Part 7: In Which Will Goes it Alone

“You say that like you’re not about to come in here with me.”

“They say that this is where the puzzle of the Incan legend is hidden. I heard this story from the Elder when I was a child…after being invaded, the Incas decided to leave their native land to find a new world. They secretly built a huge ship and filled it with priceless gold artifacts. But there’s no record of the ship leaving…

“That’s nice, but you didn’t answer my question.”



“And he still hasn’t.”

“Wait, did you hear that?”



“Mostly by walking at a moderate pace and not stopping every five minutes because our feet hurt.”

“Lola told me about this place. I’ve been waiting. I thought you’d left me. You should tell me where you’re going!!”

“So, Kara, why did you follow us?”



“I can’t just wait around and eat while Will is working so hard. I’m waiting here for Will to return.”

“Well, a princess wouldn’t understand…so I’ll just stay here and explain it.”

“I knew it. I freaking knew it.”

“Will, I remember what the Elder said.”



“The valley wind will lead you to the Gold Ship.”




“That’s probably what the old man meant by the breath of the spirits…this is the cliff with no wind. My heart beats fast.”

Larai Cliff Theme




And with that, we step into our first for real true dungeon. Right off the bat we’ve got the mudpit, a slow golem type enemy that occasionally makes a dash and punches at you. They’re slow enough that I’ve never seen it. The other enemy is the Four Way, which stays in place and spins before attacking. The darts are separated by 90 degrees, but alternate between the cardinal directions and firing at a 45 degree angle from what’s shown here. It’s easy enough to dodge. Clearing out the room nets us a defense upgrade.



Ramps like this are one way slides that we can use to slide down levels but not up. This second room gets us an HP increase, which has another effect that I don’t believe I mentioned before. Getting an HP increase restores your HP to just below full.




Just out the door we find a key, and nearby a diamond-shaped lock. Matching the two drops blocks over the spike floor and lets us leave through the southern door.



From here we can climb up and access another door. The stone faces are a creepy but interesting touch.



“And he’s got a note…”

“Father, please come back alive. When you find the Gold Ship, buy a Kruk.”

“Okay, now that’s depressing.”



Just above the depressing skeleton we have this maze, with statues that we could theoretically move. If you look at this it’s pretty clear that we can’t use telekinesis to clear it. Instead, Psycho Dash has to be used to destroy the statues. Clearing them out gets us to the chest in the upper left corner, which has an herb.



That’s actually a sideshow, however, as the real route to progress is through jumping down a gap just like this one. This one leads back to the door we just opened with the diamond-shaped block. Another nearby gap leads to..



A new enemy where the enemies we had to clear to get the first Incan Statue are lurking. They’re actually called Sluggers, and are pretty much the weakest enemies in the area. Clearing them all out nets us a strength increase.



Through the door we get two new enemies. The blob type enemies are called Splops and can do the standard trick of disappearing into the floor and reappearing later. The statue head is called a Whirligig and circles around you, but you pretty much have to run into them for them to damage you.



Enemies aren’t confined to the indoor areas. These are Scuttlebugs, which are essentially identical to the Sluggers.



This is a hint for the next puzzle. Since this guy presumably didn’t have telekinesis, the plan didn’t work out for him.




The statues here have to be placed on the gold plates. We can maneuver them with telekinesis, but there’s a catch.



If you get too close to the statues they’ll come to life and attack you. You can’t stop them without killing them, but if you leave the room the statues will reset. You only have to get three in position, since you can serve as the fourth weight to open the door.



In the next room, we’ve got a series of squares that drop plates from the ceiling. It’s pretty much cosmetic, but there’s also a skeleton who fell victim to the aforementioned traps.



The next stage in this area is to trigger some of those falling plates to cover a series of spiked trenches leading forward. Enemies like the Four Way don’t exactly respect differences in height, so you have to dodge their attacks while proceeding forward.



At the end waits a Dark Space, where we can heal and switch to a more combat appropriate form.



After changing into Freedan, we’ve got to run a gauntlet. There’s a number of Four Ways, but you can time it so that you hit them when they’re aiming away from you. Clearing the whole mess leads to another defense increase. Out the door we reach a dead end..



And learn the Melody of the Wind. Melody of the Wind.

Naturally, this will come in handy later.



In reality we have to backtrack to this enemy, who we couldn’t reach with Will’s flute. Clearing this last enemy changes the layout of the room to let us move forward…



Mainly by jumping across wide expanses using short ramps.

“I’m the king of the world!”

Next update: Our first boss, and the Gold Ship.