The Let's Play Archive

Anachronox

by shockateer

Part 8: Episode 7.5: It is a Mysterium Technology




When we last left out heroes, they had just barely escaped from the planet Sunder as it exploded due to unknown reasons.

This update will be a little dull, but it also has an amazing cutscene, so it's a fair trade. Luckily this update has a low image content since waffleimages is on the fritz for now. Oh and google video kept crapping out while uploading, so it's youtube again this time.

Episode 7.5: It is a Mysterium Technology

We had made it off of the planet, but now that was the least of our concerns. We were..

Note: WATCH THIS.
Lost in Space (video). / Backup
Summary:  Without spoiling any of the humor…The ship drifts in space. Either the spike lead to an uncharted region of space or the shockwave just knocked them off course. They are eventually pulled in by a tractor beam from an unknown planet. After disembarking from the shuttle, they are attacked by robots. Rho then shoots a fireball out of nowhere. I'm making this summary particularly dull so that you WATCH THE MOVIE INSTEAD. It's worth it.  

How the hell did Dr. Bowman shoot a fireball? I tried QCF punch to no avail.

She did it again!




Grumpos and I continued the assault with our non-fireballs. Seriously, what the hell, doc?


HADOKEN! Ok, it was actually just the FlashPack.


Ouch. The robots were not Street Fighter fans.


Grumpos responded by healing the party. At least Bowman can't do that.

Before long we had junked the bots. Bowman had this gleam in her eye that said she wanted to talk science. It was the same look she had back on Sunder. Time to pull up a chair.


Rho: Can I cook or what? The spatial disturbance that split Sunder in half must have activated my MysTech. And if I'm right about its properties, this isn't the only slag that's active. I think every slag of MysTech around the galaxy can now release the energy that's always been dormant inside it. We were drifting in space for a few days before I noticed that my pocket was glowing. It was a slag I keep with me for sentimental reasons. I didn't want to jump to conclusions until I could test it out in an open space, but I was pretty sure I knew what it meant. I've been anticipating this for most of my adult life. So if the coast is clear, I wanna share my thoughts and findings with everyone before we move on. Let's use that worktop over there.

This should only take a few minutes, so humor me and pay attention. You're gonna love it.

Okay, so it appears that you need three things to cast MysTech. The first, and most obvious, thing you need is a slag of MysTech such as the one I employed so effectively in battle just now. As you saw, this one creates a damaging fire effect. For lack of a better name, let's call it FireSlag. If my speculation is correct, different slags have different powers, so we'll have to experiment with other slags we run across and test their effects. More on that in a minute.

The second thing you need in order to cast MysTech is an energy source. Once again, surprise, surprise, the theories in my book were correct. The glowing rodents, or glodents, originally found on Hephaestus along with Mystech, were not a coincidence. An alien technology related to MysTech maybe even the MysTech itself, must have irradiated the glodents as an energy source for the slags. MysTech consumes them as easily as our shield cells do. This means NRG is our ticket to using MysTech.

Okay. Now the last and most important element in casting MysTech…is YOU. Mystech needs a conduit to channel out its awesome energy. Without a person to cast it, MysTech is nothing. The slag can somehow read the caster's emotional condition based on various metabolic changes, determining the outcome of the casting in the process. Think of it like a super-advanced lie detector. I call it galvanic response polarity. Intense fear and anger may trigger one function, while panic and concern may trigger another. For example, the same FireSlag can both burn an enemy and extinguish a burning friend, just as a Bane slag that normally hurts an enemy will heal if cast on yourself.


Science boring...losing consciousness....



Rho: In other words, Mister Boots, all you have to do is get mad at bad people, and feel worried about friends. Mystech should take care of the rest. It's as easy as just wanting to use it.

By the way, this may interest you, Mister Matavastros. My studies of glodent consumption indicate that the speed in which they're used increases the power throughput of the Mystech. Take Harbigen's Binary Law of NRG and apply it to MysTech. You can use glodents at rates of 1, 2, 4, or 8 times the input level of the device.

Fatima? Can you project that binary level graph we discussed in the shuttle?


Rho: It's vaguely like valence shells of electrons. The NRG flow locks to certain steps or stages, each twice the cost of the last stage. Beyond eight times the base level input, certain values approach infinity, so that seems to be the hard limit.

Grumpos: No doubt, Doctor. No doubt. Perhaps you might summarize for the layman. In the big coat.

Me: Mm?

Rho: In a nutshell, whatever the NRG cost of operation is at its lowest level, the next level will cost you twice as much. Not only that, but I suspect higher-level devices may have lower-level effects built-in, such that different power levels might produce different effects.

Got it? Good. Because I'm done. Was that so awful?

We're all taking parting a grand experiment, people. Keep an eye out for more MysTech, and snap up all the glodents you can. We're gonna need 'em.


The bag of glodents was in a frenzy. They knew what we were saying. I assured Sparky that he would be safe, but I couldn't protect them all.

End: Mysterium Technology Solved.

Ok so this was just a minor update to introduce MysTech in battle. To summarize what Rho said, each slag of MysTech has some innate effect and power. For instance, Fire could be an effect and it's base NRG might be…10 NRG. NRG consumption is directly linked to damage. Next, you can use a slag at 2, 4, or 8 times its base NRG for added damage. Finally, if you cast MysTech on a friend instead of an enemy it will have some sort of healing effect. Fire will cure burns on a friend. Bane will heal. Freezo will cure frozen status, etc.

One thing that Bowman doesn't really discuss is MysAffinity. Each character prefers a certain element of MysTech. Their color of choice is shown in the following chart.


The farther away a color of MysTech is from your color on the chart, the lower the MysAffinity will be. Naturally, this makes Grumpos a fair fit for any slag of MysTech.

Dr. Bowman also fails to address two new stats, MysBeat and MysBlock. I'm pretty sure these work like Matk and Mdef. Even though Beat is used to refer to hit rate for weapons, I don't believe I've ever seen MysTech miss. MysBeefiness just didn't sound as good. Anyway, that's all we really need to know for now.

Next time we will explore the planet that has so graciously tractor beamed our ship and attacked us with killer robots.

Hopefully the next update comes soon. It all depends on school.