Part 24: Zepeli. Wrexsoul.

Welcome, one and all! Today we tackle some metaphysical threats and help Fuuko get their groove back.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAO6qgsFlf0
Secret of Mana - Secret of the Arid Sands

Somehow, Doma Castle survived the apocalypse and doesn't have anyone living in it.



First, though, we swing by Nikeah to pick up a ring. Why? Why not?



Actually maybe I should've stayed at "Why?" Ukyo ALSO doesn't have Magic. In theory, I can take all these non-Magic users I have and put them in a group with whoever my Mime is to give them access to some baller spells.



The first thing you should always do in a spooky abandoned castle is take a nap. How else are you supposed to advance the plot?



Sadly, Fuuko died peacefully in their sleep.

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Please VOTE for which location we should aim for next from this list:

I'm hilarious btw

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMGoQtn27pU
Secret of Mana - Dancing Beasts

Oh god stop they're already dead!



When in.. Doma, do as the Domans.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Dau41wUr6U
Final Fantasy IV - Dancing Calcobrena

As a kid, I absolutely hated this dungeon because it's confusing and has dead ends and such. As an adult in 2019, I can just use a walkthrough. Because I pay bills and stuff.



Olduv Tor has 15,302 HP and I'm unhappy about it. Sakura doesn't have the abilities to deal with this pack very well. Most if not all of the monsters in this dungeon will also appear in the Final Dungeon, which gives you a hint of the difficulty here.



Thankfully we don't have to fight any of the kids to recover our party, just approach them.



Two Become One!



Mag Roaders are a really cool design, I think. Just bio-engineered monstrosities with wheels for appendages.



Three Become One!



This boss fight always reminds me of the Magus Sisters from FFIV which I'm sure is the entire point. The music here being Dancing Calcobrena is very appropriate.



Oh Woolsey

Watch me murder some children!



Wall Rings have been incredibly important to most boss fights so far. I have limited healing anyway, and almost all of the bosses have had some spells that I don't want to deal with.



True to character, Moe is an asshole. He's somehow able to self target with Slow 2 and reflect it to someone in my party.



Curley is the first and most important target in this fight. Not only does he use Pearl Wind for massive healing, he can also revive his brothers with Life 2. He DOES die at zero MP so if you're able to wait out his 3181 MP, that's a viable strat. He also only has 27,027 HP so it's not really hard to wear him down to the point that Pearl Wind isn't so big.



Poor Larry is easily confused. I don't make as much use of this as I should.



This is another reason to kill Curley immediately, to disable their use of Delta Hit. Break status is easy to fix but very annoying regardless. The only use a statue has is that they're still a viable target for attacks.



Zepeli for MVP!



See this is a bad spot to be in. One person dead, one person stoned, and all three bosses still up. If I'm unlucky, I get another Delta Hit on Sahara and it's game over. Luckily Sakura is still a target so it's only a 50% chance of Sahara eating it.



Larry nopes the fuck on out, the death of his brother too much to handle.



I am good at the video games.



Larry returns just in time to witness another murder.



He doesn't handle it very well.



This does bring out an unused part of his AI script though. Normally there's no way for a variable in his script to get to the "Cast Reflect On Yourself" part but things get weird in BC.



I manage to forget he has Reflect immediately and instead get it reflected onto Sakura.



Zepeli does their thing and Larry kills himself with whatever auto damage status he has.

Honestly they're not too bad considering those relatively tiny health pools and low damage. As long as your own party has some decent output, you shouldn't have a problem. And if nothing else, you can wait out two of them to drain their MP pools then Rasp them to death.



Fuuko's dream seems to have a piss filter applied.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvEpg8PETu4
Etrian Odyssey III - Unrest - End of the Raging Waves

This song is so good and appears in this fight for reasons that are unclear to me. I also just noticed I didn't get a shot with their name in it, which is Baboto.

Baboto has 21,493 HP and horrible things like Atomic Ray, Bolt 3, Cave In and Doom, while their Special attack just straight up causes death.

Except they also have Auto Imp status, the poor bastards. The only thing they can do is Cave In (which hurts) and the rest of their turns are wasted to no effect.



Doom is actually a counter attack, even.



Mostly unremarkable except for one thing, from Saab over there.



I considered farming these for more drops but decided against it when I discovered the next pack that appears.



Olduv and Toffle are bags of HP but otherwise not terrible.

Dwele Hei is a god damned horrible bastard.

Not only do they have max HP, they also hit super hard and are immune to every useful status. I was reduced to throwing most of my collected weapons and way too many shurikens for my comfort.



Sakura kept dying to L.5 Doom and Zepeli didn't have the HP to survive Aero most of the time. This is why I decided to leave instead of trying to farm more Megalixirs.



Aww yis, gonna use some magical robots!



Wait, what? Terra is supposed to have all eight Magitek commands! What gives?!

As I found out later, the problem lies with the Moogle (clock) Suit. For whatever reason, it actually changes the sprite of the character which also affects things like Magitek commands, because this game is held together by duct tape.

I went back to check; Zepeli replaces Exploder with Shock Wave, and then has X-fer and Schiller. That's a big pile of shitty garbage.



Small rickety bridge? No problem!



G-g-g-g-g-ghosts!



Hey! Give us the corpse of our friend back!



This is another reason I hated Cyan's Dream. I'm not a fan of the gimmick and I would always just use the X-zone trick to end the fight immediately. Sadly that glitch is fixed in BC.

Instead, I have to do the fight for real.



The gimmick is that Wrexsoul disappears inside one of your characters and you have to kill people one by one to make the boss reappear. While also dealing with the crap its minions throw out. It's a cool idea for a fight I just don't like actually doing it.



Wall Rings! What can't they do?



For whatever reason, the bottom SoulSaver only attacks the other SoulSaver when using their Special Attack. Which is actually named "Attack" because RNG.



Even without Ultima, Zepeli still tears pretty deeply into Wrexsoul with a Fight command. Sakura does too!



SoulSavers only have an MPOW of 4, making Cure 3 negligible at best.



Look at them go!



Nothing can protect you from Ultima, Sakura.



Sahara kills a ghost inside a dream with a real Shuriken. Video games are wild.



Fuuko realizes their worth as a person and would unlock their 8th SwdTech if they had the command.



We're back in the real world and Fuuko refuses to discuss all the pee in their dreams.



Don't forget to go back to the King's throne! You can see this for a moment after Fuuko wakes up but if you aren't paying attention, it's easy not to even realize there's an Esper there.



Some good spells and good stats. Only Serena can equip it. Guess which command Serena doesn't have!

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ALL TREASURES
Ether
Tao Robe
Poison Rod
Oath Veil
ThunderBlade
Sky Render x2
Relic Ring

Purchased
Cursed Ring

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Please VOTE for which location we should aim for next from this list:

Phoenix Cave - If you vote for this place, please also VOTE for which FOUR characters I should NOT take. I'll compose the parties myself from the remaining eight, for my own sanity.

Ancient Castle

Fanatic's Tower is still off limits because I need our Relm replacement to snag the Strago replacement there. I bet you can never guess where we'll find them!

Please ALSO VOTE for the four characters we will bring with us, with any changes that are noted above.








I'll give it maybe a weekish for votes to come in. Y'all are pretty good about voting fast though!