Part 9: Ice Pyramid 2: Icy Boogaloo

Okay, let's try this again. No messing around with side tunnels or shit this time. If you're following the map, we're heading to staircase 4, then a straight shot right up the pyramid.



Now, I've been saying this whole time that spells being used on you by teammates will happen, but it never really presented itself well until here. This is what happens when Phoebe decides to roast you instead of the enemies.



As Falconer reminded me, enemies that would be flying or floating have this little effect when all the enemies have the "flying" property.



Now on 3F proper, we can actually proceed with the dungeon. First up, we need to take the right path, since we're going to need to hit a switch to proceed.



Gathers are an interesting enemy. They can blind and paralyze you, and do a small amount of damage with Pseudopod.



They can do a very large amount of damage, however, by self-destructing on you. As in, over half your health in one shot damage. Fittingly, they're weak to bombs, which are probably your weapon of choice until the very end of this dungeon...so yeah.



With this switch hit, we can go through.



A door along the way puts us in here to grab some loot.



With the switch pressed, we can go through here and up the stairs.



Huh, well this could be a problem. The switch is inside where we want to get. The right path leads nowhere, so we head to the left again.



Sphinxes are the latest in the "let's give every goddamned enemy Gaze or Riddle" group. They can survive a shot from Phoebe and will spam Riddle, but otherwise nothing too bad.



Top floor. First, we pilfer the boxes off to our left for some bombs.



Now let's get that chest. Position yourself right about here, and walk off the edge.



Wonderful. Now about that treasure...





The Noble Armor is a nice little upgrade. We've gained resistance to water, which makes this dungeon much less dangerous for Art at least, and we've also picked up resistance to poison, so we don't have to deal with that anymore. Now let's hit that switch and get out of here.



You know, I just can't shake the feeling that I'm forgetting something...



Ah, much better. Back to 5F.



There's stuff on each of the outlying arms. After we clean the place out, we come back to the center platform.



Put a bomb on that funny looking tile, and we can fall down the center shaft.



After falling a few floors, we find ourselves in here. Hitting any of the statues will cause the ice/grate/whatever to disappear, letting us into the basement.



Oh boy, another chest already?





The Knight's Sword is pretty fucking awesome. It hits almost as hard as the Jumbo Bombs do on a single target, gives us a slight speed boost, and outdamages even Phoebe. Really, the only thing it can't one-shot are the Phanquids and Freezer Crabs, one of which is already one-shotted by the axe and the other is relatively harmless anyway.



So now that we have our new toy, what do we do with it? Why, try it out of course!



The sword art has been slightly changed to resemble the Knight's Sword as well.



Oh hello there boss, I'll be there to kill you in a sec.


I'm enjoying our little game...

Well, shit. Guess we have to keep looking. If you don't encounter him down here, he won't appear where he should be later. Event flags!



Taking the passage the Lamia was guarding will bring us out here. The statue lets us get those boxes, but that'd require us to fall all the way back down after getting them and that's just stupid.



This is also really stupid. I mean, you moved all of two rooms away, both of which were straight corridors. Come on man, you gotta at least TRY.

Also, Irfanview ate it or something, but I took a shot comparing our stats with Phoebe's. We're better than her in every way except magic, with the same amount of HP.


Take this!



The second of the Vile Ones, the Ice Golem can be tough, but only if he can outdamage you, which is entirely possible, especially without magic on your side.



Stomp Stomp is by far the worst of his attacks in terms of sheer damage, doing almost 300 damage a shot (which is just under half of our health). He's got two other physical attacks that can do about 200 damage a pop as well.



His weakness, as you could probably guess, is Fire. Given that both you and Phoebe have Fire, the offensive front should not be too hard to figure out. Have your character throw out a Cure Spell now and then as necessary, attack while you can, and have Phoebe keep burning him and you'll come out a winner.





Ice Block is his little unique attack. It hits really hard (175 damage WITH water resistance), and it actually got Phoebe my first attempt.



Seeing as we still don't have Life, this is very, very bad. I'm also out of Black Magic at this point, which brings us to the second point. Without magic, this guy is much, much tougher. Especially in his current form, because he'll spam Snowstorm like no tomorrow (which will do about 150 damage to both characters, about 250 to one, and heal him for 200) and with you having to take breaks to heal yourself while he's getting 200 HP a turn back?



It doesn't end well. Once more, with feeling!



This time, things go much better. We're hanging in there with 1 HP at the end, though.



Two down, two to go.





And we've been ditched. Again.



Grab the River Coin, and we're out of here ourselves.

Next Time: Spencer's Place and more Focus Tower