Toggle Background Color

S01E05: Not as cool as Solest's fairies. The punny title of the update was cheated from me.

CW: The ableist slur does in fact appear in this update once... in a kind of, sort of, but not quite, legitimate usage. It's a bit stupid.

As I was gently reminded by Vilkacis after the last update, Love Me DEbuffs all enemy stats (and inflicts small damage and madness) and is NOT a BUFF to all of a party-members stats.



So, here we are. Probably the first of the two major roadblocks people have in this game. I make sure to buy a bunch of supplies before starting this area.



There's a lot of fairies hanging out and they all ask if you're lost. If you say yes, most of them give incredibly useless but technically accurate directions to either of the exits.



Harsh... Bees? Did he mean nasty? Cruel? These shitheads cast Flare for 50ish damage which is still a bit on the nasty side, especially when there's more than one and/or other monsters. 16XP and 10GP.

The Giant Oaks cast Ground Clouds which is losing its effectiveness but it's still a big drain on party resources. 20XP and 12GP.

The Giant spiders hit for 40ish damage and poison. Eh. 15XP and 4GP.



Bandits buff their attack and speed and then Die. Because we kill them before they do anything. So I don't know how effective they are. They sometimes drop Express Food and are worth 16XP and 350GP.

Colosseus never really manage to do all that much either. 17XP and 48GP.



Not that I do that shit anyway.



I only rarely manage to kill Magic Snakes because they always quickly flee. No idea why. They're worth 21XP and 20GP and don't drop any items. So what's the dealio?



Oh yeah, and there's tiles here and there that always poison you. Most can be avoided, but not this one you have to step on twice for a 'Lady Bow.'



Mmhm.









Big fucking whoop. Fight me, bird.

It screeches gibberish at us when spoken to. Sarah claims he says we should not have bothered him.



So... I lost this fight. And I was in absolute shock. It wasn't a quick loss but I did run out of MP and could not heal quickly enough. I've... never ever lost to this guy before. I'd been wondering if something had been off with some of the stronger enemies in the maze, and the Demoniac Dogs in the Underground Temple. I'd swear I'd never had KO down there before.

Hard Mode says it only decreases the amount of save-points in the game, but I did notice that at the end of the difficulty explanation, there's a note that Hard Mode is difficulty of the original 2001 release. Did he also change the stats of everything for Normal Mode and then not really mention it? I thought that message was just to say that the original amount of save points was the Hard Mode version!

Anyway, after a reload I take the fight much more seriously from the outset and use Sarah's Defense up to shore up her and Random's (the two most vulnerable to Torahl's variety of spells which include Nereids of Thunder) defenses. There's still a couple KO's and it's a looooong fight but it goes well in general.

Maybe I'm just under-leveled too. And I haven't gotten all the gear in this dungeon.



The GP reward for Torahl is... well... Insane.

He has an instruction manual entry btw.

quote:

Torahl (unique, unknown location)
Last son of the Elven Dragon Chira, Torahl escaped the Indinera Woods and disappeared. Gossips have it, in Indinera, that he may have been eaten by some bigger dragon, an Indinera Worm, or even captured and slaughtered by bounty hunters.
Like a lot of Elven Dragons, Torahl loved gathering artifacts and shiny metals.






We go down those stairs to examine Torahl's lair.



Holy shit. Sarah starts shouting we're rich.



Our first Artifact, first ring Random can wear too, but I give it to Luci.



Our second relic, another sword.



Nice robe.



... Our GP...





This stinks, Random.



Is this a fourth wall breaking sign. Coryool reacts with a lengthy '??????' type message.





Coryools equipment fucking blows.



Luci learns a new spell.



So does Sarah.



So the corners here have guaranteed battles every time you step on the tiles. Making them a good spot to grind.



This is the encounter you get every single time. Easy, if you spam Luci and Sarah's ALL spells.







Somethign I haven't mentioned yet but it's nearly always raining, and yet sometimes it either stops and I don't notice, or Sarah just inanely says 'It's Raining.' on occasion for no real reason.

There's also a lightning strike event that'll scare her and Luci calms her down.

Because I'm worried about being underleveled now, or maybe just too weak for whatever Hard Mode fuckery is going on, I do a little bit of grinding. I get everyone to level 12, which results in some new spells!







WOO, MASS HEALING!



As far as I can tell, this is a scam. You do not get attacked on this bridge any more than the usual encounter rate. Which is admittedly... inconsistent. Sometimes you'll get a new encounter 4 steps after the last, other times you can wander like a full minute.





Of course it is.



Both of the girls can wear it, but it sucks compared to the robe Luci just got.







Well. She warned us. Easy fight though.





Richer still.



Sarah's the only one that can wear this, and it's a HUGE improvement over the Extasia Hat.







This guy has one useful item, except it's really damn expensive!





Here's another fight I can't summarise because we destroyed it in a round. did get 1.1k GP from it though.





This teleport fairy is meant to teleport you to the exit but she's a rookie and sucks and teleports you to random places in the maze.

This is how we solve a sidequest, incidentally.



I was lucky and got teleported to this inaccessible area on only my second try. Usually it takes a whole bunch of treks to the teleport fairy.



So, thanks to fairy incompetence I can yoink this.

Then we Egress to the Maze entrance and head to the Chanterless town hall.





... This is the only reward for a tricky to figure out sidequest...






I think Fairy Sugar heals some amount of HP, and I think has multiple uses per unit?







We get a second Artifact. Random and the girls can use it.



We don't have anyone that can use this, however.



I've been cheated.



At least it's a good rapier.



One of the fairies on the north half of the map will actually regen your MP if you admit to being lost.



Luci comments that this guy must've been weird and I agree.



The exit is right there but I can't see a way to it...?



...



... She only says this after you step into it.





I hate you.



If you say no, she says we must be headed to SankT Leona, which prompts Random to have a bizarre outburst.



...





So... There's still encounters on this map. Just Stagnations, though.





And we're in fairy land.


quote:

Mizabrandeau
Inhabitants: Unknown (it's 99% fairies), estimated: 6000-7000 (fairies)
Mythical fairy village, very hard to find. Located somewhere in the Chanterless Woods.




We can get past the trees on this side, but not the other side.





Random's power grows. We go back to Mizabrandeau and enter one of the unlabeled homes.



The fairies seem obsessed with talking about either Gudar (whose relic sword we got from Torahl) or a different legendary sword.









Like so.



"science."

See?





There's that word alright.



"and was killed by its owner."









Random, of course, misses the point.



I think Fairy Pepper restores MP...?


In another house...



Leanda says she 'escaped the Deport,' was forced to even, and the fairies gave her shelter.

Her story is some magic seminary was hosted in Mizabrandeau and mages came from all over, and she was a specially invited novice. The fairies hosted mages in their homes, since it was meant to last 4-6 days. On the third day a man came and asked for a place to stay, claiming he was lost, and Leanda said yes.











"magical and phsyical power."

It's her The One Orb!!!!!!









So that's one of our next sidequests.

The next room has Leanda's host, who also has a sidequest for us.

She's waiting on a rare rose she wants to study, from a fairy friend in Indinera.







What. A dryad got owned by bees!? BEES?!

Tsk. Well, that's another sidequest.









We get some foreshadowing (and a warning, Balthus Cave is a postgame dungeon) from a fairy in the inn.

Also love how she says Mizabrandeau has an evil power aura.

One last thing to do in Mizabrandeau, for now.





We're confronted with a MASSIVE ambush. Except Luci and Sarah's spells decimate the giant spiders in one turn. The Titanic Spiders are tankier, but thats about it.







Anyway, after the initial ambush, every time you use the amBUSH, you fight one giant spider from now on. This is not unlimited. You can only do it 3226 times.


Time to move on.











Finally, we're on the second leg of the journey. This is also where the game starts to show the elements of some good ideas.



Here's the Forest Maze map.

The Forest Maze isn't so mazey or hard to navigate. It's hardly worth the name. Just that illusion at the end fucking with you....

I also noticed I neglected to list one of the powerful entities we have a magic scroll for. Shelby's Joy - Ocean's Wrath.

quote:

* Shelby Tortoyl

Appears in : Ocean's Wrath
Weight (as a summonable creature) : 4500kg
This mythical and gigantic creature is supposed to wander in infinite seas of the universe. Even Bounty Hunters cannot find it easily in the Gods' Kingdom. Very little of this monster's power is used in spells, which is explained by the fact Shelby Tortoyl is a difficult creature to control ! The tortoise does not attack, it only has to move towards the opponent to hurt.
A sheer mythical monster, symbol of the ocean's destroying powers.



I like the implication that there are god-hunting bounty-hunters wandering the universe and divine planes in the Laxius setting. In fact, it makes a lot of sense regarding some stuff from later games, particularly the nature of a certain villain.

the end