Part 11: Chapter the Eleventh

Chapter the Eleventh, which features both the longest and the shortest way home.



The next world is a bit small, considering that you can see two of the walls from the beanstalk. 3/4 of it is covered by a dust cloud, but you can walk through it just fine.



There's only one town here and no other features, so unless you're wondering around to find monsters there's not much else to do here.



Well, this pretty neatly explains where Apollo has been. I have to wonder, though...if we needed all of our MAGI to get here, how is it that he got here first? Shouldn't he have been unable to even open the doors?


the MAGI!

Now you've got our attention.



We've also got some pretty significant upgrades here. The Bazooka also does double damage in the hands of a Robot, so I think we've found the replacement for our aging SMG. Dragon Armor is, quiet simply, wonderful. It's got a better defense than anything we've been able to get thus far and in addition makes the wearer strong against poison, ice, thunder, and fire. It's very possible that some of your characters will be wearing this through the end of the game. A set for everybody is on the shopping list here.



Zoid wants to be a winner!


Please enter! MAGI will be the winning prize for each obstacle.

How'd you end up running this thing, anyway?

Well, the four of you have killed off half of the pantheon. Who else were they going to get to do it?

Good point.



The bartender offers this iconic piece of advice. To the Rent-A-Dragon!





Three of the Rent-A-Dragons want money, which carries the benefit of being able to avoid some random encounters on the track and focus on the bosses. The fourth...



This is just so , let's take him!



Wow, he wasn't kidding. (This actually happens with every dragon)


defeated those monsters and took the MAGI..

Remember, the early worm gets eaten by the early bird.



I think maybe this is the group of people who took the previous MAGI...



The benefit of using the slowest dragon is that you only have to fight the final group of monsters. With only one Gazer it's not bad, but you are going to go through constant attacks walking the course. You might notice that my HP isn't exactly high here...that's not because I didn't get a chance to heal, it's because I ran out of cure charges on the course.



So we pretty much win by default, since nobody else could actually finish the race. The prizes are 2 defense, 1 speed, and 1 mana MAGI.

But...what if we'd gone with the fast dragon?



We start out slow again, but pass everyone else (although the engine doesn't show them) and run into one of the enemy groups on the track. Adamant are actually very powerful monsters, but have a fatal weakness to ice. With two members of our party able to cast it, they go down in short order. Adamant are one tier higher than Zoid is now, so it's possible to improve your monster if you can get some meat.



Somehow this zombie icon is actually a group of turtles They're utterly forgettable so...forget them. I should mention that for each of these groups we're receiving one of the 4 MAGI available in this world.



Lamia is a possible menace, boasting Charm, Fire, and Ice spells. She's at the same tier as the Adamant, but goes down fairly easy since there's only 2.



The final enemy group is the Gazer, but this time, there are four of them. I should mention that Gazers are absolute BASTARDS. They have the ability to paralyze, and they have a beam attack that can do more than 400 damage to a character and the defense against the attack is based against the target's mana. On Bndr, who has 0 mana, it does more than 500 damage. The end result of this is...



However, this is not the end!



Mysteriously we find ourselves in a palatial room with floating orbs decorating the corners... where are we?

As a note, the fact that we're showing up as a dragon should be a clue to the fact that there's something...off... about moving as a dragon. I wonder if one could use the  Dragon Warp Glitch  here?


wars come here...

Then... are we all...dead?

Yes... But! I have the power to revive you. If you promise to fight against me someday... I will bring you back to life from now on... as long as you have the courage to keep fighting!





I mean, seriously, is there a more continue mechanism in ANY game, especially from this generation? Second time around, those Gazers go down.



Note that the messages aren't different, this is just the precursor to the previous victory message.


.... Ha Ha Ha...

And with that, we're done with this world.

Next time: Smuggling, a detective case, and the Last Guardian.