"What's up with that Alexander guy?" asks Meredith. "He seemed like a real blowhard."
"In a way, he sort of reminds me of Lord Zetta," says Io. "Do you think they'll eventually wind up fighting again?"
"The Overlords are always fighting," says Astral. "It's pretty much all they do down here. Soldiers are generated, they fight, they die, and they are reincarnated to do it over and over again for all eternity. That is the vicious cycle of the Makai Wars."
"It sure sucks to be us right now...we're caught in the middle of all this."
Morrigan looks at one of the flowers in the garden, as it reminds her of the hellcats she saw on the battlefield. "Hey, Steve?" she asks.
"Yeah, Morrigan?" he replies.
"Can I have a kitty?"
There is still plenty of room to roam around in the Overlord's Castle, so if she were to have a cat as a pet, it would theoretically get more than enough exercise. Steve looks at Morrigan as she twirls her hair around. "All right," he says, "as long as you take care of him and don't let him do anything dangerous."
Steve generates a hellcat (class: Cat Kid) from one of the palm trees, and decides to name it Graz, in honor of the flower that he saw the other hellcats playing around in Babylon's Netherworld. It immediately crawls next to Morrigan and starts purring. She decides to take Graz for his first walk in Micky's Netherworld.
"You're taking it into the Netherworld?" says Steve. "Morrigan! What did I tell you?"
Morrigan pets Graz's head as it bats at a nunchaku lying on the floor of the doghouse. "Aw, come on, Stevie! You saw that kitties we fought earlier! They can defend themselves!"
"Hey, boss!" shouts Caerbannog. "Incoming!"
A group of armed bandits approach Zetta's troupe's position. He summons the entire team to take out the threat. Graz goes first by himself, because he hasn't yet been assigned a house to live in. While they're fighting the bandits, the entire battlefield is afflicted with a "Taking a Break" effect when an extension map pops up, giving them all Laser-Guided Amnesia *. Without access to the special techniques they picked up in the last few battles, the fight degenerates into an outdoor Bar Brawl. The "heroes" eventually win, but Astral and Kashiwa have to get patched up again to tend to their wounds. Graz hisses as he grabs his nunchaku in his mouth while everyone is teleported back to base.
"He got his first confirmed kill today!" says Morrigan. "Isn't Grazzie just the cutest little hellcat?"
"Yeah...a real ball of sunshine and rainbows," mumbles Meredith.
Morrigan smiles, and leads Graz to a group of flowers growing around a dead tree.
Shortly after she gets out of the hospital, Kashiwa inspects the Makai Gate and notices that there is a link to another world that they had not seen previously. "Lord Zetta?"
"What is it?" asks Zetta.
"What's this 'Happy Dungeon' place about?"
She points to the image on the control panel. The words "Happy Dungeon 1", "Happy Dungeon 2", and "Happy Dungeon 3" are shown on it, displayed in a separate menu from the main portals.
"Oh, those. Those are what we like to call 'free dungeons'. They exist outside of the continuum of most Netherworlds, so they're rarely affected by all of the fighting going on. They contain all sorts of monsters, too, so you'll have to be careful if you're thinking of going down there."
"I say we check it out," says Io. "There might be all kinds of cool treasures."
"Hmm...as leader of this team," Steve cuts in, "I say we take this to a vote. All in favor of going down to the Happy Dungeon, say 'aye'."
All of the human characters raise their hands in agreement.
"All in opposition, say 'nay'."
Satan and Caerbannog are the only dissenters.
"What about you, Graz? What's your opinion?"
Graz just stands there, looking up at Steve and rubbing against his leg.
"I don't think he can understand you, boss," says Io. "He's...how do I say this? He's a freaking cat."
"Oh, right... *ahem* Anyway, let's go! There are enemies to be knocked out and treasure to be looted!"
Sub-Episode 1: Happy Dungeon 1
The team is loaded into their buildings and dropped in what appears to be a cave. (No boxes of scraps here, sorry.)
There are four Happy Dolls guarding the area in the north. While they are very well organized, they are not very well armed. There are also assorted treasures to the south, including a pendant that looks almost like the one from which Steve was created. After the buildings are dropped in, Steve orders Graz, Nabiki and Io to loot whatever they can find and return to base with it. Morrigan notices one of the owl dolls attempting to attack the Sacred Tome, but she picks it up and harmlessly tosses it back. The dolls don't directly attack the team, but instead try to attack them (one by one, of course) while they're still in the houses - specifically, the doghouse where Steve and Meredith are housed. The invading doll is level 3, but Steve and Meredith are both level 5. They never had a chance.
The team celebrates victory shortly afterward. They don't get any points for the dolls they defeated through thwarted home invasion, and that means they don't get any bonus point prizes. Luckily, Io and company were able to pick up an Imperial Seal (labeled simply "Imperial" in this game), a Diver (lets you skip ahead in really deep dungeons), another Gency Tonic, and some Shoes (increases mobility slightly).
Now, then...while exploring dungeons (either storyline or otherwise), there's a small chance that a random map affect will occur when an extension map is spawned. These will either summon a specific group of enemies onto the map, or give a status effect to everyone on the map (this includes allies and enemies). Here are a few that I've encountered so far:
- One Last Wish: Everyone is hit with "Gamble" status (shown by sweatdrops). Attacks against a character under Gamble will either miss completely, or kill the character in one hit.
- Taking a Break: Everyone is hit with "Amnesia", which limits all of their offense to basic attacks.
- A Thief Appears!: Generates Thief units equipped with UFOs. They don't attack directly, but try to steal whatever equipment you have on you.
