Part 16: Welcome to the Underground, Part 1/2

A running battle on a glass walkway suspended high above the air ensued. Our heroes soon discover that most of what they thought about Zaygos being reasonably intelligent is wrong. He actually placed the items of Kormu, needed to destroy Noi Gren, in unguarded treasure chests along the path to the Noi Gren construction bay.

Upon entering the bay our heroes were confronted by Lokiarn again, but this time with the Kormu items our heroes were victorious. Lokiarn and Noi Gren were destroyed, along with Kormu's items. This was accompanied, as is the RPG tradition, by building leveling explosions.

Zaygos finally arrived on the scene at this time, and Fiery used herself as a sacrificial distraction while Mindy and Johnny made their escape. We rejoin our heroes at the end of a long fall.

Information vital to your continued well being: An Pan draws super awesome pictures

More vital information: She also wrote this awesome quote for this awesome picture.
"We're plummeting to what could possibly be our deaths! Couldn't you look somewhere else?"
"I'll try baby, but it draws the eyes, you know, like a train wreck. A SEXY train wreck."

I say again, where the hell are we? This architecture is unlike anything I've ever seen, and the ever present music that plays wherever I go is pretty good for this area. That's a funny looking statue, and if something's funny looking that means it needs a closer look.

Told ya Mindy

So it's an ancient love letter, and likely some kinda clue.

What do you know? Here's a door with a flame decal next to it. Mindy, it's just a hunch but hand me that crown of yours for a moment.

Fits in the small hole perfectly? Man that's too easy for even me to make a joke about.

The crown opens the door and we can go on our way. Gabnid must have had it pretty bad for Sophie if he's carving love riddles into statues.

Now this is a real terminal with working buttons. Unfortunately, it seems to be broken.

At this point we came under robot attack. The upper center guy is called a Wirearm. The one on the right is called a needle, it shoots needles

Mindy there's a floor arrow here that's pointing to this weird looking orange thing. In my experience it's always a good idea to take the advise of a floor arrow. Let's look inside.

And we've lifted off the ground

And we're moving.

Very fast, through some kind of tube.

Well whatever this is Mindy it's the hugest structure I've ever seen. How deep must it be for it to go unnoticed? How did Zaygos miss it? It's right under his fortress. If he knew about this place it would be gutted.

Okay, I want everyone to remember that we came out of the fire door, that's fire door everyone. I don't want us standing in the parking lot like idiots for hours.

Damn this is a wide hallway.

This statue here just says the same thing the last one did.

Uhh I see a hobo with a crazy hobo beard over there. Mindy please confirm that I am not insane from landing on my head three times in the last twenty-four hours. Thanks. Better talk to the Hobo.

You're the Mouth? As in Mouth the ultimate mercenary? Pleased to meet you, but you've got about ninety percent more crazy beard than I expected.

So you're lost too? That explains the beard.

Besides your reputation as an ultimate badass. The fact you likely know a bit more about this place (doesn't seem right to call them ruins, nothing ruined about them) than I do compels me to agree we should travel together.

Say hello to Mouth. He's going to be traveling with us for a spell. He's got about the worst portrait art we've seen thus far. Looks like someone went over his hair with a pink MsPaint pencil tool in post production. Additionally, his beard is nowhere near as cool up close.

My dad had a difficult time with this area for two reasons. First its really long, and second he couldn't find a place to save or buy potions. He would die times and have to fight through most of the last chapter again to get back here, only to die again when his potions ran out. On his fourth play through we noticed these robots in the corners of the central rooms. It doesn't help that they kind of blend into the scenery, and at this point in the game you haven't seen a robot so you don't know what you're looking at.

This one here is a saving robot. He saves your game.

And this one here is a shopping robot. He sells you potions.

(I will not make a joke about stairs. I will not make a joke about stairs!)

The only path we can travel at this point is in the north of the main chamber. So follow the glowing arrow we shall.

Merc alert!

At the top of the stairs we find another robot waiting for us (oh God we've got an old guy with us and everything how can I not make this joke?) luckily, we were protected. (I can't believe I just did that.)

Oh he's the wants to be friends kind of robot. That's a relief.

That's got to be tough on you.

Is that alright with me? Well I don't know…

Everyone say hello to our newest potential party member Nails. He's a robot, and who hasn't wanted an awesome robot friend. His stats and gear are both pretty crazy, and as logic would dictate, he doesn't know any magic. Of additional note conventional healing methods don't work on him, and he doesn't gain experience.

He's looking to take a slot from our two current party members.

The so called ultimate mercenary is an untested factor in our team. His gear is sold, he has the widest range of available spells of any merc to date, and he looks to be good a physical attacks as well.

We also have the spiritualist Blades on our team. He's pretty competent at magic, though his range of spells is slightly limited. He's also the most feminine looking male party member right now. Which according to Japanese logic makes him the most powerful

Ultimately the decision is up to you guys though. Using whatever criteria you wish to judge our competitors. So what say you loyal reader? Are robots the future? Or shall we stay the course?

Chapter 15, Part 2/2

Once again sorry for the delay. I've really got to stop saying when I think the next update will be.

Blades there's something I need to discuss with you. No, this isn't about your combat performance. Anyone can have a bad day. It's about the inappropriate touching Blades.

(Extra! Extra! Man on internet professes desire to have An Pan's babies!)

That's sexual harassment, and I don't have to take it. I'm afraid I've got to let you go. On the topic of letting go, keep your hands away from my nipples. I don't even get to touch them. They're strictly Mindy only territory.

Maybe it was a fun trip for you, you deviant. I for one am going to need years of therapy.

I'm going to replace him with the one thing guaranteed not to molest me. A robot!

Mindy was deleriousy happy about our new friend and for some reason kept insisting he give her piggy back rides everywhere. I guess I still don't understand girls. I'd give her a piggy back right anytime she wanted to anywhere she wanted.

Just to be on the safe side I'm placing Nails in the back of the team where he'll take the least damage. That should help keep him in mint condition.

For some reason this robot chose to hang out in the area of the game that has the most stairs. I'm not kidding. More about that in a second.

Neat a raygun! Johnny is pleased with this acquisition. Not as happy as he'd be about pants, but pleased nonetheless

Hey Mindy, this gown matches your crown. Try it on. I promise I won't peek.

Like I said I wasn't I am not making it up about the stairs. This area is a stair based puzzle with robots running around in it.

It isn't much of a puzzle but it works like this. You walk into a level and see all these treasure chests surrounded by force fields.

There will be one or two out in the open to entice you. Like this one
To recap, Johnny has a Flame thrower, a ray gun, some shiny boots, and still no pants. Once you got up to the next level there are a bunch of stairs leading into the force fielded areas. It isn't much of a puzzle, it's mostly about remembering where you've been.

Hey Mindy. I further think this sword here goes along with the rest of your outfit. I know you've never used a sword but try it out.

Feels like an extension of your own arm, that's good. I've also got to say that the idea of you slashing the hell out of robots does the impossible, and brings into a whole new level of hotness.

Once again I'm really hoping for pants in this chest.

Boots, I already have boots. Though these are very shiny space boots of the future.

The next chest also didn't have pants. It had a rift shield. This bizarre shield is actually a rift in space you can carry around. I don't know how they bolted a handle onto an otherwise featureless, black tear in reality. The result is undeniably awesome.

Surely the future men who built this vast underground structure had pants. I don't think people could ever evolve past the need for pants. That would mean we'd probably also evolved past the need for wangs, and what fun would that be?

Success! Pants. I'm trying them on right now!

Well now that I have pants again. We're already pretty high up. Let's see what's at the top.

Another chest. This one contains a Cosmo Mt. I'm able to decipher most the abbreviations this game throws at me, but I'm at a loss as to what kind of headgear an Mt. refers to.

That completes the Cosmo armor set for Johnny. He's now wearing the full Flash Gordon space adventure shiny space suit in a fantasy setting. He's even got a raygun which has a neat attack effect I was completely unable to capture in screenshot. It even confuses the enemy when it hits them.

Hey Mindy here's another piece of your ensemble too. It says it's a ring, but it's really more of a bracelet.

How may flights of stars are in this place Nails?

At the top of the underground tower we find this strange looking building I swear I've seen before. Hey Mindy remember that weird statue said something about the gown opening water? Why don't you try your gown on the door? No I don't know how you would try you gown on the door, just come here and look at it a second.

I am not sure how this happens. There are several possibilities. Sophie's gown may be very tiny, much to the delight of Johnny. It can then be placed in a small hole when taken off and folded, which opens the door. This is without a doubt the method of using the gown on the door Johnny would like. I think it more likely there is some kind of key sewn into a hem of the gown or something like that.

Well it's nice to be outside again, and this place looks familiar. I can't quite place it though.

Jo-An? We're at the throne of the immortals?

So would couldn't even run away properly. I see you also place some boulders in the way to keep us from descending the mountain and reaching civilization. I am continually overwhelmed by the self centered stupidity of most the population.

I guess It's back into the mysterious robot infested underground for us. Hope you starve Jo-An

Hey Mindy. It isn't as much fun, but could you try your ring on this door? It also fits perfectly. There's a lot of things going inside other things around here. I'm diggin' it Mindy

Another one of those fast moving transport tube things. Nails calls them trams in his creepy robot devil voice.

You know Mouth I just realized you said you got in here from the throne of the immortals. In order to get from there the where we found you, you would have to walk right in front of Nails. Didn't you two at least say hi to each other?

Here we are at the tram's destination. Maybe this is the cafeteria for this place. I could sure go for a sandwich made by a robot. I bet it would be all precise and perfectly formulated. I don't know what the secret ingredient is, but years of my mom's meatloaf convinced me it isn't love.

There are a lot of treasure chests with cards in them in these areas. Cards increase your elemental affinity without having to cast a spell. This means they're pretty great.

Another robot. Nails do robots have an elaborate, mathematically derived high-five that they give each other while saying "Whaz up my rustbucket!"? Just asking.

Nails, what does "disk read error" mean?

Yes nothing pounds the "genetic engineering gone awry" theme home like rooms full of broken glass tubes.

Another room, more tubes. You know if they were really doing genetic experiments in here than the subjects must have escaped some time in the last ten thousand years. After that, if they found food somewhere they would spend all those countless years…

Inbreeding! Oh dear God it's hedious! It has two or three faces! Kill it, kill it now, show no mercy! (That's part of Johnny's ray gun effect you see there.) I learned something important. The only thing more hideous than genetically engineered freaks is inbred genetically engineered freaks.

I shall name you PlotBot.

Look at those things in the back Mindy! They like they have a right side up face even when the flip over! Only one thing to do.

Plant 'em!

After qutie some time our heroes finally get a bottle upgrade.

An elevator. If there's an elevator it's my policy to ride it.

At the top of the elevator is a small room with two chests. One apparently inaccessible, the other containing an S Tavern.

The exit leads us to an area in Naskuot I couldn't access before. There isn't anything here though. Just the building I came out of. No ancient civilization of people geographically separated form the rest of the world for ten thousand years. Just an empty field and a building.

Why don't I tell you about Nail's possible attacks? First he's got a missile launcher, it damages everything on the screen. Then there's the flame thrower. It does the same thing, but it doesn't really hurt robots. He's also got an energy beam in his head, and an energy draw item in his left hand. The energy draw is the only way to heal him, and it only heals an average of eighty damage per use.

Okay we better talk to this strange game save robot before we proceed any further right Mindy?

What do you mean none of your gear works on this door? You're missing the boots? We'd better start backtracking then. Logic dictates they've got to be in here some place.

What do you know. It's a solid wall, but we can walk right through it. I'm so glad the people who built this place always made sure their construction decisions made sesnse.

There are those boots.

And that completes your Sophie item ensemble. That's sexy.

Well that certainly wasn't a waste of our time caused by poor architecture, was it Mindy?

The boots opening the door still makes more sense then the gown. Especially since Mindy's been known to kick a door or two down in her day.

At this point I'm not surprised to see another tram. Let's hope this one doesn't have flipper babies at the end like the last one.

Weee!

Big money big money no flipper babies!

Even for a room in an ancient underground complex that stretches across the entire world this place is kinda weird.

More PlotBots at our disposal.

I feel for ya robot. They should have at least programmed you guys to play poker with each other or something while they were gone. It must be difficulty not really understanding the concept of death and time.

Another potion upgrade. Too bad this is useless for one of our party members.

It's the most obvious PlotBot ever. Yes mister robot play for me mysterious voices from the past.

Well this isn't starting well.

The implication of foul play?! The plot thickens.

Aliens? The hell now there's aliens? The hell?

Yes? The item capable of stopping all this madness is? Is?

Oh you bitch! You're the one robot with a sense of humor aren't you? I detect the sarcasm in your speak n' spell voice. What about the aliens? Oh you are now the BlueBallsBot, and I am painting that on your side.

Hold up for a sec Mindy I want to think. Yes I can't walk and think at the same time, har har. Thinking's kind of hard with all the random battles. I can't remember what I was thinking about before after the battle's finished. Okay so everyone in Sakuot is convinced that Zaygos is the reincarnation of Gabnid, who we're now pretty sure was crazy. It's been implied that I'm the reincarnation of Kormu. Finally judging by the way the sexy items of Sophie sexily fit your sexiness like a sexy glove I'm betting that you must be the reincarnation of Sophie.

All that was all kind of making sense in a twisted way, but now there's aliens. Specifically Sophie, Kormu, and Gabnid were apparently aliens. The thing I keep thinking about is how do the concepts of aliens and reincarnation coexist. If an alien goes from one world to another, and then dies does what planet does his spirit reincarnate on? If it's based on the location you died at, what happens to space traveler that dies in transit? Is their soul forever consigned to limbo? If souls all go into a big pool and get sent to other places randomly isn't it statistically impossible for the same spirit to be reincarnated on the same world twice? Let alone three spirits who have some a history together. If a person can control where they reincarnate shouldn't they retain full memory of their past incarnations? Damn me head is starting to throb from just thinking about it. Mindy do something sexy to distract me. Yes, glowering at me menacingly is in fact very sexy.

A bit more exploring and we find another elevator. It lead to a room identical to the one we found at the top of the last elevator. This time behind the solid wall I found a wind sword. These are really good, they have a chance to hit twice no other weapons does that.

This is the first real alarm gimmick enemy I've fought. The guys up top summon the blue mech if you let them hang around long enough. The mech looks cool, but could use a better color scheme.

Much like the last exit I found there isn't anything out here. The only difference is that it's in Saskuot.

After a final, random battle loaded trek back to the transit hub we used sophie's gown on the only unopened door.

Mindy if this one doesn't go anywhere we're likely to die of starvation. I just want you to know. No pressure, but I'd really like to go out humpin'

Joy, more stairs

This place is the most familiar yet. Are we? No, we can't be.

We are. It's the magic academy. As I predicted every piece of rubble is as I left it. That old fart didn't even try to find survivors.

There you are you old good for nothing? Is sitting on your ass that tough a job. You could have at least dug a boy or two up to give them a decent burial.

It would have been easier with a sage father figure giving me home spun advice. I understand though, you had some very important getting even older to do, and that couldn't be interrupted for anything.

It could have been easily stopped before? Well maybe if you hadn't put all your trust in somebody who only recently got his first pubes this would have been an open and shut issue.

That's pretty nutty. He couldn't even keep me from destroying Noi Gren, what makes him think anything will change in the sequel?

Hold up, how did you know that? I've been underground since the incident and all the other witnesses are dead. Except probably for Zaygos, and he didn't seem like the kind to spread that kind of information around.

You're just love to misuse information. If you would have told me that last time I could have gone home, gotten whatever this secret your alluding to is, com back, taken care of Dal Gren, and spent the rest of my years having sex with Mindy. While a love an awesome round the world adventure. I could have gone without the massacring a viilage part. Oh and the loss of life caused by all the delays.

That is one awkward sentence. Didn't you run a school?

I know that move. It's the headmaster's famous I'm not actually going to help you in any appreciable way sidestep. Watch what happens when I talk to him. He's just going to bluster and puff like I'm the lazy one.

Well it took me several months, countless pitched battles, and thousands of miles traveled, but I finally got Mindy to laugh, on purpose anyway. Hey Mindy are you sure you don't want to be my girlfriend in an official capacity? You're going to have an awkward meeting with my mom either way so we might as well make out a little. You never want to have any fun do you?
To Be Continued!

Well there you have it. I'm pretty sure this is the single largest post I've made in this thread, which makes sense seeing as it's by far the biggest dungeon. I hope you enjoyed the long read. Actually there should be another update some time this evening. We've got a mercenary selection coming up.