Part 40: To Hell

"See you later!"

"You're welcome, have fun!"

"Brey, Cristo, thanks for reminding me she was still in the wagon. I'd kind of forgotten."

"No problem. She was starting to get kind of tiresome."

"Even I was tired of her preaching."



"Come here, Doran!"

"Doran?"



"Baby dragon friend!"



This is our final companion who you might or might not find useful. He doesn't gain levels and he's only got a couple of abilities. He can't equip armor or weapons. I've never found him all that great, so I'm not going to be using him.



"Looks like this is it.. we're going into some rough situations so I want the three of you with me."



"Geronimo!"

"I don't want to die impoverished!"



"How did we even survive that?"

"You're welcome."



"Ooh, more dragons! Can we fight these?"

"Knock yourself out."

"There have been dragons for us to fight for a long time, but you were in the wagon."



"That's a door that says 'No Solicitors Allowed' if I ever saw one."



"I guess this comes down to you or me Alena, and I'm pretty happy with my armor."

"It's.. frilly, and lacy and.. ugh. Fine, I'll take it."



"Have we seen these fairy dragons before?"

"Ragnar is not certainly. These might be slightly different colored."



"This guy looks very familiar as well, but I'm fairly certain he's a different culture."

"I don't think I'll ever get tired of smashing this creep's face in."



"Hmm..there's a lot of odd twists and turns around here. I'm just hoping they don't circle back on each other."

"A trail of bread crumbs could help, and then we could eat the bread if we got hungry."



"It's like those guys who changed colors when they got mad, only these ones show up already pissed off."



"Oh come on, that's just not fair."

"Ragnar is happy to get a chance to fight more!"



"Hmm.. that one is starting to look more and more like you, Alena."

"Not for very long it isn't."

Note: I didn't really get a chance to capture it, but these guys will actually shift shape to resemble your party members. I don't know if they take on their characteristics, as none of them ever survived long enough to do anything.



"Of course. It's just so much kindling at this point, though."



"That's a new trick. Have they always been able to do that?"

"I'm pretty sure they haven't."



"Oh no.. their gold splits into a full-sized copy of itself too!"

"Taloon does not seem overly happy about this."

"It's just inflation at this point.. it makes all the gold we already have worth less."



"Wow, that is one ugly mug."



"And some nasty magic. We need to take him down quick."



"I've got this covered. Go, my merchant minion army!"



"That's a really weird side effect. I'm not even sure how it's happening."

"Did Taloon kit out his entire merchant army with Swords of Miracles?"

"No... that would have been far too expensive. I'm as clueless as anybody."



"That pink thing is pretty difficult to find a place to punch, although I suppose you're not at a loss if you want to punch it in the teeth."



"I think this was a casino prize, but I can't say that I really see much of a use for it."



"Oh, another one of these. I'm really not good with these."



"Maybe we can just wait here while they figure it out?"

"Seems like a plan to me. "

Note: Pretty sure this is a graphical glitch caused by the wagon interacting with sliding tiles. Alena and Taloon float over to the group at the end.



"Nice of you to join us."

"It looked like a pretty fun fight."

"And it was either that or deal with some on our own."



"Oooh, spikey!"

"No Ragnar! Put down the almost certainly cursed armor and step away from it."

"Aww..."



"This is nice, when we've left pretty much every shop in the world behind."

"Well, if you don't want it.."







"Seeds are like money that is always good, and that can also be eaten."



"Handy of someone to have left us a boat."

"True, although I'm willing to bet there's some treasure along the shorelines."



"Eating money!"



"Fancy enough if we didn't already have some. I think I've been doing this too long."

"Feel like you're losing your appreciation for things that aren't immediately useful and treasure that couldn't be gotten anywhere else?"



"I think you could say that.. I think this is the way down."



"Just follow the waving yeti."

"They want to be friends!"



"The floors and walls are different.. I think we're nearing the exit."



"I really hope so, because it's getting hard to hang on by my fingernails here.



"This place is even more of a seed warehouse than the ice cave was."

"I thought the underworld was supposed to be hot? Isn't that bad for seeds?"

"More importantly, how are we going to get to that chest over there?"



"From above.. and Ragnar, quit walking on thin air. It's distracting."



"Hmm. Ragnar likes his old shield better."

"I like mine better too, and this is too heavy for anybody else."



"Thank the Master Dragon, I think I see the exit."

"You're welcome. Although I had nothing to do with it."



"So.. welcome to hell, I guess?"



"And there is welcoming party with enormous balls!"

"I'm just glad you mentioned it before I did."



"Necrosaro has barriers around his palace. His evolution is in progress."

"Unless you break the four barriers, some mysterious force will prevent your progress."



"Thanks. We'll get on that."

End of Update Snapshot




As you can guess from the fact that I've gained about 4 or 5 levels thus far, I've somewhat downplayed the sheer amount of fighting that takes place in the cave to the Underworld. We've also maxed out our gold reserves with nothing left to buy. Lamarck has a full spell list, although I've never gotten Thordain to work.. for some reason the game says I don't have enough MP. You'll be seeing some Lightning Use in the future. Chance is much like the version in Dragon Warrior 2 with all kinds of weird effects possible.



More than 400 HP and 300 attack. That's just insane.. Ragnar really is an invaluable party member. He's also holding on to a Staff of Healing, which he shows rare good timing in using.



Alena's still wrecking things like nobody's business, and by this point it seems like every third or fourth hit is a critical hit. Considering that she gets two attacks per round, that's a lot of critical hits. I think she might be doing more damage than anybody else on average. The Dress of Radiance occasionally reflects spells, including healing spells as well as being Alena's best armor by the numbers.



Taloon hasn't changed over much despite a few levels, but we like him just fine the way he is. The revelation that combining a sword of miracles with the merchant army results in all the attacks causing healing just shows that he's always full of surprises.




Cristo has come a LONG way and is starting to be able to survive for a while. He's picked up his final spell in Revive, which appears to be a 100% effective full-HP revive that he can use in battle. This'll also come in useful in the near future.




Nara is still nowhere near as impressive. She hasn't learned her last spell and she won't actually learn it this playthrough. That's okay, as it's the standard utterly useless "Give up your life and all your HP to revive everybody else" spell. I'm glad she's not working in the final party, all things considered.




Mara's got every spell she's going to get and her HP and MP are still top notch. She's a very reliable damage dealer even against bosses, although I would probably be very irritated if she decided to cast BeDragon at the wrong time.




Brey.. doesn't change very much, all things considered. He's just like he was 3 levels ago, he's just got more HP and MP and that's about it. I suppose his luck is still pretty amazing, but that's about all I can think of.