Part 39: The Scribbles Dinosaurs Behind the Secret Door
Update 31: The
Hah! Hoo! HeeARRRRGGHH--whoops.
...Asriel. Why is your practice katana stuck in my door? Actually, no, don't answer that. Just get this thing out of my sight. And you're gonna pay Hanna for the door repair charge. One day of exploring'll pay it off. ...Might I ask what that book you're holding is? Huh? ...Ack! N-nothing! Looks like that old story Jackie was talking about, with the ghos-- It is NOT the one about the kindred spirits on the school's roof! Now get this stupid sword out of my door and leave me be! ...Was only gonna say the ghosts part.
...Hehe.
So giving her that book was part of the plan? Part of it. What about Asriel getting his sword stuck in the door? ...That part, no.No, we're not going into either Ginnungagap or the 4th Stratum today. Instead, we're going to get the secret areas behind the sealed doors in the 1st and 2nd Strata out of the way, since we'll need to explore both of them for certain postgame quests.
To start this pseudo-quest, we have to go back to where all of this started: 1F. There's a small area behind the closed door icon.
...So, um, how do we actually use this thing?
Grr rr krr. Well, here's the key, but what's a bear gonna--https://zippy.gfycat.com/LeftDazzli...kankleekai.webm (GIF version)
Throwing the key at the door. Sure, whatever.
I hate it when this shit happens.
Just when I'd finally forgotten the smell. Oh well.Oh my dear sweet christ. Formaldehydes are fucking amazing. Introduced in EO3, Formaldehydes give you all the drops of any monster killed on the turn it's used, including conditional drops you didn't fulfill the condition for! These things are absolute lifesavers for enemies with really dumb conditionals like "Kill with Curse damage." They're sadly in incredibly short supply, and to make them, you need the (annoying) conditional of an FOE that first shows up on 28F.
This thing's nice too, I guess.
Now, we move onto the actual secret area, behind the locked door in the area where we rescued the soldier from the dinosaurs--almost 6 months ago, at time of writing.
And our first secret area encounter has a monster I seriously despise.
Longisquama
HP: 760, STR: 41, TEC: 29, VIT: 29, AGI: 25, LUC: 28
Skills:
Tail Whip: Uses the legs. Deals 70% melee STR-based Stab damage to one row. Lowers hit targets' physical attack by 50% for 4 turns. Has no speed modifier and 99 base accuracy.
- Normal:
Bendy Wings. 50% chance. Sells for 364 en. 1 needed to make 
Down Glove (+23 DEF, +10% Bash resistance, can be equipped by Beasts). 5 needed to make 
Gendawa (+102 ATK, +20 TP).
"The supple wings of a Longisquama. It's often used for weapons and armor."
100% 
50% 
100% 
50% 
50% 
50%Disable resistances:
50% 
150% 
100% 
100% 
100% 
100% 
100%
100% 
50% 
100%
100% 
100% 
100%A lizard with feather-like frills. Its tail can cause weakness if it catches you!
Longisquamas are complete assholes. Firstly, note that they cut all elemental damage in half, so they pose a pretty big annoyance for Alchemists. On top of that, Tail Whip will also cut all the damage your front line deals in half, and deals enough damage that a Beast tanking it will be left pretty badly hurt, especially given the Longisquama's 41 STR (bear in mind that Scylla only had 39 STR). Our party especially has problems with this thing, since we only have 2 damage dealers, one of whom is a Ronin.
Right behind you. Rrgh?! No, no, the good kind of "right behind you!"
Keep that tail away from me...
I've normally been ending most random encounters in 1-3 turns, but it's the 3rd turn now, and the Longisquama is only down to half HP. Random encounters are painful when you have a party as lacking in AOE as this one.
Cut your flaps down to size.
Four turns to bring down one monster. This is going to suck.
3F's secret area theme: rubble. Lots and lots of rubble.
And kinda pointless shortcuts.
One of these stupid lizards just wasn't enough, huh.
Ironically, Sophie is now one of my best options for dealing with random encounters in this party, thanks to Evil Eye and Conflict Word.
Bleh! Ew ew ew... Lizard meat not your thing? No! Eeeeuugh, it's going to take forever to wash out this taste...
Conflict Word's kinda more useful when there's multiple enemies in a fight.
Seems like it's telling Sophie "take this other guy, not me!" I don't want either of them...
At least Flame Grater kinda helps, but repeated use will chew through Asriel's TP pretty quickly.
I hate these stupid lizards so much.
I have to wonder... Where did all these rocks come from...? At this point, I've just stopped wondering anything about this place. None of it makes any sense.
Apparently I've become the Labyrinth's garbage collector.
You wanna talk obnoxious? Because this encounter embodies it several times over.
Especially since this stupid goddamn lizard's normal attacks can one-shot Asriel. Ronin are very, very fragile, if you haven't learned that yet.
I wish there was more to say about this area, but it really just is small areas with annoying lizards around every corner.
Soma Primes are the upgraded version of Somas, and heal the entire party for 160 HP. Pretty decent, although pretty obviously redundant if you have a Medic or War Magus in your party.
So many ingredients, so little time.And three random Take points for no real reason. One gives Citron, the other two give Rye.
Yep. Look at that secret area. Excited yet? Good, because we still have a lot of secret area to go.
I left the Labyrinth at this point to sell off stuff, save, and heal up.
Down Glove (+23 DEF, +10% Bash resistance, can be equipped by Beasts) is unlocked by selling 1 Bendy Wings. There's worse pieces of defensive equipment. I buy one for Ursa later in the update. Gendawa (+102 ATK, +20 TP) is unlocked by selling 5 Bendy Wings. This is actually one of the upper-tier 4th Stratum bows--yeah, I'm doing the secret areas a bit earlier than I'm supposed to. Nadia would be set for a while if I bought this for her.
...Does anyone hear s-stomping? L-like a dinos-saur... Look sharp, ladies. Dinosaur at 6 o'clock.
And you thought the Longisquamas were bad? Meet this fucker.
Raptor Lord
HP: 1684, STR: 44, TEC: 32, VIT: 34, AGI: 22, LUC: 40
Skills:
- Cruel Fangs: Uses the head. Deals 90% melee STR-based Cut damage to the entire party. Attempts to bind hit targets' arms, with a 50% chance. Has an 80% speed modifier and 99 base accuracy.
- Normal: Glittering Tail. 75% chance. Sells for 707 en. 1 needed to make
Beam Whip (+110 ATK, +5 to non-fixed Force gain). 2 needed to make 
Bone Axe (+130 ATK, +10 HP, +2 VIT). 8 needed to make 
Cross Spear (+113 ATK, +3 VIT).
"Mysterious raptor tail that somehow releases heat and light. Takes great skill to work."
- Conditional:
Severed Horn (Kill with Cut damage). 80% chance. Sells for 1131 en. 1 needed to make 
Monohoshizao (+136 ATK, +10 HP, +3 AGI).
"A cleanly severed horn. Though impressive, it is hard and extremely difficult to work."
100% 100% 100% 100% 125% 100%Disable resistances:
100% 100% 100% 50% 100% 100% 50% 50% 50% 50% 50% 100% 100%A savage creature with a bedazzling horn, it is among the most dangerous denizens of the forest.
The game's not kidding with the description there. This thing has stats that outpace pretty much every 4th Stratum monster and even some monsters from the start of the 5th Stratum. 44 STR means the thing will one-shot Asriel with any attack, no questions asked, and Ursa WILL die if she tanks all the hits of Cruel Fangs--if her arms don't get bound first, that is. 40 LUC and 50% resistance to fear and head binds also means this thing is annoying tough to disable, so Sophie and Freyja have their work cut out for them.
Also, 1684 HP. For a well-constructed party, that is a lot. For our party, this thing might as well be an FOE.
Even Preemptive Roar won't help a ton.
My biggest mistake throughout this entire fight is prioritizing Gag over Cuffs for Freyja, since binding the Raptor Lord's arms would still lower its STR, and she'd be hitting a 100% arm bind resistance instead of 50% head bind resistance.
Its jaws a-are like iron. I can't tie them...
Its horns are in the way of its head!
At least our damage (when an enemy doesn't have 2-3 binds) isn't godawful, just bad. Freyja and Asriel can whittle the thing down by around 400 HP every turn.
Rrrf.
Ohhhhh shit. Oh no.
Grrk...!Fuck.
Struck down in my prime...
Ow ow ow ow OW! I thought Ursa's job was to stop that! It's hard to do that--ow--when your arms are broken...Yeah, ouch. This is bad. Realga and Sophie will die to one more Cruel Fangs, and Ursa can't use Hit-Taker right now.
Screw it. Do or die.
I am NOT going through death by dinosaur in the middle of this stupid forest! Get back up!
motherFUCKER
M-my arms...!
Urk...I just got back up...
Ow ow ow... It's MY job to bite things off!AAAAAAAAAAA
Desperate times calls for Desperation.
That's how the saying goes, right?
It's... Urk... Sophie? Are you getting food poisoning?! It tastes so raw...Oh thank every god that has ever existed.
Death is too good for dinosaurs. Are you about to go off on another tangent like you did with the spiders? They're not as bad as spiders. Close, though.In case it wasn't obvious enough that I'm exploring these places way earlier than I should. What's a game without a good challenge every now and then, though?
Is that...a frog? Frog?! Where is it where is it where is it?! I see we've got a big fan of frog meat. ...Eww.Frog Lords will jump two tiles in your direction when enter the same row or column they occupy.
https://zippy.gfycat.com/GreenDefin...arterhorse.webm (GIF version)
Like so.
That thing's got some legs, hm.
Come on, people, stop leaving your garbage on the floor of the Labyrinth.
Oh great, there's more of this. Probably more dinosaurs, too, if I'm really lucky. Look at it this way... At least the dinosaurs are good practice for the upper strata, r-right?We're done with the 3F secret area, but we've got plenty more to go.
Think I see another frog behind that box.Hmm. How can I lure the Frog Lord out so I can get to the chest safely?
That's a question for another time, since I went back to town at this point because the Raptor Lords were putting a serious drain on my TP and Force.
Beam Whip (+110 ATK, +5 to non-fixed Force gain) is unlocked by selling 1 Glittering Tail. This thing is actually on the low end of damage as far as 4th Stratum whips go, but it's our first introduction to Force Up weapons. What these do is they add a static amount to any non-fixed Force gain--so it affects stuff like Force gained from using a skill, but not Force gained from skills like White Noble, Force gained from Axcelas, etc.In my opinion, I don't really see a lot of value to Force Up. It's kinda useful, but my issue is that--for my playstyle in Classic, at least--boss fights (the fights where you'd REALLY want Force back quickly) tend to end before Force Up can make a ton of difference. There's two boss fights MUCH later on where they're guaranteed to last a long time (30+ turns, in fact), but... Let's just say they mess with Force in special ways that render Force Up irrelevant.
I still buy Freyja a Beam Whip because it's a lot better than her Red Fin Whip, but it's not going to be something I'm keeping for a while.
Monohoshizao (+136 ATK, +10 HP, +3 AGI), on the other hand, is really good. The only katanas that outpace it in the 4th Stratum are, in order:* Made from 7 of a monster's normal drop (+138 ATK)
* Made from a very tough to kill FOE's drop (+142 ATK)
* Made from the stratum boss's normal drop (+147 ATK)
I immediately buy it for Asriel (after getting some more money). He'll be sticking with this thing probably until the 5th Stratum.
Oh, right, the frog. How do I get past it so I can get the treasure...
I must have a taste! You're going to be the death of us soon, Sophie...Fighting it is a good option, I guess. It's easy to get past it when it's dead.
Frog Lord
HP: 9832, STR: 49, TEC: 41, VIT: 39, AGI: 33, LUC: 46
Skills:
- Toxic Secretion: Uses the head. Attempts to inflict poison on the entire party, with a 70% base chance and 38 base damage (~59 adjusted for level). Has an 80% speed modifier.
- Drain Dive: Cannot be disabled. Reduces all party members' maximum HP by 75% for 4 turns. Has no speed modifier.
- Normal: Toxic Skin. 100% chance. Sells for 1650 en. 1 needed to make
Poison Gas (40% base chance to inflict poison with 50 base damage). 2 needed to make 
Poisondart Coat (+42 DEF, +30% Poison resistance).
"Vibrant pink-colored skin of a giant frog. Being toxic itself, it resists poisons."
- Conditional: Cursed Frog Skin (Kill while cursed). 100% chance. Sells for 4800 en. 1 needed to make
Curse Mail (War Magus ultimate body armor; +96 DEF, +3 STR, +3 TEC).
"Cursed skin that excretes toxins. Both toxic and cursed, it's extremely dangerous."
100% 100% 125% 100% 125% 100%Disable resistances:
50% 0% 50% 25% 50% 50% 50% 10% 10% 10% 100% 50% 0%It sucks the life out of its prey. If only you could make it kill itself on accident...!
The Frog Lord's gimmick is that it'll lower your entire party's maximum HP, and then kill you with normal attacks and low-damage poison. That's really all there is to it, other than the fact that you can't stop Drain Dive at all thanks to the thing's immunity to leg binds. Unihorns basically render Drain Dive a non-issue, but we don't have any on us right now.
I'm also really starting to regret having Sophie forget Corrupt Curse, since getting the Curse Mail unlock out of the way now would've been nice.
Oh yeah, we're at the point now where certain FOE conditionals (along with the boss conditionals which we've already seen) start to make ultimate equipment for certain classes. If you want to do postgame stuff (especially the DLC superboss), I highly recommend getting each class's ultimate equipment, since they all have very nice bonuses.
Freyja's better suited for hitting the frog's 100% head bind resistance.
I need as much damage out of Freyja and Asriel as possible, since 9800 HP takes a while to chew through.
Arm binds don't really do much here aside from give Freyja more damage from Ecstasy.
I feel very frail... Urrrerrrgh... Of all the times to not have Unihorns. I can't treat this!Well, I could use Medical Miracle to purge the debuff, but the Frog Lord'll just recast it in a few turns anyway.
Put that tongue b-back in your mouth.
Mm. Froggy. I don't want to know what "froggy" tastes like, thank you very much.
...No ancient songs this time? Jackie's been hogging Colette's book lately.
I wish I could get a 3-bind Ecstasy off, but two will have to do.
I have Asriel turn on Immovable, because why not.
The max HP reduction affects Desperation, but at least the Frog Lord won't be able to easily kill Ursa now.
Overheal will kinda help. Kinda.
Evil Eye and Conflict Word will actually let me force the Frog Lord to skip its Drain Dive turns, if it lasts long enough.
Bllrrrgh...Ouch. That'd hurt even if we didn't have lowered max HP.
If they cannot bind your legs, I will sever them!Okay, that's kinda decent.
Now that's really good!
Imagine this party without Ecstasy. Euuuugh.
I don't think I've mentioned it before, but if an enemy hasn't taken their turn before they become afraid, they actually have a chance to skip their action on that turn. Pretty neat! The same applies to player characters, though, which is much less neat.
Slowly but surely, we're whittling this thing down.
Sophie has nothing left to do with the last turn of Creeping Curse, so I just have her Black Mist the Frog Lord instead.
Sophie, imagine the pain you're causing these things that they just flinch looking at you. They taste so good, though... Plus they're trying to kill us, anyway.
I wish I could just box up this frog after we're done with it...
The poor thing looks like it just wants this to end...
Oh, come on.
Well, so much for disabling the thing on the Drain Dive turn. I turn on Steady Hands because I might as well get some mileage out of it before I purge off the second round of Drain Dive with Medical Miracle.
Pretty much the best thing Sophie can do now is try to put the Frog Lord to sleep.
Steady Hands is a really great Force Boost. It's a damn shame that its usefulness is overshadowed by Medical Miracle.
Every time I see Freyja's low basic whip skill damage, I get kinda sad.
...Did I kill it? Nope. The thing's just gone to sleep. Aw.
I have Freyja defend this turn, since Horse Slash will deal more damage with the sleep bonus than Gag.
I have Realga use Overheal so I can show how it interacts with Medical Miracle.
Sophie is actually out of useful things to do now, so I just have her do whatever.
A rude awakening!
...Huh?
Well, add another statistical improbability to the current count, if for some reason you're keeping track of that.
I may not have any Unihorns...
But I can do THIS! ...Am I seeing things, or was light coming down on you from the sky, Realga? I dunno, it's hard to pay attention to stuff like that during the Healing Touch.Overheal interacts with Medical Miracle like it does any other healing skill. What I didn't get to show was that if any dead party members are revived from this, their HP is set to the maximum Overheal amount, which is pretty neato.
Now this thing's just an absolute joke.
B-begone...! ...Did that sound confident? Nope.Frog Lords are a pretty big pain to fight this early. I got kinda lucky with the binds and the thing not using Toxic Secretion when its head was unbound.
Worth it worth it worth it worth it worth it worth it oh my god that was worth it.
I don't think we've seen Amrita IIs yet, but they're the upgraded form of Amritas, pretty obviously. They restore 100 TP instead of 50. Sadly, there aren't any Amrita IIIs in EO2U, and Amrita IIs are made from a really annoying conditional of a really annoying FOE that first shows up on 28F (not the same one whose conditional makes Formaldehydes, mind you).
The next Frog Lord puzzle's pretty simple.
Just trigger one hop...
And then get into a random encounter (not really).
I don't really feel like eating rabbits...
Thunder Rabbit
HP: 456, STR: 37, TEC: 37, VIT: 27, AGI: 26, LUC: 29
Skills:
- Heaven's Bolt: Uses the head. Deals 3-5 instances of 110% ranged TEC-based Volt damage to random targets. Can hit the same target multiple times. Has a 70% speed modifier and 120 base accuracy.
- Normal: Snow Teeth. 40% chance. Sells for 330 en. 1 needed to make
Rabbit Helm (+27 DEF, +1 TEC, can be equipped by Beasts). 8 needed to make 
Volt Gun (+103 ATK, normal attacks become Stab+Volt).
"Sharp rabbit tooth fit for a herbivorous diet. It can be processed to make weapons and armor."
- Conditional: Chattering Tooth (Kill while afraid). 100% chance. Sells for 648en. 1 needed to make
Aegir Helm (Fafnir ultimate non-body armor; +56 DEF, +2 STR, +2 TEC).
"Rabbit's front teeth that chatter in fear. The more it chatters, the harder it gets."
125% 125% 125% 50% 50% 50%Disable resistances:
50% 50% 100% 100% 100% 100% 150% 100% 100% 50% 0% 100% 100%A rabbit that can summon lightning bolts. Fortunately, it is less apt at close range.
Thunder Rabbits can put some serious hurt on a person if multiple hits of Heaven's Bolt land on them, but they're otherwise quite a bit of a step down from the Longisquamas and Raptor Lords.
Unlike the Frog Lords, I can very easily get that conditional drop and get Ranger's ultimate non-body armor unlocked for later.
150% resistance to fear means getting the conditional is really easy.
I...guess that swimsuit helps. Somehow. I really want to ask Colette to figure out how that thing works now...Behold: the power of the Bikini Armor. Ursa effectively ate 440% Volt damage, and it barely scratched her.
Those teeth supposed to still be chattering? Magic teeth? Grab 'em! They're probably worth a lot to Sitoth!
Anyway, yeah, if you just bait out one movement from the Frog Lord and then move to the opposite side, you can get to the door easily. Like I said, very easy.
And now that we have an easy shortcut back to where we were, I decided to call it an update here.
All that's left is to sell what we got.
Rabbit Helm (+27 DEF, +1 TEC, can be equipped by Beasts) is unlocked by selling 1 Snow Teeth. I still prefer the Pointy Hat for now. Aegir Helm (Fafnir ultimate non-body armor; +56 DEF, +2 STR, +2 TEC) is unlocked by selling 1 Chattering Tooth. It's Fafnir's ultimate non-body armor and gives nice, if small, stat bonuses. Not a whole lot else to say. It's way out of our price point at this time (money DLC nonwithstanding) at 140k en, but I'll definitely get it for Ranger as soon as it isn't. Poison Gas (40% base chance to inflict poison with 50 base damage) is unlocked by selling 1 Toxic Skin. It's really goddamn terrible. Good luck getting any "kill with poison" conditionals with that shitty 50 base damage.NEXT TIME: More secret areas. Hopefully less getting mauled by dinosaurs.