Part 36: The Blue Dragon Cave

Chapter 31: The Blue Dragon Cave

Before we go off to do gameplay stuff, let's head back to Horam and deliver the good news.


: I heard that you guys won the competition. So tell me, did you make anyone cry when you pounded their face in? Did you let them up when they begged for mercy, or did you finish them off? You must've been ruthless in there, otherwise you never would've won. Hey, remember! I'm on your side - so just leave me alone. I don't want to get on your bad side, okay?

_{Also, the Blue Dragon Cave isn't interesting enough to fill this update on it's own, so...}


: What a letch! Hiiiii-ya! That oughtta curb any thinking that'll occur down there.
: Jean, I'm sorry. I only wanted a strong woman that could stand up to... uh, to my mother for me.
: If you can't take care of your own mother, then you'll never have a real woman!

'You'll have to make do with creating one, instead!'


: I'll fight fair. But I'll never give up my iron codpiece. You know... just in case.

I like the way this guy thinks.

: Lunn was such a joke! I could've beaten him in my sleep. I wonder who the next high-profile humiliation will be?
: Get used to famous people letting you down. It happens all the time!

Although, to this day, none of the famous people I've ever admired have been secretly leaders of rings of child slavers. ...yet.

: Usually on sunset...

Well, I don't know about Micheal Bay, Jean, but I don't admire him.


: I wonder if they still remember me? Karate is more important than they are.
: I think you need new priorities.

It just seems like Horam hates childr-

: Say mister, I'll find you a family - for a small fee?
: Have you no shame?!

...even for Lemina, that's uh... that's bad.





I have no idea.


: If I find out that he's going out with another woman, I'm going to kill him!

...yeah, let's hope Lunn doesn't have a pet rabbit.

: I just got out of the slammer. They say I've been stalking Lunn... ... ...oh, I've got to go! Lunn usually has his morning tea about now.


: You're not going to... to hold a grudge about before... are you? I- I'm all for the equal rights thing! See... I even know the chant! What do we want? Equal rights! When do we want them? Now! ...hehe...<gulp> ...uh... right?

I'd like to think that Jean just stares at him for like a full minute, smiles, and just moves on.


: I will go behind the building and practice self-flagellation for my error.
: But won't you go blind if you do that?


: What have you been eating? It seems to have made you very strong!
: I'd like to say Wheaties, but I'm embarrassed to say it's... spam.

Ruby, I don't even know what the fuck.


: You have served your purpose well, grasshopper. Now my dojo can have the shame of Lunn's misuse of power lifted from it... yes, I am the master who taught Lunn, before he became drunk with power. Thank you for showing him the light, and restoring my honor.

We already knew about Lunn being your student... pretty sure you told us before. Anywho, now that we've finished up in Horam, to the Blue Dragon Cave we go.



I'm not sure why Lunn gives you those complicated instructions; the Cave ain't hard to find. Just go south of Horam until you can no longer go south, then east.



There's a couple of dead ends, but this area is small enough that you're going to get lost. Oh, and if you try to go further east-



Yay for the sequence-break preventing rocks.





The Blue Dragon cave is miles gaudier than it was in the original, but it still remains pretty simple in layout.



And in case you were curious where the exit it, it's always behind the waterfall. Always.



Frankly, I see little point in doing a blow by blow for the whole dungeon. There's only one branching path in the entire thing, and it's also not particularly labyrinthine. The only way you can get lost is if you aren't paying attention at all.

Ahem.

At least, though, it looks neat.



If repetitive. Which certainly helped contribute to my getting lost.



It's kind of hard to get a sense of it in screenshot, though.



There is some nice equipment to find, at least. (Although sadly none of it for Jean, so if you wanted to raid this dungeon early, which you can do, it wouldn't really help for the Lunn fight except to raise levels) This is for Ronfar, and it does what you think it does.



So let's talk enemies. These are Gropers. While they do share a sprite with the Mercenaries from the tournament, they are different enemies. For one, the Gropers here have waaay less HP. Poe sword kills them in a hit, but Jean's Haduken does not. Also, their defense is too high for Jean's regular attack to do much.



Their regular attack is nasty. And they do get two of them. Lemina ended up dying. A lot.



Ironically, their special is far less dangerous.



I finally reach level 18 Health and got Rest Litany. It's sliiighter more expensive than Calm litany, but it's a really, really minor cost increase.



So... the Doom Rigger is an interesting enemy. They have a little more 900 HP, have stupidly high defense, and only slightly higher magic defense. Also, they give a fair amount of EXP and Silver, and they tend to run. Yeap, we have another metal slime-esque monster. And no I didn't manage to kill one of these, either. They do tend to run less than the Ice Pups, and it's a liiiittle bit easier to damage them (that is, stuff other than Poe Sword can do more than one damage) but 900 HP is a lot, and they don't give that great a reward, so I never did get one.

Interestingly, the Doom Rigger itself never attacks you. Instead it does...



That. By the way, these monsters are called Ammonia (?) and they're absurdly weak. Apparently they have fairly high attack, but they're so easy to kill (seriously, 66 HP) I never saw it.



Here we have the Aqua Elemental. They're faster than the Groper, and have slightly less HP, attack, and defense. They can be OHKO'd by Haduken, which is good to know, because when you see them hold their sword behind them, you'll want to get rid of them immediately.



Seriously, don't let them do that.



And finally, the Aura Shark. Well, hello palette swap of the very first enemy in the game!

The Aura Shark can do some damage with regular attacks, but is probably the least dangerous enemy here apart from the Doom Rigger. Also, their defense and HP are low enough that you can kill them with normal attacks. That's nice.



Their special attack is Ice Shell... which doesn't do a whole lot of damage, really.



Oh! Oh! Here's the only branching path in the entire dungeon! If you go right, and follow the trail to the end, you get-



This dungeon sucks.



Back to decent treasure, we've got the Thunder Armor. Not only does it improve defense, obviously, but it also boosts agility, moreso than the Lightning Armor he's got on now. Nice.



And the helmet to round out the set, but helmets just aren't very exciting (well, okay, this helmet is anti-freeze so that's nice.)



Oh and I poured some MExp into Lemina's Fire Skills. Just thought you'd like to know.





At the very end of the dungeon, we get the first maze-y room of the whole thing. You can see a treasure chest at the very bottom of the second screenshot. It's super easy to get; just go down and round.



These are always appreciated.

Also I'm looking at the map as I'm writing this and ha ha I missed a treasure. Yay. TIME TO GO BACK. (No, seriously. As I was writing this up I just realized there was a treasure I missed. That's always fun.)



So if you go to the southeast corner, basically just go south from the stairs, you see this dark puddle here. It's a warp. Somehow.





It transports you to the area in front of the waterfall. And what's behind the waterfall?



The "Earth Crux" (hey, they managed to get an uncensored crucifix in the game) guards against Wind and Thunder attacks, and it provides some magic defense. Yes. That was totally worth firing up the game again and walking through this entire dungeon again just for four screenshots.



Anyway. Apart from that, it's not a particularly tough mini-maze. The other treasures are just Dover Nuts and some money. If you go all the way down, to the left, and then up it'll get you to the end pretty quick.





Oh my that's... busy.

Well, if the ostentation is anything to go by, I think we've reached the boss. Sadly, due to my getting lost like a moron, and that the monsters here are legitimately tough, I'm running a bit low on MP. I bust out one Star Light for Hiro, and one for Jean. Since Lemina's been handling the after battle healing, and Lemina's been keeping her MP up with Magic Swiper, Ronfar and Lemina's MP are fine. Also, I give the Dragon Angel Crest to Ronfar, and the White Dragon Crest to Lemina. (Spoiler: I never used it. Next boss fight! Promise!)



All right. Time for the next Dragon Fiend.




The Blue Fiend makes up for the disappointment of the White Fiend and Lunn bosses. First off, it has over 6000 HP; no matter how you shake it, that's gonna be a long fight.

Also it's fast, can remove buffs like the White Fiend, and its attacks are nothing to sneeze at.





Even just its normal, single target attack is nasty.



Awesome! I couldn't heal her before because the turn order fucked up and even if I could that would have one-shot her anyway! And applying buffs is a complete crap shoot when the boss routinely dispels them. (Although admittedly Magic Shield would have helped. But it's 50 MP, damn it!)

I can't deny that there's some bullshit in this game.

Oh yes, it's hard to explain unless you've seen it in action, but in very long battles turn order starts to fuck up. I had one time the turn order went pretty much in exactly opposite order. So if the long boss fight wasn't hard enough, now you've got to deal with your characters not going in the order you expect. (In all fairness, I'm pretty sure shit like that isn't unique to this game. I recall long fights in Dragon Quest games tend to fuck up a bit.)

The strategy is largely the same as in most fights, though. Hiro the Poe Sword Machine does his thing, Lemina goes between futilely applying buffs or attacking with Fire Shot, Ronfar heals or does Light Litany if he doesn't need to heal, and Jean Hadukens. Sadly, the Fiend's defense is too high for her to just attack. Which would be nice if she could, because she ran out of MP. I ended up resorting to her normal attack.



And, weirdly enough, she ended up dealing the finishing blow.



It's rather appropriate, I think.



All right, let's go throw a thing at a thing!








In the original Lunar, we never actually met the Blue Dragon. Well, we met the Dragon's spirit, but.... I don't really count that. But now we finally get to meet a Dragon who isn't a flying cat with a 'tude or stark raving looney.


: What is happening in this world? Has Althena left us?
: No, she has been sealed within the Goddess Tower in Pentagulia. The black god Zophar has been revived. And we are breaking the seals that confine each of the Dragons.
: So then, you wish us to assist you in freeing Althena. For once that is accomplished, you can join forces to defeat Zophar, correct? ... ...but if you use Althena's power to seal Zophar, then won't this world...
: Silence! Do not speak of the consequences here!
: ...so you haven't told them. That is not wise, dear Lucia. It is their world... they must be told... ...but for now, your next goal should be releasing the Black Dragon. Leave this sanctuary and go south, there you will find him. Once all the Dragons have been released, we will meet again.



So, uh, Hiro... you have nothing to say about this? No questions to ask? By this point, I'd be asking them. Then again, what would a JRPG be if it didn't have the main character fail to ask very important and relevant questions.


: But now... I think I'm starting to... it's weird!

In other news, Ruby is still going through Dragon Puberty.

Now that we've wrapped up all the Blue Dragon stuff, we'll be moving onto the next Dragon. 'till next time!