Part 14: Shrug and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Elevator

14. Shrug and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Elevator





Well, it’s time to take on the last of the Vile 4. Pazuzu’s Tower can be pretty rough. There are a lot of encounters with new enemies, some of which can really ruin your day, and the place is fucking huge. This dungeon can easily take you like an hour and that’s actually pretty long for Mystic Quest.

That’s if you play it straight, however, because you can make this a lot shorter on you.



At least we don’t have to fight through the entire tower that’s rife with dangerous monsters to save a child who just bumbled their way behind the final boss, as per usual.


Your dad is waiting for you.


And then she just leaves.



Garudas are marginally more of a pain than usual because we don’t have a shooting weapon to easily exploit their weakness. We have Aero, which will wreck their shit, but unless you brought a few seeds along, I’d say you’re better off saving those casts for later.

I mean, I’m basically going to cast Exit on nearly every enemy I see from here on in order to keep Shrug’s level low so do as I say and not as I do, in other words.



Beholders, like Gathers, reflect magic and won’t be killed in one hit by your bombs. Selfdestruct still hurts and they’ve picked up Doom Gaze. They’re also impervious to Exit which makes them really irritating for my purposes.



I just realized that I’ve neglected to show off the Dragon Claw this whole time. Sorry!! It’s a not-as-cool-as-blue shade of red and the biggest disappointment ever for me as a kid.



It’s too good to be true.



Because he runs away. The gimmick here is that Pazuzu will flee up the tower and we ascend two floors at a time. Then we come all the way back down on the even floors and hit those switches that Otto mentioned to box Pazuzu in for a fight.

So fuck that, we’re going to reload and just not talk to him. You’ll see why in a bit.



I hope you like mandatory encounters because there’s a bunch of them here. These are the staircases you traverse when chasing Pazuzu. Like the Giant Tree, they typically have a certain type of enemy to mow down as you go. Garudas aren’t a pain to deal with unless a Beholder shows up with them.



Pazuzu, unfortunately, won’t just stay on the first floor. Talking to him here will result in him randomly going between floors 1 and 6, except for 3. If you want the absolutely quickest run through the dungeon, you’ll luck out and Pazuzu will appear on the 6th floor and can be easily trapped and fought.

If he ends up on floor 2, then, oh well.



Manticores are really irritating to deal with. They have the whole annoying status effect trifecta with confusion, paralysis, and petrification. They’ve picked up Fireball and can deal some respectable damage with that (a critical hit did 830 damage to Kaeli). They’re weak to Blizzard now, however.



Chimeras aren’t very dangerous but they are kind of a pain in the ass. They have a poison-touch counter but other than that they’re basically weaker Gidrah right down to the wind weakness.



The first staircase you run into on the third floor has a bunch of Beholders and that means I have to keep getting different encounters by running away so I can minimize the EXP gain. It’s pretty much assured that Shrug will hit level 25 here at some point though. C’est la vie, I guess!



We’ll start seeing these guys starting at the 5th floor. They’re just weaker Dullahans, but don’t underestimate Doom Dance. They’re also susceptible to petrification so go nuts with the Dragon Claw.



Like most other enemies in Pazuzu’s Tower, Sorcerers are annoying and can’t be killed in one hit unless you use magic. Their Quake can hit hard and they love curing each other. On the bright side, the Dragon Claw will work on them.



Well, damn it. We definitely could have gotten a much worse result (like floor 2, ugh) but now we have to go to floor 4 and 6. If you talk to Pazuzu a second time, he’ll just taunt you with a “you can’t catch me!” and probably a little “neener-neener-neener” as the elevator goes up.



The floor 5-7 staircase has Manticore and that’s way better than Beholders in my book since I don’t have to get the EXP. Kaeli is fortunately resistant to petrification so I don’t have to put up with that back-to-back petrification garbage.

I consistently got three Manticore at a time and that was a pain considering the way I’m fighting through this dungeon.



Once we hit floor 7, there’s a new battle background. I ran out of exit charges and, probably because I’m an idiot, didn’t feel like using a seed so these guys died the old-fashioned way.



I don’t know why, but these moving clouds always give me a Final Fantasy 4 vibe. The whole top of the tower, actually. Not sure why!



Since we can start going back down the tower from floor 7, we can reach the even floors. We’ll be right back for that chest.



Naga are hardly a threat. They can put you to sleep and I guess their Thunder does okay damage?



Here’s the switch.



Hitting it just puts a floor there and that’s a pretty good way to stop an elevator, I suppose.





Flare is the last spell Shrug can get. It’s fittingly very powerful but it’s really held back by being fire-based damage.

Kaeli, however, is not impressed by a White recolor.



Another chest and so soon? In retrospect, it was a good thing that Pazuzu ended up on floor 5 because now we can snag all of the important stuff.



Gargoyles are red Avizzards and really boring. Other than being susceptible to... petrification?





Excalibur is both the most powerful weapon in the game and the most unfortunate all at once. There’s no “sword” weakness in the game so it’s honestly not as great as the Dragon Claw, which can kill some enemies in one hit, or the Giant’s Axe hitting a weakness. It doesn’t even change the sprite of the sword in battle. It’s beneficial for Shrug to get the speed boost and that’s pretty much it for the sword line. Looks cool, though!

That’s all for the weapons!



Now to hit the floor 4 switch and return to floor 5.









Looking pretty dorky there, Pazuzu.



Pazuzu isn’t that hard of a fight. I’d say Dualhead Hydra is harder mainly because you can hit Pazuzu hard with Flare and Aero. If I were at a normal level for this fight then I’d say it was a breeze.



Don’t get me wrong, his physicals can hit hard. This was a critical hit, but still.



As was this, but holy hell does he hit hard. That’s the real concern here. Pazuzu can petrify and that’s about it for status effects. This is a race to see who can kill the other quicker.



This is Pazuzu’s special move. For a few turns, he’ll reflect any spells back at you. He can do this at any time and still attack afterwards. It’s not all bad because the game warns you when it’s going up and when he takes it down. It can be terrible if you forget he has it up since there’s no visual indication of it until after you cast at him.



Pazuzu gets kinda sassy when you hurt him enough. He has a lot of HP though so it can be tough to wear him down before he kills you. Nearly every one of his attacks will kill Shrug in two hits.



Pazuzu’s also a little strange in that he only has three sprites to indicate his health. His fourth is ‘hidden’ as a part of his Psychshield.



And where the other bosses got angry or desperate with low health, Pazuzu just looks like he’s throwing a tantrum.



After killing Pazuzu, we take the elevator and proceed to just ignore the blockades we went through such pains to put up.



But killing him gave Shrug a level up so he gets the last laugh after all. That’s what I get for having ideas so late in the game!

In any case, that was the last crystal so let’s get out of here.



I sort of doubt this.


Next time: Wait, what are you doing here?