Part 28: Black Dragon Cave (For Real This Time!)

Now that we're on the other side of Talon, we move on. The next obvious destination would seem to be Ruid, but there's something else we see along the way.




"The village elder is expecting you."


Well I wasn't expecting him, but okay. Is there a reason he's expecting us?


"To enter the shrine, you must obtain the elder's permission."

Oh! As you might have guessed from the update's title, this time it's not a fake-out!

I'll just say now that Marke does not exist at all in the remakes (unless it's the name of a toilet or something) and this entire update doesn't correlate with any part of the new version. Which is too bad. It's always nice to find an ally in hostile territory.



Even if they're not the sharpest of tacks.


"Without the other pieces of Dragon equipment, you can't get the Goddess' Sword.

Wait, the Goddess Sword? No one told I had to get a sword! It makes sense, though, since a set of armor would feel incomplete without a sword. Although there's still the issue of how we would get to the Goddess's place to get the Goddess's sword. And the whole "all the Dragons are dead or insane" thing.


"In order to complete this task, all of Dyne's magic power was depleted."


"But Ghaleon never forgive the Goddess for giving Dyne such an impossible task."

This does actually reiterate what Ghaleon himself said about the incident.


This also ties into a very key difference between the two versions, although I'd have to go into spoilers to discuss. Let's just say those of you that played the remakes may already have a clue...


"You must continue your quest to save your world and rescue the girl you love."

Since when did half-breeds lack human emotions. Jessica and her dad have plenty of them. Unless... is he talking about a different kind of half-breed? ... Those are just called cyborgs, ya know.


: Hmmm... so there are lots of lonely gals that need a shoulder to cry on. I'd better get to work...

God, does Kyle ever have a non-sexual discussion? And of course Jessica is going to upbrai-



Or... not. Okay.


"I haven't seen you for ages! It's Nall, right?"
: Hey! How do you know my name? We've never met!
"Hmmm... maybe we haven't met before, do you have an evil twin?
: Evil twin? Shyeah... right.

Wait, what? That doesn't make any sense! Everyone knows that Nall would be the evil twin. Obviously.

Also how do you know Nall seriously how

Enough nonsense, let's go talk to the elder already.


"So, young Dragonboy, you were brave enough to retrieve the Hero's crest. Perhaps you have a chance of becoming a Dragonmaster after all! Hmmm... you do have the green eyes... Okay, follow that man to the shrine!"

So, that was the reason we ventured into the Dragon Cave earlier. Obvious fetch quest/padding? Why I never!


"I'd stay clear of it."

You people and your mixed signals, I swear.

Before we go into the cave proper, there are two little goodies right by the entrance.





Those are Jessica's best weapon and armor respectively. Guess they really wanted to make sure you got it.




Even though we're in the "proper" Black Dragon Cave, it's not much of a step up. The first three floors are very simple. While the the fourth and fifth floor get more complicated, there is only one descending and ascending staircase per floor, so you can't get too badly turned around. Furthermore, since we've peeked into the cave earlier, we've seen all the enemies except one.



I believe that you can run into the Demi-Diablo the first time you go into the cave, but it's rare. The enemy in general is rather rare. They have a butt-ton of HP, cast flame magic, and have surprisingly high attack, but weak defense. Depending on your luck, you may not deal with them that often anyway.



And I only learned one spell along the way. Camp Defender protects the entire party from physical attacks. Not bad.



Although I said navigating this cave isn't too bad, finding the treasure is another matter. On the fourth floor, there is a piece you cannot afford to miss. From the entrance, go left and down until you hit this intersection:



Head up that path, go all the way right and down, and you'll find...



Kyle's best armor. Make sure you get this.

The exit can be found pretty easily if you mostly stick to the left.



The fifth floor is a bit trickier, though. By and large you'll want to run along the very bottom of the floor until you hit this branching path.



Go north and you're pretty much done! Man, sounds easy when someone's giving directions from a map, huh?



Looks awful... ominous. And sure enough, when you take one step forward things start shaking like mad.


: L- look at t- t- that Alex!








I've complained about the lack of challenging bosses, but rest assured, the Black Dragon here does not have that problem. It has way more HP than the last two bosses combined. And his attack is nasty.



And he gets two of those!

You definitely want to send Kyle out as your decoy. The Black Dragon is very slow, but you want it as far away from your squishy, squishy mages as possible. Unfortunately, its massive HP total means that this is not a 3-turn boss fight, so MP is an issue. Fortunately, most of your mages have enough they'll be okay. Except the one doing the most damage, Alex.

You can either keep throwing Silverlights at him, use a rare Seed of Vigor, or just have Alex attack. You'll probably enough up doing the latter, which might be for the best anyway, as the Black Dragon will probably keep pushing Kyle back towards your squishy, squishy mages (his attack always causes knockback.) Regardless of what you do, you want to come to the boss prepared. Hell, I used a Herb of Althena in this fight!

One thing to note is that the Black Dragon is also kind of a strange fight.



For example, I have no idea what this animation signifies. I believe it's supposed to be casting a spell (it has MP) but... it doesn't do anything. Effectively, it wastes one of its attacks. I checked videos on Youtube, and I didn't find anything different. I'm not even sure if it's a glitch. Still, any reprieve you can get is certainly nice.



Eventually, though, you pull through and-


: Very impressive, Alex. You just killed the only remaining means of becoming a Dragonmaster. Ha ha ha! You're making this way too easy! Now the Goddess is completely unprotected! The world is my oyster! Ha ha ha!



How was he- you know, I'm thinking that's not the most pertinent question now.



So... yeah. The Dragons are dead, all of them. That's bad, isn't it?


Pretty bad, yeah.







Nall is awful cheery considered we may have just screwed the pooch. Or helped Ghaleon do it but either way...



But we still get a new spell and event experience like normal.



And Kyle gets a new skill from his level up. Sybillium simply hits one enemy for a ton of damage. It also costs a lot of MP, and which Kyle has so little of, so obviously it's a skill you only break out for special occasions.

Warping out we find that-



Wait, this warps me out on the Cadin side! God damn it.

Although, considering the last Dragon is dead... nothing's happened yet. Maybe it's too early to tell. Hm. Anyway, warping again back to Marke...


"Alex, she said she knew your name. Perhaps you should go see her at the Elder's home."
: Alex! That's got to be Luna! Let's go get her!



Did any of you actually think that it was going to be Luna?


"Wait... you have green eyes! You must be Alex! Luna is the one that helped me escape from Ruid! Here... we copied the key to the gate, take it."

At least we know Luna is reasonably okay (okay enough to enable an escape attempt, anyway). And now we finally have the tools to go rescue her!


"She always was saying that her Alex would soon arrive to save us all... When the opportunity arose, she helped me escape, but told me to look for you. She wanted to make sure you knew how to find her. They're keeping Luna in the huge castle Taben is making for Ghaleon in Ruid. Alex, you've got to get to her soon!"

Next time we do just that! See you then!