Part 17: Aryll Used Guillotine! (Guild Edda VS Golem)

Part 16: Aryll Used Guillotine! (Guild Edda VS Golem)



Welcome back to the jam, here's some rewards for the slam we did. Cheese is being too useful, I feel, so let's waste SP on the FEAR TREE.

You were expecting Cheese! But it was me, Quixote! You can never escape me!

The Thousand Year Old Blue Woodlands



Looking up, you see a monster with large horns, blocking the path before you! It can only be the monster your client encountered when she dropped the pearl!



What are you doing?

Horned creature. It's right there! Don't you see it?

...is she alright?~

I think this place is getting to her.

Well if there's something to kill, let's see if it'll come back out, I definitely sense something.



Okay I definitely heard that.

See? I'm not crazy, you're craaaaaaaazy!



Using the shortcut trips flags in the wrong order and it's pretty funny. But why would I go the long way round?



Let the MURDER begin!~

Uh, guys, it's just a-



-Warbull...

Well now it's a dead Warbull.

Well that was an easy quest.



However, you do find a pit behind where the monster stood, leading to the floor below. Perhaps the pearl you seek is on the other end of this pit...



Those are some crazy eyes it has.

All the better to murder you with. Keep sharp you lot.

Perhaps this is the true monster your client encountered as she dropped the pearl... your search will have to wait until you monster before you is slain!

A Sudden Gust of Wind Before Your Eyes



A beast with golden fur, what are the chances I would encounter something like this again~

Okay, were you raised in the same forest as Lavin or something?


Hellbull

Level: 55
HP: 850
STR: 298
VIT: 124
AGI: 48
LUC: 54
TEC: 42

EXP: 1025

Skills
Charge: Doesn't use a body part. Charges to use Rush next turn. Increases ATK by 100% and has an 80% speed modifier.
Rush: Uses the Legs. A Stab attack that deals 120% damage to a single target. Has a 90% accuracy modifier and a 10% speed modifier.

Damage Vulnerabilities
100% 100% 100%
150% 150% 150%

Disable Vulnerabilities
200% 100% 200%
100% 100% 100%

You might think this is a quest exclusive enemy, but it's actually a regular monster that we won't be encountering for a WHILE. It's definitely FOE level right now, but since it has the max level difference of 20+, it'll do 219% more damage, while we'll do 44% less damage. Yikes. We'll go over it properly when we encounter it later, but it's pretty clear what it does.

level 55 sure why not thanks kazuya niinou

A Level 55 enemy! Thanks Niinou. If you want to know when exactly you fight these things normally, Stratum 5. Yeah, it comes that late. Goddamn. In any other EO game, such an enemy would only be a slightly harder fight than usual. But thanks to the level scaling mechanic, this thing can be hell to deal with.



The fu-?

I concur, the fuck?

This is something you would be seeing in a battle with an FOE. Not a regular enemy. If this thing had higher HP, it would pretty much be an FOE. Aside from HP, it has the stats to be a Stratum 3 FOE, that's for sure.



Oh that's not good~

At least my master's are giving it pause, though I don't know how helpful that would be.



Very nice triple somersault, now let me roast this thing.

All in a day's work. Still some scary shit.



Since this is a regular enemy, it does have drops! Though I didn't list them in the overview since we need other drops to actually unlock anything, so it's just a bit of extra cash right now.



Looking closely, it is a small, shining pearl. Could this be the treasure your client lost? You decide to take the pearl back to town.



Good thing I wear gloves, it's all sticky. Hm? Did it just flash red?

Nope

Huh? You say something Cheese?

Nope

Hm.



Our client will be happy to have it back. I can't believe a monster ate it, though... I heard some animals swallow stones for digestion, but I didn't know it was true. I guess that monster needed to do the same thing... huh. Well, at least you found it. But for her sake... I think I'll leave out the details of how you got it back.



Oh this is pretty. Wait, didn't you already hand this in?

'sup?

I thought I smelled something good. Looks like this pearl is cursed.

Aw man, I was gonna sell it too.

I'm worth every penny luv.

I hate it already. Like we didn't have enough annoying companions already.

What is that dishonourable look you're giving me?

And me!

...Liana keeps staring at me. She's totally into me. Hopefully.

Oh hey this quest is bugged and now we've permanently lost another item space. That's four spaces we're missing now, since you obviously have to have a Warp Wire.

Reminder that key items eat up inventory space in EO1, unlike the later games. This bug wouldn't be an issue if it weren't for that stupid design decsion.



They just got bit. Frostbit.

Of course it makes fucking puns... bad ones too! Stay at the bottom of the bag!

no

Well I'm still gonna cast spells, even if I'll cringe to death doing it.



Ah crap, what do you do with a Troubadour after Relaxing... Taranis? Taranis.

Yeah, feel free to get whatever after grabbing the big 2 song skills.




We'll invade the ant's nest... after we fight these guys.

One second, I think something lightly tapped me.



Fuck off game. If you defeat any enemies while in that room, then you'll have to start again, but I was one tile out of the room, I didn't know it'd count against me!

Gotta love oversensitive event flags.



Man those guys are easy to avoid. Oh hey, big egg. Bigger omlette?

The royal princess, perhaps?~

It's an ant egg... it seems the ants' strange behavior is a result of the breeding season. Now that you've found the reason, you should flee before the ants discover you.

fleeing before the ants discover you is just good life advice in general tbh



Hopefully we never fight another ant again. Anyway, I stepped on enough tiles to map the floor, so we're all done with the mission! A riveting ten minutes of my life.

Festival of Worship



I have pondered of late the reason for the Labyrinth's existence... the mysterious creatures, and that bizarre structure that seems to have no bottom... do you suppose the Labyrinth formed naturally? I can't help but think there's a secret behind it... personally, I believe the secret, whatever it may be, would greatly benefit Etria. However, the Chieftain... he takes a different view. He's a man of few words, but he was unequivocal in stating the mystery is best left alone. Why would he be so set against investigation of the forest past this point...?

He is definitely a man of subtle mystery~

Pfft, if he becomes a problem, I've toppled authority before.

But I forget myself. I shouldn't speak to you of such things. Thoughts like these are best kept private. In any event... your maps will be a boon to our research of the third Stratum. We'd like to present this to you as a token of our appreciation.



Hi, thanks for the medicine money, bye.

Goddammit she's fast.

Those soldiers we sent to collect data on the layout of the third stratum... they reported seeing an unknown life form deep within the Labyrinth. A race of creatures that look almost human, yet are distinct from us in a variety of ways. If they speak true, it would be one of the greatest discoveries we have yet made. Could we ask that you proceed even deeper into the forest and investigate the matter?



Alright, but we're not getting another tag along. We have enough idiots here.

Rude.

Very good. Now then, let me give you the details. As I mentioned earlier, there's a strange creature in the third Stratum we are unable to reach. They seem to be a humanoid life form native to the forest. We may need to deal with them. For now, we're discussing how to best handle them with the Chieftan... in the meantime, we want you to investigate the life form and report back with details. But beward, for there's no knowing if the lfe form will be friend or foe to humans.

Eh, if they attack us, we'll kill it like the rest~

Now you're getting it.



Ants fuck, who knew.

Not our client, apparently.

If that's the case, no wonder they get more vicious I'll warn the other explorers not to go near ants during this time of the year.

Months don't exist in this game. Not that they actually matter in later games, but still.



I could've used that~

No you definitely couldn't.

The Green, Green Woodlands



Oh look who's back.

Guess we'll have to terrorize him again to finish exploring that secret area.




Well that went as expected. Nearly every boss has a second drop that we'll get round to eventually, but most of them are just rare, forcing endless restarts, instead of fulfilling bullshit conditional drops. I haven't forgotten about the Stalker's Harvester, but since Aryll can't Midaeba on the 1st turn, I don't think we can get it yet. It doesn't unlock anything, so I'm not that bothered when I get it anyway.




It's almost child's play avoiding these wolves now~

Honestly it's more fun dodging stuff we don't care enough about to fight than to actually fight it.



Long corridors and square rooms to dodge FOEs. Secret areas are great.

for anyone unfamiliar with EO besides this LP: no, the later games are not much better about this

Some of them at least try to toss in some interesting FOE navigation puzzles.




Well that was fun, but time to head back, I'm pooped.

Very funny you big lug, get over here.




Woah, it's a one way passage you don't get notified of beforehand. I'm sure the game would never be mean enough to abuse that.



What a fun room, I shall write a song about it~

I can't tell if he's being sarcastic.



Oh good, these are back. You could explore this place as some training for Cernunos, but I had to do SOMETHING during those five days that are somehow missing from my memory.




I'm not checking that.



Anyway, that's the 5th floor finally complete! Yeah it's a lot of pointless filler. Oh well!




Man, everyone's gonna have real strong leg muscles, haha, wouldn't that be cool.

I refuse to let my body get stronger.

Well obviously, you're always carried by squirrels.



Oh hey it's a dead end.

And yet you walked through the door anyway, you big dumb _lovable idiot.




Oh yeah I still have to fight one of these things.

Do it when you can deal damage like everyone else.



Ooh, that's loud enough to still put me on edge. I'm shaking, but I'll be just fi-

AH GOD KILL IT KILL IT KILL IIIIIIIIIIIT



Well there's nothing at the bottom of the floor, so up we go. You can see where this is going.



Ah good, I've had enough screaming in my ear for one day~

I can make you scream

please don't, my throat's already sore from this damn cold



Oh god this fucking item. So a fair few consumables are just skills at a certain level, with all the same effects. Bravants are War Cry, but Stonards are Fortify. Now Bravants are level 1 War Cry, so a 110% damage increase, while a Bravant II is a level 5 War Cry, so a 125% damage increase. Why am I telling you this? Well a Stonard is a level 1 Fortify, so an 80% damage reduction, while a Stonard II is a level 3 Fortify... which is a 74% damage reduction. Yeahhhhhhhh. I'll be selling these.

The only time I've ever really bothered with Bravants is vanilla EO3 or when I'm particularly starved for buffs in a 3DS EO game. I've never used a Stonard.

This would be the only time Bravants and Stonards have tiers. Later games just had the one version, and considering stuff like this neglible increase in defense, it was for the best.




This forest is so confusing.

If you're confused, then I've got no hope.

dooooooooors



I think Liana's gonna break something headbutting that wall.




I'm sick of doors and sick of bears.

Yo dawg, I heard you liked doors...



That's nice, I guess~




As I fucking thought. Alright you lot, let's continue on.

So long as there's no more doors.



That's the entirety of the 4th floor! Doors.

Beware the doors of doom.




Long corridors, angry mammoths and doors. Truly, this is the pinnacle of exploration.




Let's play a game: can you be bothered fighting an Armoth or will you ignore them and go through the safe rooms to the end of this secret area? I know what I'm choosing!






While we pondered whether we could explore every inch of the labyrinth, we never stopped to think if we should~

It takes eight squirrels to get a goddamn door open to scout. Eight!



Now this is what I was waiting for! This statue is massive!

It's glaring at us so fiercely. And beeping? I must study this!

Yeah we'll fight it later, let's finish exploring this place first. They're just gonna get bigger and bigger aren't they?

You know it gurl.




And that's everything in this area. Now, this update is listed as the Golem fight, so of course we're gonna take it down and beat it! We'll need to return to town and stock up though.



1 White Hide is required for Briault (Light Clothing, DEF+5, VIT+1, Ice Resist 10%)

Yeah we're a bit late unlocking it, but the Huge Fang unlocks much better stuff, so I'm only getting this cause I have to. It would be pretty unlucky to get this to drop when you don't want it to on the first fight, since we only recently faced our first enemy with Ice attacks and we haven't even killed one yet!

Aw man, you should've seen the size of it, I can't wait to fight it! Two big bad guys in one week, I'm in heaven!

I'm almost jealous, though it sounds like anything I have would bounce right off it. I haven't got the best track record of slicing stone. If only there were a blade that could-

You're fighting a giant stone statue??? I have the perfect technique to kill such a thing before it could even move. Pleeeeeeeeeease can I come?

Like hell I'm looking after both you and Gerson while you fight that thing. Sure go ahead, I'm gonna get a large drink.

Bitchin'



We're adding Aryll to the party just for a little thing. You'll see. Otherwise this boss would push our face in and we couldn't beat it, so you know, kinda have to.



Ugh, B2F.



It's not moving, so let's get a surprise attack!

How, ahah, honourable~

Scatter About



Wha-? It can swivel its head? That's cheating!

Its eyes are flashing... what's it doi- AH MY EYES!


Golem

Level: 30
HP: 7000
STR: 200
VIT: 120
AGI: 30
LUC: 30
TEC: 30

EXP: 0

Skills
3-Hit: Uses the Arms. A Bash attack that deals 130% damage to a single target 3 times. Has a 90% accuracy modifier and a 50% speed modifier.
Hammer: Uses the Arms. A Bash attack that deals 150% damage to a single target. Has a 95% accuracy modifier and an 80% speed modifier.
Block: Uses the Arms. Reduces physical damage by 70% for 3 turns. Has an 80% speed modifier.
Ward: Uses the Arms. Reduces elemental damage by 25% for 3 turns. Has an 80% speed modifier.
Flash: Uses the Head. Attempts to inflict Blind on the entire party. Has a 25% infliction chance and an 80% speed modifier.
Regen: Uses the Head. Recovers 280HP for 3 turns and revives at 1750HP when killed while this skill is active. Has a 50% speed modifier.

Damage Vulnerabilities
50% 50% 50%
125% 125% 125%

Disable Vulnerabilities
5% 10% 10%
25% 25% 25%

Drops
Normal: Golem Rock. 40% chance. Sells for 1200en.
Required for nothing

Rare: None

Conditional: Statue Arm (Kill with Instant Death). 100% chance. Sells for 5000en.
1 required for Meteor Axe (Ultimate Axe, ATK+240, STR+14, must be restocked)

Surprise, bitch, this boss always gets the drop on you and will always use Flash on the blindside. Despite this bonus boss being available right now, we aren't gonna beat it in a straight up fight, it has FORTY more VIT than Royalant, so our attacks do fuck all against it. Its attacks aren't that bad, we can survive them fine... except for 3-Hit. That will kill anyone, even with Gerson's help. With Defender and Immunize, we could definitely take these hits, but since we do nothing back, it'd just be a boring slog, so we'll leave the proper fight to later. But for now...

this jerk is far worse in every other EO game and that includes this game's remake. he's kind of pitiful here by comparison. fuck, his endure effect doesn't even activate unless he has Regen up

Yeah, this boss is guaranteed to get a blindside on you, even if you get what would normally be a preemptive attack in every other situation. Fortunately, all it does is blind you. Anyways, nobody actually fights this thing the first chance they get, because this fight is ridiculously overtuned. Yeah, its level is only 30, just barely higher than Cernunnos' level, so they meant for you to fight it when the quest first became available... but its big meaty stats more than make up for whatever level deficiency it'll have when you engage it. It hits super hard and you can barely scratch it, even with an Alchemist at this point. Just wait until you're like, much higher leveled to actually fight it.



Haha, marvel at my fancy footwork!

Please stop messing aro- URK

Ah goddamn it hits hard!



Hmm, close, but not good enough!

Please stop messing arooooooly crap that hurt!



Ah I see where its life source is! Oh god it's looking right at me.



Well that went well~

It's as if I'm not even here!

So the only way to kill this bad boy is to use Instant Death. It's a bit of a rare effect, only in Climax, when an enemy is below 25% health, or the awful skill of Kubuichi in the awful Iai tree. I wasted 2SP just for this conditional since it never appears again. Of course, it's only a 4% chance it'll actually land, since I refuse to level this skill up further as level 10 only makes it a 6% chance.

Ah, death fishing. Not what I would recommend doing in any EO games (Outside of a very specific build for a very specific class combination in EO3), but this stony asshole is a very special case. Though I would highly recommend using Climax instead to snag the conditional, but that's under the conditions that you can actually go toe to toe with this thing in the first place.



We've just gotta keep trying until it lands. HOWEVER, that static RNG that helped me for Royalant isn't very useful here. It doesn't take long for Golem to pick us apart one by one, so there's not much time for much variation to land that 4% chance, so it's easier to go for a bit of a walk and try again, since we don't know everything that advances RNG in this game. Eventually though...

Speedrunners actually know how the RNG works, and there's a huge writeup about it, but it's not something a casual player would really need to concern themselves with.

You know, I watch a lot of speedruns, but not of this series. I might write about the RNG later, but I guess I need to do research first.



Sliced through the heart, and you're to blame.



NANI?!

Darlin', you give bosses a bad name.





As easy as that. Don't think you can farm this, Golem has 0 exp for a reason. Boy wouldn't it suck if that became a thing? Ahhahahahahahahahahahahahahaha



Come on, there's gotta be something here! Otherwise what would a guardian statue be doing?

I mean, I already know what's here and this ain't it, chief.



There isn't a trace of anything being either buried or dug up. Was the story of Edue's treasure nothing but legend after all...?

Well its conditional drop unlocks something very good, but if you got the regular drop, you get jack shit. Because fuck you. Oh and it's still required for 100% completion even though the regular drop doesn't unlock anything.



Of course good luck scrounging up the money to buy said good thing in the first place at the point you kill Golem at.

OH MY GOD! HOLY SHIT! I've never seen something so beautiful in my life! Hng! Hnnnnnnnng!

Ignoring that beautiful comment, you can't even lift it.

There's no way we're raising up the money to buy this, though you would become unstoppable if we did. And we can't have that.

Someone needs to stop skipping arm day.

Alright fine, I'll just come here and stroke it sometimes.

Don't let Shilleka catch you~



I still don't believe you actually killed it.

I am 100% serious, she cleaved it in. fucking. half.

Frankly, I am dishonoured to find you doubt me.

I am almost considering a new master.

Same.

Well I almost wish I was there to see it. Almost. Hm, you alright there, Valerie?



He desperately wanted revenge for his grandson's death... but the monster was so strong that no one was willing to accept his request. So he made up the story about working with the bandit king, to trick someone into doing it. I knew something seemed fishy... our client is old, but that story about Edue is much older. Plus, no one knows if this Edue actually existed or not. The old man realized of the ones who fell for it died, their families would be crushed.

So a win-win for me.

Feeling terrible, he came rushing back here, and tried to cancel the request. But just then, you came back and told me you defeated the monster after all. So the old man gets his revenge and you get your reward. Looks like it worked out in the end.

Don't you just love a happy ending? That's two bosses down and we've still got the second half of the stratum to go. Anyone here a fan of crabs?

no

Snip snip!