Part 3: I will take this skull in hand
Previously on this LP, we learned first-hand about the ways of Hell's bureaucracy, were told Richard would qualify for enlistment into the Hell Guard, and recruited Ghenghis Khan who basically forced his way into our party. We didn't, however, quite finish exploring the 6th Court of Minos, so let's do just that.
Turns out all the time since the last update we've been keeping a
Hey, it's Juliet. Juliet's side quest: show her someone CAREs. Is going to take a while.
A sign on the service window reads, "This window closed until break is over... See next window."
The second service window is expectedly closed, just like the first one, creating a typically endless service window loop.
Another valkyrie nearby:
I dunno... Naturally, I'll let you decide once we get to Limbo, but how could that dude out-macho Ghenghis Khan?
Interacting with 1 Killer now.
First software piracy, now this. The game's preaching at us.
The back room is guarded by a hostile Hell Guard, so we make him into lamb chops. He stands no chance against the united force of two mighty tyrants and a game developer.
Three treasure chests in here, one of them empty...
...and the other two containing a J-Mart Hose and a Dueling Sword.
This looks like a perfect moment to post the weapon and armour list found in the manual, now doesn't it?
As you can see, the J-Mart Hose is, well, pathetic. The Dueling Sword, however, is actually a nice find: it offers both moderate damage and some moderate protection, which is useful given that armour is rare to come by in the first part of the game. Unfortunately, basic armour tends to get easily destroyed after a couple of particularly nasty encounters, and the protective qualities of the Dueling Sword will deteriorate as well.
Just as a soldier NPC told us earlier, we can grab a Garbage can lid or several from behind the Court House. With the lid equipped, Richard's defense goes up to 4. Ah, the sweet essence of RPGs.
Truth be told, I was a bit surprised that, after the last update, no one suggested we give the Scum guy the matches we found in our very first treasure chest at the very beginning of the game.
The guy hands us a pistol in return as well as a piece of advice for entering a mysterious place called Lucifer's Landing.
A basket full of pitchforks is lying on the counter. The pitchforks are small and made of lead and fairly screaming out to be taken.
- > listen to the pitchforks
"Take me! Take me!"
Alright, we do take them, just in case.
Next thing we do is get careless and walk too close to the receptionist... She scans Richard, finds him a bit too alive, sets off an alarm, and now all the Hell Guards have turned hostile. Splendid. Reloading.
Outside, we make it back to the Firepit and talk to one Melrose Amber.
We could keep the shades, of course, as they offer some protection against psychic attacks (against the Screamers', for instance). Alternatively, we can use them to solve Tom the rockstar's quest, which is, I think, the better option.
Tom's trench coat is well-worn already, and only increases Richard's defense by 2 points.
Still, so far so good.
And while we're at it, let's see what we can find inside Minos' heavily guarded estate.
A Screamer instantly attacks us as we enter the door. Well, what can I say... He will scream no more.
The two Hell Guard groups are non-hostile... until we attack them, that is, since there's no other way to advance deeper inside the mansion.
Your actions do not go un-noticed.... The game has something like a basic karma system: the more friendlies you attack on your way out of Hell, the less are your chances to escape from Hell in the end. So yeah, it definitely is preaching at us. It's like Ultima, except in Hell. And that's why breaking into Minos' estate isn't really a good idea.
For the sake of our little law-breaking experiment, we slay the guards and explore around the rooms. Unsurprisingly, there's nothing on TV worth watching.
Toilet humour!
The treasure room, hey. Guarded by a Despair.
The Despair is basically a skeleton with the Undead Grip attack.
Inside the chests, Richards finds himself a Hoe, as well as a Baseball bat, a Chain, a Battle Axe, and a Wrist Rocket. ALL the hell guards in the entire city are now hostile, however, so the loot wasn't really worth it. Reloading.
And we're done here in the City on the Edge of Eternity. Sure, now that we have a full party, we can wipe out the hostiles at the Post Office, but that is even more pointless than pillaging Minos' estate.
What we have to do once we've left the city is kill the skeleton blocking the way out onto the world map, as well as the two nearby Hell guards who immediately turn hostile.
Richard hacks at The Skeleton with his Dueling Sword, but misses! Your actions do not go un-noticed...
Unfortunately, the skeleton is marked as friendly, so we can't but lose some karma at this point. All the more reason to stay away from Minos' estate.
To the south of here, amidst the tall red mountains and lava pools, we stumble on Horatio.
He doesn't seem to notice us, so we just take one of the skulls from the nearby grave:
After that, we head farther south - to... Hamlet, who else.
Hamlet apparently needs something to jog his memory. Guess what.
That's right, Yorick's skull. We hand it over to the prince of Denmark.
He's willing to join us, so we disequip Stalin first and then ditch him for Hamlet. Well, what can I say, Stalin sucks.
Now that we've sacked Stalin, we can still find him inside the same Libertarians' building:
He's quite upset, but wants to be reunited with us in hopes of a tidy profit. Nah, screw you, Stalin.
The thing is, now that we have Hamlet in our party, we could also recruit Horatio (who's only willing to travel together with Hamlet). That, however, would mean parting ways with Ghenghis Khan. Horatio is quite a skilled duelist...
...so the choice is yours. Shall we
1) recruit Horatio instead of Khan
or
2) keep Ghenghis Khan?
Furthermore, there were two places of interest mentioned to us as we explored the City on the Edge of Eternity: Limbo (another hub, basically) and the Hell Guard Recruitment Cave.
So, do we
a) head to Limbo first
(easier; more talking and side quests)
or
b) see if Richard can become a licensed Hell guard at the Hell Guard Recruitment Center and Training Camp?
(more challenging; opportunity to show off active skill usage and a couple of other neat gameplay features, such as time-travel )
The fate of our escape is in your hands!