Since I forgot to mention it last time, I'll say now that Einherjar is now sitting at a power of 136, with Disaresta's power being 130.
All right, time to start up Mireno. I should note that the game starts to go downhill in terms of quality here, though this particular dungeon is still all right (except, of course, for a certain optional event that shall go unmentioned for now).
Here is the music that plays here.
I don't really have much of an opinion on it, but it works.
So, upon entering area 5-1: Ghost Town, Fia mentions the supposed path underground. We'll get around to finding it in a bit, but first I've got some stuff to do. Most importantly, we've got to train with the new stuff I got for these Over Skills:
Fia:
- Holy Water: Sacred Heal: Level 2, heals all allies and removes status effects
Lina:
- Thunder Chain: Plasma Spin: Level 1, 3-hit physical lightning-elemental attack, power of 116, does more damage at less HP, also damages Lina
Serene:
- Thunder Chain: Bolt Gash: Level 1, 2-hit magic lightning-elemental attack, power of 173, low accuracy, unblockable
- Holy Water: Air Spray: Level 1, 1-hit magic holy-elemental attack on all enemies, power of 80, effective against undead, removes status buffs
Cierra:
- Thunder Chain: Thunder Beat: Level 2, 5-hit physical lightning-elemental attack, power of 102, Mot-Vit, effective against beasts
With that done, we can start exploring this place. The first screen contains a sign that Lina gets rather excited about for no reason, allowing a random guy to steal her magical invisible-on-all-art-and-sprites backpack. This sets off a small event to get the backpack back from him, which I'll be doing before I leave this area.
The next screen contains a burned-out building and a well. A sound comes from the well when we enter, so I examine that first. Ein, showing a surprising amount of deductive ability, determines that the sound was caused by our thief. However, he isn't here, so I instead examine the building. It contains a random elemental Crest (in this case an Ice Crest), the upgraded form of the elemental orbs I haven't been collecting. I drop my Power Wrist for it, and train to get these:
Serene:
- Ice Crest: Ice Resist: Level 1, raises everyone's ice resistance
Cierra:
- Ice Crest: Blizzard: Level 1, 1-hit magic ice-elemental attack for 20% of the target's HP, can freeze targets
On the next screen, we encounter a mage and a skeleton, whose group is collectively known as "Soul Returner". Rather than dwelling on how ridiculous that is, I fight them for a Holy Sabre to replace my Estoc. Training with it gets me these Over Skills:
Ein:
- Holy Sabre: Ascend: Level 2, 5-hit physical holy-elemental attack, power of 111
Fia:
- Holy Sabre: Vivace: Level 3, 6-hit physical holy-elemental attack, power of 82, Mot-Vit
Serene:
- Holy Sabre: Evil Break: Level 1, 1-hit physical holy-elemental attack, power of 275, low accuracy
Cierra:
- Holy Sabre: Fatality: Level 1, 3-hit magic holy-elemental attack, power of 108, unstoppable, effective against undead
I now examine a nearby tree, causing Fia to remark that she feels like the party is being watched. After confirming this, Fia says a bit more before remarking that she doesn't "sense it" anymore.
This, of course, is my cue to go back to the first screen and examine the house there. Doing this perfectly logical and properly foreshadowed action causes us to encounter the thief, whose name is Randy. Like any good thief, he wears unidentifiable animal skins and carries an axe bigger than his head (though the game at least doesn't identify him as "stray"). He insults the contents of Lina's backpack, causing her to facefault and give away our position.
Fortunately, Randy is an enemy from the last chapter, so even a level 0 Disaresta will bring him down. Even the hint system insults him, along with anyone weak enough to actually lose this fight.
Worth noting: Randy's class is listed as "Savage Ogre". Despite the fact that he is about the same size as Lina.
After replacing my Ice Crest with his Power Wrist, he desperately demands that we spare him. Because I'm in a generous mood today, I spare him. This gets me an image for the gallery, along with something called the Thief Manual. Supposedly, it explains how to disarm traps. Don't expect our possession of this item to make the trap minigames any easier, though. Its actual effect is rather lame, but we'll get to that later. It also comes with 2000 points for my useless score.
To finish up this area, I head back to the third screen and examine a well. This allows me to enter it using my rope (which was in Lina's invisible backpack). I'm also given the option to jump rope, but I'd only actually choose it if I was going for Lina's ending. Anyway, we climb down into area 5-2: Pilgrimage Way.
As we climb down, the rope breaks and drops Cierra unceremoniously to the ground. This gives me an opportunity to raise her affection by asking her if she's all right. Cierra and Fia then discuss how this area was supposedly used by heretics who worshipped demons (silly Cierra, Heretics are from the last chapter).
The next room contains some generic monsters, though one of them is a slime. There really isn't much to say about this one, actually. Zantetsu is still awesome, Disaresta wrecks these guys, you know, the usual. They don't even have any interesting loot for us. The screen doesn't even have anything else interesting on it.
The third screen contains an open treasure chest (the last one did too, but it didn't do anything). Serene gets rather angry abour the presence of two empty chests in a row, and takes out her anger on the chest. To everyone's surprise, this turns the lights off. After passing up a chance for Ein to "take advantage" of the situation, I have him ask Cierra about it.
Being a learned individual who is at the very least relatively skilled at figuring these sorts of things out, she comes to the quite logical conclusion that the chest is a light switch.
Anyway, I head back to the first screen, where there's a glowing rock I can examine. Fia identifies it as Light Moss, and I'm given the option to take it, leave it, or eat it. That last option sounds stupid enough to be right in this game, but it isn't. Not only would I lose the moss, but I'd also lose affection with Cierra. Instead, I take the Light Moss and its 2500 points.
I then head back, making sure to flip the chest-switch on my way past (it doesn't do anything, but it'd be rude not to). After doing so, I make my way to the end of the area.
I'll stop here for now. Next time, we'll actually encounter some graves in this here cemetery!
