Part 5: Cress and Mint

: I wonder if they've come back? Ami, I shall avenge your death!!!

As the screen fades out here, there's the sound of a horse's hooves moving at some speed.



: Excellent work. Heh, I had no idea he had a son as young as you...
: It was you guys, wasn't it? You guys attacked the village!
: Hmph, I know nothing of that.



: Thanks for the pendant, kid. Take the kid's weapons and throw him in the dungeon.



: Now, at last...



: (That's...)

I guess strange thngs appearing in a dude's mirror is a common occurence in Euclid or wherever we are now since the other guys are unfazed by it.



Soldier: Stop stalling!
Solder: You'll last a lot longer in here if ya keep yer mouth shut. Got it?



This is a bit of a predicament; we're currently stuck in a cell... somewhere. We have no idea where we actually are, no means of escape and, umm, we're also lacking something else.



Noticably, every weapon we owned (at least that Cress can equip) has been removed from our inventory. Anyway, we need to just wait around a bit for the event to continue. It's nothing interesting.



The text goof here is my fault for once. It's easily readable if you just wait around near the bottom of the cell.



???: Give me your hand.
: W-who are you?
???: Please, reach through the hole. I want to help you.
: An earring?
???: Hold it up toward the wall. I know you can escape. You must believe.
: Hey, wait! Who are you?
: Well, I guess I'll give this earring a shot.



: I'll have to go meet her and say thanks.

Unfortunately, there's a bit of a problem here...



: How could this be... That hand felt warm...

Somehow, a woman who's dead and chained to a wall on the other end of the room managed to give us an earring that is able to explode walls in a perfect door shape.



: Who could do such a thing?
: This might come in handy.

...Yes. He really goes from mourning a dead woman to "oh well, free sword!" that quickly. The only thing I cut out here was a prompt asking if you want the sword or not (you do). Unfortunately, it's just a Long Sword which is what Cress starts the game with anyway and a replacement here makes sense since otherwise you might be giving the player a better weapon than they had before. Even if they buy a Saber or Rapier at Euclid, this is still an improvement in a sense since it's a balanced sword; the Saber has a higher Slash and much lower Thrust, and the Rapier is the other way around.



Now that we have it, though, we can just casually open any cell door we like. In this place at least; there's only two other cells in this room and we have to go to one of them before we can leave.



So let's get this free Cheese and get outta here. There's no reason to stick around so let's just walk on out and take down anyone who gets in our way!



Well, so much for that idea then. Maybe we can find an alternative way out instead. Since we're underground, presumably, there's likely to be... something we can take.



You have a sword. You know what to do here. You've done it before.

...Fine, I'll go to that other cell first if I must.



: No injuries?
: Who are you?
: I'm Cress. And your name is...?
: Mint. Um, thank you so much for freeing me.
: We should get out of here as fast as we can.
: Yes, let's go!!! Please free my mother, too!!! She's in a cell over that way.
: Really...?



: I didn't see...anybody over there.
: We better hurry!
: But... I know I heard my mother's voice! She kept telling me that everything was going to be OK. I know it was my mother...

You can't take her into the cell with her mother's body since Cress stops just before you enter. We can't just walk out either, so that leaves but one thing left... sewer dungeon.



: I wonder how we could open it?

Same way as we did everything else. Not sure how we can "pry" bars open the same way we could feasibly do it with a cell door lock but that's how we do it.



Oh well, it's dungeon time. Now that we have Mint as a party member, we have no use for those Apple Gels we picked up earlier. That's Mint's thing;



She's a healer. Or, rather, a Methodist which might sound familiar. Don't worry about that for now; we'll see why that's the case later (it's intentional). For now, just go with it.



Most of the treasure in the Aqueducts is the same old stuff we've gotten before but this is earlier than it need be. The Lemon Gel is the Apple Gel but better; it restores 60% of someone's HP.



At level 5, Cress picks up his second arte; Swallow Dance is fairly useful for hitting aerial enemies in particular. It's nothing great, especially due to the TP cost making it far from self-sufficient, but it gives us a reason to maybe use an Orange Gel on Cress at some point at least.

Shortly after the dungeon entrance, the game decides to give us a tutorial on save points of all things. I think we'll live without going over that.



The first shield is, as you'd imagine, not particularly good. With one exception, shields are only usable by Cress so at least he's the only one that has to put up with them. Speaking of things just for Cress!



Savory is one of four stat raising items we can find. It raises a character's max TP by 5% and whilst it's not, necessarily, just for Cress it'll serve him best as there's some stuff that only he can do. For the time though, I'd just hold onto this (and the other three).



The Ochre Jelly is one of two enemies that are new to this place and it's the only one that would spawn for me. I'd rather not spend more time down here than need be, so I didn't stick around for the other one. Either way, the O.Jelly is pretty uninteresting aside from having a bit more HP than anything else we've encountered thus far.



If you really want a weapon with a good Thrust stat, the Rapier's the best for a while. It even outclasses the Knight Saber in that regard; for the next boss (which you can see in the top left corner here) it's both useful and useless simultaneously. We'll get to why in a minute.



Before that, free money is always nice and it's a fairly decent amount (relatively) too! Anyway, something about a boss?

Naturally, being a boss we're able to take him down in no time!



The Giant Slugs are unique to this fight and are the reason why the Rapier is a better choice over the Long Sword. The Spiny Devil, likewise, is the reason why it isn't. The slugs are more annoying in my opinion so I opted to use the Rapier. Let's take a look at our new friend, shall we?



Sadly, that's a weakness we can't quite abuse but he's easy anyway so it doesn't matter too much. His dark attacks would be a problem if they mattered in the slightest, but on Normal this guy's a push over. Without the slugs he's nothing threatening; the Swallow Kick takes this guy out of the air and knocks him back too. Do that a few times, he's stuck at the edge of the screen like the boar that came before him. On higher difficulties, this fight does become a full-fledged boss fight worthy of Overcome Difficulties and everything. We'll see that later though.



: Mint, look out!!!
: Ack!?
: Cress!
: I should've been more careful...

A slug from the sewer aqueducts hit him with its one attack. In combat, this would be nothing. In cutscene, it's a big deal.



: Hang in there, Cress! They must be after us... We better get out of here!

As the screen fades out here, there's the sound of a horse's hooves moving at some speed...





Mint Adnade official render.