Part 39: Nisir (Not Quite the Last Dungeon Yet)

Part 39: Nisir (Not Quite the Last Dungeon Yet)

So, to recap, we now have pretty much every major diety of Oceana in our corner. We have every possible magic spell and almost all of the best equipment.

But we still have one thing to do. Namtar, your day of reckoning has come!

...almost.

There isn't all that much to do in Nisir. We already visited the principal shrine of the Universal God, and that's the main reason people come to Nisir. But there's one other temple here. Let's check that out.

Paragraph 100 posted:

Off the beaten path you find this is a temple to the Magan Underworld. This seems a considerably older place than the other structures on this plateau. The Underworld was before there was a was, and doubtless it will still thrive when all of Oceana has long since burned off into the void.

A temple to the Underworld you say? Does that mean stairs to the Underworld? You betcha!

Conveniently, this gives us a nice route back to the Underworld, allowing us to recharge our MP. We could have used this route to get here in the first place, and in fact it's a bit easier. We took the "scenic" route, killing off a dozen or so of Namtar's henchmen at the Pilgrim Dock.

This isn't technically our last chance to visit the Underworld, but this is as good of a time as any to take a trip downstairs, recharge, and check out a couple of things we may have missed in the Underworld.



The pit where Namtar came from? Not exactly what we're looking for, but let's remember that. What else is around here?



We can follow this bridge to the main part of the Underworld, but there's a catch.



In order to pass, we have to say Yes here. We can't just fight the spirits; selecting No just sends us backwards. What is the "price of life" then?





That's right: everyone goes down to a single HP. A steep price to pay indeed...

...except for the fact that we can completely negate that problem by using the Bandage skill. And then walk over to the recharge fountain to take care of our MP as well.

There's one other thing we should do while we're down here. Now, most things up to this point, we've had a reason to do. There's a crack in the wall and mud is leaking through? Sure, use the Create Wall spell to seal it up. That makes logical sense.

But this time, we're going to do something that makes no sense at all!





See that chasm in front of us? We're just going to walk right into it. Why? No reason. There's no hint that we should do this. Nobody tells us to. We're just going to do it, because... reasons.







This is +5 skill points to every character in the party. It's a significant bonus. You can actually get here very early in the game, immediately after escaping Purgatory. And there's no way you'd know about it without accidentally walking onto this one specfic tile!

I take this opportunity to boost Dexterity for the front-liners, MP and Sun/High Magic skills for the back row. There's not too much else to do with the extra points. Having 40 or more MP for all of our primary magic users is the real key here. Casting spells is pretty much the best thing we can do at this point in the game, so the more MP, the better.

Also, once we've walked out into the abyss, it's possible to just keep walking around. We can even encounter random enemies in mid-air!



Enough detouring. Let's get back to Nisir. (The spirits don't bother us on the way back over the bridge, by the way. It happens once per visit to the Underworld.)



Off to the side of the temple, these guys are guarding something. We'll leave them alone for now.



We can go one of two ways here. The door on the left, or what looks like a wall on the right. The door has a simple lock on it, and leads to...



Hmm. We could take these guys out fairly easily, but let's try the other route.



The "wise man" bit means using the Intelligence attribute (the only time we ever have to do so). You don't need someone with a high IQ: Ulrik's meager 11 rating is good enough.



Obviously we use the Climb ability here, and we only need to have a 1 in it. Having an alternate path where you don't need to fight is cool, but this is a really easy obstacle for being so late in the game.

Paragraph 55 posted:

A yawning chasm stretches before you. A violent gust of hot wind rises from the chasm...the void must reach to the very roots of the world, below even the Underworld. Out of the chasm, starting an unknowable distance beneath you and stretching as far as the eye can see, you view a vomitous mass of irregular black stone. The tower stands piled atop itself and is at once designed and chaotic...from one angle it looks like a sorcerer's stronghold, while from another it seems like the exposed spine of a fantastic beast. Perhaps it is not really there at all. More likely it exists in more than one dimension at the same time, and is thus difficult to see in its entirety.

One thing is certain...this tower has nothing to do with god, or salvation, or pilgrims. This is a tower of Evil. This is the Tower of Namtar!

There it is, just a couple of tiles away! Now all we have to do is cross that chasm there. Well, we did just walk out onto a chasm in the Underworld...

Piers: We've got this. The Universal God will carry us over the chasm. Everyone follow me!



Shiiiiiit...

Next up: Will our heroes make it to the Tower of Namtar, or plummet to their doom?