Part 14: "We are all in here because of that old man's Xtal Rod!!"

We've got both masks now, so first a trip to Mysidia to heal and make room in our ever-dwindling inventory.



I also take an opportunity to rearrange some of Nathan Fillion's spells, as I don't use most of them. The top six are really the only ones I use, and I spend a lot of this update grinding Phys up, as it's the same power as the other elemental spells except instead of having an element, it drains HP. Might as well boost it up a bit!



On the way to the next dungeon, I run into more Specters. I've showed them off before, but I haven't shown off that they can cast magic. Some of this magic can be rather nasty, as I'll show later.



Puddings are weak to fire, but it takes a lot of multi-target castings to bring them down, though single-target kills one in one hit. They're much bigger pains than the other flans.



Also, here's series-staple Malboros, though they still don't have their nasty Bad Breath attack quite yet. Their attacks can inflict paralysis, though.



This cave is southeast of Mysidia, though it's surrounded by mountains except in the northeast corner, so it's a bit of a trek.





It's another dungeon. There's not much more to say. I even put in the Jidoor music just to change things up a bit.



These guys are assholes. Their physical attacks have a chance of inflicting Stone. The problem is that I don't have any Softs, and Dude's Hel2 spell is too low-level to heal Stone. On the other hand, it's only Reila, so I continue.



Found a second Tiara! Remember, they give nice defense, ten agility, and a very small magic penalty. Nathan Fillion gets this one.



Then a Specter comes along and petrifies Luna, bringing my vulnerable mages to the front row.



I try to go back to Mysidia, with poor results.



Small magic penalty, nice defense, and +10 agility. I think I give it to Reila since Luna already has agility-boosting equipment and that stuff doesn't stack.



In an effort to conserve MP, I have Nathan Fillion start using the Quake item in some battles.



Quake is non-elemental and does pretty good damage in Nathan Fillion's hands. It has a 1/20 chance of breaking apparently, but I didn't break it this update while using it semi-regularly. Definitely one of the handier attack items in this game, if not the only useful one.



Blocking the way to the second floor is Nathan Fillion's evil doppleganger. Yeah, I don't know, either.



This is where the Black Mask comes in. Put it on the doppleganger, and he goes away.

Yet you'll still have the Black Mask take up inventory space because this game has an idiotic inventory system.



A lot of the treasures are things you can buy in Mysidia, i.e. vendor fodder.



Red Souls are pretty pesky, as they need both Luna and Reila attacking one to kill it, and they absorb most Black Magic, though Phys works, as does Fade. Fade in particular will kill the Yellow Souls even multi-targeted.



Then this happens and I get stuck with Nathan Fillion and Reila.



I make it out the cave and save this time.



Though it takes a couple tries to get back to Mysidia and heal.



After cleaning my inventory and stocking up on extra Softs, I'm ready to go back.



You know, if my party would stop being so damn lazy.



As usual, Nathan Fillion and Dude usually spend time casting random spells to level them up while Luna and Reila deal with the non-Flan enemies. You're better off experience-wise casting different spells per battle than casting one spell multiple times, as you get a bonus amount of EXP for the first time you cast a spell in a battle.

Right now, I'm mainly leveling Phys, Power, and Curse for Nathan Fillion, as Power and Curse are useful for Luna and Phys might end up being handy. Dude's focusing on Hel2, Swap, and Fade. Swap's accuracy sucks against allies, and it'll end up being Dude's best method of recovering MP once Nathan Fillion gets an MP-absorbing spell.



Floor three changes the dungeon appearance a bit, but it's still a pain.



These guys have a lot of HP, no weaknesses, and can sometimes even sneak in a hit on Luna. Kinda annoying.







Floor four.





Nothing special.





All four of those chests were fucking Cure potions. This fucking game.



A lot of the encounters here are easy but tedious. It takes forever to bring one of these things down, especially since I'm almost out of MP for my mages.



Finally, the end of the dungeon. This room has another Phys spell and this, Psyc, or Osmose in future games. And in this game, this is actually a pretty good spell since it guarantees at least 10MP back if cast on anything not undead, and likely more since it doesn't give a shit how much MP the target has.



Oh yeah and there's this stupid rod to take up yet more inventory space.



Also, here's Run finally working since I'm damn tired of wasting MP on flans.



And VampGirls. Not sure what they do, but here they are.



Over 300k and jack shit to spend it on! Even if I wanted Elixirs, these dungeons give me so much shit that take up space that it's not worth it.



Alright, our next dungeon is west of Altea, in that circle.



But it's not the tower!





No, instead we got swallowed by something and our next dungeon is its body. Also, Reila's gone for good, though we later find out she didn't actually die, so no updating the death counter quite yet.

But we will soon. Oh, will we be updating the death counter.



It's a short dungeon with little enemy variety.



This stuff takes off 1HP a step, pretty minor overall.





Power helmet is an upgrade in every way to the Giant's Helmet. Both it and the Power armor give +10 Strength, minor magic and evasion penalties, and decent defense. The last dungeon and this one have at least been good armor-wise.



Floor two of this beast is...a town.



Let's talk to this guy first. How about Xtal?

How did you know that?

Alright. How about Mysidia?

I have been to Mysidia.

That's wonderful. Tell me about a Dragon.

Dragon? Who are you?

I'm betting he's that missing Dragoon.



Oh yeah, this section has some great dialogue. Let's just show this guy our Xtal Rod.

You are seeking for the book of Xtal also? Let us escape and go with. There is a ship ahead, but a monster is bothering us. We shall beat it together.



Thus we've got our next fourth slotter, Ricard Edward.



His Strength is glitched. It's actually 40, though boosted by Strength-boosting equipment. Once I change his equipment, it goes down to 50. Still, that's a really nice chunk of strength, plus he has eight levels in swords. He's definitely one of the more useful companions.



Anyway, the sea beast Leviathan swallowed us up.

What's weird is that this is the only guy in here who actually spells it "Leviathan."



Everyone else calls him "Liviathan." Circumstances are so off here that they've split into factions based on how they spell the name of the beast that swallowed them.



Another direct upgrade, this time for the Giant Glove!



There's a monster bothering Liviathan, so we have to beat it so we can take the ship out of its mouth.

Even without the goofy translation, this entire section makes no god damn sense.







Understandably, people have lost their minds here.



Here! I have one, too!!

So this old man got all these people consumed because he also had an Xtal Rod?



Yes. Yes, that is correct.



Third and last floor. Random encounters are back, and still benign.



Nice sword upgrade for Ricard.



Our first piece of Diamond equipment! At this point, I'm giving Ricard some of the bigger evasion-boosting equipment because Luna's evasion is so damn high she doesn't need it.







The monster the sea creature swallowed that's bothering it is a land worm. Yeah, I don't know either.



Anyway, physical attacks do shit to it, so Ricard's kinda useless, right?



This is the Blood Sword. Remember, it does 1/16 of an opponent's max health per hit, letting the user absorb the HP. So four hits knocked off a fourth of this thing's max HP in one go. It doesn't give a shit about the user's strength except for its accuracy. So while it's shitty against enemies who can die in one hit from Luna, it's fantastic against monsters like this.

That said, I swap it back out with the Gaea Sword so I don't completely cheese this guy.





And it's not like I need the Blood Sword anyway, as Nathan Fillion and Dude just tear into the thing.



Also, even with the Gaea Sword, Edward still hits pretty hard. Then again, Swords pretty much trump the other weapon types in the game.



Another easy fight.





And so we defeat the land worm to take a boat out of the sea monster who has a town living inside it.

While it's different in so many ways, it's still at its core a Final Fantasy game.



STR -2, AGI +3, INT +12, WILL +6, MAG +1, HP +44, MP +14, Ice +1, Powr +1, Curs +1, Phys +2

Look at that fucking Intelligence gain. At least this game makes it somewhat easy to catch up levels on stuff you've been slacking on due to enemy ranks. Now Nathan Fillion's intelligence is skyrocketing to solid levels, and I love it.



STR +10, AGI +2, VIT +1, HP +127, Spear +1, Shield +1

Luna continues to be a force to be reckoned with, powerful and impossible to hit. What more can I say other than how fucking scary she is?



AGI +2 (!), WILL +7, HP +53, Ruse +1, Life +1, Hel2 +1, Swap +1, Fade +2

why the hell did you randomly decide to gain two fucking agility at this point of the game, i don't fucking understand this bullshit



STR +1, VIT +1, HP +32

One floor of enemies doesn't give much opportunity to gain stats. I'm sure we'll see a ton of stat-ups next update, considering how fucking massive the next dungeon is.