Part 15: In which Tristam redeems himself

Alright, with the tree not really wanting to talk to us, we're going to have to go retrieve Kaeli. As Art noted, she's made her way up to Aquaria now.



However, she's fallen victim to Plot Narcolepsy, so we're going to have to go talk to Spencer first.


By the way, who's that with you?







Wait, what? You're ditching us again? What the hell, man?





Great. First you ditch us again, then you take one last opportunity to show off that you got the good shit from the Bone Dungeon. You know what? Fuck you too.


I'll give you this Dragon Claw. Don't worry, it's on me. Bye!





And with that, Tristam is officially out of our hair for good, and has regained any standings he might have lost with his little treasure hunting stunt. Why? Oh you'll see. There's a reason we were all practically creaming our pants over this thing.



Phoebe joins us, and decides that she can handle explosives too.





This, of course, is a terrible mistake. After her bomb goes off, Phoebe starts running like hell. We quickly follow her out.





Great. So everyone wondering why Phoebe wasn't using those Jumbo Bombs way back when? This is why. She probably would have ended up killing us.

So about that Dragon Claw...



It's not actually that strong, as you can see. It's just a little weaker than the Mega Grenades on a single target, but look at those status ailments! Yes, when they activate, this baby is inflicting confusion, poison, blindness, silence, sleep, paralysis, and petrification on enemies. That last one is quite important, because anything that isn't resistant to petrification instantly dies when it goes off. Essentially, this will be our weapon of choice from now until the end of the game unless there's an axe weakness to exploit or the enemy in question is strong to petrification.

All these explosions and shit have woken up Kaeli, so let's go talk to her now.







And we finally have another competent party member.



Kaeli comes in at L32 this time around, and she's picked up Cure, Heal, and Aero in addition to Life. She's packing the Giant's Axe, as well resistance to water and petrification(), which more or less makes her the best possible party member for this upcoming section.

With Kaeli in tow, we head back through the Alive Forest for another chat with the ever-cooperative tree.



The Dragon Claw changes our scratches to red. Not quite as cool looking as the Charm Claw in my opinion.







And with that, he's opened up to let us in.

Next time:

Goddamn this guy is big on the inside.