Part 35: Down by the River

"This looks a bit unusual.. didn't we hear something about the Monster's Castle being near a river like this?"



"I think so.. but nobody said anything about a town with a river running through it."



"Pretty nice selection for an out of the way burgh in the middle of nowhere, though."



"Hell yes, I would. You selling?"



"That's blatant false advertising, that is. You're lucky we don't call the law on you."

"I take it that you don't know where to find any either."



"We've all had nights like that. Lay off the drinking a bit, miss."

"How big of a statue are we talking about here?"



"Hmm. Selection isn't that great for armor, though. I think we've seen everything else somewhere else."



"And also winner of the most creatively named town, 3 years running."



"That's a pretty random thing for a monster to steal."

"It was probably buried along with him."

"And as long as he stays asleep, that's probably where it should stay. I can't imagine there being a good ending to poking around the grave of the Ruler of Evil for ingredients to a flying machine."



"Free boat!"

"Princess, we already have a boat."

"And then we would have two boats. We'd be well on the way to our own pirate fleet!"

"I think we can worry about becoming pirates once we have a kingdom again."



"We'll see about that."



"Do you think they could just get a new one made, maybe?"

"The dwarves might be able to do something like that."



"I know this is going to sound kind of crazy, but you couldn't just make your own canister or generate the gas without trying to get somebody to dig up an ancient canister?"

"Well.. we could, but that wouldn't be proper now would it?"



"Yeah, that doesn't sound really complicated. I'd expect the real secret component to be a magical rock or something."



"I'll level with you. We're probably going to end up helping you at some point."

"He's right. And we might even return the vessel once we're done with it."



"Men are pretty clueless about listening sometimes."



"You should have a drink too, just like your wife. You might be more inclined to listen at that point."



"This doesn't look like a giant statue to me.."



"Yeah, pretty much looks like a warp gate to me."

"Maybe the warp gate leads to the giant statue?"



"I think I remember this place.. might have been handy to get here earlier, but having the boat is probably better."



"Thought I saw something there."



"I suppose this is technically upstream.. although it looks the same as the last place."



"Thank you for the incomprehensible advice."



"That statue doesn't look so gia.."



"Yeah, it's a lot bigger up close."



"Just like the bats around here. They must fly by magic, as otherwise they break every natural law governing such things."



"It's also a lot bigger on the inside. These medals are piling up."



"8 legged lions, too. I think we found where Keeleon came from."



"Weaker, though. These guys also don't look so tough.."



"And I do believe I'll be eating those words now."



"Well, back to town we go."

"Cristo, how come that spell never works that well when you use it?"

"I don't know.. maybe it's an anti-person spell that I've been trying to use on monsters?"

"I suppose that's a possibility, but most spells are fairly general in their targeting."



"Too bad Ragnar isn't here, he'd love this guy."



"Cristo, are you okay? You look like you got hit with a club."

"Have you ever wondered why healing spells can't heal everybody at once? I think I just figured something out.."



"Yeah, you guys are going to like thi.. guys? Dammit, not again."



"Can you hurry up and bring us back to life?"

"Sure, sure, let me just get this.."



"Uh.. I'm afraid I'm out of magic.."

"Great. Try not to get yourself killed on the way out."



"970 gold? That's insane! To hell with it, I'm going to get a good night's sleep and do it myself in the morning. "

"This is payback for all the mean things I've said about you, isn't it?"

"Just a bit, Princess. Goodnight."



"At least these things aren't likely to use death spells on us."



"So if the giant were a person, where would we be?"

"I'm afraid this would probably be somewhere in the intestines."



"5'll get you 20 that this thing's cursed too."

"I think that's a sure bet."

"Didn't you learn anything about gambling after you got kicked out of the wagon for being broke?"



"Is this the third or fourth dinosaur like this we've seen, just that this one's green?"



"Huh.. controls? What are we supposed to do here?"



"Just start pulling them and see what happens."

"Isn't that kind of dangerous?"

"As strange as it sounds, that is probably the best course under these circumstances."



"HAHAHAHA! Bow before me, tiny ants! Nothing can stop me now!"



"What about those giant flying dinosaurs?"

"A minor inconvenience."



"I'm pretty sure this is the monster's castle. Everybody ready?"

End of Update Snapshot




One more level for Lamarck means a new trick. I believe Transform allows Lamarck to use the spell list of one of his companions. I don't know why you would want to do this as Lamarck's spell list is almost always better, but I suppose if you actually wanted to have control over some of the buffing and debuffing spells it would be handy."



Alena's nearing the point where it might not matter what we equip her with. She's got one more weapon we can get for her, which I'll go over in a later update. It's got some interesting properties, but you want to wait until she reaches a fairly high level. She's getting close right now.




Cristo's latest addition to the spell list is a full-party version of healmore, which is every bit as useful as it sounds. This also puts him head and shoulders above Nara, who gets no such spell. Now, getting him to use it..




Brey's still waiting on his last spell, so not much of a change. He's got some better equipment coming in the future for some much needed upgrades but at this stage he's pretty much where he's going to be."



If there's any questions as to whether or not there's a max attack stat in this game, Ragnar seems poised to answer it in the near future. The next level we get will put it to the test, as 256 is a logical place for attack power to top out.




I don't think Nara has gained a level since the last update, so.. nothing new to report. The only thing is that I remembered that she actually has some armor that I should equip and fixed that. She's been out of circulation for a bit.



Same deal with Taloon, as everybody's starting to catch up with him. We can maybe get him a shield, but he's pretty well set. I'm definitely inclined to get him and Cristo a Sword of Miracles of their very own, though.




Annnd.. Mara. No changes what-so-ever.