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Update 29: The Deep City
Whoa.
Hoowee. What a sight!
Now remember, even if they tried to kill us, we have to be careful and stay calm.
A tree so gigantic that it can’t all be seen at once towers over countless surrounding structures. The sight of the city here makes you forget, for a moment, that you are at the ocean’s floor. As you look in utter amazement at the cityscape, a familiar girl’s voice sounds from nearby...
Olympia appears before you, speaking calmly as if there was never any strife between you.
Olympia! You murderous traitor! Hey-let me go!
...May I continue?
Yeah. Go ahead. While we try to hold her back. Geez can't you stay still for one sec!?
Right. Anyways. The Abyssal King has spoken. There is a matter he would like to entrust to your conscience.
Without warning, the girl takes the folds of her robe in hand and throws it off.
Uhhhh... What?
What the hell are you!?
I believe we're looking at some sort of humanoid robot.
Olympia displays her metallic, clearly inhuman form and continues in her usual calm tones.
I ask that you remain silent on the subject of everything you see here in the Deep City. Not only for my sake, but for the sake of your kind as well. Will you heed my master’s request?
Well, it was voted that we would promise not to tell.
Tch. You murdered several guilds, tried to kill ours, and now you're asking us politely to keep this place a secret? You know what I have to say to that? Go screw yourse-
Um. Yes. We'll keep this place a secret.
WHAT!? Are you crazy? Why should we listen to that thing!?
Think about it. She revealed her true nature to us. We don't know what she's capable of, and I'm pretty sure those things mounted on her are weapons of some sort. And, we're in the Deep City. Who you know, tried to keep us out?
Oh my. Yes, I would like to not be involved in another murder attempt.
...Okay. We uh, won't tell anyone.
Follow me. I’ll tell you how to return to Armoroad.
Music stops.
Olympia looks deep into your eyes and continues.
When you return, tell the Senatus that the Deep City is only a myth. That it doesn’t exist...
When you touch the pillar of light, a bright, blinding flash suddenly envelops you!
Well there's a mission report that we have to hand in.
But let's go back to the Deep City.
It would be best for all our sakes if you returned to the land above the waves.
Okay okay. Sheesh.
The party goes back to Armoroad.
Sooooo, what are we gonna do? We're not actually gonna keep the Deep City a secret, are we?
...I dunno.
What the hell do you mean you don't know?
It's just... We're done exploring the Labyrinth. We reached the bottom and found the Deep City. And it's just. This isn't exactly what I signed up for, you know?
Hmm, well we still have to go to the Senatus. They'll want to know what happened with Ketos at least.
Yeah yeah. Just let me write up the report and we'll head there in a bit.
I’ll want a full report. Omit not a single detail. I’ve waited 100 years for this day...!
Uhh...
You found the Deep City, I hope? That magnificent place sunk beneath the ocean’s waves!?
Well we did promise Olympia that we wouldn't tell.
I... Um... No. We didn't.
There was nothing. Just a bunch of ocean floor.
You have got to be kidding me.
...Are you sure? I would hate to think that you were lying to me. Kujura... What truly happened?
Huh!?
Nngh!
I followed closely behind them. After they defeated that gigantic whale... I saw them enter a magnificent, tree-watched city on the seabed, encased in a bubble of air.
If I tell you our reasons for searching for the Deep City, I am sure you’ll change your mind.
I'm gonna be honest. The game honestly doesn't give you that many good reasons to make a promise with Olympia and lie to the Senatus. It feels kind of shoehorned in, considering how much they shove into your face that Olympia is the enemy, and was willing to do everything to stop you. Maybe if they gave you an actual compelling reason other than, we have a robot. Please keep it a secret.
Fade to black.
I am the princess of Armoroad, Gutrune. Finding the Deep City has long been my fondest wish.
Great. Now I feel even worse for lying.
Well that backfired horribly.
You didn't have to make or keep a promise with a killer robot in the first place, you know.
The royal records say it is a land cut off from Armoroad, sunk with our countrymen still living there. We do not know the reasons for its separation or what powers sustain its undersea existence... But I worry the descendants of our people are now suffering in the depths of the ocean. I hear you attempted to conceal the Deep City’s existence, likely at the behest of its denizens. But please, do not misunderstand. We only want to establish cordial relations with the Deep City. Thus, I’d like to send a missive and gifts to the Deep City on behalf of Armoroad. I had Armoroad’s most reputable merchants prepare their finest gifts for the occasion. I’ve also selected a supervisor to deliver them. I’d like to introduce her to you as well.
Fade to black.
I’ve prepared many gifts, from imported fineries to traditional Armoroad crafts. All are worthy of presentation to the King of the Deep City, I should think. Well then, I’ll await you all at the outskirts of Armoroad. Guide me well to the Deep City, mm?
Please escort her to the gates of the Deep City.
Ah, but before that... There is one more thing I must give you. It is meant to show my thanks for discovering the Deep City.
Even after we uh...
Well we did find the Deep City in the end, which was our main goal in the first place.
Lying or telling the truth does not affect your reward in any way.
We can actually talk to Gutrune, but if we leave, we'll lose out on that opportunity.
I leave my letter and offerings to the Deep City in your hands.
We got level ups, so let's spend our skill points.
Rally Order increases a row's max HP by 33%.
Cut cut cutcutcutcutcut!
Blade Rave is Rose's best damage skill. It's a random target damage skill that deals 80% Slash damage and hits 3 times. It'll get a lot better, but it's a better damage skill than Rush for the moment.
Trickster restores 9 TP when an offensive skill is used.
Fire Mastery provides a 5% boost to Fire damage.
Let's leave.
Please return to us once you’ve been to the Deep City to tell us all about it. I’m very intrigued.
I think we're good to go.
Then let’s hurry up and go! If there’s a city at the bottom of the sea, I can’t wait to see it!
We have a letter from Armoroad's Princess.
For the record, they found out anyway.
You tell her that you have been appointed by Armoroad’s princess to bring a letter of friendship. On hearing that, Olympia tells you to wait where you are, and runs off...
Olympia leaves.
And comes back.
The Abyssal King has given his permission. I will lead you to my liege.
Olympia immediately turns and begins walking; you make haste to follow her.
I am the Abyssal King, sovereign of this Deep City. Let us see what the Princess has to say...
Fade to black.
Here. I’d prefer if you gave it to this Abyssal King along with her letter.
Screw him, let's keep them for ourselves.
Uhh...
Oh, fine.
Um! Oh, right! Sorry, I got kind of distracted. Here.
......Hm... I see that this Princess wishes to establish cordial relations. I see also that there are countless skilled explorers in Armoroad investigating the Labyrinth. There is more here besides... But it is a private matter and does not concern you. My response to these proposals cannot be a hasty one. I need time to consider this. I will allow you to stay in the Deep City for one full day as I ponder this letter. I will give my answer tomorrow. Be here then to receive it.
Sure. Let's take a look around.
I'll go and fetch the rest of the guild. They'll want to see this!
Fade to black.
Music stops.
It would be child’s play to deal with them here in my Deep City with no one the wiser. But such a show of strength... I fear it may be counter to my aim of annihilating the Deep Ones. If they fail, then the matter is ended. These "explorers" and their power could be a fine tool...
I’ve been told by the Abyssal King himself to prepare a room for everyone. May you rest well and have sweet dreams tonight.
This does count as sleeping at the inn. Your HP and TP is all restored, and your Limit Gauges are halved.
Yes, I had a wonderful rest.
Well then, the Abyssal King awaits you at the Celestial Palace. If you’ll just follow me...
As well as we could have.
Let us dispense with idle talk. I will begin by telling you what must be done. I have already accepted the Princess’ proposals as laid out in the letter, under my terms. I will not open my gates to all and sundry... but certain explorers may enter my Deep City. And I have one further request, which depends on your skills in making it as far as you have. It involves the Deep City’s future, but more than that, the future of all mankind. I cannot tell you the particulars, but it is tied to the reasons for the Deep City’s inception. If you will not accept, I must find another... But your inquisitive mind and prodigious strength makes you my most desired candidate.
The Senatus isn't the only place where we can get missions. Sometimes, the Abyssal King will assign us some.
You'll see what that 3rd option is in a bit. It's certainly something.
Our role here in this Deep City is to war against those dreadful monsters, the Deep Ones. The Deep Ones are monsters that lurk in the abyss. They are sworn enemies to mankind. I could tell you all... but understanding would come easier were you to see it yourself. The Labyrinth extends beyond the Deep City.
Okay, so that wasn't the bottom.
I don't mind. I'm itching for another fight.
There is a prison on B10F; the Hall of Conviction. Meet the Deep One imprisoned there. Once you grasp the nature of its existence... I will explain in my own words its intentions, as well as what the future holds for mankind. Ah, but first, in praise of your bravery, I bequeath unto you a technique handed down in my city. It was devised to combat the Deep Ones and dramatically heightens a human’s combat effectiveness. In addition to your original specialties, you may learn and use skills of other sorts.
Ohhhhh boy.
...But words alone will not suffice to explain. I suggest you put it into practice. May fortune go with you, explorers.
It begins.
But before we dive into that, let's talk with the Abyssal King.
This all must be so strange and new to you... A city at the bottom of the sea. But don’t hold back. So long as you do nothing to inconvenience us, you are free to do as you wish.
Say hello to the most unbalanced, broken mechanic in the entire game! Subclassing is a new mechanic introduced in this game. It lets you customize your skill builds even more. Any bit of difficulty the game had left is pretty much gone with good usage of subclassing. It got rightfully nerfed in the next game because there were several problems balance-wise with this.
I'll demonstrate by assigning Scott a subclass.
Your choices for a subclass include every class in the game except for one, which isn't available at the moment. I choose Gladiator for Scott.
Oh, now it's on!
Now there's a new tab in the status screen.
So here's what subclassing does. It gives you access to every single skill in the chosen class, aside from the class skill! So if I subclassed Ninja on Scott, he could invest in Bunshin, and I would have 2 Scotts in battle. Now you're bound by the same restrictions in that you have to invest the same amount of points in the same skills to unlock certain skills. Subclassing does not affect your stats in any way.
Now to make up for the fact that you have a whole new skill tree to invest in, the game gives you 5 extra skill points when you assign a subclass.
If I wanted Scott to use, say, Blade Rave, he would need a Sword to use said skill. But Buccaneers can't use swords normally. However, the weapon mastery skills have another use other than being point sinks. When you invest a single point into them, it allows the class to equip said weapon, and will let them use all the offensive skills that need said weapon equipped. Now I won't be grabbing Blade Rave for Scott, he doesn't need it.
Awooo.
No no no, you need to be louder. AWOOOOOOO!
Instead, I'm gonna get Charge on Scott.
Hrrr-ow ow ow! This kind of hurts!
I also want Berserker's Vow maxed out eventually.
It's payback time!
I don't have enough skill points to get Charge, but I'll do so eventually. Now as for how to make the most out of subclassing, here's a tip to help. Do not use it to mix two class skillsets together. As in don't try to make your physical damage dealer also invest half their skill points being a magician. What you'll end up creating is a generalist character that doesn't excel at anything, and it's far better to specialize in an EO game. There's only 2 class combos that works with (Princess/Monk or Monk/Princess). In every other case, you should just use the subclass to enhance the main class' skills. In this case, I'm getting both Berserker's Vow and Charge maxed out so I can increase the damage of Scott's offensive skills, such as Hanging. It's also acceptable just to take a subclass in order to get the 5 extra skill points for use with the main class.
Hmm, I don't know what I want to do. I shall decide later.
I had plans for Susan to get Monk as a subclass, but that changed. Her subclass will not be assigned yet.
Ehhh, I don't think any of your guy's fighting styles suits me.
Rose's subclass will be decided later.
As for Faye's subclass...
I'm a pretty little princess! Ugh, what am I saying?
I dunno if defense is my thing.
Don't care.
Sort of care.
There we go! Eh, sort of. I'm not actually interested in Rally Order, I'm beelining for Protect Order.
Gladiator!? Are you out of your mind!?
There's a specific reason I took this subclass, although you may want to take Arbalist or Ninja if you're planning on making heavy use of a Zodiac's elemental attacks. Bunshin is probably the best way to increase a Zodiac's damage output, since Charge Tactic is the only other way to give a boost to elemental attacks.
Getting Fire Mastery to 5 unlocks Binary Fire.
Pyromania!
It deals 30% Fire damage to each enemy on the field.
I spend the rest of my skill points leveling up Volt Mastery.
Now let's get to work on the other 5 guild members.
This shall be useful.
Probably not the best subclass for a Hoplite, but one that served me well in my playthroughs.
This is redundant.
Kagerou doesn't really help her out. However...
From one, an army!
Ugh, great. As if dealing with one of you wasn't bad enough.
Bunshin does a lot for her, and is the reason I had her sub Ninja. Double Hoplite is a very good way of making your team unkillable. You can Line Guard both rows at once. You can use 2 different Anti skills. Or even Bodyguard 2 people at once! Not only that, but the Ninja skill tree has a few abilities that grant evasion, letting Cassandra dodge tank as well as regular tanking.
I also had one skill point leftover for Anticold. It decreases Ice damage by 20%.
More explosions!
AWWOOOOOO!
See, Scott? That's what you need to sound like!
Flex it! Oh, ow. I think I pulled a muscle!
I'll blow a few holes in you for that!
Like with Scott, I'm beelining for Charge.
Now I had an extra skill point laying around, so I give Front Mortar a little boost. It deals 276% damage if used in the front row, and 79% if used in the back.
Um, I really want to help you all out, so let me think about this a bit more.
Alice's subclass will not be assigned just yet.
MAGIC!
Endless energy for everyone!
And here's a pretty infamous cheese build. The Ninja's class skill reduces the TP cost of all skills by 9 at level 10. Every skill, including whatever they learn from their subclass. Dark Ether costs 10 TP at level 5. With both skill maxed out, you can cast 1 TP Dark Ethers, effectively giving your party infinite TP! Oh, and you also use Bunshin to cast it on both rows at once! Of course, if you actually want your Ninja to be a damage dealer, sub Gladiator instead.
I don't think this'll really help me.
Yeah, there's not a lot that Wildlings synergize with, due to the nature of the class. Some people prefer just giving them a random subclass just to get them 5 extra skill points.
Well I guess I won't get hurt as much with this.
Others prefer giving them Hoplite, just so they can get Shield Mastery and equip a shield to increase their defenses, since they're not that durable.
I spend the rest of Fang's skill points on Call Elephant. Now it has a 50% chance to inflict Confusion, deals 120% damage on its initial attack, and 190% damage for its AI attacks, and has 250 base HP. Honestly, Wildlings are very skill point hungry classes, so they don't play nice with investing a lot in a different skill tree.
These aren't necessarily the best combinations, or the only ones that work well. There's plenty of ways to break the game if you experiment. I'll go more into detail about the classes and possible combinations in the Class Showcases. Now if you want to change your subclass, there's only one way to do so. You have to take a rest at the Explorer's Guild, in order to change subclasses. Resting not only gives you back your skill points in exchange for 5 levels, it also gets rid of the character's subclass, letting them pick another one at the Celestial Palace. However, thanks to the fact that subclassing lets a class equip weapons they're not supposed to, resting also causes the character to unequip everything. So be mindful of that. Let's take a look around the Deep City, now that all this is done.
The offering’s all prepared, and my sister was excited. She gets that way about potential profit...
Wait, are you talking about Edie?
...Hm? Oh, yes, that skinflint in charge of Napier’s Firm is my older sister. So I’ll be running Napier’s Branch here. We have everything you’d expect from Napier’s Firm! I look forward to doing business with you!
Unlike Edie, her sister isn't given a name.
The Deep City is also another town area, like Armoroad. In order to make things convenient, there's an inn and a store located here.
Is there any reason you're looking at us like that?
Oh! I’m sorry, I’d never seen an explorer until just now... Please forgive me for staring. You’re warriors by trade, right? But you don’t seem so scary...
Heh, we're tough, but we're plenty friendly.
That’s a load off my mind. My name’s Angie. If you intend to use this inn often, we’ll be seeing a lot of each other.
Etrian Odyssey does a thing where they put a Trauma Center cameo in the game somewhere. And the one for this game is Angie, in her Under the Knife 2 outfit. The only game that doesn't do this is Etrian Odyssey Untold.
The Abyssal King asked me to help out folks like you here in the Deep City. So my sister and I got together and decided to open Napier’s Branch here. If you have any requests for us, please tell me. We’re a branch office of Napier’s Firm in Armoroad, so you can expect that Napier quality! I look forward to doing as much business with you here as we do in the Armoroad home office!
Napier's Branch is just basically Napier's Firm. They just put this here just so you don't have to go back to Armoroad in order to do some shopping. Napier's Branch carries the exact same stock as Napier's Firm. Anything you've unlocked there will be unlocked in the Branch, and vice versa. There's no exclusive items or anything. Let's see what the shopkeeper has to say.
But then it was all so pretty and the Abyssal King so charming... It could be much worse than this!
Let's take a look at the equipment I unlocked.
The Ocean Gun is obtained from Ketos' normal drop. It's a decent upgrade for Scott, but we can get a much better weapon for him very soon.
The Stun Guard increases a character's resistances to Stuns by 30%.
You can also enter the Labyrinth from the Deep City.
It has a different set of destinations. You can't enter the 1st Stratum from here, but you can go to the end of the 2nd Stratum. You also have to enter the 3rd Stratum from here.
Because for now, you can't enter it from Armoroad.
The Princess was looking forward to greeting you on your return, but she isn’t feeling well now... She’s gone to rest in the Porcelain Forest, down in Armoroad’s depths. I’ll tell her you’re back, but for now, you should go back to the Deep City and observe what you can.
That's all the new dialogue for now.
And since we've reached the Deep City, we get a new icon on the Guild Card to commemorate this accomplishment. We're not gonna go into the 3rd Stratum yet in the next update. There's a few things that we have to clean up, like the Star doors.