Part 40: Black Dragon Cave

Chapter 35: Black Dragon Cave



Before I went to the Black Dragon Cave, I bought the Holy Staff. I figured, I really don't care about Ronfar's attack, and this increases his Wisdom, which I do care about. Also it does a thing! You will shortly see what that thing is.



Thankfully, since I do remember where this door is, the trip to it is unev-



AH FUCK MORE CAVES.

Okay, so the first three levels of this place are not worth taking about.



Because I'm stupid I didn't actually get the screenshot, but this chest on B2 had Onyx Armor. I didn't buy the armor earlier because it meant sacrificing the agility boost Hiro's current armor gives him. I chose not to replace it this time either.



And on the third floor there's the Onyx Helm. It is worth switching for, so I did.



So let's talk enemies. When the Webheads have their, uh, shield up, they'll just attack you. When it's down and around their faces-



They'll attach to a character, like the Corpse Crusher's vines did. And like with the vines, when they're attached, the character can't move or use magic, but they can attack and use items. And... that's it. They're not very dangerous. Poe Sword kills them super dead.



Oh, and the Holy Staff casts Lucia's Pulse Laser when used. It's probably one of the better spells attached to a weapon, which still means it's kinda crap.



Better than Lemina's Onyx Staff, at least, which usually does less than 50 damage. It hits an area, but that hardly makes it better.



And these guys again. Still not very threatening. At least Tricksters give you a chance to steal your MP back.

And finally...





Is that... THE PILSBURY DOUGHBOY RISES AGAIN!

They don't do much of anything special, and they're fairly easy to kill. I usually never even bothered pulling out Poe Sword for 'em.



At least they look a little more zombie-like this time.



Lucia has a new spell for the first time in a while. This is Atomic Burn, and while it only hits the area around her, it does pretty good damage. Also, it pushes the survivors away, which can be kinda nice. (Or annoying, depending)

Lucia's starting to use a lot more of spells she was using at the beginning of the game.



Such as Soul Rush. If you recall, Soul Rush removes all enemies from the screen and gives you full experience for it. Which sounds nice, but here later in the game it tends not to work. Oh well.



Spark Cannon, though, is always awesome. It's possibly one of the best attack spells she has.



Back to the dungeon itself, at the end of the third floor, suddenly it starts looking interesting again.



Are we moving out of the dull cave maze?


: Calm your fear and take a leap of faith...

We are!



And the battle background changes too; spiffy!

Anyway, what is this "leap of faith?" Borgan mentioned it too. Well, you want to hang right, and go all the way up.



There's a path leading down close to this treasure chest. Go down until you see...



Much like the mysterious voice suggests, it's town to leap down!



Or slide, rather.

Other than the chest (which is another Plasma Ring) we've got two more slopes here, one on the left and the other (that you can't see) on the right. Which do we take? For now, the right.





And we land here!

This little platform has five slopes; the one on the left is out of frame. The leftmost slope leads us to a path which incidentally we would have gone to if we had chosen the left earlier. For now, though, we're choosing the bottom right one.





And another treasure! What do we get this time?



A Fabulous Dagger, eh? How fabulous we talking?



MP absorb? That's... not all that great. I mean, I have Magic Swiper, and a ring that teaches it. Then again, maybe I don't want to shuffle the ring around since the spell is wisdom based only Lemina gets the most out of the-



Oh no wait it's Lemina only. Remember how I said Lemina has no business attacking at all? And that she needs the wisdom boost her staffs give? Yeah. Perhaps the dagger might be able to get MP from enemies that don't have any, but that's no excuse. Junk.

So, fun fact. If we were to go left and then down, we'd actually be more or less done with the dungeon. There's a lot of treasure we haven't found yet, so we're not finishing yet.



Fortunately, there's a slope nearby that allows us to go back.

Yeah, so here's what's great about this dungeon. If we just down the wrong hole at any time (or, as you've seen, decide to go back) we have to go all the way back up to the very first "leap of faith" room. How lengthy is it to get back up to the starting floor? Well, let's see.

By the way, on that little platform with all the slopes, if we had chosen the other three, it would have placed us on this side of the room.

Anywho, from here, just go left and down.



Go into the door to the immediate right, and follow the path until you reach the treasure chest.



Some headgear for Ronfar! It's... nice. It's free armor, ya can't turn that down.

Anyway, head back the way you came, until you're back in the weird purple caves again, but this time keep going right. Go through that door, then go right.



We might have to fight some sort of fiendish monster in future. Who is like a dragon. A fiendish dragon, if you will.

From here, just go left and follow the path.



Oh, we're in the room with the platform with all the slopes. Neat. We've still got to keep climbing up.



And we just keep following the path.



And following the path...



Once you get this message again, you're on the right floor.

So, yeah, every time you jump down the wrong hole, you have to climb back here. And if you want all the treasure, you have to go back through all this anyway. I'll just admit it; I used the guidebook for this part. If you're paying attention and have the patience for trial and error you can make it through, but you can see it's also easy to get turned around. So fuck it. I didn't want to mess with it.

That out of the way, let's go back to the fabulous treasure chest and actually go towards the finish line this time.



Well this is a neat looking room.



I'm not sure why it's here other than to look neat, but it sure looks neat.



And in the next room over, here he is. Let's finish this bastard off.



As you can see, I grouped everyone together to facilitate Magic Shield. I want to get some use out of it at last. I've got Dragon Angel Crests on Hiro and Ronfar, Jean has the Blue Dragon Crest, and Lemina has the White Dragon Crest. Let's do this.

First off, when the Dragon turns pink, it does Chaos Blast.



I'm not sure what Chaos Blast does, or why Hiro and Lucia shrugged it off. I don't think it's defense, and the numbers look too high for that. Every FAQ I ever look at is completely unhelpful, and the guidebook doesn't say, so I can't tell you. Honestly, I think the effects might be random; later on in the battle it poisoned Lucia.



Also, Jean just could not get a crit on this thing. Not one. Actually, I thought the critical chance was based solely on luck, but I wonder if that's strictly true. I'll be honest, I really don't know. (Maybe Chaos Blast can lower luck? That sounds odd, but not impossible)



It's main attack is Deathrifuge, which it telegraphs by sucking air in. It'll actually do this attack twice in a round. That sounds bad, it only does about 70 damage each time. Admittedly, 140 damage will kill you off if you're not careful, but after Gravity Bomb that's small potatoes.



Its normal attack is far wimpier. That only did 50 damage to... I'm not sure. Yeah, thanks for teleporting in front of my party to ruin my screenshots, asshole. (In the next round it teleported away, actually. Not sure what the point was.)



Finally, when it's chewing it'll do Life Breaker, which is just an HP drain skill. And it's just as pathetic as everything else it does.



Really, the worst part is that I can't steal MP; I didn't actually realize it, but all the Fiends have no MP at all. So I can't exactly use White Dragon Protect or Magic Shield for the entire battle. Then again, I don't have to. I don't have to use either spell once.

I'll just admit it; I over-prepared like hell for this fight. Deathrifuge is that is only attack that the fiend does which is even a little threatening. It has rather high defense, only Lucia's Spark Cannon broke over 300 damage. But its HP is actually less than the Blue Fiend. So yeah, just have Hiro and Jean do their single target attack skill, put Lemina on buffing duty because the Fiend takes little damage from her magic, and when you see it sucking in air make sure Ronnie's healing. Nothing else to it.



After Borgan, I guess they wanted to give you a breather.

And now that we've defeated the Fiend... well we all know how this goes, right?






: But... were you summoned by Althena? How did you know of my terrible plight?
: ... I came here to stop Zophar, and Nall told me how to break the seal binding you. In order to get to Althena, we had to release all of the bound Dragonpower. Zophar is planning to decimate this world, and I believe that only Althena's power can stop him.
: Lucia, I feel the conflict deep within your soul. You are the key to Althena's plan...
: You know of Althena's plan? You must tell me what it is!
: ... All will be revealed in due time...

"Not now, Lucia, we have to foreshadow some more."

: Once the Red Dragon has claimed her power, we will have all the power necessary to break the seal binding the Goddess Tower. I will not see you again until that time. Until then, look deep within your soul and believe in the unbelievable...

But how is finding a undetectable butter substitute going to help her?



I guess we'll never know. Thanks. Well, at least the Black Dragon didn't try to kill us this time. That's nice.


: I can't believe we actually revived the Black Dragon! ... Um, that only leaves...


: Hiro, I don't know if I'm ready to face my destiny. I... I know it sounds silly, but I'm kind of... scared.

Nah, Ruby, you don't sound silly. You're dealing with growing up the way everyone else does; curling up in a ball and hoping it goes away.

When we warp out, that brings us to the door in the mines, so yay we'll have to walk all the way out again. Thankfully, I do remember where to go, so it's really not a pain at all. Before we hop in the Destiny and end this update, let's look at our new Dragon spell.



Black Dragon Shield is kind of a misnomer. What does it actually do?



A "fuck this random encounter in particular" spell. It's... pretty much worthless. There is no point in spending 99 MP on a random battle. If you want to just get rid of a random encounter, Hiro's Battalion Sword combined with, say, Blizzard or Comet Tail will usually do the trick with less MP.

Apparently, this spell this only costs 50 MP in the Japanese version. (I have not corroborated this, mind you. The spell's much cheaper in the remake, which does suggest it might have been cheaper in the original too- wait, is White Dragon Protect really only 50 MP in the remake?!) Which one might think makes it slightly more worth it, buuuut...



And you don't get EXP for the battle either. Fuck Black Dragon Shield. The only good thing the Black Dragon Crest can do is give you some magic endurance.

With that disappointment out of the way, we've actually got one more thing to do before heading off to the next area. Next time we'll be looking at... ~~optional context?!~~