Part 13: Episode XIII: Full Welsh Alchemist

Episode XIII: Full Welsh Alchemist





Either some hex has been cast upon Koudelka steadily shrinking her body or else this is a library constructed and filled with tomes written by nine foot tall ogres. Most of the books on these shelves appear to be roughly the size of Koudelka’s upper torso. Oh well... We’ve got a staircase leading to the first floor of the library and a door across from the entrance on the upper level. Let’s explore the floor we’re on first, shall we?



Huh. What do you know? It’s an actual office and not a depository for rotting wooden crates and an assortment of delightful ghouls. There are a couple points of note in this room. If you think the fireplace or that prominently displayed miniature house model above it are one of them... you’d be quite disappointed. That’s just background details.



What we do have is another broken piece of stained glass to shove in Koudelka’s pockets for safe keeping. There better be something good behind all this junk and not just a room with a boss chilling out in front of a save point.

...

...It’s totally just going to be a save room with a boss hanging out unlocked, isn’t it?





Also in the corner of the office, next to a table large enough to seat a dinner party of nine comfortably in this ogre sized library, we find a chest of drawers large enough for the corpses of same nine man crew to be stuffed in after they succumb to poisoning. Upon closer inspection we find...



You’re unlikely to be able to open it just by guessing, though.

No looking up the answer to this puzzle in a FAQ you dirty cheater. You just take the fourth glass shard you’ve collected for no reason and be on your way sequence breaking scum...



You’ll have to look for a door somewhere else.

Returning to the central room of the library, we’ve got a barred path. That will surely never crumble or slide aside by some unlocking mechanism creating a shortcut back here in the future. No sir. Let’s just head downstairs for now...





Not a lot going on in this Library’s first floor. There is a prominently displayed gigantic grandfather clock with absolutely nothing to be done with it. For some reason Koudelka can climb on top of it. But there’s no reason to do so and it’s frankly rude as hell to do so.



There’s been a conspicuous lack of new enemy encounters lately. That’s because I didn’t look up what the hell that Mask did until after recording footage through to the next proper save point and thus had about a quarter of the usual enemy encounters. One solitary new encounter in the Library was this – a Mars. I’m pretty sure I killed this thing’s cousin in Bloodborne...



Mars allegedly has some powerful psychic abilities and can emit damaging rays from its enormous sackboy head. Unfortunately, it seems it isn’t a big fan of cold weather and a recently powered up to Level 2 Geyser Spell instantly destroyed it. Mars people are one of the only creature that can rarely drop Scrolls, like the one we received from the last secret item unlock. Unfortunately, by Koudelka rare standards that means maybe if you were to keep the Mask in your inventory and grind these guys for like an hour you’ll get a single scroll but probably fuck all.

Needless to say, we won’t be doing that grind here.





Continuing to the back of the Library, we enter a messy printing press room. Before we can investigate the area, Koudelka feels the unyielding force of a CGI cutscene and quickly succumbs to its whims...



Ohh... <starts breathing heavily>



Koudelka vision... activate!



We’re treated to a trippy montage as an unknown male voice starts rambling lines in a quick succession, frequently talking over itself.



December 5, 1895. Branwen. I found out that the—



Forty-three pegs.
I purchased from a supplier in town...



1896... Rain.



Look... hands are really hard to do in CGI... Though it would seem that is a skin-toned dagger pommel and not a gnarly mutated thumb like I thought on first viewing.



Blood just spraying in the dark is reminding me of the attract screen for the original Resident Evil and anything that reminds me of that cheesy junk is alright in my book.



Did you know Japanese media is legally require to show off the Sephirothic Tree of Life in anything vaguely involving religion or alchemy? Little known law they passed back in the autumn of 1995. It’s never been clear why. Some kind of underground series at the time popularized it.



...Now I have the way—



...conduct Elaine’s resurrection ceremony...



I only long to sleep in peace... with my wife...



Oh GAWD! You did some human transmutation and she came back all wrong – a soulless nightmare abomination! Huh...? What’s that? That’s what she looked like before she died? O-oh... You sure...? OK. If you say so...



Elaine... I-I just want... to make you happy...



Will you marry me?
<giggle> Yes.



And they lived happily ever after with no unholy resurrection rituals opening up a hell portal or anything of that nature. Those two are surely living happily together in a small home on the outskirts of Cardiff these days.



<wavering echo voice> H-Help me... Someone... HELP MEEEEE~!

For no particular reason, that psychic vision Koudelka received has resulted in the opening of a sliding panel above the clock out in the main library hall. We should probably go investigate that shortly.



That woman was Elaine... She summoned me here.
Hey. Are you done doing... whatever in there? Can we come in the room yet?
You thieves have odd rituals.



Well that was weird. Before we begin rummaging through this printing press room, let’s head back out and see what is up with that newly opened passage above the clock in the library.





Hmph... Despite the FMV clearly showing a passage opening up, there is an elaborate gate barring the path. Despite the 256 Key Items currently residing in our inventory, none of them fit into this relief. We’ll just have to remember this is here and return later.





Now about that printing press room. You’d think the press smack dab in the middle of the screen would be one we could interact with, right? Nope. There’s just a message that one is broken. What we actually want to investigate is the one in the corner here that just looks like a background shelf from this camera angle. Remember that Stone Tablet we tore off a wall in the room before the Dark Young boss battle? We can toss that monolith into this printing press now.



...causing the wall behind the press to collapses (sic.) The press prints the “Original Map”, a map of the old monastery, which was inscribed on the “Stone Tablet”.







We now have a full map of the monastery grounds. There is still a sizable chunk of Nemeton Monastery left to explore. I dare say it may take another two and a third Playstation 1 CDs to cover all of this ground.



It is worth noting this map goes up to the 7th floor but it is a complete waste of parchment paper since floors three through seven are exclusively a tower on the western side of the monastery. The technique of portraying multiple floors on the same map page wasn’t developed until the early 1910s, you see.





The rumbling of an antique printing press churning out eight pages of newly inked maps has managed to collapse a nearby wall leading into a hidden back room. There’s a quiver full of Crossbow arrows on the floor and, wouldn’t you know it, another Key Item resting on a crate.



OK. If we come upon a gramophone we can now listen to 1890s’ hottest Welsh tracks. Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ve come upon one of those yet. Into our kleptomaniac pouch Adventure Game bag of assorted shit we’ll probably need one day! You never know!



Unfortunately, the path further into this hidden alcove is blocked by a boss battle check mysterious force. We’ll check back here later when we fight the boss a room over overcome the unknown entity barring the door.





Instead, we’ll enter the door to the left of the derelict press to the library’s wine storage area...? Who doesn’t like to get a good wine drunk on while pouring over rare scriptures?



Yet another shard of stained glass can join our collection here. Please, Koudelka... my inventory cannot take all these Key Items. You have to unload some soon. This inventory management is getting infeasible.



Oh... Huh. If we look at the door in this room we find it just happens to fit those three paperweights we’ve been carrying around for a spell.



Boy... that’s a load off. Only about fifteen more assorted pieces of glass, jewelry and mechanical instruments to unload and we can call it a day.



It would seem we’ve located the library where they kept the human sized books. Unfortunately, it would appear a boss monster is hanging out in here too. Before we can start up a Nemeton chapter of the Welsh Monthly Reader club, we’ll sort that creature out.



Some prep-work first. The next enemy is a Fire elemental creature. So we’ll slip some Water Knuckles we acquired onto Edward for maximum damage output.



We’re also going to equip that Cat’s Eye we found on Koudelka. This gives a three point buff to Vitality, six points in Agility and Intelligence, 13 points to PIE and five point to Mind. It’s quite the boon to a mage character and will serve us extremely well leaving it on Koudelka. We’ll also move her to the front lines of this battle, next to Edward, to maximize her magic damage output.



Now then, let’s step up to the plate and begin our next boss battle against...


Music: Incantation Again





...FUCKIN’ CHRIST!



Meet the Chimera. This is an... interesting interpretation of such a being. A giant naked rotting corpse with a goat, snake and lion head attached to tentacles from its neck hole. Bloody stumps instead of hands, tails growing out of its knee joints and four breasts. Sure... Sure, why not? The Chimera is packing a fairly high 4225 HP which... really won’t be a problem.



Having Koudelka in the frontlines can be a risky maneuver since all three heads have a physical attack that can nearly one shot her for 800-900 HP of damage. These head-butts also are nearly guaranteed to inflict a status effect. The snake head causes Poison which isn’t a big deal. The ram head can result in Silence which would be really bad to happen to Koudelka. Finally, the lion head causes Paralysis which isn’t good for anyone.





The heads can also team up in unison for a magical attack of which Koudelka or James will shrug off barely taking a pip of damage. Meanwhile, Edward would get absolutely rocked by this. There might be another attack in its arsenal but... I’m going to be honest, I had to reload the save just to capture it doing any fights.



Despite its horrific looks, the Chimera is a complete pushover. It is insanely weak to water elemental attacks. Edward pushing out a three hit combo with his Water Knuckles deals out around 1200 HP of damage in a single turn.





Meanwhile, a single cast of Koudelka’s Level 2 Geyser spell coupled with the Cat’s Eye buffs burned through roughly 62.5% of the Chimera’s total HP. I’d say that’s a respectable chunk of damage for a single magic cast, wouldn’t you?





Two turns from Edward and one turn from Koudelka was enough to obliterate the Chimera. It was lucky it got the single turn to completely flub a magic spell cast. I’d to say that’s the grossest thing we’ll fight in this game. But I’d probably be lying. It’s certainly in the top five, though.


Music: Level Up!







For our minimal efforts in that squash match, the party all receives a Level Up and we gain yet another of jewelry for a statue. I can’t wait to see what the actual scale for these items are since they’ve only existed as small inventory illustrations thus far.

Music: ENDS



In any case, the holy water font in the room is restored thus giving us another Permanent Save Point and a full heal if we return here. If for some reason we felt compelled to grind for Scrolls in the next room, now would be the time. Considering our party is strong enough at this point to tear a boss in half within three turns... I’d say we’re good with broken magic items.



While I’d usually conclude an update with a “major” boss battle conclusion... there is an optional scene that plays out in this room now that we’ve defeated the boss. If we investigate the corner of the room by a vine growing from the a bookcase, we see...



<studies book titles on shelf> This one's Mylius... and Lambspring... and Michael Maier and Khunrath -- Amphitheatrum Sapientiae Eternea...
None of those were real words.
What a collection of books!
May I ask you something? What are all these!?
I think they’re books, Edward...
I know THAT. Can we get a genre? These aren’t ringing any bells.
Ancient books on mysticism and alchemy -- ancient science. It's enticing really. It's all about making gold from lead.
...Tell me more.
It's just a ruse peddled by power hungry tricksters blinded by greed.
Of course... <starts pacing impatiently>
But in amongst the trash, there are some valuable works illustrating basic useful experiments for predicting the laws of nature. Predicting a time when all men will be treated equally -- God's will. No room for this argument nowadays.
The pagan immigrants and beggars just had to ruin everything...
<stands up from squat>



James, are you—
<shuffles through books> Hermeticism!? Kabbalah?! Meaningless!
<shrugs and continues pacing>
Why!? Why is it not here!?
<shrugs> What!?
Where can it be!? <leans head on shelf>
Are you looking for something!?
<looks over shelves again> I don’t understand... I don’t understand!



You don’t understand...? *I* don’t understand! What are you grumbling about!?
Why are you two constantly shouting?
I DON’T KNOW!!
......
You’re acting reaaaally strange. Just cut the charade and tell us what’s going on!



I do not like this... We all have our reasons. Let’s not delve into each other’s personal affairs...
I see no reason to share our motives now.
Uh-huh... I’m here to rob the place.
A spirit summoned me here.
Yes well... not all of us are as open about our reasoning...
<puts hands on hips> “I am not bound to please thee with my answers.”
“Do all men kill the things they do not love.”
“Hate any man the things he would not kill.”
And I thought all outlaws read to simple, stupid poets. You read Shakespeare? You're smarter than you look...
That makes two of us...
You guys are both still idiots...
"Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides: Who cover faults, at last shame them derides."
"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player. That struts and frets his hour upon the stage. And then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury. Signifying nothing."
<shakes head and walks away> "Lord, what fools these mortals be..."



And thus concludes our time in the library of Nemeton Monastery. Tune in next time as we continue to offload key items, talk to a corpse and perhaps find what the hell James is looking for in the middle of monster filled Wales as Koudelka continues!






Video: Episode 13 Highlight Reel (You should watch this.)





Chimera Full Render – You try to make a lady grow an extra pair of boobs and look what happens...