Episode 2: Arch Nemesis
Zetta informs the team that not only can they invite themselves onto the battlefield, they can also bring buildings with them. It's possible to put players and items inside and bringing them onto the field that way, and it's much quicker to do. The facilities will grant bonuses to characters stored inside them during battle, as I'd detailed above.
Steve uses one of the special palm trees to generate a pumpkinhead named Satan, and grows Caerbannog the evil carrot from one of the "ordinary" palm trees. He gives his new creations weapons, and he takes them out with him onto Micky's netherworld for a little bit of "training".
[Gonna Fly Now Montage goes here]
After the team does a bit of training, they descend to Babylon's netherworld, which is fittingly called "End of World".
Stage 2-1: Babylon's Rest Area
As soon as Zetta lands on the new netherworld, his arch-rival, Alexander (a.k.a. Alex, Alejandro, or Zetta's favorite personal insult, "Asshat"), appears. They've been at war with each other since the last time the Sacred Tome had kept count. Neither of them can agree on who's "won" more battles. Alex cracks book jokes, but Zetta shrugs them off and does some more Chaotic Neutral gloating...until he falls can't can't get up.
"Who's the Overlord now, bitch!?" says Alex, who then takes some pot shots at Salome and her relationship with Zetta before jacking out.
Babylon's overworld begins populated with a trio of hellcats wielding nunchaku. Two of them have their eyes on a pretty flower on the west side. On that same side of a bridge is a raider hut filled with a pair of bomberheads. They're physically strong, but unarmed.
"All right, boys and girls!" shouts Zetta. "Everyone ready?"
The warriors file into a facility of their choice. There's plenty of room for everyone, so there's little fighting or pushing done. They all give the thumbs-up to Zetta, and he air-drops the buildings onto the battlefield one by one.
Steve's party (comprised of him, Meredith and Io) jumps out of the doghouse and wastes no time in eliminating the hellcats, while Astral and Morrigan rush to assist Nabiki in the shop. The two bomberheads move in to attack, but are no match for Morrigan's team. Steve's team takes control of the Raider Hut vacated by the bomberheads, and Zetta air-drops the hospital containing Kashiwa and the others into battle. An enemy thief attempts to capture the hospital, but Satan (the pumpkinhead) successfully kicks him out. An army of rogue mages attempts to secure the hospital, but they, too, fail.
Recruitable monsters gained this stage:
- Hellcat: High mobility, but low offense. Excels with katanas, morningstars, nunchakus, and fishing poles.
- Bomberhead: Slow, but has decent HP and SP. Good with heavy weapons, such as gatling guns, bazookas, flamethrowers, and bombs. We don't have any of those right now, so we won't be using bomberheads at all until later.
Steve, Meredith, Nabiki and Astral have earned enough experience to move up to the next powerful class (Apprentice -> Fighter for Steve and Meredith, Junk Trader -> Pawn Shop Clerk for Nabiki, and Magician -> Sorcerer for Astral). Doing so for each of these guys will cost 50 mana + whatever's being used on wishes. That's pretty much how the transmigration process works in this game. You could easily create the units from scratch if you have the right amount of mana, but it's recommended that you do it this way, because it makes the characters more powerful in the long run.
Author's Note: Occasionally, when uncovering an extension map, a random magical effect will pop up that changes the course of the battle. I'll explain those in my next post.
