Part 33: Because I Got High

Update 18: Because I Got High



"What shall we find in the Tower of High Magic, I wonder? Lost treasures? Terrible monsters? Perhaps, at last, some information or resource we can use to defeat Lord Xeen?"



"We're... we're getting attacked by pairs of disembodied, winged feet. That's what's happening here. It's not just me who's gone insane and started seeing things, right?"
"Whatever it is, I'm seeing it too."
"Huh. Okay. Probably we've all gone insane, then."
"Good to know."

Flying Feet are the most common enemy type in this tower. They're also incredibly weak, so if you have any trouble with them you're not ready for this tower. In fact, if you have any trouble with them I'm not sure how you survived the Cave of Illusion to get into this tower in the first place.



"Wait. Did the foot talk to me back there or was that you doing your ventriloquist act again?"
"Wouldn't you like to know."
"Shh. Something strange ahead. Not trust it. Careful."



The Tower of High Magic is absolutely full of these magical floor traps, which instantly reduce the whole party's SP to 0. Where possible, it's best to use Jump or Teleport to avoid stepping on them.



"Ah, a beverage ready for the drinking! How generous it is of the makers of this tower to be setting such a welcoming gift outwards for us!"
"Sloof, I don't know if--"



"What a sensation of taste! What marvellous subtlety! I tingle as if I had taken a meal of fugu!"

The potion does a small amount of electrical damage (small enough that it gets negated completely by Power Shield), and the payoff is more than worth it. There are also a number of Fire, Cold and Poison brews in the tower, with corresponding effects. I feed most of them to Vandesloof because with his low HP he's the one who most needs resistances.



"Oooh! Fubar find special box! Maybe more tasty drinks inside!"



"Well, Fubar half right."
"I've heard of foot lockers, but this is ridiculous."

The Pandorian Boxes in this tower will generally teleport you a couple of steps back and summon some monsters. Since Flying Feet don't have a ranged attack, this just makes it easier to shoot them down before they can even try to hurt you.



The good news is that once you've dealt with the monsters, you can search the box again for treasure. Some just contain gold, while others contain items.



"Aaaa! What is that, ice lightning? That's not even a real thing! Stop cheating, floor traps!"



"You just had to open your mouth, didn't you. Are you enjoying the actual lightning any better?"



"Ugh. Think that was last trap. We safe now."

On each floor of the tower, it's best to hug the outer walls. The central areas of rooms tend to be full of traps like these.



"I think I've had enough of this floor. Time to beat feet upstairs."
"Haven't we beaten enough feet already?"



There are more Flying Feet and more magical traps waiting for us upstairs. The traps on the second floor and up are even worse than before, as they'll also negate some of your buffs (including Wizard Eye and all elemental protection spells) in addition to draining your party's SP.



"It appears someone got up on the wrong side of bed today! I suppose being sealed in a box full of foot monsters would put anyone in a murderous mood."

Sorcerers are a bit more threatening than Flying Feet: they have relatively low HP, but can attack the entire party for a big chunk of Cold damage. They have some elemental resistances, but physical damage will tear them apart. The fact that it's a pain to keep Protection from Cold active thanks to all the magical traps doesn't help.



The third floor of the tower starts out as more of the same: more potions, more traps, more boxes. Not all of the boxes summon monsters when opened, though.



"What a discovery to remark upon! I had thought that the spell of Implosion was lost to the ages. What other secrets is this tower holding?"

Some of the boxes on the third and fourth floors contain scrolls of Implosion and Star Burst, which are spells that we won't be able to learn for a while yet. Implosion does massive Energy damage to a single target and Star Burst does slightly less massive Physical damage to all enemies in front of the party. These scrolls are worth holding onto.



We also start to run into Sorcerers in groups, not just one at a time. Since they drop gold, gems and decent random items, this isn't such a bad thing, but it does mean we want to keep our buffs up.



"This looks horribly familiar."

Hey, remember that Fire Dragon from Castle Burlock? There's another one in a Pandorian Box here. Approaching it from an angle is complicated by the floor traps in this room, so the best way to avoid its ranged attacks is to just teleport right up into its face.



This is a perfect fight to show off Mass Distortion, taking away half the dragon's HP in one swell foop.

"The bigger they are..."



"... the more pieces into which they can be sliced!"

Vandesloof's Dancing Sword is enough to finish the weakened dragon off. How far we've come from the days where we had to schlep all around Xeen drinking from wells and praying at shrines just to have a chance against a dragon like this. Mind you, it could still do some scary amounts of damage to us if we let it.



As you might expect, the dragon's box contains some high-tier random items if you search it after killing/evading the dragon. The best thing we get out of it is a set of Platinum Gauntlets, which will be a nice AC boost for someone.



In the same room as the dragon are one flask each of Energy Brew and Magic Brew, which permanently raise Energy and Magic resistance. These are the two hardest resistances to raise, so every little bit helps.



The fourth floor has more scrolls in boxes, plus these books.



"Mine are the hands of a magical artist! My mind is my medium and reality itself is my canvas!"

Prestidigitation is a skill that grants a bonus +2 maximum spell points per experience level to Sorcerers or +1 to Archers. We can use this book to teach as many characters as we like, bumping Flench's max SP up by 15 and Vandesloof's by 30. That means Flench now has the 75 SP required to cast Inferno.



"What is this that I see before me? Another great secret of ancient magic?"



"Eh. You are winning some and losing some."

Prismatic Light is kind of a low-rent version of Elemental Storm: it costs 60 SP and 10 Gems, and does 80 damage of a random type to all enemies in front of the party. I'm never going to cast it.



"Aha! If Baron Darzog is truly in league with Lord Xeen, this will allow us to put a stop to his evil deeds and free Crodo from his tower!"



"But first, there's no harm in completing our exploration..."



"Wow. There's a cloud world up here, just like the Witch Tower!"



Just like the Witch Tower, there are clusters of about 20 gems scattered around the clouds.



There's also lightning, which does surprisingly significant amounts of damage. (Wait, why is it surprising to me that lightning would be dangerous?)



"Wooo! Look at Fubar! Fubar make cloud music!"

There are four drums in the clouds. They do something good, even if it isn't immediately obvious what, so make sure to hit them when you come across them.



The Clouds of High Magic consist of a number of cloud "islands" separated by open sky, so you'll need Jump and Teleport spells to explore them fully. If it's getting close to 5 a.m., don't forget to head back before your levitation wears off!



"Oh, great. Now even the clouds are trying to kill us. I blame Fubar's 'music'."

Cloud Golems are a bit stronger than Water Golems, and attack twice per round for electrical damage. They're 80% resistant to physical attacks, 60% resistant to energy, and immune to electricity and poison. Fire and cold are the best ways to deal with them. Once again, I'm glad for Fubar's Blazing Broad Sword -- elemental weapons have their downsides and eventually become obsolete, but at times like this they're really nice to have.



The Offerings in this cloud world are a selection of random high-level bows, swords and shields. Like the ones in the Witch Clouds, they have to be taken by someone with the Crusader skill.



"Way ahead of you, statue. All we need now is a permit to build a dungeon. Can you help us with that? Huh? Can you? Didn't think so."



"Right, right, we know that part already too. I mean, we had to climb the Tower of High Magic to get here, so the key was kind of on our way."



"Crodo's in a secret room. Got it. Makes sense. This isn't a very helpful prophecy."



"What? Well, that bites. We've gotta do even more stuff to get ready to fight Lord Xeen?"
"The fate of the world is at stake. It wouldn't do to go in half-prepared. Besides, we still don't even know where he is or how to reach him yet."



Most of the clouds can be explored using only Jump and Levitate, but Teleport is necessary to reach the area with the fourth and final drum.



"It seems we've done all we can here. I wonder what those drums did?"
"They're drums. They make noises. It's not rocket surgery."



There are four rain barrels near the tower, and each drum will shake down some gems into one of them when struck. You can refill them as many times as you like, so you can make an arbitrarily large number of gems by setting one Lloyd's Beacon on a drum, another on the corresponding barrel, and teleporting back and forth between them for a net gain of 16 gems per cycle. Please try not to run low on gems to the point where doing this actually sounds like a good idea.



And so ends another update. Not a lot of experience this time, but we did get some resistances and equipment upgrades, plus those SP boosts for Flench and Vandesloof. More importantly, we've finally found the key to Darzog's Tower!

Should we use our newfound key to enter Darzog's Tower and see if we can finally get around to rescuing Crodo, or dawdle outdoors a bit more before getting on with the main plot? Vote now!