Toggle Background Color
S01E17: The Fraught Struggle With Edgelordism.
CW: The focal point of this update is Sarah's very poor treatment at the hands of the Dark Order. Like I said in a prior update, this is where the game has a dark tone shift and a bout with some classic teen edgelordism as it tries to be a dark and serious story (and fails.)
So, there's physical abuse and Sarah is placed in great peril. Nothing graphic and Random and co. do save her at the last moment, but it's still not pleasant and the scenes suck, so I will gloss over much of it since I have an intense personal dislike of it. If you're sensitive about this sort of thing, you might be better off skipping this update.
This is probably one of the worst parts of the series too.
Time to gather the party!
No time for WHAT
Anyway, we gather these two. Leanda's out somewhere, but Herasia is already with Luci.
...
Worse than something wrong happened! Random fills Luci in on everything and after a while, Leanda shows up.
Everyone takes it dead serious, even Wendie, and offer their help. It is decided to search SankT Leona first.
Random, Guanidia and Coryool go off together, apparently.
Now we just wander around talking to all the NPCs again. Not every NPC has a new dialogue, but a bunch do. Random usually describes Sarah in a different way each time too, and the NPC will give their own unique response.
Like fethers guy owning Random here.
Sometimes the description is silly.
Sometimes it is insanely stupid.
And Random is often VERY specific about her height.
Fucking Motar says he has no time for 'flirts.' Useless man!
Just like the stupid thing with the training tree, a new area has been made available if you somehow figure out you're meant to step of the tile immediately north of Randoms current position. This is where we need to go to progress.
This is the only time in the game you can access this place. You can't enter any of the houses, and there's not really much of anything here.
There's a poor woman you can donate 5GP to every time you speak to her. It takes about ten minutes but I donate 2000GP to her. You get one point of score per GP, and I think it might go up forever? I just do it to cover for one problem with the scoring system. Used books and stat items don't count to the score, they only count if they're still in your inventory. The books problem does have a solution, but not the stat boosting items.
The dialogue between her and Random never changes.
This is the very same orc that helped murder and kidnap elf girls. No idea why he's just chilling here, we never get any explanation for why he's not with the rest.
Coryool and Random, figuring an orc -might- be involved, start beating the shit out of him. Well, Coryool does,anyway.
They beat some info out of him. Then beat him some more.
And they get everything they need.
And Coryool gives him one last hit. Honestly surprised they did not just murder him.
We immediately cut to a cutscene in the inn.
why do you keep calling elves animals
........... I doubt that's what they mean, Wendie. Unless your past lovers are real fucked up.
Also, if Rerrurren sounds familiar, it's the name attached to her laser element multi-bow that we got from the chest in her (?) house.
Anwyay, Random starts to list all the things they could be doing to Sarah at the tower before Luci shuts him up and says LETS JUST GO AND SAVE HER DUMBASS!
And that's what we'll do. No fucking around. Just right to the tower, to save Sarah. We COULD fuck around though. Like I believe we could go to the Oasis in the Upper West right now and see a dumbass scene where Random would tell Wendie to go fishing by hand in a bikini and then mope that he's too worried about Sarah to enjoy it. Something like that anyway.
We just have to make two very short stops first.
Used to be a guy blocking this door. Hm.
HM.
If you go and save at the chapel now, Luci adds this. Kind of amusing how many little details Indy puts here and there.
"steel are king! The dream of knights!"
She says she ordered some 'common' stuff from there.
If it's so common why does it cost a fucking fortune!
After we buy it Baretta says 'Oh, I'll buy some more stuff from there in the next few months.'
At least Random can use the helm.
When we enter the Evil Tower, it slooooooooooooooowly fades to black.
There's a small discussion but it gets interrupted by some noise and a blue flash.
The Guardians quickly plan to escape, but...
Oh, it's Kranksy (Khransty or something similar!) Haven't seen you since literally the opening cutscene!
R.I.P.
Really, Random is lucky he didn't sneak off after the Guardians. Even if the whole party had come with him, I don't think they'd have stood a chance against all that at once, even with the Guardian Battallion.
We gotta do stuff the heroic way!
Murdering people in the halls or in their rooms one by one or in small groups!
The light is dim and it's snowing all of a sudden.
Luci seems hopeful they will run into the Guardians escorting Sarah out.
When we enter, we get another cutscene.
Sarah is hit, repeatedly, in this scene. I won't mention it much more than that. This is the games bout with edgelordism I mentioned a while back.
Anyway, Nymph's Para doesn't work.
Then the last step is 'Resistance Training' which is apparently extreme torture so Sarah's end result feels little pain in battles and is thus a fearless combatant.
So all of that is... on the table here. Strongly suspect Indy was trying to channel Hojo from FFVII with this guy, but this comes off even worse for a very wide variety of reasons.
While Sarah being occassionally snatched by bad guys never really stops being a thing, it's usually not -this- nasty. I think.
Back at the entrance room.
Luci theorises The Grand Commendanter must be the Biggest Boss of both the Chanterless Temple and Evil Tower. But if you remember from the Chanterless Church Temple, there's -seven- temples scattered all over the Deport.
The War Orcs are nothing, but the Orc Lords, while not super durable, can hit hard. They do enough damage to oneshot Luci if they crit. Not that she has the most defense or HP, but it's more than most mooks at this point.
quote:
Orc Lord (frequent, 10-15% of a common orcish tribe)
"Orc Lord" is a high rank in the orcish society.
The Orc Lord is gifted with a good resistance and has some magical habilities. They master the art of fighting, can speak many languages, and are able to rule a short group of people.
A well-balanced warrior.
Orc Lords are worth 87XP and 478GP. Extremely low chance of dropping a Giant Spear.
Random also has a new mysterious skill. i'd bet it's very similar to Quadra Strike, but Metallist element.
Past the entrance hall, Herasia seems to pick up Sarah's scent.
Due to me increasing the walk speed, Random walks to the doorway much faster than the cat.
Apparently so! The middle door is locked anyway. On the otherside of the hall...
We fight this. Despite how it looks, it's pretty lame by mimic standards.
quote:
Drazkaerzazzkarius (frequent in worthy dungeons)
Its little "brother" the Carn ' O Carn can be encountered in dungeons targeted by novice adventurers, like abandoned churches, cemeteries, and such.
Always willing to eat adventurers or bounty hunters, the "Drazz" waits patiently, disguised in a chest, for its victim to come close to it. Even the most experienced adventurer will have a hard time trying to detect a Drazz before it attacks. Its mimicry habilities are indeed close to perfection. But like spiders, some Drazz prefer the "jumping" method (ie surprising the adventurers). Huge, heavy (1000kg) and gifted with impressive jaws, the Drazz is a tough opponent that is already responsible for thousands of deaths.
Its strange name's explanation is nowadays lost, but try to pronounce it in a loud voice, you'll see, it sounds quite good !
175XP and 55GP. Extremely low chance of dropping Saphirs.
We follow a short hall to this pool dominated room.
Tai Guards don't seem to be anything special. I kill them very quickly.
77XP and 55GP. Extremely low chance to drop a Knight Shield.
Oooh, that's an relic.
This'll actually come in handy, I think.
Wendala oneshots all of these guys before they can do anything, but IIRC they're meant to be quite dangerous even if very fragile.
quote:
Cupidon (common)
Little tricky creature, the Cupidon can either use its metal trident or some nasty damaging spells. Fast and resistant, it often attacks in group, trying to ambush careless adventurers, to kill them, steal their gold and their metals.
84XP and 486GP. Extremely rare chance to drop a Platinum Trident (which I actually got on the first encounter!)
Next we walk into what seemed to be a dead end with a spiderweb at the end of it.
The spiders walking around here are not hostile which is actually extremely annoying.
You only get spider encounters in this area. The Queen Lycose in particular, is like a miniboss. She has at elast a couple thousand HP and can VENOM the party, which is poison, but worse. Hits decently too.
Worth 121XP and 38GP. Extremely low chance of dropping a Lycose Pearl, which we need at least one of dammit!
Oooh. Sucks Death.
Oh yeah, the hordes are back.
There's also these guys. They all suck and do nothing dangerous.
Corpses are worth 5XP and 14GP.
Cave Lycose are worth 70XP and 3GP.
Save a chicken. I had to leave and renter this area three times to svae thic chicken. One of the spiders kept blocking the way back here. I got so damn angry waiting for it to come out each time.
Guanidia wants to run, but Wendie says Too Late!
AWWWWW WHAT A CUTIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We have to kill her?!
Anyway, while Teszrandus can oneshot people and also inflict paralysis, she's not too hard and goes down without much effort. I think she does have a defense ignoring special attack though, she one hit Luci with it, fully buffed, but then her normal attacks did fuck all after Luci was revived. And yeah, she paralysed Random for the second half of the battle, but she was so easy I didn't even bother curing him.
quote:
Teszrandus (unique)
This name has been employed to call the huge Queen Lycose that was furtively observed, only once, 25 years ago in the SankT Leona Hills.
People said it was 6-8 meters long.
It was never seen again, and is probably dead now.
Teszrandus is worth 665XP and 1510GP. Guaranteed drop of Teszandous' (SIC) clutch.
Also a helmet and some bad Tonic Teas.
We destroy the spider nest.
Now, I bet you can guess what I'm doing next...!
Yes! New Baretta item! I think this one is completely worthless to us, but for score?
Back to the tower!
Backtrack to the same large room Herasia led us to, that the spider lair branched off of, and go into this NW door now.
It's an orc dorm! Surprisingly, there's some non-hostile orcs in here, and Random and co. leave them be!
Loot!
Why... is this in the wall.
That other chest is locked.
Think this is just for score too.
While almost all the encounters in the dorm are orcs, I do run into this guy sometimes. You might remember one of the 'alchimy' ingredients is an 'O'Donnells Skull'.
Anyway, I have no idea what these do in battle. If Wendala doesn't one shot it, Random finishes it.
Worth 68XP. Extremely low chance of dropping O Donnell Skull (!?)
Random stares at this chest with its strange aura for a few dialogue boxes.
What??? Why're you screaming????
(It is actually a mimic chest and we kill it.)
Seriously, we're stealing the whole orc armys gear and alcohol.
Hm! But what does the letter say! ... Apparently Random doesn't give a shit. Likely Indy just meant an envelope.
Anyway, this was the second last room so...
They really wanted an elf, huh. We head back to the start of the dorm now.
The key opens the locked chest back at the start of the dorms.
This would probably make a good weapon for Leanda, if she can use it, but that's about it. I also think this is the only doublehit weapon that clearly marks it does as much.
We head back to the first big room.
Aha.
Finally run into one of these. Not too dangerous. Tanky though. 1% chance of dropping Krieger Scales, which increase Max HP by 1.
Worth 91XP and 120GP.
The orc gives us a menu but he's only going to give us hell for each option. Only orcs are allowed to rest here. Kids aren't allowed to drink. Coryool pipes up but is ignored and for some bizarre reason Wendie says:
?????????? No one said anything about that. Anyway. Good on the orc barkeep for not letting minors drink. It's Evil Tower, not Chaos Tower.
Luci gets pissy about being denied her drugs.
Random, uh... takes this question better than you'd expect, but is still implied to be upset.
Basically we get told to look elsewhere.
The orcs have been decorating their tavern too.
So we loot it.
Luci points out the Cell Pass we stole from GandJe Proud will work on this cheapo mass produced door. So we use it.
After making sure the woman is okay, Random questions her on if she's seen Sarah. She says she's only seen human women.
We take her with.
The fatty pigs don't seem to give a shit, honestly.
There's also a cell of zombies nearby. The dragon cell does not have a dialogue.
I knew I remembered we get one of these for free.
Anyway, now we have to backtrack back to that first big room again.
The first big room, has a second south entrance besides the one we enter it from.
Another mimic.
Another chest has this.
I think it's useless.
Oh, look! These guys again! We must be headed in the right direction.
I run around getting a lot more loot, but nothing super interesting.
Ahahahaha I love these guys. 65 XP.
Gecko Toks aren't super dangerous I guess. I do find out what Tai Guards do now that two of them appear. They double hit for decent damage and can full heal.
Gecko Toks are worth 70XP and 18GP and have a extremely low chance of dropping Pentagonal Shields.
Woo!
We have to fight this fight twice. It's not hard, though the Doom is kind of durable. Worth 192XP and 1% chance of dropping Necrotears.
Then the third fight is against two.
It's not like this was hard or dangerous, Luci!
This guy isn't particularly tough either. Nice sprite though.
416XP and 251GP
Luci warns you not to touch it again, and if you do, you do in fact fight him again, exact same dialogue and all.
As we draw closer to the labs...
The experiments are apparently not going well.
One last section. R&D, basically.
Crantax is the purple demon guy. Anyway, those notes also have the plans for the SankT Leona assault in them.
This is an extremely important book for Luci. I'll go over why later. I won't use it right away, since I want to see something first.
These guys are noobs. 34XP and 210GP each. Extremely rare chance to drop Medicates.
Luci immediately destroys the vials.
This book goes over more, but it's mostly stuff we already know. The fruition of their plans will be in 2 years, etc.
Random is not pleased to read this.
We go to another part of the main hall.
Computer thingies?
Was that a joke?
Thee's nothing here, so we move on.
Have to kill some orcs guarding the door first.
Random shushes the surprised prisoner as we walk in.
One, Strictly no problem with me.
Two, Strictly no problem with me.
Anyway, Random bursts into the room after that.
Random slays them with one of his new Spin Attacks! It's REALLY good.
And these guys all suck too! We get 21000GP, an Underground Key, and a Necroleech for slaughtering them all.
The Torturer slays the priest that spoke up himself. Maybe he's going to defect...?
Oh.
Despite Sarah's warning that he may be very powerful, he dies in one turn. Drops a Torturer Sword, guaranteed. Worth 100XP and 1650GP.
And Sarah takes out the last few with Nereids of Thunder. Before freeing Sarah, I take a quick look around the lab.
Luci destroys some research notes.
R.I.P.
And we save the living girl.
Sarah gives a brief runthrough of her experience.
The Dark Order didn't have time to do anything to her, even though they definitely wanted to. She even phrases it as 'They didn't harm my dignity.'
Sarah being rescued safely is a big relief for everyone, even myself.
Even Wendie, apparently.
And with that, we Egress out. And that's it for this update. We're far from done with Evil Tower, though. We have to find out what happened to the Guardians, and take out the 8 Lords of Evil Tower.
But first we need to rest... and pay a visit to Baretta, of course.
the end