Part 6: Episode VI: Have You Seen My Mummy?

Episode VI: Have You Seen My Mummy?



Now where were we...? Ah yes, the medieval dungeon tower just pass the caretakers’ mansion. Every good church monastery must have a decent dungeon on the grounds. Everyone knows that.



We find ourselves in a rather long corridor, but we’re going to duck into the first door we come across for reasons that’ll become apparent later. So what’s behind door number one?



Why the rotting corpse room, of course. You want easy access to the dumping ground for bodies if you’re going to be poisoning or shooting everyone who wanders onto your property. You wouldn’t want to just cast them into the sea. That’d be environmentally irresponsible! Keep Wales A Foreboding Eternally Overcast Wasteland Green.


Music: Waterfall



The dungeons of Nemeton Monastery are host to a few new enemy encounters. Fittingly, the corpse pile room is home to Skeletons. Whoever is doing all the necromancy on these hallow grounds has a real vendetta against legs.



Skeletons’ primary means of attack is just kind of flopping over on people. It’d be another age before skeleton technology advanced to bolder forms such as giant skeleton balls or tying skeletons to wheels. The science just wasn’t there yet in the 1890s. A sad state of affairs.



As you already know, skeletons hate being set on fire and will quickly burn to ash. What’s that about bones being extremely resistant to burning? Nah. Look at that four digits of damage. The numbers don’t lie!





Also new to the dungeon we have Beads, which are some manner of demonic cosmic horror bouncy ball that makes adorable bloop sounds when knocked on the ground or hit. Beads are all about magical attacks and the like. What they’re not about?



Being kicked. You’d think kicking something with some sort of chitin blades and anti-gravity capabilities would be an ill-advised task. But nobody told that to Edward J. Plunkett.

Music: ENDS



It seems the Bead was also carrying a sword... somewhere. It lamented its cruel lot in life being born without arms. Now that we’ve gotten a variety of weapons, I suppose I should mention all the classes available in Koudelka. Since it’s not entire clear at a glance. There are:

< Short Range Weapons >


• Knuckles - Also includes bare-fist. Does not chuckle. Very hard to break.
  
• Knives – Dagger and Dirk. Fairly durable. Usually provide Mage oriented stat boosts.
  
• Swords – There’s actually two subcategories of this. Regular swords which are middling damage and durability. And two-handed swords, which have damage output but break extremely easily. There's even a super special sword that can be obtained. It breaks in three hits...
  
• Clubs – Includes pipes, maces and hammers. High damage but fairly fragile.
  
• Axes – Pretty much the same as clubs, honestly. Usually reduce agility because axes are heavy...? Don’t ask me.
  
  < Medium Range Weapons >
  
  
• Spears – There’s a special denouement for medium class weapons but... it’s just spears. They can attack an extra space away. But as a trade-off, they’re some of the most fragile weapons.
  
  < Long Range >
  
  
• Guns – There’s actually three different types of guns that all use different ammo types – pistols, shotgun and rifles. On the plus side, they never break and just use ammo.
  
• Crossbows – There are two crossbows in the game that are random drops and they have their own ammo type and weapon proficiency upgrade. As such, we’re never using a crossbow.
  

And now you know!



Tons more skeletons litter the edges of the far side of the dungeon cells. But what we’re really interested in is that box on the bottom left. It wants a four digit code we lack at the moment. We’ll just have to remember it is here for later. For now, let’s step into the door next to it for...



My goodness... this building is full of dead bodies and skeletons...
It's full of ghosts and spirits.
And the undead... monster plants... whatever in the blue hell that floating bladed eye thing was we just fought... And the warlwolf.
<grabs head and walks to nearby bed> Ahh. I can feel them. Oh... my head hurts...



I got a bad feelings about this.
<prays> Horrible... Dear Lord, please save these lost souls.
This must have happened a long time ago.
<clutches chest> Ugh... and the power is so strong...
You sure that ain’t just hunger pains? Starting to get them after that poison soup fiasco...
Really? Now...? Ugh...
If I can channel some of these spirits, maybe I can find out what happened here.
Channel the spirits?
That sounds like... not the greatest of ideas. Never was big on lore. Just happy throwing up my hands and saying a place is just plain crazy messed up. No explanation needed.



<stops praying> Shame on you! You two should be praying for their souls.
The spirits are filling in this room... I can let them possess my body so they can talk.
...I really don’t wanna talk to a ghost, Koudelka. That’s creepy!
The reason I came here is that I heard the call of one particular female voice. If she was... <starts breathing heavily in pain>
I will not stand for this! Not only do you not believe in God, but now you are going to disturb the spirits?
Shut up! Would you stop bothering me?! Oh... ahh...
<grabs chest> Ugh... ohh... ahh... Chains and darkness... Ohh... Ah... Ah... Death! Oh... Oh no... Ah... Oh... There were so many of them... This... is... hell!
<approaches Koudelka>



What!? What’s going on...?
No good can come of disturbing the spirits like this.
Aww... geez. I thought there’d be like... more ceremony to speaking to ghosts. This is too quick. It’s gonna get creepy!
There were... imprisoned... and... tortured... and... oh... Thousands of them...

<Koudelka suddenly jumps from the bed and starts talking in a deep demonic voice>



Kill them! They cut off my fingers. They crushed my legs! They smashed my head and cut out my guts! They took everything from me... and locked me up and chopped my body!
I told you this was going to be creepy!
As is all blasphemy.



<bends over in pain> AHH! My eyes! Argh my ears! Ahh! Arhhh they’re burned! Help! Help! Ahhh... <collapses back on bed>



Ugh... How horrible... This place... used to be a prison. For... hundreds of years, kept in secret. Whoever went against the authority or misconducted themselves in any way were locked up here and killed...
<tries to console Koudelka>



NO! Don’t touch me!
<to James> You! Piss off! Go to hell!
Your mother is sucking cocks there right now!
How dare you! My mother was a—
Pfft... Heh.
And your mother is right there next to him doing the same!
My... mother is still alive, though...
Yeah... well... You piss off too!
Gaaah! AAHHH!



Koudelka collapses to the floor and shrieks in pain for a bit while as the scene draws to a close. And so...



We just won’t discuss that vengeful spirit that possessed one of our party members briefly. It’s fine. It happens. We’re over it. Koudelka is tough. Anyway, we now find ourselves in a less than tidy bedroom. There’s only one piece of furniture in this room we can interact with. But first, we’re going to do a tiny bit of prep work.






Namely, we’re going to scoot everyone up to the front row for a little bit and equip Edward with the Tabar we got from that earlier boss fight. Just in case, ya know?



The only thing in this bedroom that can be clicked on is the closet in the top right corner of the room. Inside, we find...



As you look at it, it opens its eyes and suddenly attacks!


Music: Incantation Again



Time for yet another boss fight. This time it is against the fearsome Mummy Bride of the corpse pit adjacent guest bedroom closet. Note: Mummy Bride may not actually be particularly fearsome with her 1225 HP and extremely low speed of attack.



This is one fight where Edward is kind of worthless. Even with an axe or any other weapon equipped, the Mummy Bride is extremely resilient to physical attacks. I mean, Xenogears taught us long ago that a wedding dress is remarkably durable piece of armor.





The reason we put Koudelka and James in the front row for this fight is due to this being an undead enemy and it having that old RPG trait of being weak to curative spells. Note that this is not true of all undead looking enemies. That skeleton early? Heal spells will, in fact, heal it. Ditto with that very zombie looking headless dude with the glass shards sticking out of it. It must be a proper ass plain zombie with no special adjectives attached to get damaged by curative spells.





Fire is also extremely effective against the undead. It is common knowledge that wedding dresses can defend against axes, swords or kung-fu. But if someone goes at it with some pyromancy, it’s going to go up like a dry match.





The Mummy Bride is lucky to even get a single attack out. Its primary means of offense is to use telekinesis to just dump a bunch of boxes and assorted garbage around the room on one of our party members heads. This is somehow considered a magical attack. As such, Koudelka basically no-sells it, James takes very little damage from it and Edward gets completely rocked for 200+ HP of damage if it connects with him. Again, Edward really isn’t contributing to this boss battle.





But that’s OK as Koudelka can pretty much solo this entire battle if she wanted with just her Flare. Which happened to level up in this fight. Now it goes 16 MP up from the previous 8 MP. It can also hit two targets if they happen to be on the grid next to each other by one square. So that’s spiffy!


Music: Level Up!



All of our party gained a level here as well. Those rings we gave Koudelka has buffed her magic stats quite a bit and there’s no need to unequip them anytime soon. While we’ll keep improving her magic skills, we’ll also start pumping Vitality and Agility a bit more to make her less squish and quicker on the draw.



James is never going to stop pumping Strength, Vitality, Dexterity and Agility every level. His lack of defenses against magic is starting to be an issue. But we’ve got a remedy to that coming soon.



Lastly, James is also improving his Intelligence, Mind, PIE and Agility to better serve his support unit role he’s been tossed into. There’s never going to be a time where Stat Fortify spells or healing won’t be useful.



Lastly, we gained the Megalith (Earth elemental) spell alongside an Air Ring accessory. Don’t ask me why a mummy that popped out of a closet would let you start an earthquake. I’m not well versed in Welsh bridal customs.



The Air Ring has the exact same description and function as Bessy’s Ring -- +3 Intelligence, +7 PIE and +4 Mind. Since Koudelka is already covered with an identical accessory, we’ll toss this one on one of James’s fingers to buff his stats a touch more.



So here’s a thing: We... didn’t actually get the important key item directly from that boss fight. Before we go, we need to go check out that closet the Mummy Bride was stashed in again. Here we find...





A Rope Ladder. You can never be too prepared for when you might need a good, easily transported ladder. I definitely didn’t miss picking this up and get real confused as to how to progress next the first time I played the game. No sir...



We’re now done with that side room with its mummified closet ladies and skeleton piles for now. We’ll need to come back later to sort out that locked chest. For now, let’s continue down the hall where a FMV might be waiting for us...



CGI James has a shockingly square head. Like you could shave his head and measure out a 90 degree angle with that skull. Aside from that, our party seems to be fixated on something down the hall. And that is...





A creepy little girl that is definitely not some kind of ghost, demon or malevolent spirit. Just a nice young, slightly glowing lass loitering about on Halloween night a room over from the murdered body depository of the Nemeton Dungeon.



Edward J. Plunkett, being an exceptional moron at random intervals, decides to stride forward and check out what the little girl’s deal is... James has mild concerns. Koudelka is internally going “for fuck sake, this idiot...”



Hey...





Hey! <runs after girl around corner>



Wait a minute! Hey!
Hey! Hey...? HEY!



Just gonna mosey on over to the sneering albino glowing girl. Edward really values conversations that are face to face, you see.



What’s the worst that could happen? I mean other than tumbling off a cliff to your death because you were too fixated on talking to a creepy child.



<grabs arm> Edward!



Oh... Where’d that come from...?
It was there the entire time.
No, but that little girl...
Edward, it is clearly a ghost.
No... That can’t be right. She’s just... <looks up>



...O-oh. That’s a ghost, huh?
Mhm.
<creepy ghost laugh>



You should have just died before. I wanted you to lay down and die!



<evil ghost laughing while phasing through wall>





A ghost?
Y-Yeah...
......
I’m gonna... I’m going to punch it next time. <nods sagely>
......
......



Werewolves, giant killer plants, elemental eyes and mummies are one thing. Ghost children? That’s a whole ‘nother bag of worms. But we’ll worry about that another day. If only we had a rope ladder to bypass that drop Edward almost tumbled down like a dingus.



Oh right... We totally do. Tune in next time as we explore the depths of the first floor of the Nemeton Dungeon and perhaps do battle with the Disc 1 End Boss. Yeah, we’re nearly at the end of Disc 1 of 4. I told you this was kind of a short game!






Video: Episode 6 Highlight Reel (Cutscenes are at the very beginning going forward.)





Koudelka Iasant Concept Art – What’s going on with your left hand, lady?