Part 13: It is time to judge the wicked!

Update 12: It is time to judge the wicked!

^click the link dammit



Video: This video is less awesome but still, Geldoblame has a relatively decent actor.

Music: Spray of Shock






What?! Geldoblame?!

The Emperor has honored us with a visit. He has been staying in Anuenue for the last three days or so. Emperor Geldoblame, if you please, would you happen to have heard of something called an “End Magnus”?


Oh, you idiot.


“End Magnus”? Hmmm...I don't believe so. Is it of some special concern to Your Highness?

It matters not, Emperor.

You liar!

Gibari, no!

Don't play dumb with us! After what your goons did back in Diadem...If you think you can play ignorant and get away with murder, you best think again you filthy slob!





An insult to the Queen's guest is an insult toe the Queen herself! Speak respectfully, or face the consequences!


The soldier's VA is terrible. I'm starting to hear similarities to Lyude's VA in a lot of NPCs. It's making me wonder if it's the same guy. Then again, it might just be that both Lyude and this guy's VAs did over-the-top stuffy voices and that's why they sound the same.


Hey, take it easy, will ya? I won't be bustin' any heads just yet.

I appreciate your concern, but you may stand back. A true leader will always be the target of misunderstandings and envy. Of libel and slander. I daresay I am familiar with such outbursts.

Yes, Your Magnificence.




If I'm not mistaken, this young man is wearing an Imperial uniform. What mission could possibly warrant his being here? Hm?

…

And the young lady there happens to remind me of a thief. A petty cutpurse that stole jewelry from my palace and scampered away...Could this resemblance be...coincidental?

I...I, uh...


I gotta hand it to him, this guy is really good at making people uncomfortable. Fortunately, we have a party member that has +40 discomfort resistance!


What are you doing here, huh? Have you already guessed where the third Magnus is, or are you still looking?

As stated previously, I have nary a clue as to what you are referring to. I am here on vacation. A routine break from my grueling duties. Your accusations, I must observe, are devoid of merit.

...

…




(oh wow I totally forgot she was part of this scene)


Oh yes, Queen Corellia...I merely intended to bid you farewell. My responsibilities are calling out to me. I must be leaving shortly...

I understand. I do hope you enjoyed your stay.

My sincere thanks for your hospitality. My stay here has been...fruitful. You must come and visit me sometime in the Imperial Capital. You will always be welcome, my dear Corellia.

I thank you for the invitation. I hope to do so whenever possible.

...A day I will cherish.




It would truly be an unforgettable journey...ha ha ha ha...


Geldoblame finally leaves, taking his mysterious comrade with him...




Waitwaitwaitwaitwait...Of the four people in there, you're worried about KALAS?

Kill him! Do whatever it takes. If left alone, he will prove a threat to my Empire.

As you wish...And what should be done about the End Magnus presumed to be on this island?

Fool. Lower your voice. Anuenue's magical shield is powerful enough to curb any frontal assaults...And there is little hope of Corellia agreeing with my plans...No matter. Concentrate on eliminating that winged mongrel. I will consider alternative approaches to securing this particular End Magnus...

As you wish, Your Magnificence.

But why would that girl be here? It is not like Giacomo to fail me thus...What could he be up to?






Music: Temple of Celestial Flowers



However, Anuenue cannot agree to help another nation face the might of the Empire.

Why not, Your Highness?

We, the people of Anuenue, are opposed to any and all forms of strife. We have a long-standing tradition of remaining neutral towards the other islands. A tradition that we refuse to change.

Sounds nice on paper, I'll give you that...Staying nice and fair while the whole world falls apart around you!

Um, Kalas?...





See, I pay attention when you say things!


Besides, I've never heard of any legend telling of a cursed power sealed in this land. It's not that I don't trust you, but I'm not sure how much of your story I can take as credible...The people of Anuenue have followed one simple teaching for generations...Sing with the Celestial Tree, dance when its flowers bloom. That is all.

Sing with the Celestial Tree, dance when its flowers bloom...

Under the current circumstances, Anuenue cannot make any rash decisions.

*sigh* I understand...

Please pass my regards to King Ladekahn.



Well, that was a colossal waste of time. I guess we'd better get-



Yeah. Why?

It's nothing. Nothing important. Take care of yourselves.


Okay, why is everyone suddenly all interested in Kalas? Xelha's the leader with the magical pendant. Lyude betrayed his country. Gibari's...um...shirtless. What's so interesting about Kalas?



Oh right, he has us. But what else?

Now that that bit of plot is finished, let's go ahead and explore Corellia's Palace. There's some pretty decent stuff to be found here.



These are better than any healing item I have at the moment, clocking in at 190 HP recovery.






...And Strawberries are even better, healing 220 HP.









Celestial Tree seeds?...Is Corellia able to re-plant the tree if it dies or something? Interesting. Unfortunately, these are a Quest Magnus item and I really can't be bothered right now.

I also steal Corellia's mattress because I can.




No, really.

Since we have no leads, there's little point in staying. But when we leave the Palace, something of vague importance occurs...




Going back empty-handed ain't an option.

I agree. Finding the Emperor here wasn't exactly reassuring. Despite what Queen Corellia told us, it seems likely that one of the End Magnus is indeed here.

Maybe we could find it on our own.

Humph...More volunteer work...What would you do, Legion?


Gostaystaygostaygogostay




You read my mind, Legion.

The Queen can't help us, and we can't help her. Might as well head back.

Wait a minute! I can't believe I'm hearing this! We can't just sit here and do nothing!


Interesting tidbit: If we choose to tell Kalas to stay, he actually doesn't bitch us out about it, making this one of the few times where he seems to genuinely value our input even when it's not what he wants to hear.


Suddenly, an NPC! She first speaks from offscreen, so my apologies for not having a screenshot to intrduce her here.

You all look very troubled about something. What's the matter?

Well...it's nothing, really. We're just...looking for something.



you could try visiting the Ancient Library of Magic. It's been abandoned for quite a while, but I hear one of the witches has gone back there recently. I'm sure she could point you in the right direction.

One of the witches? Are you sure?

Sounds promising. Where is this library?

It's on the hill to the East of town. Just go along the road and I'm sure you'll find it.

Hmm. It's the only lead we have. Might be a good place to start.

Even if there's no witch, a library still seems like a good spot to learn about where dangerous, glowy Magnus might be on the island. Then again, so does the School of Magic, and they just told us about some huge puddle of water and how you can see your breath when it's cold.


Let's get going.


And so our party wanders off with a new destination in mind...




Ominous!




-

Corellia has this little soliloquy when you leave town. It's worth adding, I guess, even though it basically boils down to “Life's a bitch”.



It was as if he was surrounded by the memories of someone very dear...A long forgotten lullaby...



The witches have disappeared, and the Celestial Tree has yet to bloom. Anuenue is faltering, slowly but surely...as a great oak turns to dust, slowly decaying over the years...If their claims are true, in time we must shed our share of tears and blood...As the planet weeps, so too shall the people of Anuenue...Fate can be so unforgiving...


-






Music: Decay (worth checking out for both ambiance and the fact that Xelha looks like an evil spectre coming to steal your soul in the picture).


The Library of Magic has seen better days. This is one of my favorite dungeons...I actually think it's not all that great insofar as design goes, but it's got some funny asides and I'm just a total sucker for haunted areas and libraries, so this one was kind of a shoe-in.




Wow, this seal was created over a hundred years ago...I sense a very powerful magic...This type of spell is usually cast on two objects. Those objects must be brought together to break the spell.


Oh, so it's a key fetchquest. You could have just said so.






I included the description for this magnus because that is a nifty idea and I want one of those.


If we look around the lobby, we can find a list of overdue books. Emphasis on “overdue”.








Can you imagine having to go to a pastor's house to get him to return a porno book? Awkwaaaaaard.









The red shelves can be pushed around, with the issue being that they cannot be pulled, and so it's possible to occasionally screw yourself out of getting stuff. Thankfully, this is one of those places where if you leave and return then everything will reset, and each puzzle is pretty straightforward.



I examined this bookshelf and thought “DON'T FUCKING CARE”, but






it actually references a key item that we'll be coming across later, so I decided it was worth including. This place doesn't do a whole lot of foreshadowing, but there's still a little bit here and there.





So you may have thought that the fetchquest was about keys. Well, that would be a mere half of the quest – we're actually after the Head Librarian's books. There are four, one for each section, and we need all of them to get into the final room.





Ohhhhhhhh yeah. This will NEVER leave Lyude's inventory, even when I make him a light-heavy deck and it's attack power grows obsolete. It's just that great.








Yes, I was just attacked by a book.

The book enemies are casters, curiously enough. They use Fire Burst, Light Flare, and Wind Blow, so it's virtually impossible to take no damage from them (since you'd have to play at least one water, one dark, and one time magnus).

They can be encountered by examining several bookshelves, some of which have amusing dialogues. For example, there's a shelf with a bunch of complicated books, and then one that has a title of "Happy-Go-Lucky Old Me", which prompts the fight.






They also occasionally deliver some nasty paper cuts, but even that's not very dangerous. The HP drain isn't all that noteworthy either, unless they get a full combo off without you defending or something.



There are also those skeleton knights that you may have seen wandering around in some of these snapshots. They aren't all that dangerous either, but they do have an irritating ability to revive each other.






This can be foiled by weakening both and then killing them one right after the other, and they won't always do it even when one's dead and the other gets a turn, so it's not really that annoying.







This is the second floor, where the Head Librarian's books go. Note that key up on the bookshelf. It doesn't look like I can get to it without toppling the bookshelf...







One down, four to go...I guess I had better try and get that key up there, but...



Food is more important!

The Deluxe items offer permanent stat boosts. The shortcake offers +10 ATK to one character!




Examining the bookshelf makes it tip over, and also blocks our way to the key so we have to go around.













The History section is back downstairs. It's the most straightforward of the lot, having none of those pesky red bookshelves.




VIT +10. It's very...okay, I can't pretend to get excited about that.









Fruity Gelatin cures Flames status, but can only be used out of battle. Meh.







One of the skeleton knights dropped this. Looks promising as an aging magnus!




Moving on to the Philosophy section, we have a book talking about a bug that can turn stuff to gold, which is cool and all but shouldn't that be in the Biology section? Oh, I guess there isn't one. Maybe it's philosophical because it's like some sort of bug equivelant of the Philosopher's Stone.






Woohoo, class up item! Wait, how did I happen to get Gibari's before I got Xelha's? Weird. I hope I didn't miss it.







AGILITY PLUS TEN FUCK YEAH







It took me twenty minutes or so to find this goddamn book the first time I played. It's on the same shelf that a ladder is on, so I assumed you couldn't examine it, and every time I tried I wasn't angled right and just went over to the ladder.




Oh yeah...there are darker-colored book enemies. They are rather rare, and I only encountered one battle with them in the whole dungeon. I'm glad I did, though, because this photo description cracks me up. (They're not notable as enemies other than being pretty powerful).




The Literature section is...a mess. There's this one bookshelf you have to push only some of the way forward so that you can later loop around and push it back the other way and there's ladders and jumping and aaaargh. I sure hope there isn't a dungeon later that is centered entirely on jumping and climbing and pushing and pulling and all that bullshit. And I really hope that dungeon isn't secretly two dungeons. That would be horrible.








Let's just skip to the good stuff, shall we? Lyude get's a decent +def equip, which isn't exactly staggering me in excitement but it's okay I guess.








Oh, good! I was afraid I missed Xelha's class up item, but it was here all along. I guess I better class up, but...eh...the save flower's a wussy red one, and I don't feel like going back, and I feel pretty good about what's coming up.


Video: The happiest Drow

Music: Spray of Shock, again




You really think there's a witch hiding away somewhere?

Very unlikely, I'm afraid, you idiots.





One of Geldoblame's goons...So you set us up with that talk about the witch coming back.

Ding dong! That's right! Today's lucky winners will all receive a one-way ticket to hell!


I think Folon is my new favorite character (besides Meemai). Also, his VA plays up Folon's inherent campiness and makes it work delightfully.

I hear you're a leftover from Giacomo and Ayme's attack on that old fossil, Georg...No matter. I'll finish up where they left off.

…?! So you're with Giacomo and Ayme?

Your grandfather and kid brother have been asking for you down below. Don't make them wait, Kalas. Time to take out the rubbish!





Music: Chaotic Dance

Folon is one of the hardest battles yet – probably THE hardest. He hits like a truck and is durable on top of it with 2300 HP and a tendency to defend a lot. He's also fire and dark based, and I coulda sworn he was time based too but GameFAQs says he's not. I guess that only affects his attacks and not his defenses.



Seeing as Xelha is usually my main damage dealer, seeing a number like this was...disheartening. Sadly, this is a prelude to how useful Xelha is going to be for this fight.









That...hurt, but not as bad as I remember. Hmm. Chaotic Flames induces the Flames status, which is like poison but worse and requires a different healing item.



Like a peach! Hey, Xelha, toss that at Kalas, willya?



It didn't work.



Folon does some more surprisingly shitty damage...



...while Lyude reminds us that he's the real boss around here.



Oh, and in case you don't do videos, here's a peek at what you missed by not watching the video at the start of the update.























Okay, so the damage output blew because Folon is dark resistant and defended a lot, but goddamn I love this finisher.




Folon's other gimmick is that he can boost his own attack power, but unlike the Imperial Beetle, he can do that and follow it up with an attack. Maybe now he'll start doing the damage I remember him doing.



WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!



Okay, that's more like it!










Oh, Folon has one last gimmick: He can paralyze your characters. It only happened once in the fight, but...well...remember how sleep means you can't defend against attacks? Paralysis does the same thing, and...






eek




Oh, Xelha.





Fortunately, Kalas gets unparalyzed just in time to bust out Shining Seraph, and the battle is won!






Mass paralysis!


How'd you like that? It's the power of Malpercio.

The power of Malpercio?

Yup. We're still working on it, though. This is nothing compared to the cursed god's true power, once fully awakened. When that happens, we'll finally be able to shed these clumsy shells of ours.

But...you'd no longer be human!


...uh...is he human now? He doesn't look like it or act like it, and he just said something to the effect of not being one...

Are you afraid of change? If so, you should just give up and die. It's as simple as that. That's the way history goes. Anyway, enough chatting...Time to die!


He rears back into his battle stance, but...



...catches on fire!





And there are exploding feather missiles or something, I don't know.







What we've learned today: Lyude has serious anger management issues.




Oh well. I'll let them live a tad longer. Whoever it was that attacked me looked awfully like an Imperial...Nah, couldn't be. It isn't like the average Joe could pull off such a feat. Unless...





You...I know that face...




And then she just kinda leaves. Whelp.

Everyone all right?

Yes.

I'm fine.

I'll live.











-

Decision time!



>I'm okay!

>I'm not okay.



In addition to this, remember that you can choose my party for the next update, although there shouldn't be a whole lot of combat, and...

IMPORTANT!

I got some deluxe food in this update! You know, I bet my characters are getting pretty hungry. Who should eat my deluxe foodstuffs?

-Kalas
-Xelha
-Gibari
-Lyude
-Divide them up
-Save them for later

Remember, I have a Deluxe Bonbon for VIT +10, a Deluxe Shortcake for ATK +10, and Deluxe Cookies for +10 AGL.