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S01E07:The Upper West Saga 2: Spelunky!
We continue north-east from Charlie the slime.
Coryool is the only one that can challenge Josh here, and he cannot win until he's much higher level.
The reward is one of (or the) his best weapons in the game.
Coryool says he wants to be the 13th man which sounds like quite an unlucky thing to aspire to.
We rob him of priceless metals and GP for Coryool's embarassment and leave for the other place just north.
There's not much here besides some loot. Most of the NPC's don't say anything interesting. Random tries to convince a sweaty girl to take her clothes off.
Apparently Balthus Cave was once a simple 'mining gallery.'
Sarah asks if she can go swimming. Random has a moment where he goes "WITH CLOTHES ON??" and Sarah says she'll do it naked.
So he flips out. She whines a bit...
But Sarah I GUESS gives him puppy dog eyes because he changes his mind quickly without her saying much.
Thank you, Indy. Thank you.
We start back west, but along the northern mountain range this time.
Land Haunters I only ever saw physical attacks from. Nothing notable otherwise. 34XP and 13GP. Small chance of dropping a Chrome Saber.
Now, these guys a bit on the nasty side. I think they cast Water Beam, which'll hit everyone. Does a fair bit of damage to Sarah.
30XP and 85GP.
A mysterious Zeon MS warns us off. He'll repeat the warning if you take another step in to the north or west. He'll attack you if we stand directly in front of him, and while MAYBE we could beat him with some clutch tactics, I failed and don't really care to try again for a little while.
If you leave, he'll repeat his warning and Random will annoyedly say YEAH YEAH WE'RE MOVING ALREADY
There's two ambushes you'd only encounter walking along the mountains, because there's nothing to indicate there's anything there.
These guys are assholes. They hit for only 30 damage and poison, but there's six of them and they are very resistant to a lot of magic I tried. Don't have that much HP though.
This ambush, however, is a cinch.
Sarah starts shouting BEHIND YOU!!!
Random response by saying he knows exactly how he'll pay Sarah back later.
Sarah falls for this and cries for help. But Randoms also joking. There's only BIG METAL FISTS in the chest.
Nice. About damn time. First non-sword Relic too, I think.
The guy at the counter has a bunch of information to ask about. He says Tarantellas have a nasty Water spell.
Dwarves want Tangar town and others to help them out.
And bandit tribus are out of control.
Upstairs we find this and some GP.
We will... avoid this sign for now.
We fight the first fight again.
But the third fight includes the lady of the lair. She's not really all that much tougher either. She drops a guaranteed MP Revival and is worth 46XP and 5GP.
Random just says, eh, at least we got some training. That XP was shitty Random!
I walk back to Merthuns to heal and save and on the way, Luci learns this.
Also the weapon stores stock has changed for the worse. He sent on the chrome stuff to Rillia. He warns you of that the first time you shop with him.
On the way northwest, Sarah also learns this! Woo!
The score guy is here!
We were Clay Fox at the very start, and when we were done with Chanterless we were Clay Puma.
Here's this guys explanation of how Ranks and Grades work.
So that's that.
If you say so Luci.
Some old guy comments on how beautiful Yveen is.
But you have seen her! I think? Did they actually see her or just hear her voice. No. They saw her. Coryool said he wanted to hump her.
One of the guards is taking a leaf from Randoms book. He ALSO says he saw her once appear to someone important completely naked.
I don't think there's any point to donating.
Apparently burning down an evil temple and killing a werewolf don't count! Bah!
That's the way to the village of Pallalaa.... Let's avoid it some more.
I pay this creep for his shit.
Choke on your diamonds.
So not all the Big Cows are evil. Good to know. I steal this guys meagre coin. Then depart for the house across the way.
Capul was the place that looked like a cave on the map. We won't be going there just yet.
Anyway, this guy tells us about the ghost town to the north. Pallalaa.
Dorado wanted to show off his strength so he 'spread hundred of evil foes' on a nice village. The plain turned into a desert and 'all lifeforms got killed by the fire, the extremely hot sun, or the undeads.'
It gets worse every day and he wonders if any humans yet live there.
Then we steal his mace.
He also has a pet lionine. Coryool is unimpressed with it, saying he's seen better lionines.
I backtrack to Merthuns and then the exit from Mizabrandeau to these little linked islands.
There doesn't seem to be anything here at all. Back to Merthuns!
The cave is this stupid rock just a few tiles north of Merthuns.
I didn't notice anything special about Corpse Leachers. 28XP.
Adventurers have a weak phsyical attack, but sometimes they'll deal a hefty blow by casting P-Flare. 30XP, 355GP and sometimes drop Tonic Teas.
I don't know why any of these things are here, and I am not sure Indinera knows or ever knew either. He just likes putting things in as decorations.
Pointless deadend.
This is the only thing at the end of a long path, but we will need it much later. Back to the main path.
Sanguine Bats. Yawn. 21XP.
Oh no, we might get damp quickly!
Stalac' o Light, besides being an insanely stupid 'pun', cast P-Flare for yet more damage than adventurers do. It's also the only thing I've ever seen them do so they're a top priority.
24XP.
The west path is a boring dead end, so we take the east one.
I think Emanations cast Ground Clouds or some shit? I don't know and I don't give a fuck. 30XP.
Sarah's talking about two Diamonds here. The other chests have GP and a Chrome Sword.
Backtrack to the main path and continue north.
Ignore the stairs...
There's nothing interesting about the graves here.
Rhue! Shroud! Save me several minutes of backtracking and encounters! Please!
My cries go unasnwered so I go the long way around.
The other chest has a Tonic Tea.
Sarah says she'd love one for her bedroom.
That chest is already open when we get here, we can't get to it from here yet, have to go around.
Sarah and Guanidia seem in favour of leaving.
Uh huh. Right.
A beast rises from the water.
This fight isn't as challenging as Torahl. He does KO Random at one point but after that he's no problem. He just has some strong magical spells is all. Defense Up takes care of that. He's actually one of the only enemies thus far capable of doing high damage to Coryool, as well.
130XP.
Woo!
This is important. Definitely do not forgot to activate it before you go. Anyway, the opened chest can be reached from here. It just has a warning about getting too close to the switch.
OOOOH
Anyway, we backtrack to the stairs and climb them, which takes us to the much smaller ice cave part of the dungeon.
Cave Octopus are tanky but spectacularly weak. 46XP.
You also sometimes encounter Octohuge in here. The pink ones we saw at the FISH BATTLE area.
There's really not much to the ice cave at all.
And yeah, if you look at the flowers enough Sarah annoys Random and the cat, leading to a kind of Garfield-esque moment where we wonder if Random can understand the cat that is meant to be unable to communicate to the rest of the party verbally. They'll keep counting higher too.
This is five Sharks. And that's all for here. We backtrack to the main path, the path split just before the stairs, and go the other way.
Ooh, that's nice. I give the Ajax Ring to Random. Going back down...
... These narrow halls are all dead ends.
Like so. Only the nearest one leads where we need to go next.
And there's only one thing of note in this room.
There's been a running joke that Sarah complains how cold she is after we get loot in this dungeon, and at this point Random just laughs at her and tells her it's cos she's nearly completely nude in her outfit. Sarah only seems to realise this when Random points it out.
Tricky maze here.
The south exit leads to absolutely nothing.
Woo.
The trick to this maze is the same deal as the Forest Maze. You can see Randoms hair going beneath the sprite of the crystal north of him. You can walk through that one.
Annoying!
This is what the Drake's switch opened.
Sarah learns one of the best spells in the game on the way. It does weakass damage, but I think it drains HP AND inflicts myriad status effects. That's what it did to the upcoming fight.
Not long after, we encounter the second boss of the Merthuns Cave.
He is... uh... A rather lacklustre boss. As we kill him in one turn with all our best moves, before he even does anything.
40XP and 60Gp.
I want to point out that this is a seperate item type from the regular diamonds we've found.
Even has its own description.
The other two chests have a Speed Ring and an Antidote, and a Percussion Ring.
The loot is distributed as so. I feel Sarah really needs the speed, what with her healing, buffs, status effects and other debuffs.
After that, I have to walk all the way back to the maze to Egress which takes a few fights. Dunno why it's disabled on this map.
http://videoc.free.fr/laxiuspower/walkthru/walkthru/merthunscave1.html
Some of the maps are really too big for the eventual archiving so I'll just link this guys site. The next four or so pages of maps are also Merthuns Cave, so browse if you wish.
Back to Merthuns to rest up and save...
Next time we'll finally speak to this mysterious old man and find out what the deal is with the building he's next to.
the end