Atelier Sophie 2 Part #15 - Dreams of Raging Thunder

Part 15: Dreams of Raging Thunder

Update 13: Dreams of Raging Thunder

Before we start with making the thunder tool, let’s get a 101 on the Resolia.

That should get across that this catalyst is very unwieldy and situational, so I won’t be using it much.

Storm Vessel

Hmm. Thunderstorm, huh … How do I do this …

It must be quite tricky, if even you are stumped … Alright. I’ll take Ellie back to the Dream Tree then.

Good idea. I’d better check to see if there are any problems with the other Dream Cores.

We’ve got a huge work backlog buildin’ up, so I guess we’ll go take care of that.

Indeed … It is hardly the time to worry about work, but alas it is the only thing we can attend to right now.

I shall go and see if the earthquake affected any other areas.

Sounds good. I guess we’re all splitting up for the time being, then.

Indeed … We look forward to the fruits of your labor, Sophie.

Alright … Hm?

I don’t have much else to do, so I figured I could stay and help with something.

Thanks, I appreciate it. Could I talk to you about something, then?

Of course! I’m a great listener! So, so, tell me. What’s on your mind?

Err … I need a Dream Vessel to make something that can change the weather, but …

You can’t use the one Plachta made?

No. Since we need a thunderstorm this time, the Dream Vessel itself also needs to contain powerful lightning. But, can we even find that kind of material in Erde Wiege?

If that’s your problem, let’s go and ask Kati about it. She collects all sorts of info. I bet we could get our hands on some sort of clue.

I see … Good thinking. Time to head to the Crystal Sparkle Pavilion! Will you come with me, Alette?

Ahaha, of course! I’ll go anywhere you want!

The former is easily accessible and the latter is…who even knows, right? Kati’ll have answers.

Hi, Gnome. And hi to you too, Kati!

Ahaha … Looks like Kati isn’t in work mode right now.

Yes. She has been hard at work helping the mayor, and has now retired for the day. However, I would be happy to help with anything in Miss Kati’s place. Please tell me what you need.

Thanks. So, the thing is …

That’s right. It would be a big help if you have an idea of where we can get that kind of thing.

… It was a while ago, but I do remember hearing of a Lightning-Clad Adler being spotted in Erde Wiege. Only one sighting was ever reported, so it isn’t possible to say where it is, or if it even still lives. However, if you were to find the Adler, you would likely obtain the necessary materials from it …

Eh?!

Kati, you sure?!

Yeah. That Adler got slayed by some guards a while back. After their work was done, Pirka arrived and told them to leave the gathering to her. I’m pretty sure I saw her carrying away a huge bunch of the Adler’s feathers.

W-wow, I can’t believe Pirka did that …

I do not recall seeing such records in our files …

Psh. I can’t really write something like that down, can I?

The way Kati’s putting it, Pirka sounds guilty of stealing valor!

Y-yes, I do see your point …

Um, well, that is the story, I suppose. You should pay a visit to Pirka’s shop.

Got it. Thanks, Gnome.

And you too, Kati!

Come back for a meal next time!

Before I go, I had this quest outstanding. More cash

Welcome, Sophie! And welcome back, Alette.

Pirka, can you help us with something?

The Lightning-Clad Adler …? Oh yeah, now that you mention it …

Who knows? The storage in the back’s a royal mess …

You really had one?!

I got it ages ago. I’d totally forgot about the fluffy fella ‘til you brought it up. … Take it, Sophie. Free of charge!

What?! Um, are you sure?!

It’s gone unsold for so long that I’d forgotten about it. Better to give it away than just throw it out, right?

Gosh! Thank you, Pirka!

Huh?

… That voice. I feel like I’ve heard it somewhere before …

Sophie?

Are you alright? Not feeling sick or anything?

Um … No, sorry, I’m fine.

Well, if you say so.

Thank you so much for everything, Pirka. First the Soul Stone, and now this …

Ahaha, don’t mention it! Think of it as me thanking you for taking care of Alette. Plus, whenever Alette goes anywhere with you, she always comes back with a bunch of rare stuff. And it all goes flying off the shelves. So, you’re helping me out, too. Don’t you worry about that.

Aw, I’m flattered … Well, truthfully speaking, I do have an eye for valuable goods.

Hehe … No, you’re right. We were talking about you.

Thanks for all you do, Alette. Keep those fancy souvenirs coming!

One down! Now for the Windswept Plains…

All this time, there’s been a part of this earlygame zone inaccessible to us. It’s been gatekept behind the very tool we have to visit it to unlock.

Wooo! Nice going, Sophie!

Ahaha, thanks. But, the real challenge is still to come. I wonder if this recipe will really work …

Let me know if you’re running low on any materials. I’ll help you with any and all gathering!

Hehe, thanks. That’s really kind of you.

Well, we have all the materials already. Just chuck em all in and…

Crackling Dravite

Yay! You’re amazing, Sophie!

I take it this means you have completed the tool for summoning lightning.

Plachta! Ramizel! She finished it just now!

I got a little anxious seeing you having some trouble at first, but I knew you would pull through.

Yes … I feel a pang of jealousy, but you truly are an exceptional alchemist.

Ehehe … But, we can’t know if it’s really complete until we show it to Elvira … Oh, right! Actually, I have something I want to ask you two …

N-no way. I mean, this wasn’t the first time I heard it …

Hm … If you heard the voice the moment you got the material from Pirka …

The voice … of the material?

That is based on the rather fantastical theory of some alchemists being able to listen to materials subconsciously, yes? I thought that was merely an excuse invented by bitter alchemists jealous of their peers with natural talent …

I’ve never heard any voices myself either. I’ve just heard rumors. They say there are alchemists who can hear what it is the materials themselves wish to become.

This ability is one the other Mysterious series protagonists will also turn out to have. iirc from Sophie 1, Sophie first heard The Voice™ in a fairly whatever scene. It was a much bigger deal for Firis, Lydie and Sue. And now it’s a BFD for Sophie in this game.

Hah … It is always surprise after surprise with you, Sophie. I do not know why I continue to be shocked.

Ahaha, you’re so amazing. You really are the best grand–

Plachta’s got a god-tier face

Ehehe …

Hmph. What are you guys even talking about? I can’t keep up!

Ahaha, sorry, sorry. It’s not important.

I just found out that the voices I sometimes hear come from the materials themselves.

No, I heard that part. What I don’t get is what that actually means.

Do not worry, Alette. I am afraid I do not entirely understand it myself either …

Alright, we don’t have time to be standing around chatting. We need to get this to Ellie quick!

… Of course. Let’s get down to business.

It’s alright … No need to thank me.

Oof … *Huff* *Huff* …

… Did you push yourself too hard, Ellie?

Huh? N-no, I’m fine …

…

Elvira, is that true?

I … have to do this. Because we can’t get to the Dream Core in the volcano without this tool …

I know you’re not just tired from infusing that thing with your power. Tell us the truth.

…

Ellie!

Don’t get mad, Rami … I’ll tell you, okay … I really did just infuse the tool with my power. Only, it’s not something I can recover from by resting.

Urk?!

Didn’t I tell you to be honest with me if there’s ever a problem? If you had, we probably could have found … some other way …

No … It’s okay, Rami … I did it because I wanted to. Everything’s fine. It was my choice.

Ellie …

Is there no way we can restore the power Elvira has severed from herself?

It’s not easy to reattach a severed limb, right? This is basically the same thing … It’s not easy to get back.

We have to make sure Elvira’s power wasn’t severed for nothing …

We must get to the Dream Core, no matter what.

Elvira … Our goddess … sacrificed part of her own power to save our world …

Yeah … After everythin’ she did for us, we can’t wait this chance.

Elvira … Your power will not have been offered in vain.

Thanks … I’m counting on you all.

…

Heheh … Of course. I’m the goddess here, after all.

What brought that on?

Well, everything you guys turn out is just so amazing. I might’ve created Erde Wiege, but it’s nowhere near perfect. I thought it was at first, but then all these problems started piling up …

Elvira …

But that’s to be expected, right? After all, it’s not like Erde Wiege is an item. It’s a great, wide realm. With items, once you’ve made them, you’re done. A whole world must be a lot more trouble, don’t you think?

And once you add living creatures into the mix, the environment will change accordingly. Which is why you shouldn’t think of this place as a failure. It’s only natural for new problems to start to appear as the world changes and evolves.

You mean, this was always going to happen no matter what?

Yes. And whatever issues do arise simply need to be dealt with one by one. That is how this world can be sustained …

Yeah …!

I resynthesized the Dravite because I figured I’ll need way more uses for what’s to come.

Will you do the honors, Sophie?

O-of course …

Let’s go to where the Dreamspace Stone is. Don’t worry, everything will be fine.

Right …!

Just as advertised, the thunder opened the door! And we’ll still need to do some Gibeon platforming to make it through.

In the next zone, I took a detour to get this recipe book for Rainbow Neutralizer, the best neutralizer in the game and a prereq for the next tier of cloths.

And the elevator drops us off at… a hot spring?

An Onsen and a Palace

Hm, the volcano-heated groundwater must have bubbled up to form a small pool.

How perfect is this?! Having a soak while enjoying the scenery would be so luxurious …

… Then again, maybe not … Still, it would be nice to wash off the sweat.

We don’t have any bath supplies, though … Damn, I wish I’d brought a bathing suit with me …

Sure does suck to be a girl, huh? C’mon Diebold, let’s hop on in! It’s soakin’ time!

That would hardly be fair to the ladies. Besides, there’s work to be done. We can save it for another occasion.

Good idea. Let’s keep on moving!

Well hey, I dunno that taking a bath in mineral water atop a tall mountain while there’s a thunderstorm popping off all around us is the soundest of ideas. Still, we have to pass by the hot spring to get to our destination.
…Wait, that sure is a lot of Groll in the background.

Wait … It’s here.

Here …? But I don’t see anything …

Give me a second. I’ll make a path right away …

Whoa! Th-that just appeared outta nowhere!

It didn’t “just appear.” I made it. It’s an entrance that leads to the dimension with the Dream Core.

Astounding … You make constructing entrances to other dimensions seem like child’s play.

All these amazing goddess powers are goin’ way over my head.

Flattery will get you nowhere.

If the dimension containing the Dream Core is beyond here, it’s also the location of whatever is causing the anomaly, right?

Are we to presume it’s some kind of monster?

I don’t know … I can sense there’s something wrong, but I can’t tell what’s causing it.

Is everyone ready? Let’s go!

Music: Distant Lightning
Even among a soundtrack full of bangers, I want to call attention to this track; it’s in my top three for this game. Between the instrumentation and the chorus of a singer of Shimotsuki’s caliber, it reminds me of a Hymnos track from the Ar Tonelico/EXA_PICO games, another Gust property.

Phew … Looks like the path connected up properly.

Thanks, Ellie. You did great. Sophie, Plachta, thank you for your work too. We couldn’t have gotten this far without you.

I-I simply … did what I could.

Yeah, me too … I just did what any alchemist would’ve, that’s all.

Hehe …

Err … Ah, ahaha … Just an impulse … Sorry. I didn’t mean to treat you like a child …

N-no, it’s alright! I didn’t, um, hate it or anything …

My friends, we must hurry. The Dream Core is but a few strides away.

Oh, y-yes, of course! We have to hurry. Sophie … Let’s go.

Right …!

I guess this means we have to fight them before we can keep going.

Fine by me. Anything that dares stand in our way has got it coming!

What’s going on …? Why were there Groll here …?

They haven’t been in any of the dimensions containing a Dream Core before, right?

I got a bad feelin’ about this … Nothing good’ll come from mullin’ over it though. Let’s keep goin’.

You’re right. Everyone, let’s hurry on.

The next tier of weapons is coming online! In addition to collecting particular materials, you know how Sophie makes weapons for herself, Ramizel and Diebold? And how Plachta makes weapons for herself, Alette and Olias? Doing Twin Actions between permutations of those trios will unlock the next tier of weapons.

Now that we’re here, we need the Dravite to light up the Thunderbolt Palace’s infrastructure. Opening doors, turning on elevators, and activating lifts. We’ll also need to turn all this off on occasion.

…With this dungeon gimmick, we’d have had to make the Dravite anyway, even if there wasn’t that door in the volcano.

There are other kinds of Groll here too, all named after various ill sentiments and negative emotions.

That should get across the gimmick for most of the dungeon well enough.

Now, for this pale Groll, a Paranoia…

I went out of my way to beat it up because it drops the last material needed for the next round of weapon upgrades. Now let’s go do just that!

The next batch of weapons uses Harmonium, the best ingot in the first three Arland games as well as the OG Mysterious trilogy. For this synthesis, I have a ton of Light links to play around with. After triggering Element Switch and Link Morph…

This happens! I’ve been doing very well hitting Light thresholds (for All Stats+10 and an L-shaped Light component on the product), but I’m lacking in components to do nearly as well for Lightning thresholds.

Adding that extra ingredient and its Lightning links/components gave me the critical mass to max out Lightning for ATK-SPD+10. Needless to say, it’s got the endgame weapons trait trio I assembled earlier. Moreover, since each of the next batch of weapons requires two Harmonium and the Harmonium produced here will have an ample number of Light components and links, I’ll have no trouble getting enough Light links to add an extra Magical ingredient when synthesizing them.

This is the best trait loadout for armors. Evolve the Body in particular is a trait that I’d have had to beat up postgame bosses several times in L&S on max difficulty to get my hands on; through ~~greenhouse abuse~~ the quirks of Sophie 2’s crafting system, it's something I could get as early as the midgame point. And making a Rainbow Neutralizer lets me make…

Like with Harmonium and ingots, Velvetis has historically been the best cloth in many previous titles. Now I can upgrade my armor too! But first, weapons.

Even with the ability to add an extra Fuel, Gas and Magical ingredient, I have to make hard compromises when I have three or more separate thresholds to target. Even with a 7x7 grid and restricted panels! You can tell from this screen that it’s mathematically impossible to max out all the effects for Sophie’s next staff with just 41 tiles to play with. Alette also gets screwed a bit for the same reason.

But it works out well for everyone else. Plachta’s next weapon being Exhibit A. Once the weapons are all done…

All Stat Power and Tyrant King going live yields colossal stat boosts for most of the party–Ramizel took a slight hit to her DEF because I’d resynthesized her Avalanche Naginata and put the trait combo on it offscreen, and the Avalanche Naginata has a +DEF effect while the Gloria Wing doesn’t. (This is also why her stat gains from the Gloria Wing are relatively muted compared to the rest of the party’s.) I should explain what the top-row effects do:

Rigorous Nature: reduces Sophie's wait time by 20% and increases her stats by 30% in inclement weather.
Imperial Blood: Plachta recoups 20% of her damage output as HP and recovers 40% of her HP when defeating an enemy.
Proof of Honor: Ramizel's attacks do extra Aura damage and she gets a 20% boost to her stats against strong enemies.
Rusty Rivet: Alette's critical hits do 40% more damage and have an 80% chance of debuffing enemy defense.
Violent Rumbling: Olias' attacks do extra Lightning damage during thunderstorms and have small odds of inflicting paralysis.
Disaster of Lore: Diebold’s attacks do extra Magic damage and have small odds of poisoning opponents.

Now, armors!

I couldn’t get enough links to add any extra ingredients for the alchemists’ new armor, sadly. Still, this is a solid upgrade over what they all currently have.

I had better luck for all the rest’s armors, though. Now, befores and afters:

In this update alone, our party members have seen certain stats go up by more than 50% and we’re already seeing Olias push 1000 ATK and Alette push 1000 SPD–all off the back of Harmonium-tier weapons, Velvetis-tier armors, and the best traits I can get for both. Develop the Body and Evolve the Body stack and scale off of units’ base stats, hence why the stat boosts from the new armors are so much higher than they are on paper. As for the armors’ more opaque effects:

Handy Pockets reduces wait time after using items by 30% and heals 15% of HP when using an item that issues time cards (e.g., the Breezy Aroma).
Brimming Magic restores 10% of damage incurred as MP.
Phantom Camo reduces chances of being targeted by 30% and increases Critical rate by 30% during sunshine.

With all THAT done, let’s finish exploring the Thunderbolt Palace.

Starting from the Thunderstorm Chapel, there are electric beams blocking our way that need to be defused; making the weather sunny will do that.

Once we’re at this final zone, there’s a big locked door leading to the Dream Core; we have to flip some switches to unlock it.

As such! The second one will need some more work to reach.

Some more work as in platforming and weather changing. But once we’re up there…

We can now proceed to the Dream Core!

Crisis

Huh?! That sound!
It’s the sound of a dragon fighting with some other beast.

Wait…a dragon…what especially dangerous dragon is still at large somewhere out there in Erde Wiege and how did it beat us here

Everything’s gone quiet …

Ramizel. That sound …

It seems we should prepare for the worst … Everyone … don’t let your guard down for even a single second.

So it was you, Zmei!

What?! No!

Damn it! And after we made it all the way here …

Everyone, we need to take that thing down right now!

But look at the Dream Core! We’ve gotta hurry and get out of here …

The Dream Core hasn’t been shattered yet. I’m sure there’s still something we can do! Diebold!

Say no more!

Everyone, Ramizel’s right. Let’s take the monster down before it can do any more damage!

A Groll Aura? Now THAT’S different from before.

First things first for the rematch: Zmei gets buffed by thunder, so let’s change the weather and strip him of those buffs.

This time I got unlucky with my Pure White Corrosion status effects landing and nuking Zmei’s aura in a timely manner, but the Ennui Mirror successfully put him to sleep, making him miss his turn. Once his aura went down…

The Ennui Mirrors inflicted an extreme weakness to magic damage and a physical weakness on Zmei, so he rolled over and died to two Twin Actions without even getting to attack the party. I wanted to finish this with a Dual Trigger, but he just died too fast for it.

We… We did it! We defeated the Zmei!

Huh? What is that?!

… Where’d it go? What was that …?

Sophie, what are you doing? We must hurry and check on the Dream Core!

Oh … Of course!

My goal was to slay you. I’ve lived many a year believing that was my destiny as a knight …

Now … you are naught but a phantom of my past. The sorry dregs of a bygone history …

Damn it. What the heck …? Why would the Zmei go after a Dream Core?

Maybe it has something to do with the Groll just now?

What do you mean?

I just saw a Groll emerge from the Zmei after we defeated it …

But what could that mean?

I don’t know … It disappeared right away …

You don’t think the Groll was responsible for the Zmei attacking the Dream Core, do you …?

What are Groll really, anyway? … Elvira, even you don’t know, right?

Y-yeah … I really don’t know what kind of monster they are. But, if the Groll are actually involved in all this, that’d probably mean they’re also the reason why my guardian went berserk before.
Remember that from Part 7? When Elvira’s guardian in the Snowy Corridor attacked Sophie and co., and then looked like it’d been exorcised of something nasty after it was defeated?

A kind of monster that can possess other monsters … But what would the Groll want with the Dream Cores?

We can consider that question later. What we need to do now is find a way to fix the Dream Core! Elvira, please hurry and repair the Dream Core!

I can’t …

What? Why?! Weren’t you the one who made the Dream Cores in the first place?

All I can do is create new Dream Cores. I don’t know anything about fixing them …

Then all you’ve gotta do is make a new one and plonk it down. You can do that, right?

Technically I can, but … the cracked Dream Core here is still connected to the land. There’s no saying what could happen the moment I try replacing it …

…