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Part 1 - The Excommunication of Big Ick

:HIS NAME IS BIG ICK, AND HE LIVES AT THE BOTTOM OF A CAVE CALLED ICKYKOLO. BIG ICK FANCIES HIMSELF SOMETHING OF A SOCIAL PHILOSOPHER. LATELY HE'S BEEN STIRRING UP DISSENT AMONG THE JELLIES...TRYING TO CONVINCE THEM TO ORGANIZE INTO SOLID FORMS. I WILL NOT HAVE IT! YOU MUST GO TO ICKYKOLO AND PUT BIG ICK IN HIS PLACE!

We've received a new quest: go silence Big Ick!

When you select a stage, you get the option to pick which class you want to use for that dungeon. You get a gold bonus for the first time you beat each dungeon with each class, but I only have once choice and one dungeon for the moment.

:REMEMBER WHAT YOU LEARNED ABOUT DEFENDING YOURSELF WHEN I WORE THAT RIDICULOUS SHEEP COSTUME.

:NOW GO!

On this screen is where you can choose what armor, weapon, consumable, and accessory (when we find them) you will take into the dungeon. Again, I won't be buying/using these unless it becomes absolutely necessary.

We start off outside of Ickykolo, in view of two new things!

Pots can contain all sorts of things based on their color. These ones, for example, are just plain pots and contain a couple coins.

I'm not quite familiar with spider webs though, but I would assume it isn't good to step on it if Dungeon Crawl and IVAN taught me anything.

More things! Piles of leaves contain very small amounts of gold, and I don't think they have anything else. That looks like some sort of spider nest, and of course we've got the classic Slip'n'Slide yellow jelly.

While waiting for the jelly to get close, I see what the spider nest does: spits out spiders! They are labeled as "giant spider" so I assume they don't have any special powers, though they did spawn spider webs on the spots they spawned...

And they also appear to trail them behind wherever they go. Great. The first one slips over the jelly residue that was left behind, letting it create twice the amount of webs.

I clear the way and step forward into the web. It turns out, the webs make you stuck for a turn! A spider gets a free hit on me for that lesson.

In the time it takes me to kill that spider and step forward again, more spiders pop out! I decide that this thing is awful and has to die fast, especially since these spiders don't give me experience.

I take some hits from the spiders, but I clear them out and level up off of destroying the nest!

Thus, let's explain the farmer's abilities!

The first one, Pitch Fork, is a ranged attack that flies in whatever orthogonal direction you pick until it hits something and does your melee damage to it (including whatever effects your melee weapon performs). Extra levels allow you to throw another pitchfork behind you, and eventually in all directions at once (but only the direction you choose performs your melee weapon's special effects).

Pumpkin Bomb acts like a land mine, being planted in a random spot immediately around your character and blowing up in a 3x3 explosion whenever something steps on it. Additional levels drop more bombs around you at a time. Honestly, I don't like using it because it is random and costs just as much as the third ability...

Scarecrow, which scares enemies (makes them attempt to move away from you) for three turns. Additional levels increase this to five turns, and the last level changes it so that monsters will fight each other while the scarecrow is up. This is incredibly powerful, considering that it only costs two stamina points and can be used both defensively (scare everything away or distract them) or offensively (monsters won't attack when running away, so you can corner really tough things).

The Farmer's ultimate ability is Cornucopia, which heals you to full HP. This is pretty broken, considering that this lets you tank hits and just heal whenever you manage to kill something for more stamina stars. I'm not sure if the second level means getting 30 temporary HP, or if it literally means gaining 30 max HP every time you use it, but either sounds broken.

I'll be picking up Pitch Fork first, since I don't think there will be anything TOO nasty to need fear over a ranged attack at the moment.

While wandering forward, a yellow slime comes around the corner. I take the opportunity to kite it into some spider webs to see if monsters other than spiders can be affected by them. Turns out I'm right!

Now, this is a lot more ground slime than what appeared when I went through this area on Normal, so this might get worse if I run into nastier slime types.

I head over to the mysterious glowing object, and it appears it was a shrine. Too bad it was a shrine to spiders!

Those purple ones say poison spider, which I don't really like the sound of.

I take the slime as a shortcut into a hallway to funnel these spiders.

As I wait for the spiders to walk into my death hole, I discover that the purple spiders ALSO leave spider webs everywhere. Great.

After beating this one up, it falls down and starts spewing smoke and flashing, so I think I want to step away.

Oh wow, that looks nasty. The other poison spider wasn't hurt by hit, but I think other monster types would be vulnerable (just like spider webs).

Also, that light blue one is an ice spider, which sounds even worse than a poison spider. On the plus side, there's a chest!

Looks like I'm getting sandwiched here, and I don't want to get caught in that bubbly explosion.

Thus, I throw a pitchfork at it. I get refunded on my stamina immediately, in addition to making the situation easier.

This nest appears to be blocking the way for some more jellies, including a bigger one. Luckily, it appears I'm leveled enough to one shot larger yellow jellies, so no big deal.

I take a turn opening the chest while waiting for them to come to me. Inside is a Freezing Shovel!

Freezing weapons don't do a lot of extra damage, but they do freeze things in place for a turn. This effectively gives you twice the amount of leeway for killing monsters. However, it isn't good for kiting due to only working once per enemy (so no cheesing bosses).

I splatter the big jelly, who splits into smaller jellies (which I also splatter). This leaves quite a bit of slime on the ground. This is important because ground slime stacks, meaning that it doesn't disappear from the ground until you step over every single stack on the square.

Even more spiders; these ones are called voiders. I don't even want to think about what that means.

I retreat to safety and kill them one at a time.

Thankfully, things got calmer after that. I level up again off of some more yellow jellies, too! I pick up Scarecrow this time.

Here's a blue pot: they contain scrolls!

This one is a scroll of fireball, which spits a giant wave of flame in a single direction. Since I can only have one consumable and there are more useful ones, it will probably get ditched soon. When you ditch a scroll, you turn it into gold, which is useful.

I step around the corner and WHERE DID YOU COME FROM?

It's a goatman, and apparently they can charge for a shit ton of damage. It's dead now that I got it frozen, but that was a surprise.

This is a health shrine, which I'll save for after I finish exploring the floor. They restore about 15-20 HP when you use them (not sure on the exact number).

Behind this yellow jelly is a red pot, which contains potions.

Oh yeah, this is way better than a scroll of fireball.

I go use the health shrine, then kill one last ice spider to leave the level.

Inside of Ickykolo, I spot the last type of pot. Golden pots contains about five times the normal amount of gold you get from a pot.

Oh good, this spawner spits out those awful poison spiders

I throw some pitch forks (shovels?) at it to shut it down before it gets really annoying.

It takes a while, but I finally clear everything out.

There's even a horde of treasures hiding behind it!

The potion pot had an invisibility potion inside of it! Invisibility is great for avoiding things or getting a surprise round in, but it wears off the moment you make an attack. I'll use it right away (instead of cashing it), and keep my haste potion.

The scroll pot has a scroll of pottery in it. I haven't experienced this one yet, so I'm not sure what the range for this "turn enemies into vases" thing is. I decide to cash it and find out another time, since I want to see more of the different enemy types.

The chest has a pitchfork which gives me two HP every time I kill an enemy. It's not really that good against normal enemies, but it's great against anything that spawns more creatures (like these spawners and slimes), so I'll swap it in.

Two, two spider spawners, a ha ha!

I kill off the normal spider spawner, but the poison spiders are being just annoying enough with their explosions to delay me from getting at their spawner. I could use ranged attacks, but

I retreat downward to try to find where the staircase is and just leave the level instead. Big Ick wasn't tough, from what I remember, and I can always use fear if it gets too bad.

Yep, there it is!

Taking care of the jellies guarding it even gets me another level up! I drop it into Pitch Fork (but Scarecrow is probably the better option).

Unfortunately, in my effort to finish off the jellies, I get a bit cornered by some poison spiders, and come across ANOTHER SPIDER SPAWNER

After fighting for a while, I just say fuck it and put down a scarecrow and get to the exit.

And here's the boss level of the dungeon! There's a lot of different colored slime on the ground, too! The blue slime says it's poisonous, and the purple slime is described with 'arcs of electricity', so I don't think that's good either.

: DON'T FALL FOR HIS PERSUASIVE RHETORIC!

:GIBBBBLEJIBBERGIBLL!!

While approaching Big Ick, I find another haste potion in the red pot, so I use it right away, with the plan to use the other haste potion if I need to do some retreat.

Big Ick himself is a 2x2 monster, which can make him easy to kite around pillars if I choose to do so. I probably won't need to though. As you can see, Big Ick will die in about 4-5 hits anyway.

He also doesn't hit terribly hard either, so I can just tank it to kill him before those other slimes get close.

As he melts away, a walking mushroom pops out!

It then runs off through the walls. Curious...

Big Ick also dropped a chest, which opens a way out of the dungeon. However, I want to see what this red jelly does while I still have some health and plenty of haste.

I split up and damage the big jellies, and manage to kill one of the smaller red jellies. It starts smoking though, which is never a good sign. Time to back away with haste!

That...seems a bit overkill. It looks like each red jelly that wasn't dead exploded at the same time, and they all shot flames out! It also looks like the dead one shot out flames in eight directions instead of the four directions that the alive ones shot! I'm not looking forward to seeing these guys as normal enemies, that's for sure.

These light blue jellies just leave the poison slime on the ground, but I don't think I've seen that black jelly or its slime before.

I judiciously use the scarecrow to kite the black jelly into a spot where I can split it.

Odd, the black jellies leave residue as well. Why haven't I seen that lying around?

I pop the rest of them as well.

Turns out black jelly puddles spawn more large black jellies...

Yep, I think I've learned enough, time to leave!

I scarecrow up as more slimes keep spawning in.

When I touch the chest, it turns into another one of those mystical doorways, this time heading back to Clogville.

Hooray! Ickykolo completed! I unlock some villagers that will wander around town.

It also gives me a run down of where I got gold from during this dungeon dive.

:WHAT'S THAT? SOMETHING ABOUT A MUSHROOM? SILENCE! WE WILL GET TO THAT IN A MOMENT. FIRST, LET US EXAMINE THE SPOILS YOU RECOVERED FROM BIG ICK's LAIR.

The chest gives a choice between archers and warriors to unlock! I'm going with warriors, because I'm always of the sort to want to bash my face into things.

It plops down another building into my town, and that might start making things cramped, so I'll clear out all the buildings that I haven't officially 'earned' after this cutscene.

:YOUR SIMPLE, DULL CIVILIZATION IS EXPANDING! NOW YOU CAN SEND WARRIORS ON ADVENTURES...AND EACH TIME YOU BEAT AN OLD DUNGEON WITH A NEW CLASS YOU'LL LOOT 1,000 MORE GOLD! NOW TELL ME ABOUT THIS MUSHROOM...

:IT...POPPED OUT...OF BIG ICK? A NEW SPECIES? IN SPROGGIWOOD?

:oh oh oh, Yippie-Yay-Yo!

:...ERR...I MEAN...

:REJOICE! ANOTHER CREATURE FOR ME TO SUBJUGATE!...

:I'm no dark lord. I'm just...Sproggi...

:...a little guardian who wants to save his realm from ruin.

:Let me explain...

:This is Sprog, my realm!

:Well, it's not mine, technically...I didn't create it. But I am its guardian spirit. Anyway, Sprog is populated with some wonderful creatures.

:But there is no community, no order. With enough time, the denizens of Sprog will ravage each other and leave nothing but destruction and chaos in their wake...

:How can I be certain of this, you ask?

:You must trust me, Cloghead, for I know things most spirits do not.

:That's where you come in. I've been spying on, er...admiring your people for some time.

:The Clogheads value peace, order, and civility, and you thrive accordingly. And so it hit me! The answer to Sprog's problems is civilization!

:You can bring civilization to Sprog!

:So you see, Cloghead, this is why I kidnapped, er...guided you to Sprog. Now, I'm going to investigate this curious mushroom...in the mean time, meet Spencer Squish. I relocated him here from Ickykolo so that he could help you around your village. Spencer, explain how the Clogheads should spend their gold. I'll be back with news about that mushroom!

(I already explained this, so let's skip over it...)

:And that..*squish* is that..*squish squish* bye.

I dump my coins into starting HP, which seems like a wise investment no matter what.

The shop seems to value life steal a lot more than I do, apparently.

Anyway, I clear out the village of every building I haven't earned yet (except for the fields and bridge), so I'll call that good for now.

NEXT TIME: Old goat ladies!