Part 26: Miss me yet? (Guild Edda VS B20F)
Part 25:
Miss me yet? (Guild Edda VS B20F)
The Withered Forest
It's time to end this, once and for all!
You're gonna say that like four more times.
Quite, we've gotten very strong, but not enough to take every enemy down without some healing.
And of course the healing spring is two floors up.
Oh baby, we're gonna be here a while. Can't wait!
Welcome to B20F, one of the worst parts of the game. Yep. This is a pretty big floor full of twists and turns, but since it's symmetrical and has no regular encounters, it's not a hassle getting around this floor.
Are you all ready to finish off the last of the Forest Folk? Because that's basically what you're doing here. No encounters, just the FOEs left at this point.
We do, of course, have a million FOEs to take down. Okay, 14, as well as 1 Boss, but don't think you can take them down one by one and have an easy time of it.
uuuuuuuuugh Yes, it's as awful as it sounds. You'll see why this floor is so awful in a bit. (You know, aside from the narrative standpoint of your guild being fucked up people.)
Ooh yeah, here's a big one, mmmmmmmmm. Don't cross the line of how excited you can get. It's weird. We haven't seen red FOEs in the 4th stratum yet. Oh goody. A Sudden Gust of Wind Before Your Eyes
You think you can take us down? WHERE ARE YOUR GLISTENING BICEPS??? Why am I always next to the crazy ones?
Beats me.
Cruella
Level: 43
HP: 2300
STR: 210
VIT: 96
AGI: 71
LUC: 71
TEC: 47
EXP: 4000
Skills
Siren: Uses the Head. Attempts to inflict Confusion on the entire party. Has a 50% infliction chance and a 50% speed modifier.
Damage Vulnerabilities
75% 
75% 
75%
100% 
100% 
100%Disable Vulnerabilities
25% 
50% 
5%
100% 
100% 
100%Drops
Normal: Oleander. 80% chance. Sells for 450en.
1 required for Rose Ring (Accessory, DEF+1, VIT+4, AGI+7)
1 required for Axcela III (Medicine, recovers 100 Boost points, must be restocked)
Rare: Red String. 50% chance. Sells for 1700en.
1 required for Jazeraint (Light Armor, DEF+36, HP+18, TP+10)
3 required for Nine Tails (Whip, ATK+125, STR+8, AGI+6)
Conditional: Rose Whip (Kill while Fully Bound). 100% chance. Sells for 4200en.
1 required for Dominator (Whip, ATK+180, STR+7, +15 Boost points each action, must be restocked)
Cruellas are the only ones that'll aggro you normally, so it's best to draw them out. Since we'll fight a lot of them, here's a recap, nothing really special at this point. In EOU, they actually start using their whips, by which I mean they bind your party members, which is always fun. At this point, they shouldn't be too hard to take down. Well, I hope it won't be too hard for you to take them down...
Now then, let me get a close up look of you. Ohhhhh myyyyyyy. We've faced these plenty of times before, but there's 4 on the floor and we have to take them all down.
I can feel you tapping me on the shoulder, Ryu, but I'm busy! MEAT! SHIELD! MEAT! SHIELD! Oh look at that I got the conditional for binding the enemy fully with no binding skills in the party wow I'm so good. just say it's a formaldehyde even though those don't exist yet Hey, we have to keep up some form of a front.
That feels like... a lot. It's scarpering time. After two turns of being in a battle with any FOE, all the nearby FOEs, aside from Cruellas, will aggro on you and won't leave you alone unless you go to the opposite end of the floor to them. Since we're basically surrounded...
The best way is to head for the stairs to restart everything, so if you don't have a clear way back, or get cornered by a bunch of FOEs you can't just muscle through, then you're super screwed... and also doing all this again. A reminder that yes, this is mandatory. Great floor design.
With the Cruella out of the way, let's explore a bit. It's just corridors and FOEs, so don't get too excited.
What a nice looking door. As that's the only thing about it now.
Bit weird for this cool stuff to be thrown onto the pile, but, well... The bow's alright if you haven't unlocked the other two in this stratum, but Liana absolutely doesn't need it.
What a marvellously pretty bird. Almost a shame to kill such a majestic creature, but when it glares and sparks so fiercely, I feel there's nothing we can do. ...huh. That was almost poetic. Just passing through, as we cannot kill this boss yet! Oh yeah, that's the big stupid thing about this floor, we can only kill Iwaopeln if we've killed all the forest folk on this floor BUT if you leave the labyrinth at any point, all the FOEs respawn, undoing all of your progress. So when you decide to beat this boss, you better be damn sure you're ready. Yeah! That's the main gimmick of this floor! Floor 20 is not just a boss fight. It's a fucking endurance test. You can get into a fight with Iwaopeln and kill it in battle... but if you do that, it'll just instantly respawn, and you won't progress the plot. You do get the exp and drops, so theoretically this is an infinite grinding method. However, once you kill Iwaopeln for real, it permanently loses the instant respawn ability. So your window of time to us it as a grinding point is very limited. Though if you get to the point where you can farm Iwaopeln quickly and reliably, you're already very likely overleveled for the rest of the game. Now while leaving the Labyrinth is forbidden, leaving the floor isn't. In fact, you can go back up to floor 18, to the healing spring if you need it. I sure hope you brought a Troubadour with relaxing because killing the Forest Folk is going to take a while, no matter which way you look at it.
In light of that, how many Theriaca Bs, Nectars and Amritas do you have? Wrong, get some more. There's a lot of status on this floor and while you can revive easily enough with a Medic and TP is healed at the spring, you don't want to be hopping back and forth between there too many times.
B20F C6 Take Point
Sand Cloth. 50% chance. Sells for 70en.
3 required for Dark Tunic (Clothing, DEF+26)
7 required for Sand Glove (Gloves, DEF+4, TEC+3)
Cross Seed. 25% chance. Sells for 150en.
1 required for Blaze Oil (Item, gives the target's regular attack a Fire attribute, must be restocked)
1 required for Freeze Oil (Item, gives the target's regular attack an Ice attribute, must be restocked)
1 required for Shock Oil (Item, gives the target's regular attack a Volt attribute, must be restocked)
Cordyceps. 15% chance. Sells for 180en.
3 required for Stonard II (Item, increases the target's DEF by 126% for 5 turns)
1 required for Apothecary's request III
Got another Cruella after us, but it's being blocked by another enemy. Corridors are sometimes useful.
Let's draw the bottom right one out.
Huh? What's going on? I survived? Ah crap, the link broke. Hey, hey, hehe, Karin, look at my muscles. Wroooooaaarrrrr! Ooh, ehehehe, you don't look half bad, Lavin. Let me... inspect you. I never expected it would be us as the two last sane vestiges of the party. Well, uh, I think this is a good time. You, uh, wanna, uh, you know... What? What? Spit it out already! ...uhhhhhh, pass the Theriaca B! You know, to heal them. N-Nothing else. ...oh. Well, fine, here. stop it, cross, i only have one pair of eyebrows to Engage
Ahh! A man! Kill it! D-Don't swing me around like that! I'm not dealing with this bullshit.
Aww and here I thought they were about to kiss. Like I'd ever be interested in a scrawny wizard, b-baka! The feeling's mutual. lmao, even after curing a status everyone's locked into their actions for the turn. EO1 jank strikes again!
Phew, okay, back to normal. So what was all that about? Argh, fine, I guess the secret's out. Simone died during THE EVENT, but since she wielded me, a lovely cursed sword, I was able to take control of her and end the damn thing. But I must drink the blood of my enemies to keep the link fresh and my vessel young and beautiful. I didn't know there was still any spirit of her's left, but when I'm not focused on controlling her outside of battle, her body goes into autopilot and does and says stuff she would do anyway, so she's not really dead, I guess? That explains why she smells so delicious. I just thought she was weird! Alright, cool, I suppose. You just, uh, keep doing that. Would've been nice to have another normal girl on the team... Oh no, she was like this before we met. It's how our spirits combined, she just loves pain and killing fools! Alright, enough dawdling people, we still have the rest of the floor! UGH, fine! I feel like we're learning too much about everyone in this guild.
While we don't need the spring just yet, we need to tackle this wall of FOEs eventually, so we need to be in top shape.
It's time to end this, once and for all! Hah, please, I don't need to attack to kill you.
Diabolix
Level: 43
HP: 3200
STR: 210
VIT: 96
AGI: 71
LUC: 71
TEC: 47
EXP: 4000
Skills
Curse: Uses the Head. Attempts to inflict Curse on the entire party. Has a 50% infliction chance, and a 120% speed modifier.
Damage Vulnerabilities
100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%Disable Vulnerabilities
25% 50% 5% 100% 100% 100%Drops
Normal: Oleander. 80% chance. Sells for 450en.
1 required for Rose Ring (Accessory, DEF+1, VIT+4, AGI+7)
1 required for Axcela III (Medicine, recovers 100 Boost points, must be restocked)
Rare: Red Thread. 60% chance. Sells for 1950en.
1 required for Jazeraint (Light Armor, DEF+36, HP+18, TP+10)
3 required for Nine Tails (Whip, ATK+125, STR+8, AGI+6)
Conditional: Wine Whip (Kill while Fully Bound). 100% chance. Sells for 4000en.
1 required for Dominator (Whip, ATK+180, STR+7, +15 Boost points each action, must be restocked)
There's also four Diabolix on the floor, though we need to go to them. Since every nearby FOE will start coming after us, better start with the one we can kill before the rest of them reach us, we really don't want them joining in when they're not the focus. Like I said before, you're going to have a very bad time if you can't handle these FOEs at this point.
Woe is me... And there's the other conditional, what a crazy time that was.
Well we'll be here a while... Oh ye of little faith.
Ogre
Level: 46
HP: 5000
STR: 252
VIT: 110
AGI: 75
LUC: 75
TEC: 40
EXP: 6630
Skills
Evil Cry: Uses the Head. Increases ATK by 150%. Has an 80% speed modifier.
Silencer (BUGGED, NEVER USED): Uses the Head. Attempts to Head Bind a single target. Has an 80% infliction chance and a 10% speed modifier.
Wings (BUGGED, NEVER USED): Uses the Arms. Attempts to Arm Bind a single target. Has a 50% infliction chance and a 10% speed modifier.
Damage Vulnerabilities
50% 50% 50% 125% 125% 125%Drops
Normal: Evil Scale. 55% chance. Sells for 2000en.
1 required for Brave Gage (Landsknecht Gloves, DEF+11, STR+12, must be restocked)
Rare: None
Conditional: Evil Shell (Kill within 2 turns). 100% chance. Sells for 1400en.
1 required for Demon Mail (Landsknecht Armor, DEF+52, STR+10, HP+20, must be restocked)
Well don't these look fun? Ogres hit hard, ESPECIALLY with Evil Cry, take forever to kill, and there's four of the damn things. Despite having an elemental attacker, we're still taking a fair few turns to chew through that HP. Oils would make this a lot easier, but I tend to only use them on bosses if I feel I need them, oh well. You ignore Evil Cry if you preemptive them and it never uses its other two skills, since they never come up. It only uses Silencer if it previously used Silencer, so, uh... then Wings is in an attack table that is never pointed to, but it's bugged to be a melee attack anyway, so yeah, this enemy is a bunch of fun. lol Got to love an enemy that was accidentally made completely uninteresting through a series of typos and poor design decisions. EO1, ladies and gentlemen.
Grrk, at least let me get into position! Aw, c'mon, that arrow pierced your skull, how are you still standing?! At least we're around 1/5th of the way done.
Imagine an Ogre using its regular attack forever! Once we lay our defenses down, everything's just peachy.
It's not behaving any differently... I could've sworn I hit it... Good to know... This does mean confusion is useless on this enemy, a definite unintended side effect, but Petrify is pointless in this battle. I also didn't refresh Defender because...
How very fashionable. Now just stand still... Hmm, Ryu's getting a bit cold, but I've got shit to do!
Hunter
Level: 46
HP: 4600
STR: 239
VIT: 104
AGI: 85
LUC: 75
TEC: 65
EXP: 7650
Skills
Blazer: Uses the Head. A Fire attack that deals 120% damage to the entire party. Has a 90% accuracy modifier and a 10% speed modifier.
Glare: Uses the Head. Attempts to inflict Instant Death on a single target. Has an 30% infliction chance, a 50% speed modifier and a 100% accuracy modifier.
Damage Vulnerabilities
100% 100% 100% 50% 50% 50%Disable Vulnerabilities
15% 25% 1% 25% 25% 25%Drops
Normal: Evil Plume. 60% chance. Sells for 1250en.
1 required for Sylpheed (Survivalist Armor, DEF+47, AGI+11, HP+15, must be restocked)
Rare: None
Conditional: Evil Crest (Kill within 2 turns). 100% chance. Sells for 1400en.
1 required for Speed Boot (Survivalist Footwear, DEF+12, AGI+20, LUC+15, must be restocked)
Hunters deal way more damage than Ogres, but there's only two of them patrolling in the middle of the floor and they die pretty quickly to our hard hitting team (well, Liana's Multihit). Still, Blazer does a lot of damage if you don't have Antifire, and I don't, since I didn't want Gerson to work on nothing but anti skills for most of the game. Pretty simple otherwise, the weaker it gets, the more skills it pulls out. Just about every enemy in EO can be summarized with "the weaker it gets, the more skills it puts out." At least this guy's brain works properly. A little more scary due to functioning AOE damage and an instant kill.
Ah, now this is the good stuff. Heh, it almost looks like I'm stopping the flames with just my glare. Immunize solves all our problems, we don't even need a boosted one. Gerson also takes slightly less elemental damage due to Shields, but that's pretty negligable.
Get that little bitch outta here. Oh right, the dead guy. We don't need to use Defender ever again, but really, where's the fun in that?
Maybe I'm better off dead.
Thank you. Without Immunize, Blazer deals a lot of damage, so you best have some way of dealing with it.
It's like looking into my husband's eyes... Well it was nice for my arrows to do something, but yeah, that was a bit rough... Phew, that was a toughie. You'll love to know it was completely optional! See, Iwaopeln respawns infinitely until you kill all the forest folk... but only Cruella and Diabolix fall under that. Ogres and Hunters are not necessary to fight Iwaopeln, but having to dodge all 6 of them while clearing this floor is an absolute nightmare and I've gotta show off everything, so there's plenty more to kill!
Alright everyone, time to run! See the way out?
FOEs take the most direct route to you, so hang around and let them take one path for you to then slip by on the other one. Simple really. But back to spring.
It's time to end this, ack, once and for all! Now this is my kind of party.
I never knew you could look so smug while dying. It's how I'd want to go. I didn't bring nearly enough Theriaca Bs for all this shit.
At least we're getting mad bank. Petrify deals 190% damage and has a 60% chance of petrifying a 100% death resistance, which is nice. I'm sure we'll have lots of fun later. Smite requires some investment, but is very worth it. Deals 210% damage and has the equipped shield's DEF stat added to the Protector's ATK stat when using this skill, very nice. The Arm Bind chance isn't a thing until later, but Gerson is about to become a lot more interesting.
God there's still three of these fuckers... the ride never ends They've got to run out of Forest Folk eventually!
Death of a thousand cuts. Look, I'm doing my best. Well wasn't that riveting. At least we killed it before the Hunter came around.
Oh there it is.
Good work, Simone! Or the sword! Swordmone? Oh hey, a practical application of confusion. We won't have to worry about Blazer this fight, since I wasn't planning on using Immunize, just to show what the Hunter could do. Uh, not that it matters now.
Hehe, stop hitting yourself. I see we're getting over the native murder pretty quickly. Whatever lets us sleep at night, we have our plan. Though against this many foes, it is hard to keep focus, I'll admit.
It's time to end this, once and for all! She just loves muttering to herself. 8 FOEs down, 6 to go...
Oh hey, the bird is moving around. I feel like this is harder than it needs to be. Once you kill half of the forest folk then Iwaopeln starts patrolling the corridors above its room, warping between them. For added fun, it will aggro you the same as everything else on this floor and will quite happily join in. Still gotta be real strategic where you engage enemies. Iwaopeln stays still until you kill a certain number of the FOEs... which happens to be the exact number of Cruellas and Diabolixes needed to make it permanently killable. Even if you kill the bare minimum number of FOEs, you still have to deal with it moving around. However, kill every single last FOE and Iwaopeln will go back to the middle of the map, completely stunned! And you can even get a preemptive on it in that case!
Come on you big hunk of meat, ASK ME OUT ALREADY!!! Yaaaaaasssss, queen, slay! Why haven't you? GAH, is this an arrow of love? Hurts like hell, gahahaha! Ah... I dunno, really, I've had no problem asking out girls in the past, I was even pretty jokey with her to begin with. But then I started to think this could really happen and ahhhhhh I just get so nervous, I've never felt like this before! Hah, looks like it's actual love. But it's not as bad as a literal arrow through the chest.
Ow! Well, I guess I'm not that strong... Can't wait to stop fighting these damn things.
Back off, Karin, he's my man! Hehe, stop hitting yourself... Everyone's crazy but me. Well, I can't really argue with that.
Oh hey, it's not dead yet? Well we've been a little busy. Screaming that I was a ghost and trying to shoot the possession out of me didn't really help.
Hm, my arm's bruised. Weird.
Let's lose the aggro and swing back around so the Diabolix doesn't join this battle.
I'll need to un-dent my shield when this is all over... Ho hum.
...stop hitting yourself.
Just beautiful, sniff, they grow up so fast. Liana is the first to run out of attacking skills to invest in, so it'll be buffs and stats for the rest of the game, woo! Ambush has an 18% chance of giving a preemptive at the start of battle, always very nice.
Hmm, let's back up for a minute and space these guys out.
While I die twice over, it is always worth it. I'm not huge on it.
Just wait for Iwaopeln to move away...
Ah, right, I was wondering why it was screaming for five minutes. That's through boosted Defender AND F.Guard! I'm so glad they only used this skill once.
Oh hey everyone's running out of TP, but Gerson gets the Hamaoprime since I won't win if everyone keeps dying from lack of defense.
Well I'm all tapped out... good luck guys. Hey now, a captain must go down with his ship!
The turns to refresh Defender are the scariest and yes, this really is quite the slog. Bring more Amrita IIs than you can carry! i wish i could
And... stay... out...! Yep. I'm in love. Oh boy. Well that was close, Iwaopeln was breathing down my neck. However, I wasn't worried at any point, I could've ran back to the spring since the bird doesn't care when you're not fighting, but that meant chipping down the Ogre again and more than likely going back to the spring for a fifth time to be ready for the boss and FUCK ALL OF THAT.
My legs... Are looking fine. Keep walking. We've been in here for nearly a day. Still, this is one of the few times I would recommend Magnets, letting you head back to the pole and save, since this is rough doing it in one go. Just make sure not to leave.
Final Cruella, whatever, you know how it goes. We're finally fucking done with all this chaff!
It's time to end this, once and for all! Now there's nothing standing between us and Iwaopeln, who we'll fight... right now!