Part 8: Side effects of a monster-based economy.

Alright, there was one vote for where to go to next, and that goon chose East so now we're going to explore the eastern half of the residential area. First stop is Nico's House! She lives right across the street from Mamoru.


Actually, when you arrive you have to talk to Nico's dad first, but all he says is Well hello! Mamoru! and that triggers Nico's entry.
: This city is full of dust, it makes me sick. It hasn't got one bit of culture attached to it. I still remember your dad telling us all kinds of stories when we were wee kids. When he used to tell us about his adventures to get to this city Monsbaiya, the city by the tower. More than any of the stories of his courage, I enjoyed his story about a city he passed along the way. In the city would be a park where the people would come to rest. In the park would be a fountain, always spurting clear water into the air. Those elegant people... they would sometimes have festivals... or concerts...[/b]
: So you wanna go there? || I'm not interested.
: Not necessarily. I mean, yes I want to go. But my home town is here. I want to make thi splace better. Wouldn't you like to see this city become a better place, Mamoru?
: Well, of course. || Doesn't matter.
: People have trouble just getting by on their day to day lives, either emotionally or financially. That's why I sometimes volunteer in fund raising. If each on eof us could contribute even just a little, we could make this city that much more cultural. You should be more cultural too, Mamoru.
: You should be more feminine. || I'm plenty cultural as it is.
: If you consider yourself plenty cultural, Mamoru, then I would be considered plenty feminine.
Ouch. I actually claimed to be cultural since I didn't want to piss her off, considering the fortune teller lady said the two of us are a perfect match. Oh, and because I havn't done one for Nico yet

Azure Dreams Instruction Manual posted:

NICO SOUTHEY
Female: 15 years old.
A long time friend and neighbor of the hero. Every morning Nico comes to the hero's home to wake him.

Anyway, that's enough of her for now. Onward!


: I shall become a monster tamer true to my legendary family name, Rode. It must be nice that your family still exists.
This is outside Ghosh's house. Ghosh and Selfi are brother and sister. As you can tell, she is also a complete bitch that insults us as much as Ghosh does. For obvious reasons, I hate her.
Oh, you can go inside the house, but there is nothing to do there. They have a butler who guards a mysterious doorway (I'm assuming to their monster hut) and says that both Ghosh and Selfi are out.
Moving on!


The tower is perfect for a brat like you. It keeps you away from the city. Ha, ha, ha... Your father was an excellent hunter, but you? What will become of you. Just don't do anything stupid to annoy Wreath!
In another house is this woman with the name of Aunt. I'm pretty sure she is not the same Aunt as in the prologue of the game. But now I'm really curious to learn just what Mamoru did as a child to make everyone hate him so much.


This is Monsbaiya's library. Considering how Nico just complained the town has no culture what so ever, I'm not too surprised to see that the town's library is tiny and contains one old guy.
: No particular reason || Tell me about the tower.
The monster tower... There should be something in that book...
The old man walks over to the bookshelf...and it falls over.


This town is in worse shape than I thought. Well, I suppose that's what you get when you have a town populated by treasure hunters and their families. And on to the next place!


That you're trying your best at the monster tower. Cool!
This kid's just kinda sitting here in this house. No parents watching over him, especially not this "dad" he refers to. Seriously, what the hell kind of town is this?
Also, this house has a cat you can talk to. It makes a meow sound effect when you do so. I'm assuming this is a remnant from the Japanese version of Azure Dreams which had voice acting. Moving on...


Oh yeah, that man Wreath has been telling us to go talk to? This is him.
This windmill is used to grind wheat. For 100 years, this windmill has been so useful for the townspeople. But all of the sudden, its wings stopped. All we need to do is pour some of Guru's oil on the axle... but... I broke Guru's oil pot. The magic pot produces Guru's oil on its own. You can't make Guru's oil without Guru's oil pot. A legend says that when Guru's oil pot was found, there was another pot at the 15th floor of the tower as well. But the 15th floor of the tower is a place where few have reached. Mamoru. Let me ask you... Do you think you could go for me? I'll give you a reward of course.
: I'll go and get it for you. || No way!
What? You said you'd go? Oh, thank you.
The fifteen floor of the tower isn't too far off. I got to the twelfth floor pretty easy, how much more could three floors be?

Anyway that's it for this tour. Now to check up on the businesses really quick. First stop, we're going to to the Restaurant next on the list is Sandsand ($60)
: This dish uses the sand fish that cross the desert from the north in large schools ever year. The sand fish are about the size of the palm of your hand, and live in the sand. Underneath its tough scales, its meat is soaked with oil and water to help it get across the desert. Its great taste is loved by everyone. Our sand fish sandwich is called the Sand-sand. When the chef makes something using this fish, he can amazingly improve the flavor.
Wow...that's actually pretty clever. I couldn't think of a better name for a Sand fish sandwich. (By the way, say that three times fast. Sand fish sandwich, sand fish sandwich, fand shif-- yeah. I don't think saying "sandvich" makes it any easier.)
Anyway, Ghosh comes in as per usual, orders the Special and this time he says something a little bit different to us.
: Mamoru? It's you. Fancy meeting you here. By the way... What you're having suits you better.
: You only consider the price. || Did you ever taste it?
: Well, it's got this nice gentle taste that... No, no, no. I've never had such a thing in my life.
BUSTED! Ha! I don't know if this is just the next thing he says since now we're buying pricier things, but this made me laugh. I love it when Ghosh gets made fun of. Anyway, now to the blacksmith to get a new house.


: I say no to fenderbenter (...what?) || I am the entertainment!
Mamoru, baby. Let's get along. To commemorate our friendship, I'll tell you something very juicy. Theatre! Mamoru, listen. The future is an age of culture! This town Monsbaiya is going to be famous for its theater. You said you were going to make money in the tower. How about building a theater and hiring me, Fon, the entertainer?! I promise you sold out shows every night. Theater that is, don't forget it!


I have to warn you guys, despite what it sounds like, you actually do not get money from this, but it is needed for the last girlfriend whom we aren't going to see for a while, so no hurry. Oh, and I went ahead and got the House Expansion, so we can store more crap in our safe.
Next, I pay a visit to the Clinic again.


Seeing that this clinic doesn't have the sufficient equipment, you've come to make a donation toward building a hospital.
: No. || Yes, let me make a donation.
Haven't you heard? I'm rich!
So that means... What!? You're making a donation? But Daddy Tonka the carpenter says it'll cost 4000 Gold to build.
: Money is not a factor. || I don't have enough money.
Wow! Is the money legal!?
: How could you say that! || I'm a tamer, remember?
I know, I know. You earned it at the tower, right? You were a rowdy kid that loved to tease people, but I know that someday you would become. A great man. He, he, he.
So we hand over $4000 to this guy and we get a new hospital! Maybe we can buy herbs cheaper from this guy afterward.


Anyway, that's enough of the town for now. I spent $1000 on the city, so thats why we have so little money now, at least in comparison to what we had before. It's alright, it's not like we'll get it back really soon. I'm bringing in Blue October and I'm going to fuse Baloo to it to teach Blue October DeRock. I also want to teach Blue October DeHeal, but we'd need another bait monster for that, and I can't fuse Blue October to Wendy yet, because Wendy is a higher level.

Floor 1


First thing we do is get this fusion out of the way. Say farewell to Baloo, and say hello to DeRock!


I'll get around to making an animated GIF of this sometime later. Tonight's GIF is focused on Snow Shoot.


Oh right, I also use that Blue Sand I brought in. Time to make my shield awesome!


Just like elemental wands and shields, there are elemental swords. These are worth using because they have a natural 5 ATK. The Vital sword is tied with it, and anything more powerful is extremely rare. Since changing equipment doesn't take a turn, expect me to abuse this.


Oh yeah, this is a Leva Fruit, the thing you have to feed your familiars to bypass the level dominance from fusion. I'll hold on to this instead of selling it later, so I can fuse Wendy to Blue October a bit early.

Floor 2


: You look so handsome inside the tower. Must be the darkness. Ha ha ha ha.
Wha-wha...where's Ghosh? Bitch, where's my punching bag? I wanted that free Medicinal Herb, dammit!
Unfortunately, since we started the Selfi side-quest, our Ghosh floors will be replaced with her a few times.

Floor 3


First things first, I started in a room with two Trolls. Time to show off how useful Snow Shoot is. At this level, I don't think I was this powerful with Flame Sword from Mic yet, and Snow Shoot hit everything in the room. It also costs 2 MP, which is way more than Flame Sword.


Not shown is me feeding Blue October a Hazak seed. Unlike the useless Hazak Herbs, Hazak seeds permanently increase the eaters stats, but if fed to Mamoru, it'll disappear once you leave the tower like usual. U-Boats have pretty nice ATK as well, so this just makes it even better.


Yeah, this will happen some times. It's not unheard of to find two elevators on the same floor. It's very rare to get them in the same room and two squares away from each other. Enjoy the sight.


Got one this early, so I don't have to panic.


Still waiting on that Gold Sword...


Remember when I said Snow Shoot was pricy? I'm paying for it already. After two floors, I have to send Blue October home because it ran out of MP and I don't have anything to refill it with. I'm doing the rest of this trip solo.

Floor 4


I promptly regret this choice because now I'm in a room with four monsters. I think I even had a useless herb in my inventory at this time. If I fed that to Blue October, it would get a little MP back and let me use Snow Shoot once. Either way, I still take these guys down. I'm pretty much using the Blizzard sword only when I need the power suddenly, my Life Wand is still very awesome.


Now you see why I waited for a diamond shield?

Floor 5


Even better. 9 DEF now.


Now I'm doubly regretting sending Blue October back. This fruit, when fed to a monster, freezes it's MP so it can't lose any no matter how much does anything. And it probably would have given a little bit itself for being a food item fed to a monster.

Floor 6



I'm starting to think there is seriously something to this safe myth. Half my inventory is equipment again.
Oh, and having those two Pillar balls (screw it, I'm saying orbs now) is totally awesome. I'm not using it much now because my Diamond Shield is holding up pretty good.


I'm actually kinda glad I get this. Later on, the monsters that will pierce my Diamond Shield and do significant damage are the Volcano and Griffon, and this will fend them off by giving me a water-Genus for defense. With a Blizzard sword, I'm practically water-elemental now.

Floor 7


Alright, I get the picture. Next time I'll wait to see if I absolutely need to toss away my monster before sending him back.

Floor 8


Dammit, and it caught me when I was using the Blizzard Sword too!


Oh hell yes. This item is awesome. It automatically kills all the enemies in the room.
Let me say that again for emphasis. It automatically kills all enemies in the room. The only problem is that I don't think you get EXP for those kills, but it's worth not dying.


Screw it. Eggs are freaking common in this game. What the hell was I thinking when I said they were rare and precious commodities in the game before? You find them all over the place!

Floor 9


Ow...this was not a good situation. Two Clowns and a U-Boat. I break out the orbs for this.


Had to show off this move. Once again, I'm surrounded by two Clowns (one just entered the room) and a U-Boat. This kills all three, instantly.
Oh, and it turns out you DO get the EXP for killing enemies with Acid Rain. Awesome.  I totally know what I'm going to do if I run into a Monster Den! 

Floor 10


Owch...crap. Now Clowns are going to murder me, and if I run into Krakens, I'm not going to be adequately prepared to face them. On a side note, this makes all the Fire-elemental enemies much easier now. Volcanos are nothing.

Floor 11


Griffons too. It takes about three hits to down them, but they would do so much more even with my Diamond shield.


Oh yeah, Volcanoes have this ability too. It's pretty much the same as the Ice Rock orb and DeRock, it's an obstacle that is made that distracts enemies. Unfortunately, the Volcano knows to swing for me instead of it's own rock.

Floor 12


Sweet. I'm just loaded with orbs tonight. This helps because the Krakens are doing around 15-17 damage against me, and I can't fight that. I rely on these orbs to push through.

Floor 13


Crap...my orbs ran out REALLY fast. Like I said, the Krakens were murdering me. If I had a familiar to boost my attacks, that'd be really helpful. But I sent it home already. How silly of me.
Not shown is me wind crystaling it out of there because one more hit will kill me and cost me my diamond shield and an egg.

END OF DAY! KILL COUNT FOR THE DAY!
: 8 Pulunpas, 9 Noises, 12 Trolls (Hammer), 11 Flames, 24 Cyclones, 20 Baloons, 21 Manoeva, 7 Manoeva Clones, 27 Blumes, 17 U-Boats, 21 Clowns, 14 Dreamins, 14 Trolls (Bow), 15 Volcanoes, 10 Griffons, 7 Krakens. 235 KILLS TOTAL.
Traps discovered: 6

: 1 Pulunpa, 4 Trolls, 3 Flames. 8 KILLS TOTAL.
Snow Shoot Assists: 1 Pulunpa, 1 Noise, 6 Trolls. 8 KILL-ASSISTS TOTAL

~~~~~~~~~~~~


New house. I'll show it off next update.


The egg was another Baloon. Just can't get rid of these guys, huh?

: Welcome, how do you feel being treated like a big man?
: I've always been top notch. || It's not a bad feeling.
: But even with all that money, your stingy nature has not changed, has it? ...so, what do you want today?
To sell you more junk, of course! This pushes our total back up to $18226, a few coins short of where I ended the previous update at. That cursed Ice shield was worth $2700 alone, and both of the empty Pillar orbs were worth $1000 each.
: Since you've been going to the tower, do you think you've changed?
: I'm still the same old me. || I'm rich.
: Well, you do seem to be living a higher standard now.

I also found two Leva fruits, but kept both. Unless there are any objections, I'm going to fuse Baloo2 to Pulun to get DeHeal, and transfer that over to Blue October. Then I'll feed Blue October a Leva fruit and fuse it with Wendy to transfer over Half MP consumption (because Blue October is REALLY going to need it).
And next time We'll also finish our Tour de Monsbaiya.