Drake: Let's be reasonable now. I came back here to save my friends, I'm not going to have you kill them on me, Mithras.
Mithras: Save your friends, now? Bang-up job you've been doing of THAT! Stay out of my way, Drake. This is between me and... her.
(ZELENIN zaps herself in. She looks at MITHRAS with utter loathing)
Mithras: Ta ha haaaa! She actually shows up! Maybe there's more spark in you order-bots than I'd imagined? Do you remember what I did to you, or did that raven wipe it all away, huh? Are you quaking in your boots in front of your TRUE master? That's right, I know who you are, "Irina," and I didn't even have to slice open your brain to find out!
Ares: This is getting good...
Melchom: Perhaps I shall sell tickets to my esteemed Compendium-mates; I'll make a mint!
Mithras: Little girl lost in the Schwartzwelt, isn't that right? So very, very powerless... watching your friends get ripped apart, watching your friends RIP EACH OTHER APART, ta ha ha ha haaaa! You do the Ice Queen well, little miss, but I can tell you've long since realized that you're totally out of your depth! The Demon World is no place for anyone who can't fight, after all! So you go licking the boots of that raven, the only person who'll offer you a little stability, a little control of your own, no?
Drake: Mithras!
Mithras: You've never had power at any point in your life, have you? I saw it when I was breaking you... I'm not even sure you're a scientist at all; maybe you're just the one the professors kept around for eye candy! "Physicist Barbie;" that's what you are! Ever noticed how all the women in this little glee club of yours are gorgeous? What do you think the men do all night in their cabins; play checkers? But I bet you like that, don't you? The attention you got... the one bit of power you had before you sold out.
(ZELENIN cocks her eyebrow)
Mithras: Slut.
(Without a word, ZELENIN lunges forward and lands a punch to MITHRAS's gut. He seems to hand there for several seconds, before screeching in pain as thunder crackles around ZELENIN's fist. As the awed DRAKE and DEMONS watch, the MITHRAS skin begins flaking off, eventually leaving behind only the weaker MITRA form, who hangs suspended for several more seconds before flying backwards into a wall, leaving a seven-foot-deep MITRA-shaped hole)
Frost Ace: HEE-HOLY SHIT!
Bifrons: She-she punched Sir Mithras right out of his powerup!
Zelenin: That was for the Elve. Come, Sinclair.
So, it's time for everyone's favorite part of Horologium: invisible pathways! I wanted to give some directions as to how to get through this part, but the layout is pretty hard to put into words, actually. I can only advise you to feel around everywhere you can. One thing you should definitely do, though, is make your way to the southwest corner of this floor. There you'll find a stairwell leading up, and on the upper floor is the Rare Forma "Gumonji Mirror."
Drake: I guess I'll have to take this to Irving. *shudder* If I could take back one thing I've done so far, it'd be what happened to him. Would a good guy do that?
This Forma grants Enemy Search C, which is necessary to fight the Bonus Boss. I can't recall if I ever went over that last time; if not, I apologize.
Ganesha: 'Bweheheheheheh!
Drake: An elephant?
Ganesha: Young man, I'm Ganesha, Remover of Obstacles. I see you're a fellow disciple of Order! In that case I wouldn't mind removing some for you!
Drake: Thanks. I remember Mem Aleph threw every trick in the book at me last time.
CRASH
Sooner or later you'll find your way out, and apologies for not being more specific than this, by the way. Head down to basement six. This one I can tell you about; it's the lava-pillar maze. We're gong to head south until we find a Gate Search D door on the southwest wall.
Ganesha: I knew that'd be there!
Unlock it to enter a new area, but we're not going to do anything there yet. Instead, head south again, then east to find an Unlock D door. This'll get us into the second half of the level. You may remember this part as the Peninsula of Power Leveling, due to spawning Surts.
Loki: Ohoho, my old comrade-in-arms, Surt... but why are there so many of him?
Nozuchi: SCHWARTZWELT AM -SCHNUUUUUUUURPPPP- WEIRD LIKE THAT.
Feel the east wall for another Gate Search door. Beyond it, we'll head east, south, then west again for another Unlock door. Beyond that is the switch for the lava pillars.
Drake: Thanks a lot, Ganesha. That'd have been really confusing without you.
Ganesha: No problem. Weird puzzles like that are kind of my "thing." I'm pretty good with metaphorical, everyday-life obstacles too, of course!
(DRAKE notices ASHERAH carrying the unconscious MITRA on her back)
Drake: Will he be... all right?
Asherah: APART FROM HIS EGO, YES. IT'S YOU I'M WORRIED ABOUT...
We're not done of this floor, however. On the exact opposite side, beyond the first set of doors I mentioned, is another obstacle, specifically a "dodge the teleporters" maze. This time none of the warps lead to where you want to go, so we'll be following the invisible pathway and taking care not to step on any floating platforms, which is where the warps are. The only platform you should step on is the one right in front of the elevator. Take it down, then take the warp you find here to the other side of basement nine, then take the elevator up to the last unexplored section of basement six.
Drake: Hey, there's a space marked on my automap near here... must've been that archangel who did it. Let's see what... whoa...
This is one of the gam's more secret quests, and is only available on the Law route. When Drake reaches the marked spot, he witnesses members of each of the lower eight orders of angels coalescing into one being: a Seraph!
Drake: It's... awe-inspiring. Have we met, somewhere?
CRASH
I'd go back and pick that up if I were you.
CRASH CRASH CRASH
The Seraph has a mission for Drake: to go to sector Grus, where Mother Maya was fought, and defeat his enemy, the Tyrant Mara.
Drake: How could I refuse? Guy certainly knows how to make an impression.
Moloch: *gag*'
So, head to Maya's boss room at Grus. When you get there, there stands Mara, in all his green penis-y glory! Or should I say, her.
Drake: Bleugh! What is that thing? It's apparently a woman?
=MINI-BOSS: MARA=
Level 80. Strong Phys, Weak Fire, Strong Ice, Strong Elec, Strong Wind, Null Light, Null Dark
Mara's a bit higher leveled than most of the other demons you've likely fought so far, but even so there's little to fear from her. Her attacks aren't all that annoying and her health's pretty low for a boss at this point in the game. Fight penis with fire and go to town with Agidyne and Trisagion, for which I brought...
Quetzalcoatl: What ho, dear boy! I heed your call, fellow champion of life!
Drake: Whoa, a Chaos demon who actually agrees with me?
Quetzalcoatl: I side with those who would preserve life. Mistress Mem Aleph is strong and wise, but in recommending the death of you humans to save your world she is sorely mistaken...
There is one little trick Mara has, though, and that's Charged Hades Blast. However, with Tetrakarn or Attack Mirrors you can easily turn this against her, which is, incidentally, how I beat her. Win to be able to fuse her.
Seraph will then appear and invite himself into Drake's party! It doesn't matter what level your MC is, by the way. I was level 74, he was level 89. He still joined. This is gonna be fun...
Seraph: We of the First Choir applaud your great w- hold on... have we not met before?
Drake: There was a... Seraph... wasn't there?'
Thoth: You. Kama. I'm back with the report from the Ladies Norn on what that knockin' is.
Kurama Tengu: Awright, spill.
Norn: We believe it's a sign of a temporal incursion, one of the rarest chronological phenomena. Even as overseers of time, we've only observed one of these.
Kurama Tengu: English, please?
Erlkonig: Deutsche, bitte?
Norn: Essentially, it's what happen one time anomaly happens on top of another time anomaly. We're stuck in a time loop, right? Well, it seems some choice our young charge made is causing the loop to resolve improperly.
Kama: Meaning?
Norn: Meaning, time's effectively bending over backwards to reassert itself. Those knocking sounds we've been hearing are probably an... intrusion, for lack of a better term, by a universe where the loop did resolve properly. To use a human technology metaphor, time is attempting a "find-replace."
Kama: So time's not just looped now, it's tied in knots. This can't be good...
To be continued...
Comments
- The title is a reference to Styx's "Come Sail Away."
- And that was the second and last original line Zelenin will say. And as far gone as she is I hope that was at least a bit cathartic. She never did get to bring any karma to Mitra in the game itself. Mithras's taunts are basically some of my headcanons about Zelenin; we don't learn much about her, but based on some of Asura's comments I'd imagine she has low self-esteem, a bad case of "woman in a man's field" angst, and apprehension about her looks.
- That punch was supposed to resemble a two-page spread from a manga; I was specifically thinking of this one
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- Mithras's laughter style is based on Fire Emblem's Lekain.
- This is how you obtain Seraph and Mara "legally;" I was naughty and password-abused to get them on Neutral.
- I threw a Law-sympathizing Chaos demon in there, as the opposite has happened occasionally in the SMT-verse.
- Also, plot.
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