Part 36: To Dom Ruins

Welcome back!









First thing's first, distributing the Mana Eggs and stat boosters. The majority consensus was to keep the same weapons, so that's that for the prep.

... Almost.



Sue swaps out the earrings for the Medal of Yore. Sue tends to make more use of her skills than the other two, so better SP regen will help her out. And now we're done with the prep work.



Onward, to the Dom Ruins!





Hmm. This forest sure is misty.



Right off the bat, we find some gold. We also find the only enemies on this map.



Ents. What is there to say about Ents?



They're slow and like to group up.



They have just enough HP to survive a Howl dropped on them, but not enough to survive two, even at the edges.



They drop 40 gold and 17 exp each. They can also drop Cholla Flowers.



Sue hits level 7 here.



So, Cholla Flowers. If anything was tempting me to forgo my "no-grinding" rule, it's Cholla Flowers. A small, but easily-farmable MP restorative during a part of the game where 3 level 1 MP is a big deal.

I figured it would be all right; in my practice run, after all, I wound up with more of them than I could use.



This map is a twisty little maze of passages, all alike.



Forest bread!



Another stat booster! Wit, being the most important stat in this game, is a welcome boon to anyone.



Shit, that tree came out of nowhere!









... Oh. Remember how I mentioned Ents were slow? That's both in Wit and Agi, so not only does it take them forever to get their turn, but they also can't walk very far for an attack.

All that adds up to the ambushers getting murdered without being able to launch a single attack. Yeah.



The layout of this place might be confusing unless you have a decent sense of direction, but for those of us like me who get lost navigating the inside of a bucket, you can follow the rocky dirt wall here from the entrance to the exit, bypassing most of the random encounters as well as the treasures. Needless to say, fuck that noise, let's get lost in the woods.



So, Runner. Moderately-sized AoE, boosts Mov by two levels for the target and one for others in the area. Not a bad choice for getting some wind EXP.



Like so. Feena's now halfway to a fun spell.



While they do take more damage from Burn!, I'm pretty sure that's due to Howl dealing less damage in general instead of a fire weakness.



I guess they hit hard? I dunno, it's hard to find things to say about these guys.



Oh wait, there's something. This wasn't a precisely-timed screenshot for humorous effect. ... Well, okay, it was timed to have the enemy upside-down, but Justin really did just do 8 whole damage. This is the Ent's main gimmick: their crazy physical defense.

Note that the hatchet available in New Parm not only has the highest attack power of all the weapons there, it also deals extra damage to these guys. Like, ~80-90 damage per hit.

They have 55 HP.

This is one of the weapon-resistant enemies mentioned by the last Save Point's hint. In addition to magic, attack items, and effective weapons, there are a few more ways to kill them dead, which we'll get to later.



Ahh, a treasure chest in that clearing to the east.



And what a treasure it is! For level 2 and 3 spells, 5 MP isn't exactly the best, but it does hit the whole party, and can be pretty useful if you're in a long, drawn-out grindfest of a random battle.

Naturally, in this run, I'll probably forget about it until I no longer need it.



So, Heal. Feena's not low on HP, but I figured I should show the animation. Blue glowy light, blue glowy sparkles rain down, HP goes up.



By quite a lot, actually. That's nearly half her max HP.

Granted, Rah-Rah heals the whole group for only slightly less HP, and SP is easier to recover than MP, but...



And a big ol' bag of gold.



In case you were curious about the Cholla Flowers' animation.



Feena gains a fire level here.



The Ent survives another Howl, though, by defending, so Feena and Sue whale on him.

Fun fact: if an attack does no damage, it doesn't count toward the combo counter there. Both Sue and Feena had their first hit nullified.



I'm not seeing nearly as many of these as I'd like.



And Feena levels up here, once again eclipsing Sue in strength, and even bypassing Justin in wit. I still can't decide if I like the fact that each character has their own level up rate, or if it infuriates me.



So, I wind up back at the entrance and remember I haven't read the sign yet.



Whoops, missed some gold in the alcove to the northwest. And that's the last bit of this map.



"Vestibule". I didn't even think that was a word until I heard it used for the first time, like, three years ago.





Freaky screaming head statues.



Sneaky treasure chest.



: When I came here before, it was full of Garlyle soldiers and I wasn't able to go inside.

: So, this is my first time inside the ruins. I don't know what'll happen now, so we must be careful.

Hmm. The Garlyle Forces were here before? Given that Feena was off on some random island when we met her, they must've been at the Dom Ruins before they went to Sult.





Oooooooh boy. These guys.



Yep, we fought the purple slimes two dungeons ago, and we're already getting a more powerful palette swap.



Oh, good, I can show this off right away, then.





Divide now adds three more slimes to the fight. Each of these slimes can Divide, giving three more, etc. There is a limit to the number of enemies in battle at one time, and these guys will hit that very quickly if you don't stop them.

Of course, not stopping them allows for massive clusters of enemies to hit with AoE spells, giving you crazy amounts of XP, especially when combined with the Cholla Flowers and/or Miracle Drink.

But that shit is straight-up grinding, and therefore disallowed. From here on, killing these fuckers before they can divide is high-priority.



Old habits die hard, though. And after all, the best way to kill lots of enemies before they can summon more is with AoE attacks.



And, well, how often do you see Burn! hitting three enemies at once? I had to show this off.



Focus! Slime E there is too far away to interrupt, but isn't charging Divide, so we're good. Slime B here, though, needs to die ASAP.



Although, on second though, I could probably hit all five of them here....



And, with a successful quintuple Burn!, Sue hits Fire 3 and learns her second cheer.



Feena cast Howl once, and wound up with 46 XP. That 51 Fire XP for Sue was with two Burn!s.

On the one hand, without Save Point healing, I do need to maximize my magic XP gains.

On the other hand, fuck that, grinding is grinding. Onward!



Direct path is blocked off. Time to go off-road.



Sand Diver. They go underground, making them likely to ambush you. In-battle, they don't have much going for them.



So, "Fight!" Cheer. You'll notice that, in the lower-left corner, it shows the icon for Sue's weapon, as well as fire and earth. It's icon in the list, though, is an explosion.

This is probably my favorite mechanic of this game: In addition to the four basic elements, (fire, water, wind, and earth), there are four combined elements. These are lightning, forest, blizzard, and explosion. Explosion, seen here, is a combination of fire and earth.

And yes, "Fight!" Cheer is an explosion-elemental cheer that makes the whole party hit harder. Sue can be fucking metal when she wants to be.





With their augmented strength, Justin and Feena easily mop up the remaining enemies.



And here's the other huge benefit of combined magic: you get XP for both elements. For skills that use those elements, you also get weapon XP.

See that XP? That was from one use.

In a normal game, spamming this skill in every fight and hanging around a Save Point can turn Sue into a speedy murdertank. In theory, a sword would be the best for this, as you're doubling up on the Str/Wit increases. In practice, ExplosionMace boosts all the stats that matter, covering all your bases.

Again, though, this skill is useful and a great way to get lots of XP for little cost, so into the "avoid using this" pile it goes.



More gold.



Tremor.



A big hexagon made of smaller hexagons explodes from the ground.



Which then spirals back into nothingness.



For a big ol' pile of damage. And 5 Level 2 MP.

Meaning Sue's not gonna be doing that again until we rest.



These guys have an ability called "Sand Shower". Reduces attack by two levels. Not worth caring about.



Feena grabs a dagger level from stabbing him, though.



And Justin levels up after the next fight, pulling ahead of Feena in Wit again.



Up closer to the entrance to the ruins, we run into palette swaps of the bats from Sult.

Vampire Bats, as might be expected, can drink your blood to heal.



It does quite a lot of damage, considering their normal attack doesn't even scratch Sue.



There were a lot of levels throughout the Dom Ruins. Both weapons/magic and character levels.



Inside the sneaky chest is Blue Medicine, which is a crazy-good MP restore. It'll be a long while before this won't go to waste, but you can do a lot with 20 MP in each level.



Off on the other side of the entryway, we find some dynamite. Useful if you, say, blew your one charge of Burnflame on a random encounter and want a large AoE later on.



Not sure why there's a DungeonScope here.



"Use spells a bunch until they level up the element a few times and then BLAM! New spells! Fuck yeah!"



Going into the ruins, I know there's an enemy up on that second rafter waiting to drop down and ambush me. So, let's try walking slo-



Well, at least it wasn't an ambush.

Also, yet another palette swap. Dom orcs are far more dangerous than their Leck counterparts, though.



So, with a Burn! from Feena hitting the bats and front Orc, Sue lines up a Round Whacker on the one in back.









Not a huge amount of damage, and the AoE is less than that of Burnflame, but it's still hits a fairly-spread out group. And hey, Mace level. Can't complain.



Healing spells, unlike healing skills, can be used outside of battle. A great way to train up your Water skill is to spend all your MP healing up at a save point before recovering there.



Them's some creepy faces.



That one just looks angry.



OH FUCK!

... Yep, Dom's got some traps going on. Thankfully, they don't deal very much damage per hit.

Hmm. Healing magic can be used, and gives XP, outside of battle. These traps can damage you outside of battle. There's a save point for restoring MP right nearby.

Yep, if you have the patience, and don't mind exploiting a loophole, you can train everyone up to level 99 water right here.

Between that and the crazy-splitting slimes, this really is a good area for grinding. Y'know, if you're into that sort of thing.



At the end of the hall, there's a group of bats and a bundle of herbs.

Yes, herbs, the 15 HP healing item from Parm.





Feena picks up her second dagger level on this map, bringing her up to Daggers 6. She gains her next dagger skill at Daggers 10.

She gets to that point with her first attack on the boss.



And, after having blown all my MP and some healing items, we finally arrive at the Dom Ruins proper.

Next Time: Dungeon Delving! Secret Passages! Me failing at basic puzzles!