Part 54: Chapter Forty One: Fuck Highfort IV – The Fuckening
Music: 04 – Dungeon000.png)
: Huh? What the-001.png)
: Sorry to keep you all waiting! It’s Super Sten to the rescue! Thank you, thank you, you’re all too kind!
: So you were captured too, I see.: Some might put it that way, true. But not me!: I see. So you screwed up…again.002.png)
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: Because you are, how you say, a bit of a rapscallion about such things, non?: Indeed. This sort of blustering is just like you, Sten.: What was that? I can’t hear you!004.png)
: I can’t be late for my rematch with that Spuke, now, can I?005.png)
Yaaaay…
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Apparently Ryu and co. never bothered to just walk out the door.
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To be fair, it's not like they could have swung across these pitfalls anyway. At least the enemies are now all a joke since the player has a full party again.
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This entire room is one massive maze. The stairs leading to the next part of the dungeon are in the middle. The maze itself is fairly complicated so I’ll just skip straight to the end.
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The next floor is pretty much the same except there’s more than one exit.
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The door leads to a healing pool and a teleporter.
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The teleporter leads to a room with a Moon Mask. The Moon Mask is a helmet for Sten that reduces Fire and Ice damage by half.
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On the way to the stairs Nina levels up and learns Iceblast. This is going to be her main attack spell for quite a while.
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The left hand teleporter will take the party back to the healing fountain. The right hand teleporter will take the party back to Highfort proper. In other words we want the central teleporter. Getting tired of this winding, contrived dungeon yet? Don’t worry, it’s nearly over.
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: Turvoe? Turvoe! What happened to you? 
: Dammit…urgh…017.png)
: Stay down, Turvoe. You’re too messed up to help us. We’ll take care of the door.018.png)
Sten backs up, then smacks Turvoe across the room.
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: Hey! Open up, ya damn door!021.png)
: Uh…um…‘Password’?022.png)
: Congratulations, Sten.: Well it was worth a shot I guess...--
Music: I’ll Do It!
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The Magic Gate is Highfort’s second gimmick boss. The Magic Gate will absorb any magic cast at him, recovering HP equal to the spell’s strength. Nina can use Slice to get around this and Dragon powers aren’t affected, so overall the Magic Gate isn’t too bad. Other than the gimmick this boss is reasonably tough - it can throw a few spells around and has a physical attack that deals around 50-ish damage. One spell you might want to watch out for is Typhoon, which can deal 70+ damage to the entire party.
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: Well I suppose regardless of the method we got there in the end…027.png)
: All we have to do is bust up the place and Spuke’s plans are in the toilet!: You make it sound so easy but I’m willing to bet Sten’s money that it won’t be.: Wait, my money?!028.png)
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: Hmmm…there seems to be a lot of machinery in this place…one wonders what it all does…030.png)
Most of the next section involves travelling around identical corridors looking for the stairs up, so I’ll skip them for brevity’s sake.
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Eventually we reach this place. The stairs lead to more plot, whereas the teleporter leads to the place where Spuke pulled her pit trap on Sten.
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Left hand stairs = goodies.
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The chests contain a Bell Torque, an accessory equippable on Bosch or Lin that raises enemy encounter rates, and another worthless Token.
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: Princess!
: Any last requests before you make history, Princess? I suppose I owe you an explanation. This machine uses the power of a living soul to transmute emotion into energy…036.png)
: Power enough to revive the ancient weapon sleeping beneath this castle!
: No! I would rather die than suffer the world to fall to your twisted ambitions!037.png)
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: Sten!: Hmph. How deliciously predictable. 039.png)
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: The energy output would be incalculable! This castle will awaken, and the world will belong to me!041.png)
: First you have to make it happen, Spuke!--
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Spuke is irritating for a number of reasons. She is highly resistant to spells and physical attacks. She can cast Silence to neutralise your magic users and Jolt / Lightning for party-wide damage. If that wasn’t enough Spuke can also steal 30 AP at a time with Leech Power, so it’s best to pop off a Dragon attack as soon as possible so she can’t target Ryu with it. In the grand scheme of things Spuke isn’t a hard fight, just a long and annoying one since she’s resistant to damn near everything.
In Capcom’s original script Spuke was called Shupkay.
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: Yes, yes, ‘You upstarts, how dare you foil my plots,’ and so on, and so on.: Silence!044.png)
: I’ll use this machine to convert my hatred of you into the power this fortress needs to rise once again!: Oh non! We must stop this woman before she dooms us all!045.png)
: And just like in ancient times, the entire world shall tremble and kneel before its might!046.png)
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*Bzzzap!*
: Ow! One of those infernal energy shields…Oh dear. Spuke has activated the device and made sure nobody can get to her! Will our brave heroes prevail? Find out next time in Fuck Highfort V – Revenge of the Fuck.