Part 38: Sagi's Running out of Patience

Cujam is completely bare now. We have to travel through to get to our proper destination, the Battlefields of Atria.







Music: Ancient Slaughter


What do we do?

The Dark Brethren will come. We have to find Wiseman!







Atria is a small dungeon, with only three or four screens worth of travel. Despite this, it can take a while to get through.





On the overworld, many enemies are these winged humans. They will fire blue spheres of magic that will slow Sagi down dramatically if he's hit by them. Between dodging the spheres and dodging the enemies themselves, things can get rather hairy, especially if you go after all of the treasures.








Furthermore, the dragon alliance is a very real thing and these purple dragons will occasionally pop up with the Cujam citizens to help wreck us. They are quite dangerous, able to hit the whole team for about 400 damage or one target for like up to 800 or so.





The other enemies aren't that dangerous, though. They're lucky to pull 400 damage on a single target.

After a few screens of burning, barren land, we come to this...





Video: Valara

Music: The Edging Away


Wiseman is manipulating them. They're lost in their own hearts!

Where is Wiseman? Where!

H-Here they come! We're surrounded!

Gather together, everyone! Don't wander away!




































(- wouldn't happen to be a spiriter?)

(- what about the Celestial Tree?)

(- don't want to kill the Afterling)

(-Valara! Please don't!)

























Stop fussing. It's the same as always. We're back in our own world.

…...

It's too late for the afterling. And we'd have to be mad to take on that machina arma...Sagi, we should retreat for now. Call Verus.

…...

Sagi!


Sagi's not handling things very well. I guess he's allowed to be upset, though; I mean, things are kind of going down the tubes here...





It's about time I broke off this dead-end relationship you and I seem to have.

…...

I'm talking to you! Ghost boy!

…...!

You know, I always thought you were a OK kid. But work is work. I'm sure you understand. Now say goodbye!





Music: Iconoclasm


And here we are, at the island's resident Arma battle. It's been a while since we fought Valara's Razer, and things are...different, but not really much harder.





As usual, it has crazy defense but not much HP. Sagi and Guillo can manage okay, but Milly is pretty useless for direct damage output even with a weapon.







Arma Cannon hurts like hell, but her basic attack strings are fairly manageable, dealing in the ballpark of 500 damage. She also uses this much more rarely than most bosses use their nasty attacks, or at least she did the couple of times I've fought her now.





I didn't even do very well in this fight. I totally wasted an MP Burst hoping that my cards would all line up just right when I hadn't even sort of started to work out a combo. Oh well, it didn't set me back all that much.





The big problem is when she goes into Hurricane Stance, at which time her regular attack strings get replaced with...









...a faceful of fists that can do a good thousand damage. Yikes.

I'm not totally sure what determines how long she stays in this stance. I've had her only attack me once, and I've had her attack me three or four times before shifting back to normal. Just hope she doesn't decide to stay in it too long because she WILL beat you in a damage race during this time; you pretty much have to play defense unless you've got a superattack lined up and ready to go.









As usual, our win is meaningless. Valara stomps over to our beaten team...





She turns back to the soldiers.


Collect the afterling! The rest of you, get back to work on promachination! No slacking!

Let's go. We're not strong enough to win.


...Well, I'm grateful to Valara for not killing us and all, but still, you know things are getting bad when you get creamed by an enemy and only survive because they don't feel like killing you.





Music: The Broken Manas and My One and Only


Huh? Did you say something?


What are guardian spirits good for?! Meemai! You're supposed to give me legendary power! Well, where the hell is it?!

We couldn't even touch that machina arma! It's always the same! Diadem, Sadal Suud...now Anuenue!

Sagi -

I don't care if I'm strong or not! But if I can't do what needs to be done...!

Tell me! What are you?! How do I know you're not just some figment of my imagination!

Meemai's been a great asset to us. You know that better than anyone.

But still!





I, I don't...I'd defend myself but I'm too busy being shocked at how pissed off you are right now.


Sagi, that's enough! If you don't believe in him, who will? Come on, Milliarde. We need to get those branches form Corellia.

G-Guillo? Hey!


Guillo walks offscreen...


Sagi...come on.


And Milly follows suit.


…...






Well, Sagi's gotten super pissed at us. I'm...I'm sure he'll get over it soon, though. Let's just...let's just stop thinking about it. That makes problems go away, right? Right?...