'll need to test.
- Casting Fireball and Ice on the left to the right statue. Then the door will open.
- Inside the statue to be cast by the animal.
I "Heal" below.
The "Talker" left.
Cows, "Posion" right.
Dragon Unlock "on
Hmm... Let's talk to that bird statue then... Doing so triggers a short sequence involving the talky sprites for Oliver, the statue, Maru, and Drippy... I guess it's time to find out what those other four things are... Hmm... The guide seems to imply that the left path comes first, so let's go with that. Heading down the left dungeon, one of the first things that you'll encounter is a 4-way intersection next to a MP crystal... Hmm... This could be quite a crawl... The bottom one dead ends at a pool of lava, the left one dead-ends at a wall, the top one- Huh, that's different... There's some sort of sigil here that behaves strangely if you step on it (and it gives Oliver and company a good start in the process). Drippy drops a couple red terms, one of them is "ヒール"... Which apparently means... ... "Heel"? What? Uh... Wait, Symbol 3? That's Cure. Let's try that out... Doing so seems to satisfy the game, Drippy begins to talk some more... And then he freaks out... There's apparently a LOT of these seals to break... But no matter, nothing we can't handle... Right? Drippy leaves a 2-Kanji red phrase for us, and we get prompted to cast another spell... Uh...
A few tries later and we succeed with a "Float" spell, which is the 12th one in the book (horizontal black slash on the bottom followed by a weird down and up red stroke). ... That wasn't mentioned at ALL here, guide! (Granted, I don't have your pictures anymore, so...) But whatever, at least we can get past these seals. We run into a new enemy in here alongside one of those devils and those colorful bird-lizards, it looks like some sort of blue devilish umbrella... Stingray... Thing. Whatever it is, it serves as a "medic" monster, so let's break a rule or two from the Geneva Convention and pound the snot out of it first. It's quite a tank, so don't be TOO cheap with your MP against it.
A little ways down the path, you'll come across a fork. The side WITHOUT the seal directly visible leads to a long twisty passage that takes you to a stone bird. It prompts us to choose "yes" or "no"... Uh... "Yes"?
... Which teleports us into a strange room consisting of a long thin platform with all sorts of sigils on it surrounded by lava... Heading to the other end causes a rock with a large symbol on it to glow, and the bird statue to speak up, and drop a truly MASSIVE red phrase consisting of 11 characters, most of them Kanji. Uh... A timer just popped up... That's not goo- ... Are those walls CLOSING IN ON US?! So we have thirty seconds to try and figure this out... Uh... Let's run around screaming!
... Nope, that didn't do it... Thankfully, Oliver got teleported out of there before he became a bloody pile of tissue, so we're back where we started... Uh... Maybe we're supposed to come here last? Let's see what's at that other fork in the path... ... It's a dead end with a HP crystal and a red chest with... Something inside it... Uh... Let's try the right dungeon then. The right dungeon is considerably less linear than the left one. There's a two way fork off the bat, and while running on the upper one trying to flee a horny devil, we also encountered a second 2-way fork going up and right, the right path leads to a 4-way intersection. The top dead ends at a red chest with some sort of ring in there... The left takes us to another bird statue... And the bottom one dead ends at a pool of lava... Uh... Let's try the bird again... We get prompted to "yes" or "no" again... Er... "Yes?" ... And we get teleported into some green room with a pair of statues... Uh...
- Casting Fireball and Ice on the left to the right statue. Then the door will open.
- Inside the statue to be cast by the animal.
I "Heal" below.
The "Talker" left.
Cows, "Posion" right.
Dragon Unlock "on
Magic Poison Posion year and if you can not cast to cast it as shown below.
The toxic effect げどく posion.
Oh! So THAT'S what we're up to here... Sure enough, casting Fireball on the left statue, and Ice on the right causes their orbs to light up, and the door to open up to reveal... Four statues. A purple cow head, a rooster head, a dragon head, and a scratched up cat head at the bottom. ... Going up and examining the statues gives you a little message... And not much else... Uh... Oh derp, there's ANOTHER statue here to talk to... Okay, NOW we can cast spells... The "poison" spell in question for the cow head is the 4th spell in the book. It looks kind like a "b" intersected by a inverted "u" on the bottom. The others are fairly basic spells (and in the case of Heal and Unlock, ones that you've probably used quite often). Completing this task causes a jingle to play the door with the "3" symbol at the end to flash and Oliver to obtain a blue orb... (What do these things do anyways?) As the bird statue presumably gives us a "Yay, whoo, whoop de doo for you" speech... And we get teleported back to the save point. Hmm... Let's see what else we missed in there before taking on the shrinking room of death again. The southern passage is fairly linear. There's 3 2-way intersections. 2 of them split between dead ends with red chests and the main path, the last one splits between a red chest and another bird statue. Let's see what this bird has in store for us...
We get teleported into a simple-looking maze and... Wait. Maru? What's she doing on that other end? OH! It's a 2 person maze... And you need to get Maru and Oliver to meet up in the same place! Pay attention to switches around here that will let you shift where (rather nasty-looking) traps lie and use Y to jump between controlling Oliver and Maru. There's not much to this one, just run up to tablets with colored lights to remove the fire from traps with alike-colored eyes. (They've got a bit of a monster motif going for them.) After making your way through, just place Oliver and Maru on a pair of square emblems, and you should open the final gate. Doing so frees you to access a greenish-blue ring that will take you back to the save point. A fast backtrack to the dungeon reveals that there's not much missing from that 2-way split after heading north, just a red chest with a bracelet. Alright, let's try the room of death again... But how do we-
- I went to the bird statue. He will give us a test. I squeeze my way through it is to stand.
In the third circle from the top until it's been filed. (Note that a circle is the symbol 3.
To match the symbols on the walls).
OH. ... I feel like such a genius now. After a few tries, we deduce that one of these sigils is not like the other. To clear this particular challenge, just stand in that one until the timer runs out, and watch the bird statue troll you by letting the walls get within six inches of squishing Oliver before backing off. And that has gotten us yet another blue orb... This should be our fourth... I wonder... Can we open that big door now?
- I passed it back to the safe room, then go right again.
- This time to just below the statue of a bird.
- Test is free to come and step on the switch, the destination is not difficult puzzles.
How much is it to switch. The door then opens it to pass. We can change the character of the force.
We come to know by pressing Y.
- After going through the warp to the middle. New boss to save her.
- Save and then go ahead with my boss.
- After winning the warp to the 精霊 の 神殿.
Hmm... Sounds like that puzzle that we cleared after the spellcasting one... And like we've got a fight brewing... Let's save, play around with equipment builds a bit, and head up to the bird statue by that freaky door. Let's try something different for now and switch Taillow out for Maru before we talk to that last burning stone bird. Doing so reveals that the gate opens... And the shopkeeper says something that irks Oliver and Maru... Presumably "This is as far as I'm going, kid". Considering how we almost died to a closing room trap 3 times, it's hard to blame him. Heading into the room reveals a stone six-armed idol... Not wholly unlike some depictions of Hindu divinities. Which unfortunately for us, comes to life while dual wielding swords...
Oh boy...
Let's start out by hugging the back and trying some stuff out against our dark blue-skinned assailant with garb that looks like someone set a bomb off in a box full of costumes from a Bollywood set. We cast one of Oliver's more expensive spells, have Rucci attack, and try one of Maru's support spells (it apparently boosts our speed) and-
O_O
That THING did 37 HP DAMAGE! Uh... Okay, let's see if meatshielding is still a valid trick in the book... We have Rucci and Oliver attack, Maru try out her OTHER support spell, and find that it boosts attack. We manage to deal about 120 HP of damage this round, but Oliver is unable to dodge a 28 HP slash. Geez, this thing's tough... We make another turn, chip away another 100-ish HP.
... And find out that this boss has a X-shaped attack pattern... Joy... Which leaves Maru with 3 or so HP... (Oh great, we are SO dead... Even if we DO survive this.) In our next round, we have Rucci play offense while we hastily attempt to save Maru (and ourselves from death by strangulation) with magic- FFFFFF- I wasted a move on a Poison healing spell! Also, Both Oliver and Maru are kinda in a world of hurt right now... Uh... Go, Taillow! OH PISS, I'M ABOUT TO- Oh wait, it was just a status attack... Mercifully... Er... So now what do I do with Oliver? Er... Maybe we should pack some more status buffs... But let's see what a round of all-out attack can accomplish first... Doing so knocks about 120 HP off... Hmm... Looks like this could work... Let's try that again... We do so, dodge that X-shaped attack pattern... Wait a minute, why am I dealing less damage? ... Oh... Looks like that speed and offense boost from Maru has worn off... Seeing as the boss is down to about a third of its health and bringing out Drippy for defense buffs at this point is kinda questionable in use... Oh well, why screw with a good thing? Attack!
A further round has Rucci eating yet another attack, which finally sends him to sub 50% health. Let's heal him with Oliver and keep up the offensive. After a couple rounds of this, and a bread roll to undo some of the damage done to Oliver by a swat from our idol attacker, we have this guy at under 1/8 health. Let's see if one more thrust can finish this guy off... Unfortunately, it is not... Rucci missed his attack, so the boss is still ticking... With like 6 HP... Oh well, since we unfortunately don't have any limit breaks, let's go with the next best thing. Cherry tapping. Taillow finishes this boss off by sneezing pecking it, and we get treated to a cutscene of it toppling over and crumbling apart and dissolving in light, making this the second boss in-game to not receive a Non-Lethal K.O..
We get another blue orb... And Maru's dad walks in... Apparently not as infuriated as we had feared... He mentions something about some kind of people that freaks Oliver out, and a warp thing appears... Before we go there (and conclude this update), let's backtrack and heal. We take the warp ring and... A palace? This is... Different... Our first encounter in here is with some sort of pudgy blue white-bearded... Elf? I have no idea what that's supposed to be, but it's in yellow and green clothes... There's an exchange, and then the camera moves out to reveal some sort of greenish elven midget sitting at a throne with a blue and white outfit. Whatever it is, it looks feminine... And gives Oliver and Drippy a good scare. The shopkeeper and the elf on the throne talk a bit... Oliver gets a little irked about something and... We get asked "yes" or "no" about something... Eh, we're on a roll here... "Yes"? Oh, it was apparently asking us if we wanted to save. Let's leave off here for now the- Oh wait, she's not done... The elf thing continues, drops a highlighted phrase... 3 Kanji, hiragana "no" in between the 2nd and 3rd Kanji. There's a quick fade to black and... Maru gets another harp? Interesting... There's another red chain of text... 2 Kanji, hiragana no, and 3 katakana... 3 small creatures run in from a hallway and are identified in red... Imagines? ... Or not. It appears this is a fight for Maru to test out her skills and be less of a dead weight. Our opponents here are a catboy with a sword, a balloon-frog, and a green pixie. Let's hit the frog...
... Uh... I think that we made it fall in love with us... Also, we apparently have two new spells... Let's try them out. Oh! They apparently cost nothing to use! ... Why aren't these guys attacking? Er... I guess we just whale on them then? Seems kinda unfair though... ... Hitting these guys repeatedly doesn't seem to DO any- Oh, there's a THIRD free spell... What does it do? Oh... We were choosing Imagines apparently... And wound up with the catboy... Uh... Oh well... Er... Now for a name... Well... It's black, so... Uh... A few minutes of mind blanking later, I decide to be uncreative and call him Felis (lit: フェリス). There's some more talking... Two red phrases, one consisting of 2 Kanji, one consisting of a string of 11 Katakana pop up, and then we are freed to move around. Let's save and stop here for now.
Takeaway Points:
- Clearing the Puzzles, TL/DR Version:
- West Dungeon's Puzzle:
- One of those circles is not like the others. One of these circles is not the same. For one, it doesn't have a "3" in it. Stand your ground and stay still in it until the timer runs out to clear this test.
- East Dungeon's Northern Puzzle:
- Start by casting Fireball on the left guardian statue in the room that you start in, then cast Ice on the right. If both orbs light up, then you've succeeded and will be allowed to enter the next chamber. Here, before you do anything, talk to the bird statue in the north. Afterwards, cast Heal on the battered-looking statue at the bottom of the room, Talker on the leftmost one, Poison on the sickly-looking purple cow head, and Unlock on the topmost statue.
- East Dungeon's Southern Puzzle:
- Just don't touch the fiery gates and pay attention to where you and Maru can move after hitting a gate's button. Remember, the color of the button corresponds to the color of the gate it affects, and like Skittles, they come in the colors of the rainbow.* Switch between Maru and Oliver as necessary, rinse, lather, repeat, until you get both of them into the part in front of the gate without colored light-eyes. There, stand on the two square tiles.
- West Dungeon's Puzzle:
- Defeating the Fifth Boss, TL/DR Version: Stay OUT of the corner and central movement spaces (it'll form an X-pattern, which you do not want to be anywhere around) and keep your more fragile team members away from the upper of these four remaining spaces. As we demonstrated, you don't need Drippy to buff your defense to defeat this boss, but going in without any stat buffs whatsoever is inadvisable (seeing as this boss A: Could OUTRUN some of our party's members, B: Took like 30 turns to defeat C: Hits like a Mack truck. Needless to say, if you choose to fight sans defense buffs you will need to be healing a LOT more frequently than you would without them.
- Rucci simply refuses to stop being helpful in battle. He might be a crutch character, but boy is he a good one.
- Maru and her father apparently have some ties to blue Keebler Elves. Also, it appears that we MAY be able to start recruiting random monsters through Maru. Something that we will play around with in the next update.
- In the battle in the blue palace, the three Imagines that you fight aren't defeatable for EXP, so don't bother going on a straight fight against them. Instead, play around with Maru's MP-less spells and focus on whichever of the three Imagines you like the most, since they'll be tagging along with you for the rest of the game.
Stats:
- Oliver: Level 16: 94 HP / 71 MP*
- Rucci: Level 19: 131 HP / 58 MP*
- Taillow: Level 16: 110 HP / 39 MP*+
- G: 4187
- Play Time: 26 hours, 26 minutes, 27 seconds.
Next time, we will continue Oliver's saga and explore this Happy Happyist compound elven palace.
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