Part 53: Tower of Valni 4 and 5: Heh heh heh...

Alrighty, let's keep this thing rolling.

Tower of Valni 4 and 5: Heh heh heh...



The next floor of the tower splits the party in two, with one group caught in the middle of a nasty three-way pincer. Well, it would be nasty if we weren't rolling with a pretty tough group. And what is that group precisely?




Why, it's the women (and man) of the cloth. In retrospect, I should have also included Artur, but he can roll with a later group. Natasha and L'Arachel are fine, and Moulder's fast and sturdy enough to not be too much of a bother.



And where would L'Arachel be without her travel buddies? We've got a couple chests to open, which is mostly my impetus for bringing Rennac, and I couldn't fit Dozla in anywhere else.



Finally, we have this guy. Riev is your reward for killing 200+ enemies in one run of the Tower, which roughly equates to clearing Floor 7. And boy, is he a handy fellow to have around. He's strong, he's got great defenses, and once we give him a less hefty tome, he'll be pretty fast too. Plus, he comes with 5000G, which is just icing on the cake.

The only complaint I have about him is that he comes in at a pretty high level. I wish we had something that could fix that.



Oh, would you look at that. The Juna Fruit is another cut item, and it has a very special effect:



When you use it on someone, they lose anywhere from 1-5 levels a pop without losing any stats. You can't use it to demote somebody, of course, but the potential is obvious. If you've got someone who's been unlucky with his or her levels, giving them the Juna Fruit is a way of trying again. That sort of thing could be pretty scary if you gave it someone with a recruit's leveling speed.



Or at least it would be, if the thing didn't refuse to work at a certain level. Don't know precisely what causes it, but once a character drops down far enough, the Juna Fruit will no longer be an option. Pity, that.



But enough messing around. Let's get started.



So let me tell you something about Bishops and Purge.



...Hold that thought.



I am very grateful for L'Arachel's absurd amount of luck. She is very hard to lay a finger on. This can be a curse in disguise, since I'm trying to train Moulder.



Wish she was a little faster though. The Mauthe Doogs are getting so fast that she can't double them.



But that's going to change.



Meanwhile, Dozla's just trying to lay a finger on them.



He's a big ball of HP and strength, but there's not much more to him, sadly.



Although a random crit every now and then is always good for a laugh.



So as I was saying about Purge...it does that. That's the boss of this level finished, and I didn't even get its stats.



Rennac's helping in his own way on this map. He's not that strong, but he's got speed on his side.



While Riev just doesn't care.



Moulder's a bit of a load, really. He probably won't get killed, but when you consider how rarely the people on his team get hit, he spends a lot of time just twiddling his thumbs.



Even Rennac is contributing more than he is.



Oh yeah, that'll really come in handy when we encounter some armored monsters.

Spoilers: there are no armored monsters.



For the love of...get hurt, already!



Or at least gain some HP.



There we go.



Not exactly the most cost-effective way to train somebody, but it's not like money is really an issue anymore.



The lower part of the map is definitely a good place to have ranged units for, since the hallways are so narrow. If you have nothing but melee units, you better hope the guy in front can actually kill people, or you may be sitting around for a while.



Even Dozla knows this, though he has trouble actually connecting.



I'm beginning to wonder if it's worth training this guy.



And as we retire a treasured friend, we move on to the next map. After I mentioned killing 200+ dudes on one tower run, you might have wondered how such a thing is possible.



Here's how. This map is nothing but the basics, but there sure are a lot of them, and they'll be streaming out of the staircases fairly regularly too.



There are two bosses on this map, both of them Entombed. You may notice that they both have Chest Keys, and if you reference the map, you'll notice there are two chests. Get the picture yet?



Honestly, what I should be doing is plugging the narrow entranceways up top. You don't want the zombies swiping at your tender support staff.



While everyone else handles the situation up top, Riev will be soloing the bottom, because he's Riev.



On a cost basis, a Divine tome is 2500, while a Lightning tome is 630. I know that, and I understand that, but whenever I play this game, all I see is the number of uses, and the Divine tome had 25, while the Lightning tome had 11. I think there might be something wrong with me.



Lovely thing about Light magic is that every tome has a crit value attached. Theoretically, the crit value is supposed to account for its relative weakness compared to anima, but I don't buy that.



On the plus side, wielding the light can result in hilarious fights like this.



More generic gear for the pile. Hooray.



For lack of an actual tank, Rennac will have to do.



Dozla's too busy being awesome on the other side.



I should mention that Riev's offensive growths are in the 40-50% range. Not gaining defense...that I can understand, but no skill, resistance, or speed?



Oh, the Entombed bosses WILL attack you if you step too close. Just FYI. Not that it does much against Riev, but this information could help someone you love.



Like I said, the staircases spawn more enemies. This only lasts for the first six turns, and it's generally just more Revenants, but they're there, just in case you need to inflate your kill count some more.



You are the worst unsettling old man, Riev. Just the absolute worst.



The situation up top hasn't changed much. Still a lot of dead.



Soon to be redead.



Once again, this is just wasteful.



And hey, this level is actually...kinda good. Nice job, Rennac.



I probably didn't even need to use the cheaty weapon, but this was taking a while.



Unfortunately, strength is really all that Dozla is. It's a decent level, mind you, but he needs so much more.



On the negative end of things, this chapter is really taking a toll on my light tome reserves. Yeesh.



Remember how I said that Lightning tomes cost 630? Yeah, this is about the amount of gold you can expect to randomly get from these zombies. Really tough to recoup your expenses on just monster hunting.



Especially when your crazy axe men aren't cooperating.



It's really kind of amazing that there are so many of these kills still around. Riev hasn't been just taking it easy.



Let's talk about these chests, shall we? They're random.



I don't mean that they're in random places, I mean that their contents vary from run to run. There's a particular chance that a chest will have a particular item, and for this one, it goes like this:

Killing Edge: 22%
Killer Axe: 22%
Killer Bow: 22%
Killer Lance: 22%
Red Gem: 8%
Blue Gem: 4%

So as you can see, the prize we got was about what I was expecting.



Rather like this level.



Riev's Lightning tome is a little frayed, so I swap in a new-ish one.



Seems like everyone wants to go offensive today.



Well, almost everyone.



Why, past me? Why would you do that?



Shine: 22%
Thunder: 22%
Luna: 22%
Recover staff (heals all HP): 22%
Red Gem: 8%
Blue Gem: 4%

Once again, not surprising, though I am a little sad that I didn't get the cool treasure.



Now that we've got the treasure, we can finish this thing.



HECK...



...yeah?



Let's move on. Dozla's depressing me.

Next Time: It's a whirlwind of steel in floors 6 and 7.

Extras:



Riev
Class: Bishop
Weapon Ranks: S in light, A in staff
Affinity: Dark

HP: 49 (75%) Lck: 9 (15%)
Mag: 14 (45%) Def: 16 (20%)
Skl: 21 (50%) Res: 18 (45%)
Spd: 19 (40%) Con: 7

Honestly, Riev doesn't need much leveling, since he comes right out of the gate as a very capable unit. His class gives him immediate utility against monsters, which are, coincidentally, the only things you'll be fighting with him, and his S rank in light means that he'll be able to sling around Ivaldi without any problems. He comes with his own Aura tome, he can provide backup healing if need be...Riev is just really, really good. When you have two Hoplon Guards, and you should, since recruiting Caellach is absolutely mandatory if you want to get Riev, you don't even have to worry about that luck growth.