Part 1: Prologue: The Coming of Besek

Though the truth of the chain of events may forever be shrouded in mystery, most historians agree that Valdia’s greatest trials began with the reappearance of the Majin realm of Besek.
- excerpt, The Fall of Valdia

Prologue: The Coming of Besek

Besek returned today.

Video- “Thage”

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It looks like we’ve found it. Besek…



Thage, stay alert. Majin…
Raki!

An… old acquaintance was being menaced by the Majin, so I decided to intervene.







Hold it right there.
How pitiful.



Very well. Away with you, filthy Majin.

Of course trash like this is no threat at all.

Video- “Echoes”

Click For Video No Commentary Version

Welcome to a very special tutorial edition of Eternal Poison. Today we’re going to learn all the basics of gameplay. I’m not really going to talk about strategy because it’s pretty much impossible to lose this map. While I’ll normally transcribe what characters say in battle, it’s all tutorial stuff this time around so I won’t bother. The map starts out with our victory and defeat conditions. In this map, we win by defeating all of the Majin. We will lose if our main character for this map, the witch Thage, is defeated.



Accompanying Thage in this tutorial is Ranunculus, her Guiding Sage (also known as Raki).



In Eternal Poison units take turns one at a time. We can see the order of upcoming turns in the lower portion of the screen. Faster units are able to take turns more often.



The most basic action a unit can take on its turn is to move. Movement happens independent of any other action they may take, and can happen before or after. A unit’s movement range appears as a radius of blue squares surrounding them. Most units can only move so far up or down in a single step, so elevation is also important to keep in mind.



Attack, obviously, allows us to use one of our equipped weapons to attack an enemy. When we choose Attack, we’ll see a list of the character’s available attack modes, what sort of damage they do, their power, and the possible target squares. Most weapons can only attack adjacent squares. Spears are able to hit a two square area in any direction, and bows are able to hit any one square at a distance. Raki here is an interesting case, because he’s armed with natural weapons. He’s got Claws that do Slash damage and a slightly stronger Bite for Pierce damage. Thage is armed with a Librum, which does Strike damage.



Most characters also have access to Skills. These represent both special physical attacks and spells a character may have access to. When we select Skill, we can see what sort of damage each skill we have available to us does, how many more times we can use that skill in this battle, and the base power of the skill. Right now Thage has five casts each of two skills, the fire spell Pyro I and the dark spell Malus I. Raki also has a skill, the air spell Aero I. Now let’s take a detailed look at our two characters and the status screen.



Here’s the status screen for our current main character, Thage. Let’s look at it piece by piece. We can see Thage’s current level and class in the upper left. Below that is her current and max health, and how much experience she needs to level up. Her movement type is Ground, which controls her movement ability. Below that we can see her dodge, counter, and critical hit chances, which are right now zero.

In the second column we see Thage’s stats. The ATK stat controls how hard we hit in combat. DEF improves our resistance to physical attacks. MDF reduces the damage we take from magic. STR, VIT, and MND are ‘behind the scenes’ stats that are part of the formulas that determine our ATK, DEF, HP, and MDF stats. INT controls how much damage we do with spells. Finally, SPD controls the order of battle actions. The higher a character’s SPD stat, the more frequently they get turns. SPD is a special stat, because it won’t increase with our level. Thage is relatively weak in physical combat but has very powerful magic.

Below that we see our magic and melee affinities. Each icon represents an attack type, and the number next to it shows our percent resistance to it. We can see that Thage is somewhat resistant to Fire and Darkness, slightly resistant to Air and Water, vulnerable to Earth, and very vulnerable to Light. She’s also universally vulnerable to physical attacks. These will change as we level, and also as we get new equipment.

Down at the bottom we can see Thage’s skills (and also her equipment, but we’ll look at that when we can do anything about it). We have the two spells noted earlier, Pyro I and Malus I. We’ve also got Summon IV, an active skill which is currently of no use to us because we have no captured Majin available to us. We’ve also got the passive skill Negate, which makes Thage completely immune to all forms of magic.



Raki meanwhile is a powerful physical fighter. Even two levels lower he’s got higher attack and defense stats than her, as well as more health. He’s much faster, and more resistant to Slash and Strike damage than Thage. He’s vulnerable to Pierce attacks as well as most types of magic. Besides his Aero I skill, he has the passive skill Martyr. This allows him to take the place of a friendly target in one of the surrounding squares when they are under attack. Now let’s take a look at our opposition.



We’re up against three level 2 Caprus and one special guy we’ll talk about later on this map. Caprus are some of the weakest Majin there are. They’re very weak to Fire and Light, reasonably vulnerable to most physicals, and take half damage from Dark attacks. They have a weak offense and terribly weak magic defense, but make up for it with a surprisingly average defense. They don’t have access to any special skills, and aren’t much to worry about. There’s one important detail of any Majin that we can’t see on the status screen: Their Overkill HP.



Almost every single Majin we encounter in the game has an Overkill HP listed below their health on the map. If we manage to overkill a Majin by at least this amount, it’ll be Bound. Once we’ve Bound a Majin, we are able to Capture it. Captured Majin have a lot of uses, which we’ll discuss in a later update. There’s really no good reason not to try and Capture as many Majin as we can.



As the Main Character, Thage has a special combat action available to her, Lead. Lead is a powerful option that allows us to delay the movement and attacks of our team members to her turn, as well as allowing us to unleash powerful Combo attacks. Any given character can only be Led to one action a turn, so a character that didn’t Move or Attack can only do one or the other.



A Combo can be unleashed if we have two characters in range with available Attacks. Both characters will combine their normal Attacks on the target, and the total combined damage will be done in one hit. This makes it easier to Overkill powerful enemies with high Overkill HP values.



Our units gain experience from almost everything they do in combat. They gain some small amount from attacking, being attacked, casting any type of spell, and capturing Majin. They also gain substantially more for defeating/binding a Majin. As we gain levels our characters get more skills and better stats, and eventually will get a chance to upgrade to a better class.



Remember when I said there was a special enemy on the map? Our last opponent might seem like an ordinary level five Caprus, but he’s got a special defense called a Demon Aura. If a Majin has a Demon Aura, it’s immune to almost all forms of attack. In order to damage the Majin, we need to break the Aura by attacking it with its weakness. This Caprus’s Demon Aura is vulnerable to Strike attacks, so we need to use an attack with Thage’s Librum to break it. This special Caprus also has a zero for its Overkill HP. This means it’s impossible to capture. It’s otherwise almost the same as its lower level compatriots. Once it’s down, the map’s over.

Nor were they are objective here.

Video- “Besek”

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Thage!

She was already gone when we finished with the Majin. Not that I have any reason to care.



Raki?
At last…

The important thing is that Besek has returned. What we’ve worked so long for is finally at hand…
- excerpt, recovered text fragments







Video- “Stories”

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Narrator: Our story takes place in the old days, when demons were more than just a legend.



Narrator: The Kingdom of Valdia had ruled the northern region of the Sandis continent for over a thousand years.



Narrator: The Church of Valdia had embraced the Goddess Atona as their one true God and protector. All other religions were banished from the Kingdom through force.



Narrator: Valdia was ruled by a series of kings whose bloodline could be traced to the ancient rulers, and the Valdian Knights were trained to defend the Kingdom from without and within. According to tradition, the Commander of the Knights was given the honor of marrying into the Royal family. Our story begins not long after the announcement that young Commander Olifen would marry Princess Lenarshe.



Narrator: Shortly after this, the Princess vanished.



Narrator: Elsewhere, the mysterious realm of Besek had appeared, home of the fierce creatures known as Majin. For the first time in years, fear awoke in the hearts of the Valdians. Before the High Council could declare an official statement, King Valdus stood before his people and issued a proclamation.



Valdus: “The scriptures have spoken of an evil omen that will signal mankind’s ruin. That omen is the appearance of Besek in our world.



Valdus: We cannot allow the Majin’s endless thirst for death and destruction to send our kingdom into chaos once again.



Valdus: We must stay strong in these trying times. My beloved daughter, the Princess Lenarshe, has been kidnapped by these foul beasts.



Valdus: They have taken her to their lair.



Valdus: No matter where you’re from or what you believe in, please, rescue my daughter from Besek and I will give you anything you wish!”

There are many tales told still to this day about the souls who supposedly penetrated Besek, but three remain most popular today. One was of the witch Thage, who searched not for the missing princess but instead for the legendary Eternal Poison said to be deep within Besek.



Another speaks of the young Commander’s efforts to rescue his fiancé from the clutches of the Majin. The greatest threats to his efforts may come from his own allies, though.



The third is about a group sent by the Church of Valdia to penetrate Besek and uncover its secrets. While their leader searches for a missing friend, she finds far more than she could have ever expected.



- excerpt, “Legends of Besek, vol III”

Decision Time!

We currently have access to three stories, each with its own main character and party:

Thage’s Story: In this story we control Thage, who we saw in the prologue. This is probably the hardest of the three because our main character is so fragile. On the other hand, Thage has one of the strongest overall parties, and can potentially do more damage than any other main character. It should also be noted there are minor spoilers for the other two stories in Thage’s story.

Olifen’s Story: In this story we control Olifen, the missing princess’ fiancé. He’s probably the least effective main character overall, though he’s not terrible in absolute terms. He’s got a large and quite powerful party with him as well. This story is about intermediate in difficulty.

Ashley’s Story: In this story we control Ashley, a young Defender of the Valdian Church searching for her missing mentor. Ashley is the most versatile main character, having powerful physical attacks, healing, and even decent magical attacks. It’s good that Ashley is incredible, because the rest of her party is somewhat mediocre. Still, overall this is the easiest of the three stories.

So our first choice is simple: Which story will we see first?