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Update 31: The Star Doors
Wow, I didn't know there was that much more to explore in the first Stratum!
Man, I'm tired.
I could use a rest.
Okay, first things first. Turn Faye back into a pretty little princess.
And get Alice ready for her new subclass.
What the!? Who are you!?
AAAH! A stranger! Somebody help me!
I really should put up a sign telling people not to do that.
Now let's get Faye back in her proper role.
Aww, but I had fun punching stuff!
Less punching, more healing.
Do not worry. For I shall teach you how to be a proper Princess!
I set her build back to the way it was before.
The thread voted to have Susan subclass Buccaneer for pirate shenanigans.
I AM NOW QUEEN OF ALL PIRATES!
This is gonna be a long day.
You cannot hide your weaknesses from me! I see all!
Look, you just have to tell everyone else where to strike. No need to get all dramatic about it.
I gave Susan Eagle Eye to boost the party's physical damage even further.
And this is her current build.
Now here's the big one. People voted to have Alice sub Ninja in order to be useful. And boy do I have plans for her!
Um, I really want to be useful, so could you please help me?
Miss Alice, I will teach you to the best of my ability.
Oh, thank you!
Um, that doesn't look durable.
Oh, you're only learning that so you can pull this technique off.
Just unlocking Bunshin here.
AAAAAHH! What the-!? Who are-!? How did this happen!?
You uh, might not have enough room to do that in the Labyrinth.
Double Alice, because why not?
Mmph mph mmmph ptoo ptoo ptoo!
That seems unsanitary.
Fukubari is a multi-target attack that deals a low amount of Pierce damage and attempts to inflict on 3 different enemies. At level 3, it deals 48% damage and has a 16% chance to inflict Sleep. At level 10, it deals 80% damage and has a 40% chance to inflict Sleep. Sounds kind of terrible, considering that Lullaby hit all enemies and has a 60% chance to inflict Sleep, but Fukubari doesn't put the user to Sleep, meaning that Alice can spam this all she wants. Oh fun fact, the Japanese description says that the Ninja pulls this move off by holding poisonous needles in their mouth and spitting them at their enemies.
Wait, what am I supposed to do with this mirro-
Oh great, not again.
Sukiyou is a rather intersting skill. It has the character use a mirror to spread ailments from one enemy, to the rest of them. For instance, if one enemy was sleeping, the user targets that enemy with this skill to try to put the other enemies to Sleep. Because it needs setup, the success rate is a bit higher than most other ailment infliction skills, though it's not anything to special. At least, not until it's maxed out. At level 3, the skill has a 38% success rate. Aside from the skill it unlocks, this ability may not seem like its worth the trouble, but max it out, and well I'll talk about that when that happens.
Those are pretty sharp.
Be careful not to step on those.
Makibishi is terrible. It's a skill meant for the early game, and past that point, it's pretty useless. The user will select a row, and then counterattack with fixed amount Slash damage (plus a random number from 0 to 10) and the enemy has a chance to be Poisoned. The Poison ticks for a very small amount. (They actually lay down poisoned caltrops around the selected row, which the enemy steps on.) From levels 1 through 10, the damage ranges from 20 to 90 points. The infliction chance ranges from 40% to 60% and the Poison damage ranges from 15 to 50. It can help out early on, but past the first Stratum, this skill is useless. At level 5, the damage dealt is 40 points, the infliction rate is 48%, and the Poison ticks for a mere 27 points of damage.
Death at my hands is an honor. ...That's what I should say after doing this?
You have learned well.
And this is the main skill I was after. Kubikiri gives regular attacks a 20% chance to inflict Instant Death at level 10. Sounds small, especially compared to Izuna's 45% Petrification chance. But Izuna costs a lot of TP while Kubikiri is a passive. It won't help at all against bosses, and has an extremely small chance of activating against FOEs, but against problematic random encounters, it's pretty good. Especially since the only stats this skill takes into consideration are TEC and LUC, and Alice has a ton of LUC. Now you actually don't need a specific weapon to make use of this passive. You don't even need a weapon at all, so you can have the character inflict Instant Death with just their fists if you wanted.
Don't blink, or you'll miss me.
And the last skill point goes towards Senpuku, which increases Alice's evasion by 10 points. Might as well increase her survivability.
And here's Alice's new skill build. Now that she can kill things, she doesn't need Lullaby anymore.
And I get this dagger for Alice. So that forge on the weapon is a Death forge. It's actually a bit less powerful than the ailment forges. Both Death and Petrify forges give a 4% chance to inflict their status for the first forge, and every subsequent forge only adds on an extra 2% chance. I have no idea if this actually stacks with Kubikiri, if it's a separate check, or outright ignored, but I get this for Alice anyway because her regular attacks are never gonna do much in battle damage wise.
Anyways, there were a couple of things I missed, like the Star doors. Let's go investigate those right now.
So I was talking to Angie about that, and she looked at me like I was a crazy person.
How odd. But Rose and Fang have noticed?
Yeah, but I dunno if the other five did.
If you enter the Labyrinth from the Undersea Grotto Depths, you'll start back at the end of the 8th floor.
Hey uh, you two went into the Labyrinth around this time, right?
Uh, what are you talking about?
Like, I'm pretty sure I was eating at restaurant at 10 am, and then suddenly it turned 7 am and I was back at the Twinkling Tavern. Did you all go through that too?
...Oh dear.
Yeah, funny story about that...
...Wow, that's kind of-AAAAAHHH!
Maybe a battle isn't the best place to be having a conversation. But that's still kind of freaky. Any idea why that's happening to us?
I think... Hm, actually I can't remember why.
I'm sure it'll come back to us eventually.
So I killed one of these a while back, but I never got its drops. Let's fix that.
While I would love to just roast the thing with Hellfire, doing so would just lock me out of the Gold Drop.
On my mark.
Don't get yourselves killed now.
Heh heh, I see that. Can't hide anything from me.
Ptoo! Sweet dreams!
Abyssal Deaths are pretty susceptible to Sleep.
Let's get going!
Aw, not as much damage as I was hoping for.
But Asteria whittles it down enough to get it into killing range.
And I get both of its drops!
Now Trickster restores 10 TP every time he uses an offensive skill, which should help him last longer on Labyrinth trips.
Nice fang. Mind if I have it?
Just snagging a conditional drop.
Here's the Star Door.
Which we can now open.
Woo hoo! Now let's see what's past here.
There's 2 Scaled Dragons in the room that will chase after you if you come too close.
What you're supposed to do is to grab their attention, and then juke them around that pillar.
Forward!
Awoo!
That was hot.
I just opted to kill them.
Fukubari now deals 52% damage, and has a 19% chance to inflict Sleep on 3 enemies. I forgot that Asteria also leveled up, so I didn't level up any of her skills. I am good at video games. 
Maybe we could use some help.
Hello! It's a pleasure to meet you!
Two Alices!? How adorable!
ACK! Please let go. We can't breathe!
Assuming you don't get lucky with Hellfire, what you want to do is to attack them with Volt.
When you see the Scaled Dragon do this, defend! Their regular attacks already hit hard, but if they decide to use their AOE, everyone is either going to take a lot of damage, or die.
Zapped your ass.
Don't bother trying to bind a Scaled Dragon, they're completely immune. They're susceptible to Poison, except by this point, even a Wildling's Poison will fall off.
Why of course fortune would smile upon such royalty!
By the way, mind telling me what kingdom you're from?
Well uh, I'm from the kingdom on that island over there... Yes, the kingdom of Overthere!
...Uh-huh. Okay. Got it.
Lady Luck increases the user's crit rate by 5% at level 1. It's not that great since regular attacks are terrible compared to skills, but this skill is a prerequisite for something I want.
Those Scaled Dragons were guarding a Luck Book. I'll probably use this on Fang. No one else here can make good use of it.
And they were guarding a Coupon. Once again, save these for the post-game.
And now, the map of the 8th floor is completely finished. There's nothing else on this floor for us.
The Gandivam is unlocked from the Abyssal Death's Gold Drop. It's a pretty decent upgrade for your Arbalists.
The Book of Enoch is unlocked from the Scaled Dragon's drop. If you have the materials for it, you could add in some forges to make it an upgrade over Pollux's Records, but the increase in attack is pretty unimportant. You really don't want your Zodiac hitting monsters with a book.
The High Walrus' conditional drop unlocks this. It's a pretty nice crossbow for your Arbalists.
The Poleyn is unlocked from the Abyssal Death's normal drop. It provides a 10% resistance to all the physical damage types, which could be handy on some classes. Now there's one last FOE we never took out.
Rain death upon their heads, my loyal subjects!
Fear nothing!
Wake me up in 5 minutes, loyal subjects...
What shall we do with a sleepy sailor~...?
So sleepy.
Roasted, toasted, and burnt to a crisp!
I didn't get the drop, so I'm gonna have to kill another one of those.
If you have Prevent Order and Refresh, you should be fine as long as you play carefully.
Oh, son of a %^#@&!
Language, Scott!
Though Curse is something to watch out for.
Thanks for the rescue, mates!
And?
...Sorry about my sailor mouth. Really?
They're pretty harmless when you're an even match. Their ailments are the main threat, not their attacks. You should be able to take one out quickly before the rest of the fish join in at this point.
And their drop unlocks this dagger. There's one more Star Door left to cover.
The area behind this Star Door is bigger than the room on the 8th floor.
For one thing, it has doors.
Doors that lead to complete dead ends.
And it has completely new random encounters.
Demon Octopus
HP: 328
TP: 86
STR: 22
VIT: 27
AGI: 25
LUC:26
TEC: 23
Attack Type: Pierce
Exp: 1265
Item Drops:
-Drop 1: Octopus' Horn - 25% Drop Rate. 1 needed for Rhomphair (Spear.)
--Meant for killing prey within its field of vision.
-Drop 2: N/A
-Gold: N/A
Description: An octopus that lurks in the forest, though it can live below water too. It prefers to bind its prey.
Damage Resistances: Slash: 100% Strike: 50% Pierce: 100% Fire: 100% Ice: Volt: 100%
Ailment Resistances: Sleep: 50% Confusion: 50% Plague: 100% Poison: 100% Blind: 122% Curse: 100% Paralysis: 100%
Bind Resistances: Head: 50% Arm: 100% Leg: 100%
Other Resistances: Death: 100% Petrification: 100% Stun: 100%
Skills:
Constricting Leg: Uses the Legs. A party target Strike attack that deals 40% damage and has a 50% chance to bind their legs.
Demon Octopi aren't really notable enemies. By themselves anyway. All they can really do is bind your legs, which kills your evasion and prevents you from running away. You may want to keep the latter in mind for later.
Augh.
Mind telling me why you thought bringing her along was a good idea?
O-Oh my goodness... What... What did I just do!?
You just sliced its head clean off! Where did you learn that frightening technique!?
I-I-I l-learned it fr-from A-Akatsuki. I-I just thought I was just slashing at them. I didn't know that would happen!
That... was... AWESOME! It was alive for one second, and then BAM! Dead in the next!
Well, I suppose that would help us have an easier time with the monsters here.
I-I guess.
This is Kubikiri in action. By the way, did I mention that the translated name for that skill is Decapitation? And you don't even need a weapon to have that happen. You can have your character decapitate an enemy with their bare hands! 
All the new enemies here have a material that has a pretty low drop rate. Fortunately, you only need one of each to unlock all the equipment associated with them, so try to get them while you're in here.
Hmm, that's a mighty impressive statue.
And it's blocking our way. Lemme see if I can push it aside.
Um, Faye? I don't think that's a statue. I think that's-
Gah! It moved!
An FOE!
We must flee!
Hmm, it seemed to be moving pretty slowly when it was chasing us.
Maybe we can take advantage of that to sneak around it.
Another door.
Another battle.
Ringed Lemur
HP: 318
TP: 83
STR: 25
VIT: 25
AGI: 27
LUC: 21
TEC: 24
Attack Type: Slash
Exp: 1209
Item Drops:
-Drop 1: Striped Tail - 20% Drop Rate. 1 needed for White Brim (Helmet.)
--A sturdier tail than it seems. No human hands can tear it.
-Drop 2: N/A
-Gold: N/A
Description: Though it looks like a fox, it is classified as a monkey. It slashes tendons with its claws.
Damage Resistances: Slash: 50% Strike: 100% Pierce: 100% Fire: 100% Ice: 100% Volt: 100%
Ailment Resistances: Sleep: 122% Confusion: 100% Plague: 100% Poison: 100% Blind: 50% Curse: 50% Paralysis: 100%
Bind Resistances: Head: 100% Arm: 50% Leg: 100%
Other Resistances: Death: 100% Petrification: 100% Stun: 100%
Skills:
Dampen Claw: Uses the Arms. A party target Slash attack that deals 40% damage and decreases their physical attack power by 50% for 4 turns.
I hate these things. Ringed Lemurs are really really annoying enemies. They will make life hard for your physical attackers, and slow down any battles they participate in. They're not threatening, they just make battles last a really long time. Fortunately, elemental attacks aren't affected by Dampen Claw. Sleep can also shut them down.
My arms! They feel like jelly.
I can barely lift this blade. How humiliating.
Okay, that was pathetic.
I don't think I did much either.
If you have no way to dispel the debuff, prepare for any Ringed Lemur fights to last a long time.
Okay... Okay... this is just like cutting off a chicken's head. Yes. That's it.
Hiya!
...I love you.
Hey! I had my eyes on her first!
Pfft, she joined my guild way before you did, sister!
And that's why I wanted Alice to have Kubikiri. The Instant Death proc will let me skip annoying encounters, and Alice has enough LUC and TEC that the proc rate on the skill is 40% to 49%.
Most of these doors are just loops or dead ends.
But a few of these lead forward.
A daily dose of Faye keeps the doctor away.
Faye leveled up in time to grab Prevent Order. Which will really be handy for the FOE right there.
So what should we do about that FOE?
Maybe we can sneak around it?
Pfft, that's boring! Let's just smash it to pieces!
Always quick to violence.
Golden Idol
Behavior: Stays in one spot. Chases the party if they get too close, and won't give up until they get out of the room.
Aggressive: Yes
HP: 1000
TP: 523
STR: 28
VIT: 25
AGI: 24
LUC:28
TEC: 27
Attack Type: Strike
Exp: 4020
Item Drops:
-Drop 1: Diamond Arm - 45% Drop Rate.
--Impossibly dense arm of a stone statue.
-Drop 2: N/A
-Gold: N/A
Description: A golden statue which repels all attacks. It slowly corners its foes before closing in.
Damage Resistances: Slash: IMMUNE Strike: IMMUNE Pierce: IMMUNE Fire: IMMUNE Ice: 125% Volt: IMMUNE
Ailment Resistances: Sleep: 10% Confusion: 10% Plague: 10% Poison: 10% Blind: 10% Curse: 10% Paralysis: 50%
Bind Resistances: Head: 25% Arm: 25% Leg: 25%
Other Resistances: Death: IMMUNE Petrification: 10% Stun: 50%
Skills:
Breath: Uses the Head. Attempts to inflict Petrification on the entire party. Has a 30% chance of success.
Golden Idols are very dangerous FOEs if you come unprepared. In fact, these FOEs are why the encounters behind the Star Door are designed to slow you down. If you get into a battle with these statues in the area, the encounters will make it hard to get away from the FOEs. Demon Octopi will tie your party down and prevent them from running away, while Ringed Lemurs will make it hard to finish battles quickly while the FOEs slowly creep up on you.
Anyways, the Golden Idols are dangerous because they can petrify your entire party. What Petrification does is that it permanently immobilizes your party members, preventing them from acting and nullifying their evasion. Though few upsides are that your party member's aren't considered dead, so they still get exp, and that petrified party members gain a 50% resistance to all damage types except Almighty, so they're slightly harder to actually kill. Petrification does not go away on its own, and it still persists outside of battle. It has to be dispelled through the use of Therica Bs, or the Monk's Refresh. Because of that, if your entire party gets petrified, it counts as a game over. So try not to let that happen.
Prevent Order will stop your party members from being petrified, so it is vital to have that skill on someone to protect your party.
Alice, I don't think you can decapitate a statue.
It was worth a try!
Unfortunately, Golden Idols are completely immune to Instant Death, so Alice won't be decapitating any statues here. Also, they are completely immune to all damage types except for Ice and Almighty, but it's unlikely that you have a reliable source of the latter at this point. If you don't have any Ice attacks in your party, don't bother fighting these things. If you try to attack an enemy with a damage type its immune to, they'll only take 1 to 10 points of damage.
The Golden Idol's attacks don't hit that hard. It's really Breath that you have to worry about.
Ugh, and even with a Zodiac with Ice Star, it'll take 5 turns to kill.
Nope!
Make sure to reapply Prevent Order every time it uses Breath.
Ice... Ice... I've ran out of ice puns.
Oh thank goodness.
How about, chill out?
Oh, that'll work. Chill out!
Whyyyyyyyyy?
To summarize, don't bother fighting Golden Statues without Prevent Order and Ice attacks. They're just road bumps if you do have them.
If you need to sneak past the Golden Idol, lure it to the top door as close as possible, then exit the room.
Then quickly enter this door.
And just keep running.
These doors just lead to the same place.
And now we're completely done with the 2nd floor. Nothing left for us here.
Now I would explore more of the 1st floor here, but I've started running low on supplies, so I go back to town for now.
Not much unlocked, so I opt to go back into the 2nd Stratum to unlock more equipment. Something pretty special happened on my next trip.
I killed another Scaled Dragon and Scott leveled up. But what I really want to bring your attention to, is the Speed Book that dropped. Let me remind you that all stat books have a 1% drop rate! I got very very lucky here.
Scott gets a 2nd level in Avenger so he can learn Charge. But more importantly...
Faster! Faster!
If you have a Buccaneer, you really want to increase their AGI stat as much as possible, even though they're already pretty speedy.
Something I find amusing about Kubikiri is that the sprite gets cut into thirds if it's wide enough. Oh and guess what?
That wasn't the only Speed Book I got my hands on! The next Scaled Dragon I killed dropped another one for me!
MORE AGI! MORE AGI!
I'm just a helpless little girl. I don't taste that good. Try her! She has more meat on her bones!
What!? Why me!?
Alice learns Otori, because why not?
The current flows.
And Asteria picks up her last AOE elemental skill. Oh and if you thought getting 2 Speed Books was lucky...
I ended up getting a 3rd one off the next Scaled Dragon! That is literally a one in a million chance! 
Man, the game seems intent that I turn Scott into a god of destruction.
Well, I would be happy to oblige! 
Lady Luck now increases Susan's crit rate by 6%.
Oh, and here's the completed map of the 7th floor, if you were curious. I went back to town to unlock some more equipment
The Black Breaker is a club that you unlock from Hammerhead's normal drop, and the Blue Starfish's rare drop. It's pretty strong, and provides a nice bonus to offense and defense.
The Brilliance Belt is unlocked by selling 1 Indigo Pith and 6 Blue Arms. It increases a character's TP pool by 15%. Could be handy if you really like casting spells.
Arm and Head Guards give a 30% resistance to Arm and Head binds.
And that's all for equipment for now.
There's gonna be more Golden Idols on the first floor, so I turn Asteria into a walking artillery cannon so I can have an easier time dealing with them.
TEN-HUT!
Just getting Faye Rally Order, so I can get her Protect Order.
Next time: The rest of the first floor.