Part 60: To the Throne

Update 49: To the Throne

So, fun story, and by fun I mean "I really shouldn't be making mistakes this terrible this late into the LP." I lost the footage of doing Task for the tracker! I recorded it separately from both this update and the last one, and accidentally deleted the raw footage before processing it. I AM VERY ORGANIZED.



Hard to believe we're this close to the end of the castle.
If I'll be perfectly honest, I was expecting us to fall apart sometime around Chimaera.
Well, thank the gods we didn't. I'm looking forward to summing up my final tab for all this--given how many times I've been in exploring parties, I expect it to be a lot.
A...lot? No specific range?
Giving a specific type of number is just asking to be disappointed once I finish getting the real number.




First thing to do today is get another Sky Metal Shard. You've already seen one fight with a Sky Metal Knight, so let's just skip ahead.



Kid should be happy with this.
SYSTEM: If you decide that this material would make a sufficient present, you can return to the bar with it.




The most ad campaign finished, with mediocre results.





New campaigns.



Ah, yeh're back. Good, good, yeh managed to get...them? Geez, how many did yeh grab? Look, just one's gonna be fine, awright? Yeh decide on which one yeh want to give that kid.

You have to manually select what drop you want to turn in--I turn in the Sky Metal Shard, pretty obviously.

Here's some strange metal we got from the sword automaton. Had to kill it quickly.
Awright, this one it is. Heh...it'll make a fine old present. The requester's house ain't that far. Yeh lot sit tight, and I'll go deliver this.


Everything went fine, right?
Well...turns out the kid already worked out that his dad was gone. Mighta found out from those kids he saved back then. So he followed his mom here, and saw her puttin' in the request... His mom was so scared that it'd hurt the kid to find out the truth, and to find out that she'd been lyin' for so long... But yeh know what that kid said to her? “Thank you for all you've done for me."
What a sensible child...
Keh heh heh. His mom burst into tears, the kid and I freaked out...it was a mess. It was all we could do to calm her down. After that, his mom and I took turns tellin' stories about his dad... Now he wants to be an explorer. Looked just like his old man... If yeh lot aren't careful, he's gonna end up better than yeh in a flash! Don't slack off, now! Haw haw haw! Oh, almost forgot. I, eh...left yer gift at that guy's grave. That okay?
I guess, but...why?
Well, yeh found somethin' he liked a lot! No sense in lettin' it just go to waste if the kid don't want it! ...I didn't know that fella for too long, but he was a friend. We joked around a lot. You did somethin' good for a friend of mine. It ain't much, but... I gotta give yeh my own thanks, as well. ...Heh. I must be gettin' old if I'm startin' to talk to myself. Here, take yer reward and go! Awright, see yeh!



We get two more Nectar IIs for turning in a conditional drop.



Still just putting points in small passives.



Let's tackle The Test of Courage now. Firstly, I have absolutely no qualms about dropping the difficulty to Picnic for this, because getting the maximum reward with this quest on Expert is nigh-impossible unless you put it off until, like, the end of the postgame.



SYSTEM: You feel a rush just setting foot in the area. A guard sees you from his post by the stairs, and moves towards you.


That would be us, yes.
SYSTEM: When you nod, the guard breathes a sigh of relief, his palm settling against his breastplate.
I was worried you weren't going to make it at such short notice. Thank you for coming. It would be a privilege and an honor for me to explain the Test of Courage to you. For this quest, you have seven hours' time to defeat more of a certain monster than the other participants. The monster we would have you defeat today... is the great beast that lives on this floor, the Charging Rhino. Please remember that even if you defeat monsters other than the rhinos, they will not count towards your total. The Test will end seven hours from when you begin, but it will end immediately if you leave this floor, so please take caution. If you are ready, you can begin your Test of Courage right away. Would you like to begin?
In the words of something I found in Colette's anthology, "get it onne!"
Understood. Starting from now, Lumen shall undertake their Test of Courage. Once the time comes to an end, we will sound a flute to notify everyone. I pray that you can finish the Test safely. Please do take caution.
SYSTEM: You give thanks to the guard, and fix your grips on your weapons. The Test of Courage has begun. You forge onward.

It's exactly what it sounds like: we have to kill a bunch of Charging Rhinos to finish the quest. There's six of these things on the floor, and if you want the maximum reward, you have to kill them ALL. You'll see why this is incredibly difficult until you're massively overleveled or on Picnic in just a bit.


RRRRGH!
An unstoppable rhino meats an immovable bear.





Charging Rhino
HP: 12517, STR: 49, TEC: 41, VIT: 40, AGI: 30, LUC: 39
Skills:

• Horn Smash: Uses the head. Deals 200% melee STR-based Stab damage, with line-piercing effect. Has an 80% speed modifier and 99 base accuracy.
  
• Do or Die: Used on the turn after the Charging Rhino's head is bound. Cannot be disabled. Purges all binds from the Charging Rhino, heals it for 5000 HP, and increases its physical attack by 50% for 4 turns. Has priority.

Drops:

• Normal: Red Horn Shard. 100% chance. Sells for 1800 en. 1 needed to make Sekitou (+142 ATK, +10 HP, +2 VIT). 2 needed to make Horn Spear (+126 ATK, +4 VIT).
  "A chunk of a Charging Rhino's tough horn. Weapons made from it are the same striking red."
  
• Conditional: Bound Red Horn (Kill while head is bound). 100% chance. Sells for 4100 en. 1 needed to make Wisdom Horn (Chance to obtain Grimoire even without Grimoire Chance).
  "Large horn that can no longer move freely. A flute made from this is said to be lucky."
  
• Ingredient: Rhino Shoulder. 15-18 given. 3 needed to make Rhino Meat Stew (Western Food 4; increases drop rates by 15%). 4 needed to make Stewed Rhino (Chinese Food 4; +80% Panic resistance). 4 needed to make Shell Yakiniku (Japanese Food 4; paralyzed enemies have a 99% chance to not act).
  "Tough meat of a rhino."

Damage resistances:
100% 50% 100% 100% 125% 100%
Disable resistances:
50% 25% 25% 50% 50% 25% 25%
10% 10% 10%
200% 25% 75%

An abnormally large-horned rhino who will frenzy if binded.

12517 HP. Even at our current level, on Expert, that would take quite a lot of turns and, more importantly, TP and Force to chew through. These things aren't even a real challenge by this point, it's killing six of them within 7 in-game hours that's the problem. An actual fight with one wouldn't even be interesting, hence why I had no hesitation switching to Picnic.




Six rhinos later...

That was, without a doubt, the single worst use of my time I've ever seen.
Killing even one rhino is exhausting...
SYSTEM: The thudding impact reverberates across the forest, as if announcing your victory to the world... Congratulations! You have set a new record on the Test of Courage, surpassing countless other warriors! Now, return to the bar when you feel so inclined, and claim your prize for overcoming the Test!



Well, if it ain't the guild of the hour! I've been waiting for yeh!
Pretty sure I know what this is about, but tell us anyway.
Hmm? What, yeh haven't heard the results yet? Yeh got first place! Yeh won!
Rrr-hooo!
After having to kill six rhinos back-to-back, I would hope we'd get first place.
Haw, I can hardly believe it either! First yeh find the flyin' castle, and now yeh've won the Test of Courage...! How much more famous do yeh need to be before yeh're satisfied? Haw haw haw! Yeh don't let anythin' hold yeh back! Oh, the Palace sent some kinda certificate and a letter of recognition, of course. Here, lemme read it out.
Cass, please save us all some time, we can probably guess--
“Beneath the glorious gaze of Yggdrasil, you have all exemplified bravery and skill. The Duchy commends your achievements. Your names shall be engraved in glory and light, carved into our history, known from High Lagaard to the citadel empyrean..." Holy hell. What does any of this even mean? Can't they just say “congrats" like a normal person? But man, I'm glad yeh lot won...! To be honest, I kinda bet almost everything I have on yeh lot. Haw haw haw! Here, this is your prize! I made sure to hold onto it. After all, I'm one of Lumen's best pals! Haw haw haw! Yeh lot really did it! Congrats!


Something tells me we're gonna be needing all this rare medicine really soon.

This is why I wanted the maximum reward--if we only killed one or two rhinos, we would've only gotten one Amrita II. Three to five rhinos would've gotten us three Amrita IIs. Believe me, I'm gonna need as many of these things as I can for Overlord.



Peerless Stance now gives Asriel 17% extra damage, 12% extra defense, a 141% speed multiplier, and +130 non-base accuracy/evasion, while now costing 5 TP instead of 3.



Level 1 Aegis/Deadly Resolve is a 10% chance to endure mortal damage at 1 HP.



And I'm still getting certain skills back up to where they were pre-resting.

That's all the quests we can do during the main game. All that's left is 25F.






Let's do some cooking, first.

Stewed Rhino gives the party +80% resistance to panic. Panic is one of the worst ailments to get hit by, making this theoretically pretty useful--unfortunately, almost no enemies beyond the Great Moths back in the 4th Stratum rely on panic.

Shell Yakiniku makes it so that paralyzed enemies have a whopping 99% chance to not act. This is a supremely broken food, only made slightly less amazing by quite a lot of enemies and bosses having 25% paralysis resistance. It's also the only ailment that Hexers don't have access to.

Rhino Meat Stew increases all enemy drop rates by 15%. This would be slightly better in earlier EO games, where enemy drop rates were damn terrible a lot of the time, but in EO2U, where most drop rates are pretty reasonable, not so much.




I bought Freyja a Fortune Necklace before going into 25F, since her binds are annoyingly unreliable, and I want to mitigate that somewhat.




Let's begin the end.



Well, that level up didn't take long.



Leveling up Curb ATK Up to 3 unlocked Snake Eyes, which lowers one enemy's physical defense. If the targeted enemy has an ailment or bind on them, the defense reduction is increased by 10%. At level 20, Snake Eyes on a target with an ailment/bind is actually the strongest defense debuff in the game, at 50%.



We've got two Cursed Knights and a Sky Metal Knight in the same room.



Let's just take care of that and make my life easier.




Blowing up those Cursed Knights isn't that big a deal.



So many mutations...


King Gel
HP: 1567, STR: 47, TEC: 46, VIT: 35, AGI: 29, LUC: 36
Skills:

• King of Kings: Uses the head. Deals 140% ranged TEC-based Volt damage, with line-piercing effect. Has an 80% speed modifier and 120 base accuracy.
  
• Explosives: Requires at least one Yellow Gel to use. Uses the head. Deals 3 instances (1 Yellow Gel) or 6 instances (2 Yellow Gels) of 150% ranged TEC-based Volt damage to random targets. Can hit the same target multiple times. Has a 60% speed modifier and 99 base accuracy.

Drops:

• Normal: Black Gelatin. 70% chance. Sells for 1260 en. 1 needed to make Elemental Guard (+10% Fire/Ice/Volt resistance). 4 needed to make Black Scepter (+115 ATK, +70 TP). 6 needed to make Expel Coat (+49 DEF). 1 Black Gelatin and 2 Silver Shards needed to make Duergar Blade (+146 ATK). 8 Gold Shells and 2 Black Gelatins needed to make Kaiser Shield (+46 DEF).
  "Ebon nucleus, needing two hands to lift. A curious gravitas can be sensed from it."
  
• Conditional: Cursed Core (Kill with Curse damage). 100% chance. Sells for 2400 en. 1 needed to make Cursed Amulet (Hexer ultimate non-body armor; +75 HP, +75 TP, +7 LUC).
  "A giant cursed gelatinous core. Even just looking at it may bring misfortune."
  
• Ingredient: Purple Gel. 1 given. 1 needed to make Ominous Aspic (Western Food 5; restores 2% max TP every 10 steps in the Labyrinth).
  "Emits a strange purple light."

Damage resistances:
50% 50% 50% 125% 125% 10%
Disable resistances:
100% 150% 50% 50% 50% 50% 100%
100% 100% 50%
100% 50% 50%

The most ancient of the protean life-forms and the deadliest.

King Gels are fairly unique as far as enemies go, and are (appropriately) reminiscent of King Snails from the 1st Stratum. If a King Gel is alone, it will summon two Yellow Gels as soon as possible, and after that, will spam Explosives until the Yellow Gels are dead. The other notable thing is that they're the first of three enemies with a "Kill with curse damage" conditional, near-universally reviled in the EO community because they're incredibly annoying to get, due to how weak curse is against enemies. Could be worse, though--could be like EO3 and EO4, where there's one boss in each game with a "kill with curse damage" conditional.


All alone, eh?


Oh.


E-enough out of you...



Just have some all-target Fire or Ice damage on hand, and King Gels are completely trivial.




Anyway, our final puzzle of the main story. Everything after this is just corridors. This one is incredibly easy to trip yourself up on, and a solid 20 minutes of raw footage here is dedicated to me stumbling around, going back to town, and stumbling around some more, trying to remember what the solution was.



We've got two Cursed Knights--one right in front of us, the other all the way back there, and a patrol area with two Silver Guardians.



Pacing back and forth in this corner will eventually result in luring a bomb in front of you.



That's one down.



That's two.



And we're clear to get through the patrol area. That's the last puzzle of the main story finished.





Undead Soldier
HP: 1067, STR: 51, TEC: 46, VIT: 38, AGI: 32, LUC: 36
Skills:

• Revenge Blade: Uses the arms. Deals 130% melee STR-based Cut damage to one target. Has an 80% speed modifier and 99 base accuracy.
  
• Glinting Blade: Uses the legs. Chases any attacks made by enemies with ranged 120% STR (if Cut/Stab/Bash) or TEC-based (if Fire/Ice/Volt) damage of the same element as the chased attack. Has 120 base accuracy.

Drops:

• Normal: Silver Shard. 40% chance. Sells for 647 en. 1 needed to make Brigadine (+64 DEF). 5 needed to make Silver Buster (+134 ATK). 1 Black Gelatin and 2 Silver Shards needed to make Duergar Blade (+146 ATK).
  "Pieces of a bodiless suit of armor. Requires expertise to properly craft with."
  
• Conditional: Cowering Silver (Kill while afraid). 80% chance. Sells for 1173 en. 1 needed to make Medium Ring (War Magus ultimate non-body armor; +6 STR, +6 TEC, +6 VIT).
  "Silver that has shrunk from fear. Now condensed, it better conducts certain energy."

Damage resistances:
75% 75% 100% 100% 100% 125%
Disable resistances:
100% 150% 150% 150% 100% 100% 100%
50% 0% 100%
0% 0% 0%

A suit of armor said to contain the souls of fallen adventurers.

Undead Soldiers augment damage from enemies with elementals, and that's about the only interesting thing about them.



It won't even get a chance to demonstrate that here.


Let's just put a stop to any shenanigans before they start.



Sometimes I wonder if I should intentionally let myself get messed up by enemies with gimmicks.



Oh, fuck you, game.


これはちんぷんかんぷんです！



SYSTEM: The shining plate features writing unlike any you have seen, under which is a pair of circular patterns: one red, one blue. Between the circular patterns is the slowly blinking emblem of a hand, as if inviting you to touch the circles. You may touch one of the circles, or abandon them and leave.
Dual choices in a place like this are a bad idea. Back away, everyone.
SYSTEM: The device is so inviting that you can only assume that it is a trap. In no mood to endanger yourselves needlessly, you turn your back to the wall and resume exploring.

The red circle increases the rate at which you encounter monsters until you leave the floor, and the blue circle reduces the rate. I can never remember which one is which, so I just played it safe here.


Who keeps making these terrible medicines?

Hamao Primes restore 200 HP and 40 TP to one target. Bleh.




I went back to town to heal up, and hot damn.





The Gourmet King is always a nice surprise.




And the last round of unlocked items for the main game.

Duergar Blade (+146 ATK) is unlocked by selling 1 Black Gelatin and 2 Silver Shards.

Brigadine (+64 DEF) is unlocked by selling 1 Silver Shard. It's not a very exciting piece of armor, but I buy two for Freyja and Asriel, since I haven't upgraded their armors in quite a bit.

Brawn Ring (+7 STR) is unlocked by selling 10 Meteor Fragments. Like I said before, this thing is a pretty big damage boost for any class that relies on physical damage.

Sagacity Earring (+5 TEC) is unlocked by selling 1 Gold Shell. I replace Stardust's Spinneret Gown with it, since Ursa should be ensuring that Stardust won't be taking any hits with it.




I told you there was literally nothing but corridors left.

Bets on that being the Overlord's door?
Not even a fair bet.
SYSTEM: You feel a tremendous weight on your shoulders as you approach, and cannot help but walk with fearful steps. The Overlord, master of this heavenly castle, awaits you beyond this door. There can be no turning back. You consider carefully whether you are fully prepared, whether your resolve is firm enough, before opening the door.

I don't particularly feel like fighting Overlord right now.

Next time: the final boss.