Part 12: Bitch with the snakes is keeping me down

Another short one today, but hey, it's the fucking Volcano, the place is like 4 screens large in its entirety, and I'm sure as hell not doing both it and the Lava Dome in one go.

Alright, so now that we know our destination, it's time to not go there and do other things first. Our first stop is--



What, you thought I was going to say a battlefield? No, not yet. Our first stop is the Sealed Temple, where CE is waiting to give us one of the most random lines in the game.





You know, I have to agree with Art. I'm not really sure what the fuck either. The crest on the floor will teleport us to the middle of the Wintry Temple, where we can get Cure and Heal Potions, which are also here in the Sealed temple, so it's a great place to stock up if you need to.



Next up is the aforementioned battlefield.



Ghosts are the first new enemy this update, and the least threatening of the upcoming foes. They have Confu-touch as a counter, and can multiply like the zombies, but that's about all that makes them special. Coldness is still weak, Attach is a terrible physical attack, and Power Drain only knocks about 50 damage off, so it doesn't really help them in any way.



Not too shabby, but money armor better blah blah blah

Music: Volcano



Alright, so I've bitched about the Wintry Cave and Mine being pointless filler, but let me step back and give them a little credit. They are, at least, mildly relevant to the plot in some fashion. Hell, even Falls Basin, which wasn't plot-relevant, was a short, fun little diversion. The Volcano is none of these things. Well, I lie, it is short, but it serves no purpose in the plot whatsoever and it only exists to give you a kickass new spell and not let you go straight to the Lava Dome. I can't say I hate it though because goddamn that music is awesome, and it's like three screens long, so at least it doesn't wear out its welcome.



See this? We want it. We want it badly. Fortunately, there's a short little invisible tunnel right behind that werewolf making getting it a breeze.



Very nice. White is the next Wizard spell, and by far the strongest spell in our inventory. As far as I can tell, nothing's really strong or weak to it, which is good, because as awesome as the last two wizard spells are, they are elemental, so while they'll do more damage, most of the final enemies will resist them, so White will be our spell of choice for most of the endgame.



That poor Ghost doesn't even know what hit it (about 1500 damage is what hit it; Reuben's attack criticaling does about 1360 damage, for reference).



Remember those asshole Centaurs? Well these guys are their big brothers. On top of spamming Riddle, these guys will throw out Hypno-sleeps like no fucking tomorrow, and they love to come in groups of 3. Fortunately they can't do much damage themselves. Reuben confused, however, can do about 600 damage to us. You can guess what happens most often.



Werewolves are the last new enemy. They can confuse and cause Quakes, but that's about all they're really dangerous for.



Anyway, this dungeon's gimmick is invisible enemies. Again. Because the Ice Pyramid wasn't enough, despite that they gave us the Magic Mirror right in the beginning of the dungeon. Similarly, there's only two screens of invisible enemies this time, and we'll be getting an item to make them visible anyway. I mean, why even bother?



There's two paths up through the smoke. The left one will take us up to treasure, the right to the boss.



Taking the left one will bring us to the Mask, which makes the enemies visible again. How that works exactly, I'm not sure, but hey, Mystic Quest.



I'm not exactly sure what this guy is doing here. There's absolutely nothing behind it, so I guess he's just there to fuck with you when you can't see enemies.



Taking the right path brings us up to the boss here.



If there is a "brick wall" boss in Mystic Quest, it'd have to be Medusa. She's more annoying than hard, but she presses all the right buttons when it comes to "dick move" bosses. Objective number one, of course, is to immediately knock out the Werewolves, because you don't need three things capable of confusing someone.



Her attacks include Stone Gaze, as you might have guessed, Snake Head (hits up to six times for 300-odd damage), Poison Snake (damages with a chance to poison), Bad Breath, and Screech (high damage with a chance to confuse). Yes, she has four status effects at her disposal and will dispense them regularly, though Stone Gaze and Snake Head are her favorite attacks.



This is a screen you will see quite often if you're not ready for her, and even if you are, she'll still get you occasionally with all the status effects going around. It took me three tries to put her down.



The good thing is that she doesn't have much HP. In fact, it only took 4 casts of White to kill her for me (which is roughly 6000 HP, maybe a little less), with Reuben running healing pretty much every turn.



It's true of all bosses, but they don't give out very much experience. We're getting like 200 exp less than that for a regular fight. Head down the stairs to finish the dungeon and we're done for today.



Next time: The best (or worst, depending on your perspective) dungeon in the game.