Part 29: Underground Passage

Welcome back! When we last saw our heroes, they were rushing back to town to rescue a kidnapped woman and stop her forced wedding.





New Parm is much the same, with most of the NPCs excited about Pakon's wedding. So let's go bust into that church!



Damn. Maybe someone else around here knows something...



: Maybe I could sneak in from the storeroom in the back.

: What? There's a storeroom there?

: Listen, there's a secret passage from the storeroom, but it's so risky. I don't think I could do it. But, oh, how I'd love to see how Feena looks in her wedding gown.

Storeroom, huh?





Small place, but it does have a staircase. Onward!





It would be nice if the music kept playing through the random encounters, but eh. At least it's better than the four bongo beats we usually get for dungeon music.



Turning around right at the start, you can see there's another Mana Egg in here. It'll be a while before we can pick it up, though.



Same for the treasure chest. The enemies, though...



Palette-swaps of the Green Slimes we fought back in Sult. They've got a gimmick that we'll show off later.



For now, it'll suffice to say that Sue cannot kill them with just a combo attack.



The next enemy type here is the Mud Jelly. Unlike the slimes, Sue can't even come close to killing these guys with a combo.



Also, their normal attack hits all around them.



And then there's their special move.





It's like a lightning-elemental Self-Destruct.



As you can see, it's pretty painful. Justin defends so that Sue has time for a Rah-Rah.



Anyway, here we can see the dungeon's gimmick. Raise the floodgate...



... and lower the water level.



This part here would be underwater and impassible.



As demonstrated here.



That could be messy.



Whew.



And Justin's axe level hits 5, evening up his weapon levels.



And the final enemy type, Mad Snails. Naturally, their shells mean they have high defense.



Spin Attack, their special move, lets them attack from any range.



And they both decide that Sue's gotta go.



Even Justin has trouble cutting through their thick armor.



And he defends for a few rounds, letting Sue gain a Mace level.



They were guarding some gold, though.



And a floodgate. If you look carefully, you can see another crank on the other side.



But before we can cross, we have one more encounter to deal with.



Sue's been leaning on Rah-Rah throughout this dungeon. Maybe I shouldn't have dumped all my healing items in the Stashing Place.

Or should have remembered about that Gold Potion that Justin's lugging around.



But this lets us show off the gimmick of every slime-type monster from now on.



As expected, it creates a new monster of the same type.

With the same HP as the original.



There is no limit to the amount of times an individual slime can divide, but there can't be more than six or seven enemies on the field at once.



Sue manages to build up enough SP to get off that Rah-Rah.



25 HP is still a decent chunk, but it's starting to fall behind the damage some enemies can deal. Not the slimes, but the others.



And one of the Divided slimes is trying to divide. Sue puts an end to that, though.

Another factoid: Enemies spawned during battle don't drop any money or items. Still give EXP, though.



We drop the floodgate, lowering the water level even further for the next area.



Not quite all the way, though.



It does allow access to one area, though.





But we'll get to that later.



For now, we open the final floodgate.



And the treasure chest holds a Turticamel Shell Shield.

Justin's still using the Treasures from Parm, and Sue's already upgraded her armor at the store, so it sits in the inventory.



The water drained from the lower area, allowing access to those snails and gold.



But with a smaller gold bag, first.



Keep those hit points up!



This is after one round of attacks from the slimes. Justin's in trouble.



If Slime C hadn't decided to divide, Justin would be dead right now.



Thankfully, I had saved the beef jerky from the ship.



Unfortunately, Sue fails to kill off that slime.



A few more Divides and attacks go through, leaving Justin in danger.



And Sue is 8 EXP short of a level up.



Hopefully getting the drop on these snails will restore enough SP for another Rah-Rah.



So far so good...



He's still got hit points! It's still good! It's still good!



And Sue hits level 6! That +2 Strength would have really helped earlier. The +2 wit, though, is always handy.

She's almost caught up to Justin in Strength and Vitality.

Also, in addition to the "Level Up!" graphic being stars, said stars also rotate.



And, if you want it in 125x125 and <30 kb...



Anyway, still clearing up the bottom area...



Crap.



Crap!



CRAP!



My luck turns around, though, as the one going for Sue just... misses.



And the two heading for Justin get in each other's way, running them both out of movement, as indicated by that sweatdrop.



This allows Justin to finish off the two wounded ones, and Sue gains her seventh Mace level off of the remainder, letting her learn our first new (non-magic) skill of the game!

Round Whacker costs 30 SP. I'll show it off when I'm not in a dungeon that requires every SP I can wrangle for healing.



And Justin levels his axes again with the finishing blow.



Causing him to hit 70 Max HP. Also, Sue matches Justin on Vit, and her HP keeps climbing.



And the final battle in this section.



And it's gonna be a doozy. At least Sue gets to act first.



Unfortunately, she's two SP short of a Rah-Rah. She'll need to get an attack in to generate the SP, and then get another turn before Justin gets ganked if he's going to survive this.



Sue goes for the Snail to keep him distracted. This slime is defending, and can be ignored for now. The other is gunning for Justin.

Snail is successfully distracted, and non-defending slime is dead. Sue's turn comes up.



And, in my infinite stupidity, think I can handle this fight without healing. Sue goes to finish off the snail...



... while Justin... defends. Instead of killing the slime.



He tanks the hit, and Sue finishes the snail.



It's Justin's turn, and he can finish off the slime in one hit.

Pop quiz! How do you think I handle this situation?

a) Have Justin combo, winning the fight with no further fuss.
b) Have Justin critical, hoping to keep the Slime alive and delay its turn, giving Sue a chance to heal.
c) Defend.



If you guessed c, congratulations!



Last time, he took 4 damage. Things seem to be pretty good!



Wait, shit.



FUCK!

The timing worked out such that Justin's defending turn ended just before the Slime's attack hit. Had I done literally anything else at that point, Justin would have survived. Even if I had chosen to evade instead of endure, Sue likely would have had enough time to fire off a Rah-Rah before the attack went through.



Thankfully, he still gets the weapon XP from the fight.



And I facepalm again at this screen. I thought that I had given Justin the resurrection potion, meaning he'd have to be the one to use it in battle. Instead, I had given it to Sue earlier, purely because of the fact that Justin is using crappy armor and he's much more likely to die.

Anyone still wondering why I'm not playing the hardmode hack, this is it. I'm still pretty dumb and not good at games.



At least the Resurrect Potion fully restores HP, allowing Sue to save her SP.

Snails guarding the gold. They die with nothing interesting happening.



Anyway, why'd we go through all that? Well, there's this passage here.



Long passage.



It drops us off in the canal by the last floodgate.



For this dungeon's biggest treasure: another Mana Egg.



Back on the upper section, we find another path.



And this is it. The final enemy and item of the dungeon. Those stairs lead out.





The slimes decide they don't like me very much.



Up-to-date armor + blocking = negligible damage.





Even without blocking, upgrading your armor more than once per continent is helpful.



I do love that, instead of maces, Sue attacks enemies with a squeaky hammer.



And the treasure is an Iron Mace. Significant boost to attack, significant penalty to turn speed. No thanks.

Besides, Sue won't need it for the boss.





We've got this narrow hallway at the top of the stairs. This area reminds me a lot of this game's sequel.



Hmm. A dead-end?



Nope!



Going through the wall! And that's where we'll leave off for today.

Next Time: The big rescue!