Part 15: "There is no Healing Magic. No Star Fall Magic. No Holy Sword that Cuts the Dark."

Chapter 14: "There is no Healing Magic. No Star Fall Magic. No Holy Sword that Cuts the Dark."
(The Disease)

Welcome back. First, something from last update that I didn't include for the sake of dramatic flow:



The ending for this story is not terribly complicated. ...... Bring this story to its conclusion. You are the only person who can finish it.

Every time after the first, he'll only say the last two lines.

(Thanks to Warped Lichen for pointing out that I never talked to Aaron Aaron in-update and SSNeoman for pointing out that I wasn't showing the full dialogue here.)




It's been a while since we've been here. It's finally time to challenge The Disease... A location doubly interesting now that we know the epidemic all those years ago was also called "The Disease."

The exits from the save area are right and down, but they both meet up eventually.



Down first.




These are the two main types of enemy in the first half of The Disease. The bears are aggressive when you're close, the hydras are aggressive when you're in a fight.




These, meanwhile, are the true threat of The Disease. Every single enemy in The Disease is named "Deformity," so let's call these the Flies.

I said before that your policy should be to hunt down any fast, aggressive enemies on the screen first off. That goes double for Flies, which move incredibly fast when you attack something and home in incredibly well. By themselves, they're harmless. With other enemies, they're terrifying. And they tend to lurk in places that make them difficult to fight before engaging other enemies.

(Also, notice the differently-colored gravestone. It looks perfectly normal except before a fight; that means that starting a fight is the best way to find secrets here. There are quite a few hidden passages under gravestones.)



"Shout! Shout! Let it all out!" is a full-party buff. It gives Yell status.

You may remember the Yell status from Camil's Shout ability. It multiplies Attack by 1.6, Skill and Agility by 1.5, and adds +10 Critical.

I did mention that this is full-party, right?

They're fragile, but they're faster than Randolf--without Fast Attack, they might even be faster than Camil. If there's more than one, they'll probably manage to buff everything with Yell.

Furthermore, if they survive until turn 2, they'll start using "Shout! Shout! Let it all out!" again, except this version targets your characters and seals your magic. And since they're almost always faster than Randolf, and this status is pretty accurate, this effectively means you can't use magic on any turn but the first.

It is very possible to lose fights in the Disease before the first turn even starts. If you have Fast Attack on Randolf or Camil and they can use Fire Wave (or better, for Camil) at the start of battle, though, then it's possible to avert this--a Randolf who picked up Fire Wave is a very effective Fly countermeasure.

Their drop is the very good Stained Wing, which gives +8 Attack, +20 Skill, +8 HP, +10 Defense, +2 Critical, and +5 Agility. It drops fairly rarely, though, even with the sheer number of Flies you'll kill by the end.

That differently colored gravestone has a secret passage. Flies are underground as well, and the tighter spaces mean that fighting enemies at the same time as them--multiple of them--is basically unavoidable.



So I usually switch over to Mage Camil underground.

The Goat deformities aren't that scary. Nothing in The Disease is, really, so long as you don't let the Flies get a Shout off. (Which is why Camil is using the Zara Mantle in one of her All-Purpose slots.) Goats in particular go down to one Light Axe.



The Single Horn is notably good--+12 HP, +15 Skill, +5 Agility, and the Cutthroat skill. If you want to keep the Mantis Ax equipped as a weapon, it's probably the best Cutthroat option.

There's a Glass Fragment in a chest at the end. I could go back and make a new Bottle, but I don't bother.




These are the first half's other two types of enemy. The Hydra Deformities attack twice (they do about 20 damage per hit to my characters) and critical surprisingly often, while the Bear deformities hit once for about the same damage and also poison. The main threat both pose is that they take about three turns to kill, during which they can do a decent amount of damage. That durability lets them make very good use of Yell.

The Hydra drops a Fork, which is +25 Attack. The Bear drops Dirty Nails, which is +35 HP and poison immunity.

Exit's to the right.




That bridge is uncrossable. No jumping, I'm afraid.



The extremely obvious hidden passage under the gravestone leads here.




Damn I'm good.

The chest has 1000 gold.



The extreme fragility of the Goat deformities makes this a very good area to grind... Or, well, that'd normally be true. But you really don't want to grind here, for reasons that'll become clear at the end of the update.



Going up the stairs puts you on the other side of the river.



Only the way you came up is a hidden staircase, as the prefight color filter confirms. The rest are just here to make you uncomfortable.

Exits lead right and up. I go up.




They don't even need to stress the death toll of The Disease epidemic, really. Counting the sheer number of graves you pass tells the whole story already.

Still no hidden passages. Exits are left and right. I go left.



Progressing onward means going right.




The purple stuff is basically just water or a wall--an impassable obstacle.



Getting into fights is so, so much easier than checking all of these graves individually.



I like the little areas like this, which feel more like normal burial sites than the giant grid mass graves. Before the water turned all purple and the wildlife became horrible mutated monstrosities, this place was probably pretty nice.



Midway save point.



Tip: enter and exit this room until the Fly to your right moves up instead of down. If you do, you can attract and kill the four Flies here before you get into any of the real fights.

These are the new enemies of the second half. The Flies stick around, and the Goats are still in the underground areas, but there won't be any more Hydras or Bears from here on.



Despite what you'd expect, the bipedal lizard type is the big dragon and the four-legged one is the weird crow thing. Let's call them Dragons and Crows. The Dragon hits about as hard as both hits of the Hydra, but unlike the Hydra, it doesn't really critical.

The Crows just seem to suck in general, being fragile and weak and inaccurate, but their criticals do about four times normal damage. If Yell is up, a critical will kill just about anyone it hits. Yell increases critical rate.

Neither type is aggressive, in or out of engagement mode, on this screen, which makes it much simpler to get through.

The Dragons drop Parts, which give +15 HP, +5 Critical and +20 Agility. Crows drop a Strange Scale, which gives +10 SP and +20 Defense.



There are a LOT of them.





The Slighty Dirty Clothes are an interesting item. As an armor, they have a poor Defense stat (+15) but are one of only two armors to have an Armor-slot Attack boost (+25). As an All-Purpose item, they give +52 Attack, +40 Skill, +10 Critical and Poison Immunity in exchange for taking double damage.

Needless to say, they're amazing on Mage Camil. I probably won't level them for that purpose, though; her Armor space is occupied for the forseeable future.

The way onward is to the right of the save point.




There's a bridge in the middle of the river.





Other chest is 1000 Gold.

The ways forward are right and up. I go right.



The hidden passage here is really obvious, which is the trick.



They want you to run down there and forget to check over here.




Other one is a Glass Fragment.

Backtrack to the last branch, go up this time.



Choices are up or cross the river and go right. I go up.



The weirdest Magic Bean planting spot in the game, right here. Camil just doesn't want to step on the rocks unless they're covered in ivy, it seems.

The chest has a Mango Skin, which gives +24 SP when equipped.




Going down at the right edge of the screen brings you to a short area with two treasure chests.



Other one has a Glass Fragment. It's very kind of them to provide a Magic Bean like this--the treasure you get from it is quite good.

Slightly more complicated than usual: I backtrack two screens, putting me at the "up or right across the river" branch. This time I go right there.




That puts me on the other side of the river with the Magic Bean chest. The chest here has 1000 gold.

I've used two Stamina Restores at this point. I'm not exactly burning through potions any more.



A screenshot of Skill Bind in action. I take the hidden passage here.






I suspect you're supposed to find this way through AFTER you've fought through the normal, aboveground path north.

Said path is narrow, filled with enemies, and has an abnormally high number of Flies--about five. There's no treasure, though, and it's not very visually interesting either.




This is the end of The Disease: a single deserted house and a passage past it.

Sadly, that isn't a conventional shortcut to Her Memory; it's one-way. So I walk past.



I examine the tree, and...



Huh. That's the color of the Star Fall Magic stone in Her Memory, isn't it?




Sadly, picking "Acquire Memory" here means you lose the White Will Stone permanently. I do so, if a little reluctantly.




Interesting...



Wait, what? Level 1? No name and portrait? Weird. You can't switch to him with the D button, either; it only lets you be Camil or Randolf on the map.






The Holy Sword that Cuts the Dark is transformational for a melee character. As a weapon, it gives +80 Attack and 24 Range; as an All-Purpose item, it gives +40 Attack. In both cases, it also gives Critical Damage x2.0. This makes criticals do 3.0x damage instead of 1.5x.



This massively increases physical damage output. If Shout is up, Camil is going to do the most damage now by far. And since it depends on your critical chance, it gives you a very good excuse to equip the Lucky Rabbit, giving you +16% evasion, -20 to incoming magic damage and doubled item drop rate.

You'll notice I'm not talking about the new character.



That's because he leaves the moment you leave the area. That's kind of an underwhelming join-up, really, considering the fanfare...



This ledge is one way only, connected to The Nest. Sucks to be you if you missed the White Will Stone or finished The Disease before The Depths!

I head back, make three Empty Bottles (up to 30 now) and head into Aaron Aaron's shop. I sell a lot of the items I've gained from The Disease (800 gold apiece!) and use my massive stock of cash to...



...buy a plant.

What? It's a nice plant.

Okay, more seriously: this is an opaque way of buying an armor.



Well, the Demon Flies seem to Laylaria's servants or something, judging by when they showed up, so I guess it's not surprising that even her plant has bugs... Or it's not an actual bug, but rather some sort of bug-themed armor. Maybe she was an insect superhero in her youth or something, I dunno.




The Black Ladybug gives +20 Attack, +20 Skill, +32 SP, +1 Critical, and +10 Agility as an Armor. (Note the lack of defense.) As an All-Purpose item, it gives +20 Skill, +32 SP, +3 Critical, +5 Agility, and immunity to Stagger.

The +SP alone makes it enormously useful. I stick it on Randolf and use a fully-leveled Daybreak Club (+32 Attack, +40 Defense, Sporadic Guard) to offset some of his resulting squishyness. Once it's mastered, he'll use the Black Ladybug as an All-Purpose instead--+50 SP is fantastic, and the rest is excellent gravy.

Also, look back at the shop; Aaron Aaron's managed to steal the Chimney from that ruined house while we were away at The Disease... Somehow. That seems like it would be very difficult to do. It costs 25000 gold, and it's the way to access that high bluff near the second Demon King's Castle entrance, the one with two chests and a recipe. The Expensive Stone, meanwhile, gets you an item in the same way the Plant did, except fetching it is considerably more likely to kill you. I'll wait on that a while.

Back to The Disease. I take the right exit from the starting save point this time.




Beautiful. One critical does almost as much as Light Axe with no SP cost and a larger range, and if you're particularly lucky you can get two criticals.



There's a path across the river and a not-entirely-obvious exit to the south.




Other chest is a Glass Fragment.

There's two treasures at the end of the Magic Bean path and I had 16/20 going in, so that should be everything in The Disease... Unless there's a recipe, anyway.

The Magic Bean hasn't grown in yet, so I leave.

I head to the Demon King's Castle and kill about ten Squid for a Squid Tentacle. I don't get any, despite having the Lucky Rabbit on, so I say "fuck it" and debug mode two in--it takes about a minute each try, and that's just tedious.



I actually grind out six Crab Pastes properly, since that's much more reasonable. Getting there and back, plus the short trip into The Disease, gets the Holy Sword and Black Ladybug to level 2. Can't complain.

I brew up three Slimy Goop and head to The Imagination. When I do...



...our mysterious friend shows up again.

The Holy Sword that Cuts the Dark and the third party member for The Imagination are your real rewards for The Disease, and they're both very good. Blank Spaces here came from the White Will Stone, so let's call him Will.

Mind, the mysterious black void could be a girl. You never know... But let's go with "he" for now. "It" would be rude. If he's a she, I'm sure she'll forgive us.



His stats are pathetic, but he's level 1. He'll grow. Since he's so fragile anyway, why not give him the Slimy Goop? (+70 HP, +16 SP, +15 Skill, +2 Critical, Damage Received x2.0.) Someone needs to level it up for those holes. Once he's levelled the Zara Mantle, he'll replace the Nails with it, at which point he'll probably have enough speed to use Fast Attack to cancel out the Book of Manslaying's Slow Attack and still get turns decently often.

I'm building him as a mage, similar to Mage Camil.




Will starts with Healing Magic, while Star Fall Magic is acquired through His Memory.

Healing Magic is decently useful; it heals about 60, and the numbers scale very slowly. (In part because Will has 5 base Skill and it never, ever increases when he levels.) Star Fall Magic, however, is genuinely impressive--as much base power and range as Inferno, 100% bonuses from both Attack and Skill, and 50% defense ignoring, all for 10 SP. Its only problems are Will's stats and its HP threshold.

(This is the second use for Fire Wave on Randolf: if you're already flinging a giant AOE spell every round, then having Randolf doing the same when he can is much more useful.)




That's from six levels. Those aren't very good growths at all...

Stat-wise, Will will always be lower-level and weaker than Camil and Randolf; he's inferior in just about every stat to either of them. (He's faster and has a higher critical rate than Randolf, and his base SP gets a little higher than Camil. That's pretty much it.) Even if his stats stayed trash, though, having an extra character to fling potions is great... And All-Purpose items make the base stats difference irrelevant with time.

I'll be keeping him with the two Slimy Goops and using them to push him below that 40% HP threshold after each battle. (The third is for if I want to use Mage Camil in a fight.) Without Star Fall Magic, Will can't really contribute right now, but once he's levelled up some it should make him enormously useful.

(By the way, no, recruiting Will before fighting Aaron Aaron does not change his "all three haven't gathered yet" speech. Nor does buying The Final Battle As Planned before talking to him. I checked during the bonus update stuff.)

Next time, we start The Imagination.

Annihilation Record:

Annihilation count:29

No new entries.

Current winner: Cake Attack (26)
Next: Feldherren (35)

Battle Record:

2014/04/08/ 22:37:09
Demon King Chronicle

■Battle results
Playtime:15:21:53
Save count:166
Steps taken:78906
Battle count:925
Max damage:479
Max damage taken:134
Items:74 Types 171 Items

■Treasure Chests
The Nest: 8/8
Demon King's Castle: 26/26
The Hamlet: 31/31
The Snow Fields: 20/20
The Dragon Mountain: 6/6
Sands of Remembrance: 26/26
The Tower: 11/11
The Seashore: 12/12
The Mirage: 9/10
Leviathan Depths: 5/5
The Disease: 18/20
Unmapped area: 7/10

■Camil(31)
HP:149
SP:63
Attack:256
Defense:44
Range:24
Critical:53
Skill:55
Agility:73
・Holy Sword that Cuts the Dark(2)
・Mask of Determination(3)
・Praying Mantis Axe(3)
・Lucky Rabbit(3)
・Zara Sword(3)

■Randolf(31)
HP:106
SP:89
Attack:255
Defense:48
Range:64
Critical:11
Skill:168
Agility:59
・Speckcinder(2)
・Black Ladybug(2)
・Daybreak Club(3)
・Varnished Bird Wing(3)
・Bookworm Girl(3)

■(7)
HP:168
SP:56
Attack:54
Defense:24
Range:24
Critical:5
Skill:35
Agility:34
・Amaryllis(0)
・Zara Mantle (0)
・Slimy Goop(0)
・Slimy Goop(0)
・Nails(0)


■Top 10 defeats
Green Mud Man(178)
Rat(159)
Toothy Piranha(157)
Mermaid(143)
Abominable Snow Monkey(97)
Wake-Eater(89)
Merman(84)
Monkey(83)
Deformity(82)
Mutt(80)

Glossary:

(Unlocked by using the White Will Stone)
■Aeritz
Aeritz was a thief who specialized in
robbing from the rich. He spent his days
filling the pocks of the less fortunate and
of course his own as well. He wasn't really
a hero or a villain.
He walked a very fine line in that respect.
　
----
　
While in port, he heard rumors
regarding a certain book.
　
The rumored book floated here from
the southern part of the continent, and was
written by an unknown writer named
Harold Diester. However he only completed
three chapters so the book is still incomplete.
　
Even still, this mysterious book called the
"Demon King Chronicles" was published
in small numbers. There were many people
who enjoyed theorizing about the work over
various questions such as
"Who wrote this story and for what purpose?"
"What kind of ending was planned?"
　
Aeritz was very curious about the book,
however it carried a high price tag so
getting his hands on it was not easy.
　
So he reached the only possible conclusion.
"Well that's it. I might as well try to get my
hands on the original that swept in with the tide."
He found out that a particular old man, one of
the most famous people on the continent
was the current owner.

You know how Kumo found the copy of Demon King Chronicle's Chapter Two in Aeritz's things? This entry seems to imply that Aeritz accepted the job on Zelphie Eluonto so he could steal one of his books. A book he probably didn't even have somewhere Aeritz would find, because it's probably the copy that Nana has.

Or that's the reason why Nana only has Chapter One.

Oh, Aeritz.