Nanashi: Ugh, this place smells terrible. Fenrir STOP DOING THAT!
(Cut to: FENRIR, sniffing through the ashes that were once ODIN)
Fenrir: BUT I WAS FATED TO KILL HIM! AWOOOOOOOOOO!
Other dog demons: AWOOOOOOOOOO!
Oberon: We-he-hell, little boy! You\'ve certainly beefed up since we last saw one another!
Napaea: YAYYYYYYYY! King Oberon! Now we\'re invincible!
Jikokuten: Hm. I am here too. I have done some reflection since being sent back to the Expanse - if you truly aim to defeat the Powers, then show me, one mightier than me!
Nanashi: Welcome aboard! I made this big tree thing, too!
Norn: Ohahahohaho! Lord Yggdrasil returns to us!
Nidghoggr: Shrink much, stupid tree?
Yggdrasil: All... things... bound to me...
Nanashi: And lastly I made, uh, this leather guy.
Azazel: AZAZAZAZAAAAAA! BEHOLD MY MAGNIFICENCE! I SHALL DAZZLE THE DIVINE POWERS WITH MY FIRE!
Nanashi: Suddenly Gaston looks subdued...
Character notes: The King of Faeries in Medieval French lore, though he eventually became a popular figure throughout Western Europe. He\'s married to Titania, but like a lot of supernatural patriarch figures such as Zeus, he regularly cheats on her with mortal women. His repertoire of powers includes shapeshifting and making people fall in love. Wind specialist.
Personality notes: Kind of a Dirty Old Man, though not a malicious one.
_46_28564.png/revision/latest?cb=20120428055223\')
Character notes: The Deva who oversees the East in Buddhist lore, he\'s one of of the Four Heavenly Kings who serve Indra. His weapon is a sword, and he is prayed to for national security. He\'s a Wind and Phys user.
Personality notes: As per the other Devas.
Character notes: Probably the physically largest demon in the game going by myth, Yggdrasil is the eeeeeenormous ash tree that supports the entire universe in Norse lore. Per Strange Journey, the demon that appears in SMT is actually a mere root of the real tree. It\'s one of the few living beings that will survive Ragnarok. He\'s a healing and support specialist who is notable for coming with Amrita, which cures all ailments.
Personality notes: Says really vague, profound things, as h\'es not completely \"there.\"
Character notes: One of the big baddies of the extrabiblical Book of Enoch, which while not canonical is one of our main sources for angels and demons, Azazel is one of the leaders of the angelic Watchers, who fell when they seduced human women and sired the Nephilim like Hallelujah. Azazel is said to have literally invented both war and sexual promiscuity, which was the impetus for YHVH sending the Great Flood. Fire and Dark-user.
Personality notes: A really showy magician/carnival barker type.
Inside the Egg, the party notices thousands of souls floating through the air. Asahi\'s must be among them. Nozomi points out the... curious lack of security. And just like that, Krishna suddenly appears! He congratulates us on making it this far, but says we cannot stop the world\'s rebirth. And the vector of that rebirth will be... Toki?
Ishtar: Oh dear... I knew that girl\'s aura felt familiar...
Toki suddenly begins writhing in agony. She rants about how with Asahi gone, she can have Nanashi to herself... and then Inanna erupts out of her body!
Nanashi: Gyahhhhhh! I thought we killed that thing!
It seems that Inanna, Mother of All, is the means by wish the souls of humanity will be reborn into a \"great singularity.\" Krishna pulls out one soul in particular and thrusts it into Inanna\'s body, which she then begins \"giving birth\" to. She calls it her and Nanashi\'s child!
Azumi: Eew, avert your eyes!
Nanashi: Gah! I mean, I wouldn\'t be averse to that in, like, ten years when all this demon stuff\'s done but NOW, Toki, really?
And the \"child\"... is Maitreya!
Incubus: This\'d be a great sitcom.
But he doesn\'t stay in that form for long. Inanna\'s power lets him reincarnate... into his Persian counterpart, Mitra!
Mithras: Dig the robe. The gut, not so much.
Mitra casts a powerful barrier over the Egg to prevent Dagda from reviving the souls. This also means that, once again, if Nanashi dies, game over. Following this, the three demons depart fort her in...
Nanashi: That pack of shitstains! Now they\'ve got Toki, too!
Barong: Well then tarry not! Two fair maidens need your help, young one! Lo, to battle!
Rangda: I really wish I could permanently kill him sometimes...
Israfel: HellOOOOOO young mAAAAAAAAn! I come to yOOOOOOOOUUUUU on recommenAAAAAAAAtion from VictOOOOOOOOOr!
Momunofu: Not more angels...
Ganesha: Oh, huh, hello.
Parvati: GANESHA-WESHA MY ELLY-WELLY-HEADED LOVEMUFFIN! Are you hurt? Did those mean old Gaeans hurt you? Can I get you something to eat?
Garuda: He\'s quite fine, Parvati! Ah, young Nanashi. It\'s certainly been a while!
Nanashi: Have we met?
Garuda: You knew me as Gurulu, but now I have regained my true form, the Avian Garuda! Demonization - unpleasant business...
Character notes: The symbol of good in Balinese lore, he\'s a tiger-like beast with a human face who lives in the rainforest. The people call on him to defeat the evil witch Rangda, and while Barong always wins, she always comes back to life, their fight never-ending. He\'s an Electricity and Phys-user.
Personality notes: The Ace.
Character notes: The archangel governing music in Islam, sometimes said to be the counterpart of the Judaic Raphael. He has four wings and many eyes that see all. Watching humans in Hell makes him really sad. Light specialist.
Personality notes: Sings everything he says.
Character notes: The great elephant-headed remover of obstacles in Hindu lore. He\'s the elder son of Shiva and Parvati, or sometimes Parvati alone. Shiva cut his head off in a rage (because gods are dicks I guess), but Parvati made him replace it with an elephant head. He\'s extremely powerful, and is one of the main gods of the Smarta branch of Hinduism. Phys specialist, with Earthquake.
Personality notes: Poilte, and knows the solutions to all the puzzles.
Character notes: Another major Hindu figure, Garuda is the Vahana of Vishnu, the Preserver. He began as an enemy of the gods, but received immortality in exchange for calling off his grudge and working for Vishnu. Iconography of him usually depicts him carrying Vishnu and his wife Laskshmi from place to place, and Kaneko\'s art in particular seems to be based on his appearance on [[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8f/King![](\"https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/external_link.gif\")
\'s_Standard_of_Thailand.svg the Royal Standard of Thailand]]. Wind and Phys user.
Personality notes: A noble king of birds.
Welcome to the game\'s second-to-last mandatory dungeon. It\'s a huge, disgusting-looking Womb Level full of disgusting-looking things and a lot of fairly hard puzzles. There are six floors to the dungeon and we\'re gonna have to climb through all of them. Do not the strange floating thing near the entrance, it\'s a-
Ganesha: A teleporter. Hit up the ones later on and you\'ll be able to come back here whenever you like!
Thank you, Remover of Obstacles. Anyway, floor one is really easy. It\'s a straightforward path through two warps leading up to a hole in the wall, which makes Nanashi\'s \"powerful demon sense\" tingle...
Inside we find a huge demon in the form of a fly - BEELZEBUB!
Melchom: RUN AWAY RUN AWAY RUN AWAY!
Nanashi: Should I know who that is?
Nebiros: Lord Lucifer\'s second in command! Some say he\'s just as powerful!
Fortunately for us, Beelzebub isn\'t staying in this form long. Resentful over being demonized by YHVH, Beelzebub has used Inanna\'s power to regain his true form - the Deity Baal!
Anat: Oh so that\'s where his aura was coming from! Lousy coward of a man as always...
MINI-BOSS: DEITY BAAL
Level 77. Weak Ice, Drain Elec, Resist Light
Like Ichigaya, the Egg has three mini bosses before we get to the proper bosses, and like Ichigaya, they are for whatever reason structured hardest-to-easiest. Baal is the hardest of three by far, as he has no less than four damage types to contend with - Fire, Elec, Phys, and Almighty. He can cause Daze with Mist Rush, drop Megidolaons on your ass, and use his unique skill, Vengeful Thunder, which is a Ziodyne that inflicts Bind. Sometimes he\'ll just be a dick and wipe out all your buffs with Silent Prayer, too. Thankfully his health\'s pretty low and he\'s very vulnerable to Ice. I won in one try, but it was close.
Nanash I: Whew. He was a fighter.
Melchom: What did you expect from the god YHVH Himself had to defeat to rise to the top?
Nanashi: Like I said earlier I don\'t really know about this stuff.
Anat: I hate it when this happens. Back in a jif.
(ANAT vanishes down a hole that opens beneath her)
There are, of course, new demons to meet around here. So let\'s do that.
Cernunnos: Wehehehehe... I sense my old friend Dagda on you!
Nanashi: Not exactly anything I can do about that...
Yaksha: Well can you do something about your weird body armor? Body armor after the Obon Festival? Nasty.
Adramelech: He never lets me talk to him about his wardrobe...
Vetala: Do I have to sleep in the phone? Can I just use your bed for one week? Come ooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnn...
Heimdall: Away with you, brute! Dagda\'s not the only demon I sense on you, son. My nemesis Loki is with you, too!
Loki: Do I really smell that bad?
Character notes: One of the few Celtic gods to be invoked everywhere they were worshipped, Cernunnos has a vast purvey including both death and fertility, as well as the hunt. His actual name is known only from one primary source, but his image is found all over the Celtic lands. He\'s known for his impressive set of horns and his association with snakes and deer. He\'s an ailment-user who gets Cough and Death\'s Door to make your foes really sick.
Personality notes: Creepy Good.
Character notes: A Hindu and Buddhist demigod representing wealth, notable for his... interesting personality transplant once he reached Japan. He\'s an imposing but benevolent god in his native India, but when Buddhism reached Japan he became an evil demon similar to a Rakshasa, of whom he\'s a Palette Swap in several games. Uses Phys moves that inflict ailments.
Personality notes: Loves his high-class living and snarks at things and people below his standards.
Character notes: An evil Hindu creature indeed, a Vetala is the most powerful kind of Preta. They eat corpses, but can also animate them to do their bidding. Run away! He\'s the top Ghost, as he usually is, and specializes in debuffs.
Personality notes: Your scumbag Friend Nobody Likes who won\'t leave you alone.
Character notes: The watchman of the gods in Norse lore; his name means \"White God.\" He was the one-man security team of Asgard who made sure giants couldn\'t get in. His nemesis is the trickster Loki; they will kill each other at the end of the world. His horn is named Gjallarhorn. He\'s a Wind specialist who gets High Force Pleroma.
Personality notes: Eternally vigilant, especially where Loki is concerned.
After each boss there\'s a short passageway area with no enemies, a teleported you can activate, and occasionally the Lady of the Fount.
Anyway, second floor. Again, fairly straightforward, only now we need to contend with Wraithwalls. We need to climb up and down several elevated areas to get to the western side of this floor. The boss is behind the southernmost Wraithwall on this side; the others have items and chests behind them.
Oberon: Good to see yer takin\' good care of my dagger, son. And Miss Nozomi too, of course!
Enter the boss door... hole... thing to find...
Tiamat: Apsu my love! To think you\'d be here in this world... come, we have some catching up to do... mamamamamaaaaaa...
Kingu: You do know what she did to me, right Dad?
Apsu is unfortunately not here for romance, but to, again, get revenge on YHVH. And of course he\'s not letting us pass.
MINI-BOSS: DEITY APSU
Level 78. Repel Ice, Weak Elec, Resist Dark
For a primordial being, Apsu\'s kind of a wimp. His main gimmick is that he\'s packing the fourth-tier Ice move, Ice Age, and I should probably explain how these work now. The tier-four single-strike moves, of which every element is now represented instead of just Fire, Wind, and Gun last time, have all gained a Smirk effect - namely, use them while you\'re Smirking and they pierce resistances. This exposition probably took longer than the fight will. Grill him with Electricity and he dies.
Tiamat: Ah, love is ever so fleeting...
Kingu: Don\'t leave me alone with her!
Maya: Oh is that you, Tiamat? So long since the Schwartzwelt... Mayayayaya... And who is this delectable morsel you have with you?
Nanashi: Gahh, more mom demons wanting to bone me...
Ixtab: Well... if you\'re so... tired of them... there IS a release...
Camazotz: Chief, don\'t buy what she\'s selling. Even I think she\'s nuts!
Pales: I\'m not quite sure what the point of anything is... I\'d take her up on her offer, but then again I\'m not sure what the point would be...
Fafnir: Kllkk-whrrrrr-klkkk-don\'t mind them-klkkk-whrrr... They do this all day-whrrr-whrrr
Nanashi: Trust me, I\'m desensitized to this stuff by now.
Character notes: The last Mother of the Schwartzwelt, she is the Hindu goddess of illusion who governs the material world. The goal of attaining enlightenment is done in part to free humans from her illusions. She\'s an Almighty specialist who comes with Concentrate and Megidolaon; OW.
Personality notes: Basically the same as her SJ self.
Character notes: The Mayan goddess of suicide and other forms of \"honorable\" death - yes, suicide was honorable to the Maya - she was the governess of the afterlife paradise of Yaxche. A resent theory (as in, literally just in the last few years) postulates that she was actually invented by the conquering Spanish Empire, as she appears in no pre-colonial sources - their motive in supposedly creating her being to make their abuses of the Maya seem more palatable by inventing a benevolent psychopomp figure. She is, by far, the most dangerous enemy in here - she has Lullaby to put your entire party to sleep, and Eternal Rest to kill them all! She often comes in pairs, too, for one-turn kills.
Personality notes: Encourages people to kill themselves.
Character notes: A Roman goddess of fertility depicted as a donkey; she\'s notable as one of the few Roman gods seemingly not appropriated from the Greeks. There isn\'t much known about her for sure, but we get \"palace\" from her name. Ailment and Ice user with Pandemic Bomb as her signature move; in the Egg she\'s often paired with the aforementioned Cernunnos because Atlus jacks off to your tears.
Personality notes: So fatalistic she\'s outright slothful, doesn\'t see the point in anything.
Character notes: A dwarf of norse lore turned into a dragon by his own greed. He was the nemesis of Siegfried and was eventually killed by him. It\'s a fairly standard human-vs-monster story and I have no idea why he\'s always ranked above the likes of actual gods like Ym and Tiamat. Phys and poison-user.
Personality notes: Since h\'es depicted as a robot in set, he has a mechanical click when he speaks.
Onto level three then. This floor\'s gimmick is one-way doors, but it\'s another pretty easy level. Root around for items and recruit demons as you like, but to reach the boss, head through the south door, then west in the next room, then northwest in the next, then take the northwest warp in the big room and follow the path. Enter the creepy hole to meet...
Osiris: ...of course.
Isis: He WOULD be hanging around here, wouldn\'t he, darling?
MINI-BOSS: VILE SETH
Level 79. Weak Fire, Null Elec, Null Force, Drain Dark
Seth evidently hasn\'t been hitting the gym since he ditched Egypt for Japan. Spam Fire and de-buffs and he dies. No real strategy here, just beat him up. He does have a unique move, Rending Claws, which is literally just Nihil Claw that hits one more time. Snoresville.
Isis: Hm. How bland.
Osiris: Indeed, darling...
Nanashi: Toki, Asahi... hold on, I\'m coming!
