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Not gonna stick around town and get anything done here right now. Only request requires us to go deeper into the ruins too, so let's just dive straight in.

Ruins Exploration 5



Gonna be spending a lot of time in the ruins today, I think. We've got a lot of ground to cover, so let's start easy. Top-left corner from this room seems a good first area to head to.



...Okay, maybe we should've come here before. This sure would be nice to have as soon as possible.



Ohey, this Kobold is facing the camera! Wonder what they have to say.




...A goblin?
Shut your face! Hurry up and shove off already! If you don't, I'll have to use my bow and arrow...
...Come again?
Do you want to become Swiss cheese!?
O-oi! Don't wave that thing about!

Ren decided to leave the small monster who wasn't giving him a chance to speak and put that place behind him.

Even the "friendly" Kobold sucks. Figures.



Pretty straight forward vertical room, but this chest up here can't be reached yet. Considering what skill book it contains, this makes no sense but getting ahead of myself.



Room at the top here has a convenient good tree in it. It also has a bottomless pit in it like the room directly to its left from layer one.



If we go back down to the bottom of the vertical room then go straight left, we're above the room we started in here. The gap is too large to jump over, so we can't do anything at all here right now.



Next spot we've headed to is just to the south-west of the multi-exit room. There's only one real reason to come this way.



So, of course, getting to the exit requires waiting for a moving platform over a long bed of spikes.



Like usual, there are bats that try to snipe you while over here. Unlike usual, they kinda blend into the background whenever they're not in motion.



There's also another skill book here that we can't get to yet. Seeing a few of these in this layer.



...This is not what we're here for. Putting this here kinda makes sense, in a way.



You don't have to pass sand to reach it. However, it's kinda out of the way too. If you don't know it's here, you're probably not gonna find it before you see the sand. And if you do know it's here, you don't need it!



This isn't what we're here for, either, but this is very good for this layer.



There we go, that's more like it. A flagstone with these things and only one coloured in. Seen two of these now.



Back to the stairs with the door and heading down. Shouldn'ta did that. Anyway, white moths!

Same as the previous moths but they presumably paralyse instead of poison now.



They're a lot less interesting dropwise than most of the others. Even their drops are palette swaps of the previous versions drops!



Oh cool, a version 2 of these. We're not getting Grass today, because we... we can't. It's weird, you'll see.



Basilisks are our Hellhound palette swap. Odd choice for a name but okay.

Except, this one is a bit different. It's not just a recolour, it's also a resize! This Basilisk is bigger than the Hellhounds we've seen.



Door to the left here is sealed from the other side. We'll be back to this much later then.



Going right instead, and here's the big yellow slime.



It drops Raw Yellow Stone, of course. It also drops a different lump. Boring but we'll need this for a quest later so sure.



Why is this recolour more effortful than the rest? Gigas has a metallic looking spiked club compared to the Ogre's wooden spiked club. It's not much, but it required actually modelling a new thing.



Just behind there is a locked door. But not just any locked door, no. This door leads to the postgame area. We ain't going here or a while then.



Looping aaaaaaall the way back around to just opposite the save point we found. Trying extra hard to not get Burned here because I just hate it more. At least Paralysis locks you in place rather than pretending it doesn't.



There's another Basilisk here too, but this one is the same size as the Hellhounds from before. It's also the one I use to farm Sharp Crooked Fangs (it may or may not be the best for that, it's just the one I use).



Grass and tree past that and then two destructible pillars. Yes, two. Back to back like this. It's basically to incentivise actually fighting the Basilisk once, I guess, but there's no real point to that.



Walking Dead right by the second one. If you get to close to it, this one'll wander over and breath paralysis gas through the pillar at you. That ain't good, but also it's a one-time only issue. If that.



Next long room has another Walking Dead and two Erliks. Weirdly, these Ghost swaps are the first ones you're likely to run into but are also the ones that drop ores and stuff.

Sometimes they drop their masks too, but that's kinda rare.



Another Mandrake here as well. This one is placed so that it's basically not a threat at all this way, but awkwarder coming the other way.

There's a pit right behind it, you see.



Oh. Uh, okay then. The stronger Yellow Slimes can drop Golen Sap occasionally. Not something I'd count on, but it's nice to have.



Just hitting this switch to make a fully linear path. It's nicer to have than it sounds.



That done, let's throw ourselves into the pit by the Mandrake.



Swordplay [Part 1] is what gave us the ability to stab harder. This is basically a must-get for that reason alone.

It also ends up being practically unmissable in practice too. You could, sure, but you'd have to do it on purpose.



Rudely, there's a bigger Basilisk here. The bigger ones are naturally the stronger version. Odd how they get that visible detail but nothing else does.



Fascina is... I dunno, short for Fascination maybe? Unlike Benone it doesn't strike me as an obvious mistake or anything. Maybe I'm just being dense though.



Yet another jump that is simply too high for us. Can't get to that skill book in the corner there right now either. Seeing a trend here.



That dropped us into the pit there, so we're stuck with two Odd Jellies. These ones can drop Golden Sap, by the way.



The grass and tree here are a bit different. The tree is arguably the most convenient spot to get a material called Nature's Blessing. The grass gives a new type of ant almost exclusively (the stronger bats here drop it too).



Other side of the room lets us barely see a Treasure chest here. We cannot get to that chest until... the postgame. Figures.



Oh this Prowler is annoying. He's guarding a skill book but that platform he's on is tiny. We can't oneshot him with our sword, so all we can do is dodge and throw knives until he's weak enough.



....I'll leave it to you to decide if this is worth it or not.

The pit here drops us into the room with the Giant Odd Jelly and Gigas. Probably should've done these the other way around, huh.



Only way we can go now is further up from the room next to the save point.



Platforms up here too, but they're... too high to reach...

There's so many of those here. Feels like there's more than random pillars in layer one, at least.



This room is rather lazy, huh? It has a moving platform over spikes again.



More chest we can't reach, but here the bats are replaced with purple ghosts! There's two in this room, and these ones ARE the ones that drop iron bars and cloth.

Weirdly, the Cloth is White. I dunno either.



Oh! A tree/2-grass room like the weird interstitial spot before. That's here too.



Next room has moving platforms over sand pits. Definitely going to want to use the platforms here.



Just past the sand is a Themis statue, you see. Don't want to give her the chance to snipe at you in the sand pits with those lasers. This is a tricky, mean combo that works way too well.



Does this twice, just to make sure you REALLY get it. Regular pit here when coming the other way too.



Mandrake just past the pit here. Can jump over there to stab it and jump back and all. That's slow but doable.



There's only Will o' the Wisp over there with it, too, so no worry about getting sniped back.



Oh this room. Awkwardly placed moths in a vertical climb? Mind if I don't.



Room to the bottom-left has a mimic in it. Not even a new variant or anything.



There was also a bat in here. I guess that makes it different.



Wyman's note here is more of a hint about those weird flagstones. Basically spells out their deal, but we'll see how it works out later.



Back in the vertical room, midway up we have an upgraded Prowler by some rocks. Sadly, its pelvis is merely red. I wonder what quality it is...



We'll head straight left at the top of the room. Gotta pass some more Will o' the Wisps.



Silver Knights are here. As you might expect, they can drop Silver Ore.

As you might not expect, they can drop Armour Scraps and even Sabres. Yeah, they can drop old weapons. I don't know either.



Jack o' Lantern? What're you doing here?




Strange... There's a fire here.
Did someone abandon their bonfire...?

Having found a blazing fire, Ren slowly drew closer to warm his cold body.

It's unexpectedly cold in these ruins... This thing's a lifesaver.

Holding both hands out to the crackling fire, he surrendered his body to the warmth.

... ... ... ...

After enjoying the short break, Ren got back on his feet once again.



Nothing else of note in that room, so we'll hit this dead-end and find Pazuzu (again, clever but not really a theme that gets used otherwise). It's Murmur, but yellow. Most notewothy thing is that its always in rooms like this one and drops Small Lumps.

Pazuzu is, in fact, the only thing that drops Small Lumps.



This particular Pazuzu is noteable because it's guarding two skill books! The first skill book is very good and it will possibly help a lot with the next boss!



The other one was a Liar!

Exactly what you'd expect. No new drops though.



Going to the top-left most room of the layer next. This Dizard Bug is the best one to farm for its Ochre Shell.

It's right by a door is why. The other options kinda suck.



More Silver Knights in this room. The rocks here are the best spot to mine Silver too.



There's two pillars here as well. I don't know why either.



Another Red Prowler by an elevator and a flagstone.



The flagstone gives us the third of these particular weird ones. The circle here looks like a lighter shade of green, but its meant to be blue.



I dunno if we're supposed to be able to get over behind this wall just yet, but if we jump of the elevator at its peak we can.



The timing isn't super tight, but it's way easier if we wait until later. I'm doing it now though. We'll need this for a quest, naturally.



If we jump over that chest and keep running to the right we can find another +5 SP skill book!

Why yes, you're correct that there's no hint that its there. How did you ever know?



The stairs to the left from here clearly lead back into layer one...



Specifically the room with the useful Raw Green Stone mining spot. We can jump on this chest to keep going left but getting back requires the long way around.



This being here is so incredibly weird and late. It's literally impossible to get to it without being able to see this for yourself.

C'mon Wyman, leave your notes in better spots, geez.



Going to the top-right of the map next, sure. Gotta get past three moths and another Silver Knight. This room does have a less annoying use but that's not until later.



Oh. Another Gigas is here, right. I genuinely forgot. We don't wanna come here just yet. The room from the top-left brings us to the next boss fight, you see.



We'll loop back to this area that I spaced on before. Better order would've been to come here before the top-left. Oh well!



Mandrake by a pit over here as well. This time we can't just snipe it, though, because that platform needed to reach it drops!



Another Pazuzu over here. I think I prefer the one to the left, personally. Marginally less of a hassle to reach.



It's guarding this weird material item. It's a one-of-a-kind item and it's used to make an endgame sword. Needless to say we can't use this for ages.



This is a good skill book too. Not super useful right now, though. We won't have to worry too much about Burn for the remainder of this layer.



Dropping down the pit next to the Mandrake next. Another Dizard here that can drop its shell. Getting back here after killing it once is awful though.



Oh there it is. Goblin and a Mandrake, together again and it feels so annoying.

Unless I'm forgetting something, this is the only Goblin in the layer even. I dunno why either, but I'm not complaining.



Ah, the Man-Eating Mandrake is here as well. Remember this for later, because I'm going to forget almost immediately.



This one was guarding the fourth of these circle hint flagstones. If we put them together we get Green-Pink-Yellow-Blue as an order from left to right.

Remember that one too. It'll be on the test.



Now we can head back to that Gigas I strategically advanced backwards at. Not hard to take down by now, of course.



The platform here is an elevator which makes it possible to jump over the Gigas on the way back. How generous.



The room to the top-right is a save point room! It also has this very good accessory in it.

It's not the objective best for the layer, but it's a very, very strong contender for subjective best.



It has better stats than our glasses and it has a really good rider. It grants immunity to Paralysis!

Naturally it says Fear in the description but that's wrong.


End



...Okay, fun fact, I recorded getting this at the start of the next update. By the rocks behind the Gigas, there's the final note for the layer.



Yeah, it just has the four this time around.

I don't even know how I missed it either. I guess I was just tired and focused more on getting to the save point.



Much more relevant is that it also has this hidden behind the wall. A stronger Defense increase is always going to be nice.



Okay, that's that. We're done with the dungeon for today. It was a long, long run this time after all.



We've got a lot of skill books this time too. Some are self-explanatory and obvious and some are better than they sound. Critical hits already sound good, but they are in fact roughly triple your base damage.

Incidentally, charge attacks are the same but less random. Yes, this means every weapon has a chance of doing a charge attack but for free and immmediately when this skill is equipped. It costs 1SP. It is never coming off.



The rest are just upgrades to ones we already have, or different versions of them for the ailments. We have plenty of SP free but we can't equip the level 2 Swordplay skill. Sadly, for different leveled skills like this, their effects cannot stack. You can only use one at a time so we gotta unequip the first version to use the second.

Fortunately, HP/SP/gathering books are permanent skill so they do stack. It's weird but not that big a deal. It just stops you using 3SP to hit stuff even harderer.



Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go get some bug shells and a bunch of other stuff too. Partially for quest but also partially for much needed equipment upgrades.

Because next time, we're facing my least favourite boss fight in the game!