Part 174: Luzet Mountains

Welcome back!





Last time, we ended on silly slapstick. This time, we're starting with hammy evil.

: Ah, ha, ha, haaaa! Gaia... can you hear me?!

: I've finished it... here. Your castle! How long... how LONG it has been!!

: The wait for the day you awake! For the DAY...!







Oh, hey Mullen.



: Operation Yggdrassil is now aborted! The Forces will now initiate the destruction of all Spirit Stones and of Gaia!

: Well then Fath... Baal! Hand over that piece of the Spirit Stone!

: HA!! Don't be a FOOL! Gaia is superior! It is evolution's step up from humanity!!

Yeah, Baal gets to keep his double exclamation points. It seems fitting.

: But you, with your humanoid blood, you would NEVER understand what evolution has wrought!

: Gaia is LORD of ALL!! MY lord, YOUR lord! LORD... of the WORLD!!

: IDIOT! What NONSENSE! Your end has come, Baal!



So, uh, keep this line in mind for later.

: Do you think you can defeat ME!!? AH, HA, HA, HA, HAAAAAA!!



Oh dear. The ham... it is INFECTIOUS! HA HA HA HA HAAAAAA!!





: Aaaagh! Is everyone alive?

: Ah, just barely....

: Where are we?

: This is the place you call the "Savanna".

: Does that mean we have returned in one piece?

: Then, how could this be? Gaia... where is Gaia!?



: Over there. I feel the signs of Gaia up ahead in a place beyond the Luzet Mountains.

: Well, shall we go, Justin?

: Ah! Without a moment's delay. We have to stop Gaia!

And this is when we're normally supposed to visit this part of the Savanna and take care of the Tower of Temptation. But since I already took care of that, we can proceed right to all the NPCs the Luzet Mountains.

... Almost. There's one thing we have to take care of in town, first.



Between Sue and Milda, Liete gains 8 mace levels.

Yes, seven of them were from Sue alone.



Hitting maces 18 unlocks Liete's final skill, Enchantment Dance. For more than half of her SP total, she can steal 4 MP from one enemy.

It, uh... is not the most useful skill, really. Maybe if it were cheaper and more powerful.







Guido's weapon levels were a wee bit lopsided.



We also sell off a bunch of junk to buy the Holy Sword Lorenzo.



As well as a few more Blue Potions, and a replacement Magic Lamp. For old times' sake. Probably overpreparing here, but fuck it. To the Luzet Mountains!





Even compared to some of the other filler dungeons, the Luzet Mountains are... less than memorable. At least there's stuff to say about the enemies.



Sand Snakes are the annoying ones. Sure, they're weak to everything but wind, but they've got that Sandwave skill, which hits all allies and is decently powerful. They've also got Craze, which causes confusion.



King Horns can use All Together! to summon more of them, or Plague Fluid to cause plague in an area. Less of an asshole than the Sand Snake, but still annoying.



Finally, Yeti. They can use Earthquake to deal physical damage in a radius. And that's it. Nothing else noting about these guys.

Seriously, this place is so filler even the monsters are boring.



I guess we've got this gate? That's a thing.





700 damage from a level 1 spell on a minor weakness. Liete is a magical fucking powerhouse.



But don't be fooled into thinking she has to spend MP to be useful. Redshock can hit 500 damage right out of the gate, without even any skill-boosting gear.

What I'm getting at here is that Liete follows in Gadwin and Milda's footsteps.



This is the first interesting treasure of the area, and it's something that Liete starts with in her inventory.



Finally, some excitement! Star Symphony is Liete's level 2 unique spell. It costs 12 MP, and boosts all the stats of everyone in the party by one level. As-is, it's a handy way to open boss fights.



With enough magic boosting gear, though, the effect can be doubled. And then it goes from "mildly useful for tough fights" to "double all your stats in three turns".

The only downside is that the animation is... kind of long.



Figured, while I was showing off her other stuff....



Seriously, Liete's stats are lagging behind. Less than half of Justin's strength, less than a third of Rapp's agility, and she's dead last in vitality and wit, too.

For the record, Sue had 80 strength back at the Volcano.

At least she's got more level 3 MP than Feena.



The eastern part of the mountains has an area where you go through a blind tunnel. Why did I take a screenshot of this?



Because that's where you grab this baby. +1 to both combo and critical. This one treasure here makes up for everything else being agility seeds.



Liete isn't the only one casting magic around here.



Feena's actually been pretty invincible throughout this dungeon. Most enemy attacks are doing less than 20 damage, and so are negated by her tiara.



I dunno, having both BOOM-POW! and DragonZap on the same character seems kinda redundant. At least GadZap has its own niche.

Maybe that's an idea for a mod, having the ultimate spells of each element unique to certain characters.

Anyway, after spending far, far too much MP....



We get to where we're going.

See you next time!

: +5, +3, +1, +2, +1, +1

: +1, +3, +2, +4, +1

: +2, +2, +4, +2, +1, +2, +1

: +13, +2, +3, +3, +1