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Story Update 26: Epipelagic (Alraune)




I can never truly stay away from this game series, can I?

Postgames are the best and worst parts of an EO game. Can't live with them, can't live without them.



That star next to "New Game" pops up after beating the game (don't even need to save the game file after beating the game to unlock it.) It signifies that New Game + has been unlocked, and unlike its version in EO3, there are actually options for what you want to carry over or not.



"Dramatic", "varied", and "exciting", sure.

Ahem. And not only that, you're allowed to start the other mode if you wish to. If you're going from Story to Classic, all 5 party members will be available for use in your guild. If you're going from Classic to Story, no such luck. Any guild members you had will be sealed off until you start another NG+ in Classic again.

Woo unique portraits. Annoyingly you can't Retire Story characters so the only way to slot a Highlander and Gunner into your Classic parties is to Rest them over and over again. It does make for some fun team comps, but you might also not want to use them after extensive use in the previous mode.




Upon loading the game, you'll start back at the inn.


The adventure of the five explorers who destroyed the Yggdrasil Core has come to its seeming end... But your time with Dude, Ricky, Raquna, Simon, and Arthur need not yet be over!

Oh joy.

You may now explore the 6th Stratum, previously inaccessible in Story Mode! The departed Kupala will be at the Guild House to assist you as before. You can now challenge a Core that has not been weakened by the virus or Kupala's powers in the depths of the 6th Stratum. Explorers interested in testing the limits of their skills should by all means give it a try!

In the post-game, we can now see what the party went through off-screen on their journey to the core. And our main objective will be to reach the Yggdrasil Core and challenge it at its true strength. I'm certainly looking forward to that!

Since the overall plot is over, Story basically goes back to what it was before Sandy Barrens. But there are still scenes they have during the post-game, so I'll show those off.



For completing the game in Story Mode, we're rewarded with this medal! Classic also has an equivalent, which is placed to the right of this medal.

This is the only exclusive medal to Story mode, so make sure you've opened every Gladsheim chest and got all the enemy drops before you drop this garbage and play the game again in Classic, this time to actual completion!



I just realized how amazing the people I serve are...


Congratulations. You've gotten right to the bottom of things.


I know not why I did not remember it until now... Nor can I say what use it will be at this point...

Alright, now there's the matter of seeing if we got the Grimoire I wanted from the Yggdrasil Core. Drumroll please!



AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!! OH YES! YESSSSS! We have gotten ourselves a big treat here!

Land Slash is the ultimate physical damage skill in the entire game! No other skill compares to this. It's a single target melee STR-based damage skill that deals 4 instances of Cut damage to the target. At level 10, it deals 180% damage per hit, for a total of 720% damage!

To put things into perspective, a max level Delayed Charge can deal 750% damage. So this is basically a spammable Delayed Charge. The only level 10 physical skills that outdamage Land Slash are Delayed Charge, a 3-bind Ecstasy which deals 1349% damage, and an active Soul Liberator which deals 860% damage. In short, Land Slash is only outdone by conditional damage skills, and the skill itself doesn't have many caveats. It has 99% base accuracy, which is the same as most other damaging skills, no speed modifier at all, so it can outspeed a good amount of others depending on your agility stat. The only true downside is its TP cost, which clocks in at a whopping 60!

Also, unlike Delayed Charge, it works with Action Boost! Of course if you do that, you'll have fucking eviscerated your entire meager TP pool. It may be better to use Charge, which directly amplifies your damage and only costs 2 TP, on it instead. Yes you'll lose out on damage, but you'll actually be able to use it constantly. Alternatively, grab Recharge if you really want to use Action Boost with this skill, and sure, why not grab Elderevenge on top of that, just grab ALL THE OVERKILL! The post-game has barely started and you've already fucking murdered it. Great job, you sick, sick fucks.

Oh what a surprise, this skill, Slash in the original, was always incredibly deadly, hitting a single target with 200% damage 4 times. If someone got hit with this, unless you had the best defense buffs in the game, they would die. So giving the player access to it in the remake is, well, it's meant to be a complete end of game reward, but, well...



The Chieftain helped us live here. He was truly a good man...

And that's it for new town dialogue. We got one other piece of loot from the Yggdrasil Core.



Let's see what it makes.



Behold. This version of this weapon is possibly one of the most stupidly handled rewards in the entire series! In every single game that isn't EO4, the Ameno Habakiri is the ultimate katana, and ultimate weapon as it usually has the highest weapon attack period, which is obtained from killing the true final boss at the end of the 6th Stratum, so it functions as a bragging rights reward and not much else unless that was the very first thing you decided to kill in the post-game for some reason.

In this game, you unlock it from the Demon Core drop that we got from the cutscene fight with the Yggdrasil Core. Said drop cannot be obtained from the true Yggdrasil Core fight! Instead, that version drops the True Demon Core. Which doesn't unlock anything when sold. It just sells for 1 million ental. Joy. "Ah, but why not use a Formaldehyde? The codex says-" Let me cut you off right there and show you why that doesn't work.



This entry unlocks after beating the Cutscene Core and it is utterly lying to you. We did not fight this version of the core. Even with the power of Kupala ex machina, we would have been utterly destroyed in 3 seconds flat, and dealt absolutely no fucking damage to it thanks to its massive 75 VIT.

Also the cutscene version and the true version count as 2 entirely different monsters, with each having only 1 drop. Attempting to use a Formaldehyde on either version would not net you the other drop, contrary to what the codex may imply. There were quite a few people who tried that, and didn't get the drop, so I'm pointing that out here.

As a result, the Ameno Habakiri is completely unobtainable in Classic Mode, because the Cutscene Core can only ever be fought in Story. What was previously a bragging rights reward is now completely inaccessible to them. Not only that, Story can't even use this thing without grimoire nonsense or altering their class, so it's completely pointless for everyone involved now! You would basically have to play through story, and then import the save on a New Game + in order to be able to use this at all! I don't know why they did this, it's really stupid! Which is a shame because holy fucking shit, +80 HP is a huge defensive boon!

"Ah, but you can just fucking reclass, you pansy! So why are you complaining?" Well, let me show you then, and the very reason why I haven't even bothered with alter classing this entire LP.




So let's turn Dude into a Ronin, really the only class in Story Mode that can viably become one. Say, is there an option missing from the menu? I could have sworn there was supposed to be one more thing.



Oh. Yeah, reclassing is basically retirement. Can't be done until level 30, and using this option halves your current level, unless your halved level would be over 30, at which point it's capped to 30. Because Story Mode doesn't have access to retirement, this was the replacement they came up with. I have no idea why they decided to combine these into one option, but they did, and that's why I never bothered with reclassing. The sheer amount of grind just to change up my party (and they still keep their base stats, so this limits what I can change them to, since stats are super important in this game) would cause me to spend more time on Story than necessary when the current party is more than capable of going through the game.

The later games that kept Alter Class changed it so that it's no longer a weird retirement hybrid, and changed the penalty to -5 levels, and allowed you to use the option from the get-go, or close to the start of the game, actually allowing you to use this option.

If you really insist on changing the Story party's classes, despite that being a gigantic waste of time, well... if you play around with Grimoires, Arthur's innate skills are pointless, so you can use enemy skills instead. Especially by post-game, so you can turn him into a Hexer for some fantastic support skills on top of still being able to nuke things with his massive TEC stat and enemy Grimoire skills. I guess you could turn Simon into a Troubadour? Reclassing Raquna is frankly just suicide, and there isn't anything else her stat build fits with. I have no idea why in the world you would want to reclass Dude or Frederica. You can reclass into the same class to get the retirement boosts without changing your class, so that's about the only real use for it.

Yeah this is why we never bothered to mention this crap, don't touch it. At least the series is consistent with making the ultimate katana completely useless to actually obtain because there's nothing to use it on, even if this game goes a step further for... some reason. And you have a pretty balanced team, but due to their stat spreads, you can't really do too much with them. Just play Classic, it's fine, you're done with Story, you're free! Well, Arax isn't, but he's made his own hell.

Before setting out to do the post-game content, I make some more preparations. I fuse even more monstrous Grimoire stones for my party, and I get the boss conditionals I was missing before. Just assume I dumped Formaldehyde on all of them, because there are some conditional drops the Story Party literally can't get. Let's see what that loot unlocks.




Junk.



Junk.



Junk.



Ju-OOOH! Manticore's conditional drop unlocks the best staff in the game, and my god, what a staff it is! +8 to TEC! Holy fuck. And you can stack a Ward Gem on top of that for a +19 TEC boost! And it comes with a ludicrous 200 TP boost! Which is extremely handy if there are certain enemy skills you have your eyes on. My god game, are you trying to make Alchemists the best class in the game? (Trick question, they already are.)

Oh and at this point, assume I just grab ultimate gear whenever possible. It's post-game now, and I am not going to be holding back any longer! Not that I was really holding back all that much before.

In EO1 TEC is only useful for Alchemists and even then it doesn't hold up to the hilariously inflated STR stat, so this would also be junk.



First real point of interest in this update is this quest.

Decided to take the request, have you? Good, I've been hoping someone would. Do you know about the door with the purple crystal on B11F? Several adventurers are saying that they have heard a girl's voice from beyond a door on B7F. I can't believe there would be a girl by herself out in the forest... Maybe it's just the wind, but... a job's a job. Be careful, just in case.

This quest involves a boss fight, and said boss is the last of the 7 Kings. So line up those guild card numbers if you want your hand on their King Grimoire. Why this boss? I don't know. I don't really get the whole deal with King Grimoires to be quite honest with you.

Completion!!! But yeah King Grimoires are fucking stupid and I hate the system so much and I'm not saying that because I'm an EU player! Okay, maybe I'm a little bitter...



Could the rumors of a young girl living in the forest be true? You decide to take caution as you continue on ahead.


You can faintly hear a young girl crying for help. Following the voice has led you to a door deep within the poison marsh. It would appear that the girl's voice was coming from behind this door. You can choose to search for the girl, or leave this place if you want to.

We can clearly see from the map that there's a boss beyond here, so let's have a look at our party.








I highly recommend bringing in some Bash protection for this boss. Mists in general will be a good item to use, and you may want to consider bringing All Mists as well.




Well well well, looks like one member of the forest folk escaped our not-genocidal rampage.

Time to finish the job.

Oh, she's part of the forest folk? Don't remember that. Oh well, kill it like the rest.

Her codex descriptions throughout the entire series call her a fusion between a member of the forest folk and a plant, so I'm going off of that.


As you pass through the doors, you hear the high-pitched voice of a girl. However, you see not a girl, but a monster that appears to be some fusion of woman and plant! This monster lured you here with its cries!
As the quest description said, there was a girl's voice. It just wasn't being made by a girl...
What a cheap trick. I'm not gonna go easy on it just because it's a girl!
It's hard to fight something looking like that, but we can't let it go loose. It's already done so much damage.
Dude, let's do it!

Video: Alraune





Alraune
Level: 65
HP: 22000
STR: 70
TEC: 60
VIT: 52
AGI: 49
LUC: 58

Attack Type: Bash
EXP Given: 250000

Damage Vulnerabilities:
100% 100% 100%
150% 0% 0%

Disable Vulnerabilities:
50% 50% 30% 30% 50% 30% 30%
0.1% 0.1% 20%
30% 30% 50%

Mechanics:
Flame Sigh: Deals overkill fire damage to one party member. Deals splash damage to adjacent targets. Average speed.
Frost Smile: Deals severe ice damage that pierces party rows. Attempts to stun hit targets, with a low chance. Fast.
Lightning: Deals heavy volt damage to all party members. Attempts to bind the heads of hit targets, with a low chance. Slow.
Tendril Thrash: Deals 4-5 instances of heavy bash damage to random party members. Average speed.
Vampiric Kiss: Deals overkill cut damage to one party member. Heals Alraune for 200% of the damage dealt. Average speed.
Ancient Pollen: Attempts to inflict every status ailment on all party members, with a low chance. Slow.
Spider Lily: Attempts to instantly kill one party member, with an extremely high chance. Very fast.

Skill Data:
Flame Sigh: Deals 370% ranged TEC-based fire damage to one party member. Primary damage ranges from 617 to 842 on average. Deals splash damage to adjacent targets. Has no speed modifier and a base accuracy of 150%.
Frost Smile: Deals 230% ranged TEC-based ice damage that pierces party rows. Damage ranges from 383 to 523 on average. Attempts to stun hit targets, with a 30% base chance. Has a 130% speed modifier and a base accuracy of 150%.
Lightning: Deals 170% ranged TEC-based volt damage to all party members. Damage ranges from 283 to 387 on average. Attempts to bind the heads of hit targets, with a 20% base chance. Has a 70% speed modifier and a base accuracy of 150%.
Tendril Thrash: Deals 4-5 instances of 100% melee STR-based bash damage to random party members. Has no limit on how many times one target can be hit. Damage ranges from 363 to 436 on average. Has no speed modifier and a base accuracy of 99%.
Vampiric Kiss: Deals 180% melee STR-based cut damage to one party member. Damage ranges from 655 to 786 on average. Heals Alraune for 200% of the damage dealt. Has no speed modifier and a base accuracy of 99%.
Ancient Pollen: Attempts to inflict blind, paralysis, panic, sleep, curse, fear, and petrification on all party members, with a 15% base chance. Effective chance ranges from 21% to 27% on average. Has an 80% speed modifier.
Spider Lily: Attempts to instantly kill one party member, with a 60% base chance. Effective chance ranges from 84% to 111% on average. Has a 130% speed modifier.

Enemy Behavior:
-Alraune uses Ancient Pollen every 6 turns, unless her HP is at 5% or lower.
-Binding Alraune's head causes her to use Tendril Thrash most of the time.
-Alraune changes phases at every quarter of her HP. For the following descriptions, skills are written left-to-right in descending order of chance.[br]
-Phase 1: Lasts until 75% HP. Alraune uses Frost Smile, Tendril Thrash and normal attacks in this phase.
-Phase 2: Lasts until 50% HP. Alraune uses Flame Sigh, Tendril Thrash, and swaps out normal attacks for Vampiric Kiss.
-Phase 3: Lasts until 25% HP. Alraune will always start this phase with Lightning and, if it wasn't used last phase, Vampiric Kiss. After those, she'll use Lightning, Tendril Thrash, and Vampiric Kiss.
-Phase 4: Lasts until death. Alraune will always start this phase with Spider Lily. Besides that, she'll use Vampiric Kiss, Frost Smile, Lightning, Flame Sigh, and Spider Lily.
--If Vampiric Kiss is used, it has a 59% chance to target the party member with the lowest current HP.

AI Script:
-If the current turn is a multiple of 6, and Alraune's HP is not lower than 5%, use Ancient Pollen.
-If Alraune's head is bound, 79% chance to use Tendril Thrash.
-If Alraune's HP is below 25%:
--If the Spider Lily flag is not set, use Spider Lily and set the Spider Lily flag.
--39% chance to use Vampiric Kiss.
---59% chance to target the party member with the lowest current HP.
---41% chance to use standard targeting.
--15% chance to use Frost Smile.
--15% chance to use Lightning.
--15% chance to use Flame Sigh.
--16% chance to use Spider Lily.
-If Alraune's HP is below 50%:
--If the Lightning flag is not set, use Lightning and set the Lightning flag.
--If the Vampiric Kiss flag is not set, use Vampiric Kiss and set the Vampiric Kiss flag.
--Else:
---44% chance to use Lightning.
---35% chance to use Tendril Thrash.
---21% chance to use Vampiric Kiss. Set the Vampire Kiss flag.
-If Alraune's HP is below 75%:
--If the Flame Sigh flag is not set, use Flame Sigh and set the Flame Sigh flag.
--Else:
---44% chance to use Flame Sigh.
---35% chance to use Tendril Thrash.
---21% chance to use Vampiric Kiss. Set the Vampire Kiss flag.
-39% chance to use Tendril Thrash.
-45% chance to use Frost Smile.
-16% chance to Attack.

Learnable Skills:
Frost Smile: Deals ice damage that pierces enemy rows. Attempts to stun hit targets. Fast.
Lightning: Deals volt damage to all enemies. Attempts to bind the heads of hit targets. Slow.
Tendril Thrash: Deals 4-5 instances of bash damage to random enemies. Average speed.

Grimoire Skill Data:
Frost Smile: Deals ranged TEC-based ice damage that pierces enemy rows. Attempts to stun hit targets. Has a 130% speed modifier and a base accuracy of 120% at all levels.


Lightning: Deals ranged TEC-based volt damage to all enemies. Attempts to bind the heads of hit targets. Has a 70% speed modifier and a base accuracy of 120% at all levels.


Tendril Thrash: Deals 4-5 instances of melee STR-based bash damage to random enemies. Has no limit on how many times one target can be hit. Has no speed modifier and a base accuracy of 99% at all levels.


Drops:
-Normal: Royal Vine. 100% chance. Sells for 18000 en.
-- Sarnga (+186 ATK, +30 TP): Made from 1 Royal Vine. Costs 122000 en.
-Conditional: Velvet (Kill while asleep). 100% chance. Sells for 52000 en.
-- Faerie Mail (+90 DEF, +30 TP, +5 AGI; Troubadour only): Made from 1 Velvet. Costs 77000 en.

That's sure one hell of a greeting from the post-game! And boy does that bode well for the rest of it.

Alraune is generally considered to be the toughest boss in the post-game and it's pretty easy to see why. She has high damage output overall, and is really unpredictable, both turning into a very deadly combination. Any defensives you have access to are a must-have for making her not murder you immediately. Mists do wonders here, as well as any defensive buffs you can get your hands on, whether it's damage reduction or increasing your HP. And attack debuffs go a long way too.

Tendril Thrash is one of her most threatening attacks, as it's just a bunch of heavy physical damage slammed onto your team! Frost Smile is a very annoying attack to deal with, as it's heavy Ice damage with a Stun attached to it. A fun combination, I'm sure. Flame Sigh is the only elemental that doesn't have an additional effect, as it has the gimmick of overkilling you. Heat Mists are a must, though obviously a Fire Wall at 5 or above goes a long way. Lighting is by far her most deadly elemental as it's an actual AOE, and if that head bind lands, yeah say goodbye to whoever got their heads bound. Compared to the rest of her toolkit, Vampiric Kiss is basically a breather turn, as it's single target, and the HP heal is honestly not that much at this point. Ancient Pollen is used every 6 turns and hoo boy. If you have Yggdra Vaccine, great! It's a free turn. If not, hold onto your butts, and pray. Spider Lily is by far the biggest momentum killer, as it just straight up instantly kills a party member. Which also causes them to come back buffless once you resurrect them. And considering the importance of defensives in this fight, that's a pretty bad position to be in. It may be worth bringing in Jewel Eyes just to counter that mechanic.

Alraune operates in phases, switching out elemental attacks when she switches to a new phase, and brings in some new attacks as well. She starts off with ice, switches to fire, and then starts using volt. Once you reach her final phase, it's basically a rushdown phase, as she'll bust out a random elemental, along with most of her toolkit. But by this point, 5719 HP shouldn't be too much to burn down, and if your defensives are still up, you should be good to go as long as you can get through this phase quickly.

If you're using a Protector, this may be the point where you want to max out your elemental walls, as turning damage into healing can be a really huge boon. Not only are you nullifying the attack, but your Protector is essentially multitasking and healing them at the same time, so no other party member has to worry about healing up anyone in danger. It's up to you whether you decide to do this though.

Ugh this fucking boss. Quite an overtune from the original, where I faced her before Visil as a good way to make sure you're ready for what's to come. Her elementals got hilariously buffed so they do like triple the damage they did originally. Her Fire skill was basically a stronger Volt skill that didn't Head Bind and that was about it, meaning Volt was definitely the one to guard against. She also only used Pollen late into the fight and only if you had elemental weakness. Long story, she read your weakness chart to decide what elemental to use. Also Lily was only used when she was Arm Bound, so yeah, definitely a free fight if you had good defenses, comically easy in the original.

Regarding Grimoire skills, oh my, now we get to the really good shit! Post-game has a plethora of strong Grimoire skills. And skills that uh, make the Alchemist's formulas basically pointless if you can get your hands on them, which is why I said their skills are basically obsolete if you play around with Grimoires. Tendril Thrash is basically a straight upgrade over Queen's Verdict at this point. A fantastic pickup for a Highlander in order to improve them further.

Frost Smile is straight up better than Cocytus Formula when it comes to damage. 360% compared to 330%. Not only that, it's fast, super accurate, and has a very good chance to Stun. Only downside is that it costs more TP than a level 10 tier 3, and it's pierce target instead of AOE. Still, a very good skill you'll want to cart around for a good while.

Lightning is the only weak point of this skillset, and not because the skill itself is bad. Oh no, decent AOE damage and a good chance to head bind makes this a pretty potent skill! It's just that, we're going to get even better Volt damage skills shortly after this fight, so don't worry too much about grabbing this.



Or you can just absolutely disregard everything I said about defensive measures and go in guns blazing! For the record, I absolutely do not recommend following what I'm doing right now. This is a very unsafe strategy that has quite a bit that can go wrong! What you should be doing is setting up your defensives as best you can, then going on the offensive once that's all set up.



Now I'm going to have Raquna spam Ice Wall for a few turns. I'm not actually concerned about Frost Smile's damage, as I can have the party tank it with Forest Guardian, and that would be the overall better move since it affects Tendril Thrash as well. No, what I'm really concerned about is that fucking stun. In a feast or famine fight like this, losing a single turn to a stun can be deadly!

I could go with Bravery's Gift to tank it, but if I set up Raquna's equipment to live through 2 hits of Frost Smile, she won't be able to live through 5 hits of Tendril Thrash. And if I set her up to live through a Bravery's Gifted Tendril Thrash, she won't be able to live through a double Frost Smile. So this was the best solution I could come up with for this "strategy."





Everyone else prepares to start a forest fire without any defensive measures whatsoever, aside from Rosa's HP boosting cordial.

Do not do this ever, for any boss fight in the series unless you are that desperate to get a win.




Oof. Not the ideal target.




Simon will hopefully live to be able to Delayed Heal off whatever Alraune does this turn.




Seriously, this is a horrible strategy, please don't do this. If Alraune gets in enough unmitigated Tendril Thrashes on one person, that's a pretty huge setback!




Just what I wanted to see!






0 out of 10 doctors would recommend fighting a vicious plant monster without any protection.



Oh no.



Well that was fortunate. Only 4 hits and they all got dispersed instead of anyone getting triple tapped.






The ignition is going well.






It's times like these where I appreciate that Flame Howl can't miss and that all of Dude's attacks have an accuracy boost. Speaking of which...






Oh yeah, that's some really good damage. Ricky is unfortunately going to be the one starting to lag behind once we get Arthur's damage up.




And now we're at the point where we're basically home free. We've skipped phase 2, so Alraune is locked to casting both Lightning and then Vampiric Kiss. The first of which can be blocked by Volt Wall, and the 2nd turn is whatever, we can mitigate it with Forest Guardian. And if we fail to kill her during that time, she'll be stuck casting Flame Sigh, so we can just use Fire Wall to block that.

If Ricky missed anymore of her attacks, Alraune would have been near the end of phase 2, which isn't really a setback. She would have been stuck casting Flame Sigh, so we could have dealt with that. From there I would have had Raquna spam cast Fire Wall, this time to actually for the purposes of blocking the damage because Flame Sigh will utterly roast you. Either way, everyone is safe to cast Action Boost.

Why bother having an even field and going through phases one by one when you can just power creep the enemy so hard you skip parts of their AI!



Nice try, but no.



Vampiric Kiss will be coming out this turn, which can basically be mitigated with Forest Guardian. And from here, everyone should be free to finish Alraune off.




There's a reason why I said Vampiric Kiss was a breather turn. The damage is only single target and easily defended against, and the heal is pretty terrible.



The plant has been successfully burninated.




And our prize for defeating her is the final King Grimoire stone!



I cannot stress enough how horrible of an idea it is to just go into this fight without bothering to set up any defensives. This strategy only works if Alraune is very cooperative for the first few turns, and you're basically banking on luck as your main form of defense. If you're that desperate for a win, this is technically a way to do it. It'll be an inconsistent kill that may require a few resets. Or several. But it'll be a speedy kill. And uh, you won't have to deal with her again after doing so.

Really just take everything I've said and apply it for everything else in the series. If you have to rely on luck constantly to win, your strategy is horrible and you should do some re-evaluation on what you can do to get past the obstacles that are getting in your way.

If you don't get hit, you win every time!



You were able to defeat the monster!
All right! We won!
It was a powerful creature, but we were able to grasp victory.
Of course we did. We'll never lose when we work together. Right, Dude?



You sure have some strange tastes...
I would really rather not continue this conversation.
...Any any rate, once we're back in town, we need to do some celebrating!
First we need to report our progress at the pub. There are still people worried about this 'girl.'
Oh, you're right. I'm sorry...
But there's no reason we can't celebrate a little after that...
Thank you, Ricky! I love you!
S-Stop that. Sheesh.
With this pleasant conversation, you make the decision to report what happened here to the pub.



Good work. I never imagined there would be a monster that disguises itself as a girl to lure its prey in... It took the lives of many adventurers. I'm glad you made it back. Why don't you take a rest?



Money is never a bad thing.



As is experience.




For our final King Grimoire, we get access to Offering Robe. It's the only King Grimoire that doesn't affect the entire party and understandably so, as it would be incredibly busted. What it does is cause any damage that would kill the user to be left at 1 HP instead. This includes Poison damage, so that also leaves you at 1 HP. Not only that, any instant death skills that target the user will always fail, so it really does protect you against all forms of death! Be warned that Petrification doesn't count as death, and will pierce Offering Robe as a result.

So what can you use this for? I honestly don't know. At best you could treat it like a super defend command of sorts, I guess.

But now that we have all the 7 King Grimoire Stones, there's one thing we can do with them.



We can fuse them all together on one stone...



To create the 7 Kings Grimoire Stone.

Is this useful for anything? Not really. These are the kinds of skills you want spread out across your party instead of concentrated on one party member. On the plus side, we now have our first level 70 Grimoire Stone!



But we do get a medal out of doing this. Note that you only need all the skills on one Grimoire Stone to get this medal. Their levels don't matter, so if you want to burn up some shitty versions of the King Grimoire skills to make a shitty version of the stone, go right ahead.

Oh and I'd like to bring your attention up to those 7 dots up there next to "Guild Card". Each of those 7 dots will fill up once you obtain a King Grimoire from the associated boss. And now that we have accomplished that, we have a nice little rainbow of dots to look at. Yay!

Ugh, shitty completionist tasks. Thankfully lining up the numbers for the King Grimoire is easy enough, but getting all 7 on 1 stone is such a waste! I never really bothered with this, sure I didn't fully complete an EO game, a travesty for someone like myself, I know, but... I only complete games I'm LPing, otherwise the little annoying tasks are just a waste of time in casual runs, honestly.



I refought Alraune to snag her conditional drop and to get another copy of Offering Robe, and got a max level Frost Smile in the process.

You could rest Arthur to solely have passives and it wouldn't make any difference lol

The Grimoire system is honestly kind of astounding in just how many of his active skills become pointless in the process if you bother to engage with it. Seriously, I'm leveling up Focus. Focus! Because I genuinely have nothing left for him to spend SP on!



This goes onto Arthur's already super monstrous Grimoire Stone because he can never have enough power.

I kept Flood on there for the crowd control aspect, which Frost Smile is a bit lacking in.





Both Alraune's normal drop and conditional drop make utter junk. What a shame.



No sense in putting it off for any longer.




Once we interact with the pole...




Are you all ready to have some fun?







Welcome to DEATH and MURDER and BLOOD! Again.

Ugh, EOU Claret Hollows.



...After checking out the new stuff said in town first.



Don't be so modest! It's not much, but I'll try to continue doing my best for all of you. Please, make yourselves at home.



Hahaha! It goes t'show, t'adventure never ends. Good luck, Achievers!



They said they wanted to meet their... heroes.
After that, I really could not bring myself to punish them.


Hm? How did I know? It's a simple deduction from observing the lot of you. It's elementary, my dear Achievers.

Ah, I see he has played an Etrian Odyssey game himself.

He has another thing to say to us.




Yes.

I have 2 sisters, they're great!

It's good to have a bond with another human being. It's a difficult thing to attain later in life. Of course, there are times when siblings hate each other. Complications always rise up between people. Especially when they develop together. I myself have a brother who is staggeringly intelligent... His personal ethos is to live a life of peace, with no discord or effort whatsoever. Ha, as if that's possible.



No.

I have 0 sisters, I'm great!

Is that so? I wonder what they would be like if you did. It is interesting to see how those with similar genetics can follow dissimilar paths. My brother, for instance, is highly intelligent, but has chosen a vastly different life path than I.


If our people have forgotten anything, 'tis because we meant for it to be forgotten.



Seems like all I hear about from the young ones now is how they want to be like you. You set a good example for those kids, okay? Just keep doing what you do.



Official business II and Song from the depths have story exclusive dialogue, so I'll show those off.

Decided to take the request, have you? Good, I've been hoping you would. The Hall sent out a notice asking specifically for you. It would seem there's been another emergency. It seems that the device you found in the deepest part of the Labyrinth has stopped moving. The people of the Hall are troubled. They thought that since you discovered it, you might know something. So can you go to check on that "el-lava-tore"? On B21F? Lend them a hand, would you? We're all counting on you.

For whatever reason, Story has slightly different intro dialogue for Official Business II.



You folks are pretty impressive. I remember when you first came here, with just the shirt on your back. This is what exploring is all about.




Now let's get to questing. Don't worry, we'll get back to the BLOOD and MURDER later.



However, the doors won't open, even when you press the button that opens them.
It doesn't seem to be a problem with the elevator's electrical system. I wonder if there's something physically preventing the doors from opening?



OPEN UP!

That's what I was thinking. Let's get those open!
You stick your fingers into the crack between the doors and try to pry them open...
It's heavy...! As if... something... is holding... them together!
When they are about a third of the way open, Raquna looks inside and gasps!
It's a spider, making a web in there! Everyone, look out!
Seeing your group as enemies, the spider hisses and attacks!



Not too bad to deal with. Just nuke it down. Be warned that this spider can hit pretty hard.


Ick, it's full of webs!
It's very sticky... That's why the doors wouldn't open. I think the elevator should start working again once we clear out all this webbing.
*sigh* I guess this is part of the job. Arthur, you help, too.
I-I was going to!
You all begin to carefully clear the webbing from the elevator. Once the webbing has been cleared away, the elevator begins to move once again.
There is another one of these, right? We should check that one out, too.
You decide to visit the other elevator before you can declare this quest completed.


However, the doors won't open, even when you press the button that opens them.
It doesn't seem to be a problem with the elevator's electrical system. I wonder if there's something physically preventing the doors from opening on this one, too?



You may want to have some bind protection before opening this one. Just to make things easier.

Considering what happened last time, we should be careful.
You stick your fingers into the crack between the doors and try to pry them open... When they are about a third of the way open, Raquna draws her weapon and looks inside.
There are more spiders, Dude! This one's full of webs, too!
The spiders rush out of the doors, angered at the destruction of their nest!



The big spider in the back can bind you, while the ones in the front hit like trucks.


It's full of webbing. ...I expected that.
Well, let's clean this one out as well.
Don't slack off this time, Arthur!
I won't! ...And I wasn't last time, either! Give me some credit...
You all begin to carefully clear the webbing from the elevator. Once the webbing has been cleared away, the elevator begins to move once again.
Whew... I think we can consider this quest finished.
I spent more energy cleaning than fighting...
You decide to report your success the next time you return to the pub.

And now for that other quest.


The box is so old and dirty that it seems it might break at any moment, but you should be able to open it.



Sure.

You carefully open the box. ...But there is nothing inside.
Huh...? Hey, do you hear that?
Shh!
Surprisingly, the box in your hands begins to sing!
Is this... the same song we heard in the Labyrinth?
This must be the song you were asked to find. If you use the Vox Stone, it should send the music into town.



It's what we're here for.

You carefully press the Vox Stone against the singing box...
......Dude, is this beautiful music reaching town?


We'll find out soon enough.
W-Well, yeah, but...
C'mon, Dude. Where's your sense of romance? Be a gentleman and just say yes.
Dude's not a gentleman, Raquna. He's a Highlander!
Er, yeah, but that's not what I meant... Ugh, men!
I guess. I hope everyone's enjoying this melody as much as we are.
Studies have shown that music soothes the mind and calms people down. This can't be a bad thing. Well, some people say it's only specific sounds, but it's mostly just theory anyway.
This music and Simon's lecture are making me sleepy. Let's just go back and get our reward.
Yeah, let's do that. I want to drink to this song, too.
All right, let's get back to town and report this quest as completed, Dude.


You tug a depressed--or perhaps merely thoughtful--Simon into line and make plans to return to town.

This quest has the tile trigger for the song be in a random corridor at the top of B24F in the original and I DON'T KNOW WHY WHEN THERE'S NO INDICATION so moving it here was a good change.




Once you turn in the Song from the depths quest, the daytime and inn music gets permanently replaced by this track.

Next time, we descend.