Part 33: Zosma Tower

Update 30: Zosma Tower






Welcome back. Today, we will be visiting Algorab Village.

Music: Dead Beat




Algorab is populated by bitter men, resigned women, and confused children. Everyone complains about having to live under the Taintclouds and how the air and water quality is poor, which is weird because nobody in Mizuti's hometown seemed to have any problems.





These three won't get out of the way, and thus are impeding my access to a treasure chest. Oh well, I guess I'll have to try again later.














We still don't have any clear direction on where to go. Fortunately, Algorab is as small as Gemma, so it doesn't take too long to stumble on to our next lead.





Well, yes, as a matter of fact. There's something we'd like to ask him...

He just left a few minutes ago. He said he was going to offer the Sword of the Heavens to a god.

W...what?!

Are you sure about that?

But isn't this place protected from gods by a magic field, cast by ancient wizards?

He said he'd go to Zosma Tower, at the center of the enchantment, dispel the magic shield, and allow Malpercio to enter...

This be bad, Kalas. Must hurry!





Well, I guess that would make Zosma Tower our next destination. Let's...let's go...





Music: Castle in the Sand


This is Zosma Tower, the area I've been dreading this entire LP.


Huh? What are you doing here? This is a restricted area.


Hey, wait. You look quite strong, and I see a spark of confidence in your eyes. We weren't able to stop Krumly and some of the villagers from going in. They're climbing up the tower as we speak. I'm willing to let you pass if you agree to stop them.

Well, it's pretty obvious what we have to do, huh, Legion?


Yeah...





Hey, Legion! You know that if we don't follow Krumly, we'll be in serious trouble. Okay, I get it, Legion. You've got some kind of plan brewing, right?
Sorry guys, but we're gonna have to think about it.

I'm sorry to hear that. I thought you might be willing to stop him.



The two continue blocking my way in, and there's no way around or over or through, so...


Oh. Did you change your mind? We''ll let you pass if you stop Krumly. So how about it?


We'll do it!


Of course we'll go. We came here in the first place to stop Krumly.

Hahaha! Great! You don't know how glad I am to hear that! I'll go back to the village and let everyone know what's happened.


That guy wanders off, leaving the other guy to give us a tutorial on how Zosma Tower works. It's really not all that complicated, so I'll be paraphrasing.





There's a campfire here on the entry floor. To start each floor's puzzle, you have to light the lantern on that floor. There are five floors, meaning you need five fires (though you only need storage room for four, since one is spent right here), so...well, I hope you can make enough room for that, otherwise you're going to have to come back to the entrance for more fire and trust me when I tell you that you do NOT want to backtrack through Zosma Tower.





Lighting the torch activates the floor's puzzle. You can also draw the fire back out and relight it to reset the puzzle if you screw up.





Red blocks can be pushed, and you ultimately want to push them into the glowing holes.





You can also climb red blocks, or any other block of the same height.







Pushing a red block into a hole will alter the room's layout in some way.







Blue blocks are simple. You just have to get to them and push them back into the wall, and they will also alter the room in some way. This one raised a column with a red block on top, which I can now push into the glowing hole behind it.





This opens up the path to the yellow block, which act as elevators between floors. Sadly, they move on their own, so you have to wait for them, and the moving blocks in this place are rather slow.


There's also a blue block to Kalas' right. Pushing it...









...lets me have this.

This is an interesting piece of equipment. It gives solid stat boosts plus a boatload of attack, at the cost of making Savyna be perpetually on fire. I haven't used this before, because as status effects go Flames is one of the more dangerous ones, plus...well...Savyna. However, there's a strategy I've been wanting to try out that the Firedrake Barrette will work wonders for, so here's hoping it will work out later!




Speaking of which, I went ahead and set Savyna's deck up to heavily favor water damage. I also gave her the Forlorn Woman I bought in the last update. In retrospect, I should have waited until the boss fight to do this, but it didn't make too big a difference either way.

Okay, back to exploring!





The second floor is also pretty straightforward. Push the blue block in and the red block into the nearby hole...





That prompts this stairway of red block to appear. Some red blocks defy gravity and will just shoot forward until they hit a wall/green glowy hole when you push them. The “trick” to this puzzle is that you have to climb the red block stairway and push the top block first, then push the middle one, then push the bottom one. Pushing them out of order will create a hole in the stairway, so you won't be able to reach the higher blocks to push them.





Those red blocks create this stairway which leads to this room's yellow block and the next floor.





For this room, push the red block off of its platform and into the hole below it.





This prompts some floating red block to appear, but I can't reach them!





Pushing this blue block inward...





Causes one of the upper normal blocks to start moving back and forth, so I can now reach the floating red blocks.





Pushing these in creates another elevator block and opens up the path to the exit.





There's also an optional blue block up here which spawns a treasure chest at the bottom.





...eh...not bad, but not really worth the minute round trip it takes to get back down here and back up again.

By the way, the moving block that leads to the yellow elevator block and the yellow elevator block itself are out of sync. So it can take several “trips” back and forth on the moving block before it and the yellow block actually intercept each other.





This is the last puzzle, and the only one that really requires much thought. As you can see, there are three holes and three red blocks. The obvious solution is to push the left block in the left hole and the right block in the right hole, but then you have no way of getting the center block to the center hole because you can't pull blocks, only push them.





Instead, you have to use the center block to climb up and push one of the other blocks off of it platform, so you can then get that block into the center.







Then push the remaining block (the left one, in my case) into it's matching hole...





...get an awesome finisher for Lyude...








And there you have it. Another staircase forms, and a red save flower appears to let you know you're reaching boss territory.





This last floor isn't really a puzzle. It's just setting the mood.





















Meet Agyo and Ungyo.





Music: Metallic Stroke

Agyo and Ungyo are one of the harder boss fights in the game, and while it may just be me, I usually struggle with this battle as much or more than I do with Fadroh or the Giacomo Trio.

Agyo is the red one. He's very fire based and has some nasty damage output. Furthermore, much like Folon and Fadroh, he likes to boost his attack power even further and can become extremely dangerous if he does.

Ungyo, meanwhile is the water based tank. He's not very strong, but he's harder to kill, and likes to boost his defense.

What's also a problem is that Ungyo can inflict Freeze. Which is no big deal in theory, except if you get frozen then Agyo can unleash a full attack on you without you being able to block it, so that character is about to be in a world of hurt. Agyo can also inflict Flames, which is a problem on top of his already high damage potential, but is overall probably less of a threat.





The key to this fight is killing the shit out of Agyo as soon as possible. Gibari, Xelha, and Mizuti can all do well at this. However, as I mentioned earlier, I wanted to try Savyna out for this fight because it seems like one where she would naturally shine – she can be made fire based to offset Ungyo's defense, or water based to kill Agyo before it kills you (I went for the latter).

Furthermore, a side effect of being perpetually on fire (thanks to the Firedrake Barrette) is that Savyna cannot be frozen. Since this also gives her a serious damage output hike, Savyna can do pretty well for herself here.





And then there's the Forlorn Woman, which negates Agyo's attack boost.

What's even better is that Agyo never used his attack boost, so between that and my debuff...





...his damage output got shot to hell.




Savyna's ultra fast attacks made it difficult to get a halfway decent picture of her attacks, but even so I wanted you to get a faint glimpse of her pushing 2000 damage in one attack string.







He responded by doing over 2000 damage to her. I've never figured out how the Pentagram attacks work (I assume it's %HP damage because seriously he has no business doing that much damage).







Bow before Meemai





Once Agyo goes down, the fight becomes simple. Ungyo can't do anything all that dangerous on his own, so now it's a simple matter of slooowly whittling his health down to nothing.





Mizuti gets yet another wonderful finisher, which also coincides well with her elemental setup. And I got a constellation and a creel for Gibari, too!

Now, to the top of the tower!





You're the ones I saw at Kamroh's place. Humph. I had a feeling you'd come. Only simpletons would defy Malpercio.

What do you want with the Sword of the Heavens?

I'm joining up with Malpercio. This sword will be my offering to him.

What?! No way!!

No that we Children of the Earth have lost our powers, there is no way we would be able to defeat and seal the resurrected Malpercio, as our ancestors did a thousand years ago. Given the circumstances, siding with the evil god in order to survive is a far wiser plan. We'll finally be freed from underneath these filthy Taintclouds. I've always longed to climb up to the Sky and live a free life.


In summary, Krumly wants to go the Sky but he can't do that without leaving his safe anti-Malpercio barrier, so he's going to turn the barrier off and see if that makes Malpercio happy enough that Malpercio will let him go to the Sky without eating him.

Krumly is interesting in that he's not so much villainous as he is an absolute dumbass.


You don't understand! This world is doomed unless we defeat Malpercio!

You're the one that doesn't understand, girl. Had you lived a thousand years beneath the Taintclouds as our people have, you would certainly have a different view on life.


You mean like the people of Gemma who are happy and A-OK with their lives?


I heard Malpercio was awakened by the daughter of the Calbren family. We once helped the Calbrens' ancestor steal the Earth Sphere from our lands. Their heir will no doubt welcome us, should we present her with the Sword of the Heavens.


Big mistake, Krumly! Hand over the sword!





Your people, the villagers of Gemma, tried to cast a spell on the god, and failed miserably. Now that he's awake, there's no stopping him!

Break the magic field!

No! Stop it!


The lanterns on the tower top dim...


Hark, Malpercio! Divine being, awakened from a thousand years of slumber! Save us, the Children of the Earth, from beneath the Taintclouds, lead us to our destiny! Ohh!








Whelp. That could have gone better.


Why, there you are, Kalas. I was beginning to wonder where you had flown to. How very convenient. I'll dispose of you later.

O heir of Calbren, I present you with the Sword of the Heavens...Let us lay aside our past, that which took place over a millennium ago, and pray take us to the lands in the Sky...to a new world order, under rule of Malpercio!




Malpercio leaps into the sky and rains lasers down on everyone, despite Krumly's big, smart brain not fathoming such an outcome.


Wh...Why?!

How foolish of you, to even think of haggling with a god. Malpercio will have no dealings with bugs like you.

This can't be...

It is time to repay you, for your ancestors' deeds of a thousand years ago. The Children of the Earth will perish. Every last one of you. The wrath of a god endures forever!


Malpercio starts towards Krumly, but...





Kalas grabs the Sword and holds it up. I kind of expected him to use it for slashing and stabbing purposes, but apparently it's holy power is enough that someone just has to be holding it.


...I see...The sword that slew the gods a thousand years ago has not lost its power. Fair enough. I'll take care of you later. Let us first eliminate the others.


Melodia and Malpercio fly off...that's, um...that's probably not a good thing...


Oh no! Where are they going?!

The village...They're heading for Algorab Village!







...Oh, hey. I was really expecting not to get this. Cool! _{I wonder how long 'til it breaks?}



-

Decision time!

Leave everything to us!

> Yeah, let's get out of here!

> No, I want to help!



Hey, I want to go talk to somebody, but I don't want to drag Xelha and the others into my personal problems. What do you think?

>You probably shouldn't ditch everyone like that

>I understand, let's go.




Big boss battle! Kalas and Mizuti are mandatory: which character gets to fight alongside them?