Toggle Background Color

Daekwurm's only skill book was a second +5 SP gain putting us at 15 now. Yes, this gets called dexterity for some reason. I don't know either, just kinda go with it.



Since we'll be entering the second layer now, we should pick up a new quest. This one requires us to do the most actual traversal to not just grind it out with screen transitions, so we'll pick it up first.



Skipping all the way to the door at the bottom of this lengthy vertical room. Sapphyri Key only opens this door so this is where we're off next.

Ruins Exploration 4

Layer two: it's layer one again but yellow now.



...No, really. That's not a pithy joke. Upyr (the thing we want to kill 10 of) are just bats again but now they are yellow.



One of the biggest problems with the game is the very, very limited amount of things like this. There's some stuff we haven't seen yet, sure, but in terms of enemy models? I can think of... three.



One of which is, naturally, relegated to the postgame.



Just about everything in layer one is back but in pog form a different colour now. As you can see a lot of, this sorta includes the actual area itself.



Fortunately, however, there is a new gimmick added now. Giant pits of sand that slow you down, a lot, and the only way to move through it in a reasonable speed is to jump. A lot. It gets tiring, so there are platforms over most of them.

We cannot use the platforms here until we beat the next boss. By which time we will have no reason to do so. Hayup.



Not everything in this area is "the same but yellow" at least. Sometimes they're red!



This guy being positioned right by the sand is a sneaky benefit if you want to use that. I don't (this time) but you could just duck and be unhittable.



Pill bugs are neither red nor yellow. They're ochre...



..."ochre" now.

You may have noticed by now that I have not mentioned any differences to the way they fight or anything. There aren't really any. Red Prowlers can burn (boo them) but that's it.



Oh I forgot about this. Sorry, I was attempting to just book it to the first save point here immediately to save time in the future. Gotta go the long way around!



Running all the way back to loop around here to see the first yellow slime. Big room that has 5 ways in and/or out.



We'll ignore the top-left area this time. Taking the top-right exit instead.



This might seem familiar, since we're taking a couple moving platforms in the upper half of the room.



And a the end of that is a flower that is a smidge annoying to deal with in melee but we'll manage.

We're not shunted back down to the lower half though.



A minor respite here is nice. Those platforms up there are too high to reach unfortunately.



The flagstone here tells us how to handle the next room: hold right and just go. Sure, okay.



This is necessary because every platform here falls after a second. There's also bats here, naturally.



Intermediary platform that has this skeleton and two gathering points. Like the flagstone said, though, don't stop. Just rolling through the skeleton to keep going.



Very mean trick here, you see. There's one falling platform and one at the end that moves up and down. If the timing of this is not right, you won't be able to make it to the elevator-y platform. You also can't see it until you're on the platform that falls, making it a bit needlessly mean.



...Dangit. I forgot this too! The switch here is on the lower half of the room.



So we gotta jump down the bottom. Naturally there's a lot of that sand here too.



Since we're here, we can pick up this skill book directly underneath the sealed door.



Just behind it there's another Elixsar hidden in this wall. We'll be seeing these used more than they were in layer one.



Immediately to the left is the switch, so it's not hard to find. Small mercies.



Intermediary room on the way back has two statues in it, but you might already see that the left one is a little bit off.



Going from Athena to Themis is clever, at least. Not really thematically relevant otherwise but still.



The flagstone here is a bit weird. Might wanna remember this for later. Doesn't really do anything for us right now.



Other than that, there's just a lot of sand between us and a second attempt back up top. Once we're through the door we get to the red zombies.



That popular AMC tv show I haven't watched spits out green mist. I think that this is something here that is meant to paralyze you. It is very hard to ever get hit by though.

There's two of these here along with some rock and grass (the grass is important later).



Afterwards, we have a small vertical room. We could head to the right immediately, but that's a long loop around to the very top of the area. We're off down today.



There's a couple new slimes here, but nothing else.



Much more important is that this is where our save point is! We can now just teleport to here, so we have a good spot to use for when we delve deeper.



Begin to head straight left from there to open that awkwardly placed door. There's some stuff around this area I'd wanna get too.

Begin to. After a quick check of the quest log, we've got 10 Uyprs done already so I changed my mind.



I shouldn't have did that. Paralysis is indeed the main ailment of the layer, as even the slimes can do it now.

Paralysis is the worst. It stuns you, of course, but it also does damage over time too. It's a combination of Stun and Poison. I am really glad this never happened before, jeez.

End

Just got the one skill book from this excursion. It takes the basic running attack and makes it into a weird 3-hit combo of sorts. I don't really like it much, personally.



I suppose the Null Paralysis accessory is nice if you feel like you'd want it for this layer. Of course, you could just buy it if so...



I hear season 2 of The Walking Dead is really bad, but I don't know about season 6. Are there even 6 seasons? I could look it up, but

Doing this request immediately. Two spawn literally two rooms away from the save point after all.



Eh. The bones are very common and I'm not using the Guideposts that much (right now).



Noiryu Ore is pretty common at rocks. Like, say, the one two rooms away from the save point where the red zombies were.



Free Oxidol is sorta nice, I guess. Not really gonna be poisoned that much though.

Kards are throwing knives. Not using them.



8 Supplements? Absolutely definitely should already have that by now. Think you'd have to try harder not to, if anything.



Buncha common crafting materials. Large White Bones are dropped by Ogres back in layer one. Crimson Pelvis are from stronger Red Prowlers further in layer two than we've been so far.

Obviously that happens in layer two as well. You're not allowed to be surprised.



Speaking of which, here's a quest that requires us to go deeper to find the stronger version of Dizard Bugs (the, ahem, "ochre" recolour of Pill Bugs). Geez game, tag your spoilers.



Last thing we're gonna do right now is take the Lightning Edge an upgrade it to the Knight's Sword. We'll be using this for a while now. Smooth Branches are from trees in layer two and the Odd Jelly drops the Mysterious Fluid.



Bit of a short one this time, and I don't really have anything to off-screen either. We're gonna have to do almost the entire rest of layer two next time though, so that might just make up for it.