Part 11: Dead Island

Last time, Euchre finished off his business on Palaish Isle and made progress with the Monster Scout Proficiency Test and the Xeroph battle arena. This time, he'll be heading to the only new island available to him: Infern Isle.



Before that, though, he picks up a Skelegon from Xeroph Isle. It goes into his substitutes in the hopes of getting it up a few levels.

Music: Appearance of the Town



"They say a terrible catastrophe once befell this island. Beware of zombies."

The jetty leading to Infern Isle is conveniently right next to the one leading to Xeroph Isle, making it easy to head between the two.

Music: None



Infern Isle is to the northeast of Domus Isle, according to the map. Just looking at it zoomed out like this, there don't appear to be any defining features.

Music: Frozen World



Upon arrival it turns out that there isn't even a scoutpost here. How about asking that thug over there for directions?



Ah mean, aye, a few poor wee folk scrape a livin', but it's nothing' tae the bright lights o' Domus! If ye dinnae believe me, look for yersel'. But it's deadly dull - don't say Ah didn't warn ye!

As it turns out there isn't really anything on Infern Isle. People mostly just pass through here on their way to the last two islands.

Incidentally, I think this is the only character with a Scottish accent in the entire game. None of the other residents of Infern Isle share his dialect, and we've now seen all the settlements in Green Bays aside from a couple of scoutposts.



The nearby panel replaces the scoutpost's healing service for Infern Isle, but it doesn't act as a Zoom point. As such there's no way to Zoom to Infern Isle, which can be annoying. At least the place is small.



How about checking out some of the houses, then? There might be someone who can direct Euchre to the next island, after all.



You wouldn't think a man of his age - Well anyway.

Somehow I don't think that's what the groaning is about. It's definitely something to check out, at the very least.



It's said there was once a terrible catastrophe here, see, long ago. But no one knows exactly what happened, or even who it happened to.

You'd think that someone would have made a record of such a huge disaster, but apparently nobody did. It's strange to say the least. In any case, it's probably what left the island in such a sorry state.



There's no scoutpost, and nothing in the way of events like there are on Xeroph Isle, see. So we don't see any MSO representatives, or merchants...or arena folk...or anyone at all really.

You have to wonder why people are still living out here in such a hellhole. The shambling hordes of the undead are right outside, for goodness' sake!

In any case, there's one more place that has any people in it on the island. Maybe they'll provide a clue on where to go.



This ominous-looking gate is right in the middle of the island, and Euchre can just head on in.



Inside is another door presumably leading to the north side of the island, as well as a couple of people. The place kind of looks like an abandoned temple what with all the candles.



I suppose I should head for the eastern jetty and Celeste Isle before I die of boredom. But maybe it'd be worth my while to explore the north side of the island first.

Advice at last! It's always best to explore an island thoroughly before leaving, of course, but now we know that Euchre should go to the north first.



There's a hill on the north side that offers a view of the wastelands.

And here's how to get there, too! Of course, there won't be any need to with this handy door here to the north side, right?



Er, no. This particular door isn't opening any time soon.



If Euchre goes back to where he landed on Infern Isle and follows the coast to the west, he reaches this crossroads. The option is there to head right here, but that would lead away from the north side of the island. Instead, he goes straight on...

Music: Monster Battle



...right into an encounter! Flyguys exist primarily to support other monsters, but they only have one ability.



That ability just happens to be Kafizzle, a spell which attempts to seal the spells of all of Euchre's party.



It's especially annoying when Wildcard gets Fizzled, because if that happens he can't cast Oomph. The team's going to have to go without that attack buff when scouting a Flyguy, sadly.

Music: Frozen World



This one still doesn't stand a chance, though. It's banished to storage for its insolence.



Euchre continues along the path that he was treading before being so rudely interrupted. After the crossroads it's only a short walk to the north of the island, in fact. The split is denoted by this grey rock and an area transition.



What's immediately obvious upon entering the north side is that there's another split in the path. There's no real benefit to starting with either side, but Euchre heads left first.



To go along with the new area, there's a new monster too.

Music: Monster Battle



Skeletons essentially fulfil the same role as Geno does on Euchre's team.



As such they can attack with Weakening Wallop...



...or Stupefying Strike. Weaking Wallop is by far the more dangerous ability - as has already been demonstrated, attack debuffs quickly make monsters useless. Between them and the Flyguys they could theoretically shut down a team entirely if they stick around for too long.

Music: Frozen World



The only reason they should stay for any reasonable length of time is if they're being scouted, though, and even then they're not all that likely to use Weakening Wallop. This one doesn't get any debuffs off and gets put in storage.



At the end of the path lies a chest containing a Seed of Magic. It goes into Euchre's bag, never to be used even though it really should be.



Back at the crossroads Euchre finds a scout who wasn't there before. Presumably he spawned in after one of the battles.



Battling him seems like a good idea, since he's here. After all, these fights tend to give out a decent chunk of experience and gold as well as potentially useful items.

Music: Boss Battle



Unsurprisingly Wingle's team contains multiple winged monsters. Only the Shadow was a real threat in this particular fight, doing about 50 damage with its normal attack.

Music: Frozen World



Eventually they get taken out, but the Shadow got a lucky crit on Wildcard and did more damage than his maximum HP. At least Euchre gets an Insulade out of the fight.



After going back and healing, Euchre heads to the right at the crossroads in the hopes of finding more treasure.



Again, the path doesn't have any branches, but at the end there's that hill we were told about. There's a ramp leading up the outside of it.



At the top there's a very worthwhile bit of treasure:



A piece of darkonium! There are only three more left to find now before Euchre can enter the finals.



Unfortunately entering the darkonium cutscene despawned the scout up here, so we'll never know what her team would have been. Oh well.

One thing of note here, of course, is the view from this hill - there doesn't seem to be much in the middle of the northern section of Infern Isle. It looks like maybe there would be no point in going through that gate in the first place.

Music: Scoutpost



It's at around this point when Bonus hits level 11 (after a small amount of grinding, of course), making him eligible for synthesis. Remember what I said about synthesising a Skelegon with a Beast family monster like Dedede?



It results in a Jumping Jackal! This is actually generic fusion and not a special recipe, since Jumping Jackals don't have one of those. Skelegons have an ID one below that of Jumping Jackals - 58 and 59 respectively. Combining one with a Beast monster with an ID lower than 58 will bump the result's ID up to that of the next Beast family member, which is 59.



The Skills are pretty much unimportant, since Wolverine won't be used in battle, but it's going to be working on Crack & Zam in case I want to synthesise it or one of its descendants with Dragoon.

Music: Island



This gives Euchre a good excuse to go back to Scoutmaster Shuffles and hand in the eighth solution.



Wolverine, being a Jumping Jackal, is perfect for the job.



The reward for this one is a Plus Sceptre, an extremely helpful weapon that, like the Phoenix Sceptre, modifies the result of synthesis. Instead of changing the resulting monster, though, it forces it to have a positive charge. This drastically cuts down on the number of resets needed to get a reasonable monster.

It's also possible to get a Plus Sceptre from a chest on an uncharted island, but it's reasonably unlikely. This is a much better source, and only one should ever be needed.



This here is question number nine, and it costs 800 gold coins to attempt. These money requirements are getting pretty steep, but the questions themselves aren't all that difficult.



I'd honestly completely forgotten about this question, but it's a good thing that Monarch is still around. If he'd been synthesised into something better earlier on Euchre would be in trouble.



The reward for this one is Positive Puller, a single-use item that guarantees that the next monster fought will have a positive charge. These things are really rare and honestly not worth the bother - if you really want a monster to be positive, its polarity can easily be changed using a combination of the Plus Sceptre and the Phoenix Sceptre.



This next question costs 1000 gold coins and is a bit out of Euchre's league right now. It's not obnoxious like question 8 was, but there isn't really much that can be done to solve it right now outside of grinding up to Rank A manually. It's going to be left for now, but it'll be solvable soon enough.



This being question number ten, of course, means that it's the last task that Shuffles will give Euchre as part of the proficiency test. He's almost there!

That's enough of getting sidetracked, though - Euchre's still got to explore the rest of Infern Isle. There isn't much left to go.

Music: Frozen World



Back on the beach, there was a branching path off to the side which Euchre didn't go down earlier, and now it's time to explore it. There's a helical ramp leading up to the cliffs of the island, and that's the only way to get over to the east side of the island.



Up on top of the cliffs, there's a new monster wandering around.

Music: Monster Battle



These are Walking Corpses, and they're big sacks of HP. They have over 100, I believe, which is a considerable amount for a wild monster right now.



Since they have lots of HP, their strategy involves stalling, specifically so that they can rack up poison damage. Poisonous Poke is the first poisoning ability they have.



The other one is Poison Breath, which does what you might expect.



Poisoning the whole party can be annoying, but since all status effects outside of death are cleared after battle it's not all that much of a threat. If they used Envenomate instead there might have been a problem, but as it is they're just a nuisance.

Music: Frozen World



This one is dumped unceremoniously into storage.



Despite the cliffs on either side of the island not being connected by land, the gate in the middle of the island makes a perfect bridge to cross over. How convenient!



On the other side of the bridge is a new monster. This one's a bit of a rare spawn, though, so some searching may be required.

Music: Monster Battle



Metal Slime Knights are very misleading monsters. They are not, in fact, metal slimes - they don't have the Trait Metal Body and they don't give out all that much experience. They also don't run away, which is very helpful.



Their first trick is that they like to use Helm Splitter. The defence drop on this can be fairly nasty, though, because...



...they also have Multislash.



Multislash is an all-targeting physical attack. A series of slashes zigzag across the screen, in case it wasn't clear. The damage that this does is a bit worse than a normal attack to each monster, but it can still really hurt if Helm Splitter lowers a monster's defence.

Oh yes, and Euchre now has a second King Slime. It's currently being trained up for synthesis purposes.

Music: Frozen World



Metal Slime Knights are actually surprisingly frail, though, and this one joins up without too much trouble.



On the easternmost point of the cliffs, there's a load of rocks which lead down to a secluded beach.



This being the last unexplored part of Infern Isle, other than the northern wasteland, it contains the jetty.



Unsurprisingly it leads to Celeste Isle, or at least the southern part of it. But Euchre's not done with this place yet - there are still things to do here at night.

Music: Ambiance of the Night



Replacing Metal Slime Knights at night is this thing.

Music: Monster Battle



Dark Slime Knights are probably the strongest monsters on Infern Isle, but not by much.



They have Zam, which does a surprising amount of damage despite being a tier 1 spell. In fact, I believe it's around the same power as Zap.



It looks pretty cool, too.



Then there's Shade Slash, which is a Zam-elemental physical attack with 10% extra power bolted on. Neither attack is particularly threatening to Euchre's team, but this might be fairly nasty to someone unprepared.

Music: Ambiance of the Night



This one joins after a while. Take note of its Rank - these guys are Rank B, which is considerably higher than pretty much everything else so far. In fact, Dark Slime Knights are the third best Slimes available through generic fusion. These guys, like Angel Slimes, can give a big boost to a team's average Rank.



He seems to be in the grip of a terrible nightmare.

Remember how the old man could be heard moaning at night? Well, this is what he's so concerned about. Maybe the gate in the centre of Infern Isle should stay closed, as it has for centuries.

Who am I kidding? It'll get opened at some point and unleash an unspeakable evil upon the world or something. These sorts of things always do.

In any case, that's actually all there is that's different about Infern Isle at night compared to the daytime. There really isn't much to see here, as the residents said.

Music: Scoutpost



Since there's no scoutpost Euchre can't even synthesise monsters here! Truly, this is the worst of islands. In any case, back on Domus Isle, Monarch is finally getting synthesised into something new.



This is the synthesis recipe I've been holding out on. King Cureslimes are very good healers, as well as the second best Slimes available through generic synthesis. Yes, this isn't the only way to get a King Cureslime - combining a Dark Slime Knight with basically anything else at this point will also result in one of these. Its stats and growths will probably be worse, though, because that particular monster is pretty awful at magic. The King Cureslime's main draws are its high MP, its Trait, Health Professional, and its relative tankiness compared to other Health Professional users.

All in all, this is a ridiculous monster when it's first able to be obtained - fresh off Infant Isle, if you're willing to grind for it, it's available as a fourth-generation monster. What's more, if a healer isn't to your taste, you can synthesise it with something else in order to possibly obtain a Rank A monster.



Li'l Green here is going into the team and won't be coming out for a long time.



Oh, and King Cureslime's Skill is Cure-All, which contains multi-target healing abilities. It doesn't get Multiheal quite as early as Cleric does, but it's still nice to pick up for now.

But that's not all for synthesis today!



Geno is getting combined with Grimdark to raise its Rank to B.



And so a Mimic is born. It's also not going to be moving off the team for some time.





As usual, Diminisher is the only Skill that matters at the moment. Maybe I'll eventually find something to go with it.

And, well, that's it for this update. Next time, Euchre will be travelling to Celeste Isle and seeing what he can find there.

Extra: The Monster Library

Metal Slime Knight





Metal Slime Knights have the Skills Darklight Slashes and Agility Boost when scouted, and just Darklight Slashes when synthesised. They have the Trait Counterstriker, allowing them to counterattack when hit, and are immune to paralysis.

Darklight Slashes is a Skill that advertises itself as teaching Zap- and Zam-elemental physical attacks, but it also teaches Crack-elemental physical attacks as well. For tier 1 slashes there's Hallowed Slash, Shade Slash and Frost Slash, and for tier 2 slashes there's Sacred Slash, Shadow Slash and Blizzard Slash. It's worth mentioning that there are only two tiers of slashes, so this Skill teaches the best of the these types of attacks. The final ability that Darklight Slashes teaches is Uncarnate, which does more damage to Incarnus monsters. Overall this Skill is nice if you want to give a physical attack-focused monster some more power and the ability to hit weaknesses, but since higher tier abilities overwrite their lower tier counterparts when learned the Skill only really teaches four abilities at maximum level. Also, Uncarnate is almost entirely useless now that the online battling is defunct.

Another thing to note about Darklight Slashes is that it's a compound Skill; it can be learned by putting a certain number of points into other Skills and synthesising the monsters with them together. In this case the requirement is 26 points in Wind Blower, 12 points in White Knight and 11 points in Dark Knight.

Dark Slime Knight





Dark Slime Knights have the Skills Dark Knight and Agility Boost when scouted, and just Dark Knight when synthesised. They have the Traits Zammeister, increasing the power and decreasing the MP cost of Zam-elemental abilities, and Psycho. They're also immune to Zam.

Dark Knight was on Drackies way back in Part 3.

King Cureslime





King Cureslimes have the Skill Cure-All and can't be scouted. They have the Trait Health Professional and are immune to both Whack and Fizzle.

Cure-All is a Skill that specialises in multi-target healing and status effect removal. In fact, the only single-target ability it teaches is Heal. As for everything else, there's Tingle for curing sleep and paralysis, Kabuff for increasing defence, Multiheal and Omniheal for restoring either some or all HP to allies, and Wave of Relief for removing all status ailments. Finally there are the abilities Amor Seco Rain and Song of Salvation, both of which take two turns to cast instead of the usual one. The former is a standard heal, and the latter is a revive. Overall Cure-All is a good Skill, but it's hamstrung by the lack of single-target healing much like Cleric. Heal just doesn't cut it at the point when it's possible to get Cure-All, although it's still viable outside of battle. That's not all that bad of a problem, though, and it can easily be worked around with other Skills.

Skelegon





Skelegons have the Skills Crack & Zam and Attack Boost when scouted, and just Crack & Zam when synthesised. They have no Traits, are weak to Zap, and are immune to Whack.

Crack & Zam is an excellent double element Skill. Crack is multi-target, while Zam is single-target. That's really all there is to say about this one that hasn't already been said about the other double element Skills. Just remember to get it up to Crack & Zam III quickly, otherwise you'll be stuck with low tier spells.

Jumping Jackal





Jumping Jackals have the Skill Speedster and cannot be scouted. They have the Trait Able Ambusher, giving their team more common preemptive strikes, and are immune to Dazzle.

Speedster is a Skill that teaches abilities which increase agility and evasion. Firstly there's Accelerate and Acceleratle, which increase agility for either a single target or the entire party. Then there's Dodgy Dance, to increase the user's evasion, and Sandstorm, to decrease the enemy's accuracy with Dazzle. The final agility-related ability in Speedster is Mercurial Thrust, which is an attack that is weaker than usual but always goes first. There are also three abilities that have nothing to do with agility: Heal, Gust Slash and Gale Slash. Heal is self-explanatory, and the others are the first and second tier of Woosh-elemental slashes. Overall Speedster is a bit of a weird Skill that probably won't be too useful. Sure, having high agility is helpful, but you can't get extra turns from it like you can in, for example, Final Fantasy. Dodgy Dance and Gale Slash are pretty good, though; it might be worth taking this Skill if you like that sort of thing, and Mercurial Thrust can be situationally good.

Mimic





Mimics have the Skill Nightmare and can't be scouted. They have the Trait Critical Massacre, increasing their chance of landing a critical hit, and are immune to both Fizzle and Whack.

Nightmare is a Skill that focuses on debilitating monsters, specifically with Sleep, Drain Magic and Whack. Firstly it teaches, well, Drain Magic which helps in replenishing MP reserves and getting rid of MP on opponents. Sleep Sock and Sweet Breath handle the sleep side of things, with damage on a single target and hitting multiple targets being their main draws respectively. For Whack, meanwhile, there's Death Dance, which causes instant death in multiple targets. As for other miscellaneous abilities, there's Spooky Aura for lowering magic resistance, Sleep Guard and Drain Magic Ward to protect against those particular effects, and finally Wave of Panic. Wave of Panic attempts to lower all four stats - attack, defence, agility and wisdom - of a single target, which is incredibly good if it hits and is usually reserved for final boss-level monsters. Overall Nightmare seems to be a pretty good Skill, with a good range of status effect magic, a way to replenish MP if it gets low and, well, Wave of Panic.

Flyguy





Flyguys have the Skills Seal and Drain Magic Ward when scouted, and just Seal when synthesised. They have the Trait Artful Dodger and are weak to Frizz. They're also immune to sleep.

Seal was on Winkies back in Part 4.

Drain Magic Ward is new, though. It's another Ward Skill, so it conveys increased stats as well as two Guard passive abilities of the Skill's type and Magic Scrooge. No Magic Miser for this one, though. In this case the stats it gives are +30 MP and +10 Agility and the Guard abilities are Drain Magic Guard. The same sort of things that applied to the other Ward Skills apply to this one, too.

Skeleton





Skeletons have the Skills Enfeebler and Attack Boost when scouted, and just Enfeebler when synthesised. They have no Traits, are immune to Whack and Inaction (Shock, Dancing etc.) and are weak to Zap.

Enfeebler was on Goodybags back in Part 8.

Walking Corpse





Walking Corpses have the Skills Bad Breath and Attack Boost when scouted, and just Bad Breath when synthesised. They have no Traits, are immune to Whack and Poison, and are weak to Zap.

Bad Breath is mostly made up of multi-target ailment-inflicting abilities, but there are some other utility abilities too. Poison Breath and Venom Breath inflict Poison and Envenomated respectively, Sweet Breath inflicts Sleep, Bemusing Breath inflicts Confusion and Burning Breath inflicts Paralysis. Then there's Blowback, which reflects enemy breath attacks when used (the user is still hit by the relevant attack), and Brake Wind, which reflects an enemy breath attack without the user being hit. The final ability in Bad Breath is Poison Guard, which passively reduces the chance of Poison being inflicted. Overall Bad Breath seems like a pretty good Skill for inflicting status effects, and Brake Wind is very useful for countering enemy breath attacks.


Extra 2: Synthesis Recipes

Skelegon + Skeleton = Demonrider (Rank E, scoutable, available through generic synthesis)

This is a terrible idea. Demonriders have been available since Xeroph Isle, and are common enough there to be absolutely not worth the trouble.


King Slime + King Slime = King Cureslime (Rank B, not scoutable, available through generic synthesis)

In contrast, this is amazing. Go get one and don't look back, because they're amazing healers. Hell, you can just get one from generic synthesis too, and it'll still be really good.ser