Part 71: Encounters in an Enchanted Land

Last time we returned from a trip, only to find out that the ruined place we have been visiting was in fact the hometown of Conor...











Araki is at least not being a Jerk this time:













But Connor is certainly quite distressed:



















Li Hua on the other hand has something on her mind...













Indeed, such a spectacle can now be seen, with worrying frequency, in every corner of the map.
The fate of the world lies with you.
To that end, I must ask you to retrieve the Sopia Core.

















Interesting. What this means that we can more-or-less choose which two characters we want to take to dungeons. There will still be some restrictions on occasion, such as right now where we HAVE to take Darwin as one of the character, but for the most part we'll be able to choose. I'll probably keep Darwin around for the most part and change who he goes with (although it's still probably going to be Marie most of the time anyway--we'll see).



Finally. But before we head there, let's have one more quick chat with others.

























Wow, bloodthirsty much, Conor?































Yes, well, we'll get to that asap, but there is a bunch of stuff to do here right now.



First... there are some changes here.















If we examine the cutouts again...



It's really just a sidequest board. Right now there is only one available, but there will be more in just a minute.



Because this is the full board.



If we choose that one subquest which is currently available, we get an explanation about what we need to do. So let's accept it and go to Piu-Piu again.





And he gives us a present to give to Lessica. I don't even want to think what the present could possibly be.







Oh god.





Like I said before, Lessica is pretty awesome in general.











We actually get a reward. In this case it is something called "Red Recipe".



We have a few more things available now. Most of the quests are hunts or mini-boss fights, but we are bit underleveled to tackle them at the moment. There is one special one that we can do though:





Luckily it just so happens:



Of course, I am still going to have to buy more later since we'll need them to heal with! Let's go and give them to Lessica.





Sure thing.









I consumed all ten at once. That is extremely sweet.
How wonderful.
Pardon? How did I manage eating all ten at the same time, you ask?
There is no need to worry. I have a titanium jaw, you see.
You have my thanks for accepting my request.
Please take this as a token of my gratitude.



And now we got a blue recipe. We can't use these yet actually, so it'll have to wait for a bit until we see what they are for.

As for the quests, I'll be finishing them over time slowly. Not really going to bother you with ordinary mini-boss fights unless something interesting happens, but I'll be sure to report any unique items we may get as result. For now, we'll move on with the real action.

In the meantime, let's go back to Piu-Piu.





Ya buyin'? What a discernin' eye! My reliable prices are the same as alway.
But aren't you having a sale?
Oh that? I'm studyin' "Business Basics" by Horatio Sayles. Figured it was time to brush up on my technique.
Step right up, now, step right up! Marie, Lessica--you know I'm waitin'!
Give me a break.

And then... Piu-Piu finally crosses the line.













Yes, well, let's do some shopping then.



Interestingly, there are two new weapon tiers available. For Darwin, one is clearly better so that's what we'll get. For Li Hua, however, there's a bit of a choice to be made:





It's not really THAT much of a choice since she already has good defence and +40 attack is actually pretty good, considering. So we'll go with Anqi Night Bloom knuckles.



Here is our next destination.



And so it begins. Japanese title is actually pretty cool: "Encounters in an enchanted land". Which is why I couldn't resist using it for the title of this chapter.



Map is really not much different from usual.



The first part is set around some walkways on a lake...



...but soon we are on a path into the mountains.



There is a big boulder blocking the path on the right here.









Hm. Wonder what's there.



As you can see from the map, the boulder is really only blocking access to one "room". Oh well, I'm sure we'll find out sooner or later.



Continuing onwards, we run past some item chests that we can't get to from here.



And then this, bits of path sealed away behind barriers that we need Araki to destroy. How annoying.



Nevertheless, we have to keep going.









Huh?
My country is a kind of a confederation, made up of a group of smaller countries.
There are all kinds of races, ideologies, and lifestyles. And that's why there's so much conflict.
A confederation? Then you must be from...
Yes, well. My organisation, The Brigade, aims to head off conflict or shut it down.
We take up arms in our battle, using force to quell any strife.
Force? But... but that won't...
Of course. There's no way to wipe conflict off the map.
It didn't take me long to realise that what I thought was right was just another dream.
...
I thought it was an awful place, and yet... when I think of what's become of it, this unbearable feeling overtakes me.
Li Hua...



Incidentally, there is also a blocked path here too. This one is a more standard barrier.



The way forward is up the stairs, but let's check out the corridor we can access on the left first.



Through a tiled path it leads... to these two chests! Let's see what's in there!



Okay I guess...



Oh, oh, a new weapon for Li Hua!



Oh. Probably not worth equipping this really. The attack increase is not worth lowering the speed for.



But if we follow a different path on our way back to where we came from...



...we can actually reach the other side of this sealed area!



We get one of these here... it reduces chance of being blinded.



Ok, now we can proceed.











This is the game giving you one last chance to check if you are prepared. The boss fight that is coming is harder than anything so far. So here's what we find on the next screen...



Some monster's remains...





...and apparently, whoever did this.



Oops.







Did he just literally destroy...















Well it's a boss fight of course, against Conquest, one of the Four Horsemen of Apocalypse.



Ordinary physical attacks are fine here. You don't really want to use elemental magic...



...because he has spells like this for every element. So you never know when he's going to switch his affinity. Also he attacks twice per turn, groan.



He has several annoying abilities, such as this which prevents you from using "Defend" command. We don't really need it, so he can use this all he wants.



This one is a lot more problematic as it prevents you for example from using chocolate to heal. They all last 5 turns.



Once his HP is below 50% he's going to start using this attack...



It does lots of damage to one person.



Eventually I remember that I can use this to reduce the damage his attacks do.



After a few more arrows of dominion, we finally win.



Li Hua obtains here Lv. 2 Limit Break! We'll see it in action a bit later.





I was afraid he was going to say that.









Yes this is really not very good at all. Now they have started to destroy the cores!

If you like, you can watch the whole last sequence, including the boss fight, as video. I would recommend watching it, as it shows that the boss fight was a bit harder than the screenshots show (in the video, you can see that many times I just got lucky that the boss didn't use an actual attack at the time my characters were nearly dead), but more importantly, you get to see what the game looks like in motion.

VIDEO: Darwin and Li Hua conquering the Conquest (make sure to switch it to 720px HD for much better quality!)