Part 19: Episode 18: We All Float On

With a minimum amount of fuss and only one insane princess later we are free to head to the Valley of Corrupted Gravity. Are you ready to get lost? I sure am.


Tiberoan Guard: not having a pass issued by the Court Pass through. !!
Oh, excuse me sir! This is a pass for the Valley of Corrupted Gravity!!

No. Actually this is a receipt for 15 stardust from Martel. PSYCH

Tiberoan guard: The gate! Open the gate!!


Tiberoan Guard: Advance with caution sirs!


This looks like a healthy natural environment


Welcome to the Valley! The rules of nature are a bit...bent here. Huge chunks of floating land, shit flying up and down. You know, the usual. Meru is unimpressed and kicks a rock over the edge.

Dart: “Meru!! Watch out”


DO NOT FUCK WITH GRAVITY. That shit ain’t safe, Meru.

Rose: "It still has the backwash from the Dragon Campaign. The collision of
the magic power of the Dragoons and Winglies can distort nature quite
a bit."


Meru: "I'm not just following you guys for that! Let's go guys! We gotta find
the Gehrichs!

Now that she has made an ass of herserlf she’s got her game face on. This isn’t a laughing matter guys! I certainly was not more excited to be doing something cool than actually rescuing Lynn.


We hop across those stones And head down and right to a daaaayum nice item. Speed Up is a reusable item that can be used once a battle. For the next three turns whoever it was used on has double their speed stat. I’m not sure if it just doubles base or with items, but either way it turns even slow pokes like Albert into murder machines.

Even if its just base with some equipment we have coming up we could get Albert up to 100 in a few turns. Meru can go to 140 with it right away. Which is god damn hilarious. She can grind additions so fast with that.


If we head straight up that path we can find a rock firefly heal point. Welcome to addition grind ciiiiity.


Here we have two Killer Birds and an Erupting Chick.


Killer Birds can be obnoxious. Ultrasonic can cause confusion with whoever it hits. They can also do a drain life attack, but they are pretty weak defensively so the little healing really doesn’t matter.


Errupting Chicks merely call in big brother who clothes lines your entire party.


Dragonflys are a lightning element enemy that shoots lightning at your entire party. They’d be more scary but they usually come alone. So their extra toughness is counteracted by getting dog piled.


Now THESE are the guys we’re looking for. If the dice roll comes up right you can beat the snot out of them for quite a long time.


Physical Attack Barrier prevents all non-magical damage. Sometimes they will just spam it five times in a row. Obnoxious if you just want to get somewhere. Handy if you want to get through some additions.


The other enemy they usually show up with are Rocs. They can do wind damage to all your party members. Or they can divebomb a single person with a chance of stun.


This is where the annoying part of the Valley kicks in. Most of the rocks like the one Dart is on float between a few different pathways. This area really isn’t that bad to get through, but it IS easy to miss out on the item. Which is fortunately only a magic attack item. I said fuck it and moved on with life. Nothing in the immediate future is weak to fire any way.


And screen three is where navigating REALLY gets fun. See those bright spots all over.


Oh god I think I’m going to throw up. So yeah. Not only do we have to jump around on a lot of rucks, we also need to shift between vertical orientations. Walking left and right while reversed are normal, but forward and back are flipped. I guarantee at least once you will be mashing furiously forward while wanting to go back and going WHY ISN’T THIS SPOT ACTIVATING.


Weeee.


Fortunately the inversion path leads us to a pretty nice item. Better defense than Dart’s current hat, boosts magic attack, and he gets SP when hit with magical attack. Albert could also wear it, but if I go dragoon with Albert it isn’t to use magic attacks. It’s to beat things in the face or Rose Storm.


We need to back track to the first free standing rock island on this screen now. Basically the rock that floats over to the right edge is on a triangle path between three points. We COULD just go to the boss(this really isn’t that long an area). But then we’d miss out on a handy item! Talisman prevents instant death attacks from enemies.

I’ll actually rarely use it when fighting instant death enemies outside a few circumsances. Magic Sig Stone will keep normal enemies from using their death attacks. And bosses may just target someone else. So I’d rather just increase my killing power. HOWEVER we can use it to cheese the shit out of a disc 3 boss fight. And its got a few other times to shine. So it’s going in the pack for a rainy day. Then back to the first stone and up to the boss.

Dart: "!!"


Shana: "Oh, look!"

Dart: "Virage!!"

Meru: "Huh? What the heck is that?"


Rose: "What is worse is it has the complete form...."

Meru: "Guys! I'm asking you what is that!"

Dart: "It might be the real cuase of the distortion of the valley."

Meru: "Wow! That's scary."

Dart: "Shana?"


Shana: "Don't go! It's dangerous to go!"

Meru: "Yes, we gotta go. We're not gonna make it to the Gehrichs without
going over this thingamajig. What are you looking at!?"


No. No we don’t. Cause we are crazy, but not nearly as crazy as you. Yet.

Dart: "Is there no way but to advance?



Meru: "Hey, nothing can be done without meeting the Gehrichs, right? What
about Lynn, Dart's memento, and this Lloyd that you are looking for."

Dart: "Worrying won't help. Besides, it might not start to move this time."

That’s bullshit and you know it, Dart. I mean, there is a save point right there! Also your girlfriend wakes up horrible eldritch beasts when she isn’t vaporizing things that scare her.


The whole area starts shaking, even Meru starts doubting the logic of coming to a place known for being horribly deadly.

Shana: "Everybody run!!

It’s too late for that!


Virage fight #2! It’s definitely not going to be the last. But it’s our first versus a complete one like Rose said. Also Legend of Dragoon really loves to give things extra eyes.


First thing first. Rose tosses the Speed up on to Albert. He’s by far my hardest hitter right now with normal attacks. Right now he’s switched back into Gust of Wind Dance despite not having finished Rod Typhoon. I’m more worried about damage than getting SP for him.


Some jack ass on the internet said you could use the Magic Sig Stone to lock down Virage and murder it before he moved. I thought he was a god damn liar because it’s a boss, but hey its in the FAQ! He’s a god damn liar don’t do this.


Now that he’s rolling Albert is hitting pretty good. Like the partial Virage we COULD kill the arms or body but it really wouldn’t be a good use of our time. The head goes, it goes. And the head only has around 1500 HP so this shouldn't’t really be too bad.


OH GOD.


The downside of leaving the limbs alive is that its a good chunk of his damage potential. Really though it doesn’t hit hard enough where I ever really had to scramble. If I wanted to deal with them I’d have had Albert pop into a dragoon and do Wing Blaster then Rose do an all enemy attack item. It probably would have taken the limbs out for a few turns and left us somewhat clear to swing.

The other hand actually has an instant death attack. He just didn’t feel like using it this time though. Huzzah.


However: The head has the most damaging attack.




Shiiiiiiit. That was basically 60% of Rose’s life in one shot. I roll the dice afterwards and toss out the Healing Ball I got earlier which turns into a Healing Breeze Dart and Albert are healed to full and Rose goes back into safe territory.


And just in case you were wondering, yes it can curb stomp you. Which hurts less than one might think considering the size of a Virage.


The Virage decided to eye laser Rose again. Instead of wasting a turn on a healing item I have her switch to Dragoon and drop an Astral Drain.


Which, uh, frankly did way more damage than I expected.


It’s usually kind of a let down but hit for damn near 300 damage which is enough to finish the fight.




Virage: 0 Dragoons: 2


Watch


The Virage nearly stumbles back into oblivion but catchs its feet.




Shana is still dumb as a brick at times and just stands there with her jaw hanging open.


Rose puts on her WHAT THE FUCK face. For pretty good reason.


Shana starts glowing like back in the cave vs. the badly translated Ouroboros. Dart is actually the only one here that has seen it before since poor Lavitz is dead. Dis shit just ain’t natural.






And through the power of Deus Ex Machina blasts that fucker...somewhere Lord knows if he’ll land up or down in this joint.


Virage slams into that rock on its way out to add insult to injury.






Ve have vays of making you talk, mein fraulein.


Now there is a statement that is generous at best.


Shana: "Da-rt. It's okay now.”

Well. At least Shana’s deep dark super weapon ways are revealed to everyone in the party. Gotta keep that sort of thing out in the open. So they know to plant the off switch in your back in case things start looking blasphemous.


Rose: (The power that can awake the sleep of 11,000 years.... Is that rancor
against us? The rancor against Dragoons awakening the Virage!? Or....
is that something to do with Shana?)

Dart: (Shana....)

We now have to talk to everyone before we can move on to our next area.


Shana: "But we have overcome everything, and we will continue. Because I am
not alone now. Everybody is with me and, I have you...Dart. You make me strong.
I can do it! I can leave any time!"


Meru: "Now we can go straight to the Gehrich Gang! We can go rescue Lynn!"

Meru is the type that does not have the good sense to get out of the rain. Legendary beast that should have died 11,000 years ago? Hell yeah let’s do it again.


Albert: "But it seems that this is not that simple for her. The existence of
Dragoons and the existence of Virages should have ended 11,000 years
ago. But they were brought to life around us. I think we have to go forward
to find out more about this."


Dart: "I agree."

Haschel: "I don't know what is happening to Shana, but she is trying to solve
that alone. She has become a woman."

Dart: "I guess so."

Haschel: "It's not the time to talk about this but.... It's time for you to
change."

Dart: "Me?"


Haschel: "Doesn't matter. Your Dragoon Spirit is waiting. We have to think about going.”

You know what is more scary than Virage? Haschel has to take over giving Dart relationship advice. And now to see the best for last.


Rose: “Everybody knows that."

I just love how everyone else is like “Man this must be a tough time for her.” or “It’s time for you to be a real man and be there for her.” And Rose is all WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH HER. Clearly the most reasonable response.


I haven’t seen such inspiring word’s since Cloud leading everyone up to fight Sephiroth.



Next episode! Bandits! Hidden schemes!