Part 9: Conclusion of Carmite Cave

Update 9: Conclusion of Carmite Cave

So, I think we’ve spent enough time wallowing around Carmite, getting poor Donnel’s ass kicked by Orcs.

Like I said, the first dungeon of Rune Factory is actually pretty difficult, especially because there’s sort of a soft limit to how much you can use your sword, thanks to the RP system. Now, to get around that, we could just wait for a lot of crops to grow, create runes, and use those over time.

However, it’s way quicker to just spend a day grinding to a point where your HP bar can just tank it. So that’s what I did, offscreen of course. Grinding is easy in RF because of the infinite respawning monsters, I used the Orc at the entrance.



Here he is, the new and improved Donnel. I know he doesn’t look improved, or new, but look.




Look at those nice stats. Level 10 now!




Before we embark on our quest, it’s time to harvest the last of these crops. I kept these as I went into the cave, just in case.



Unfortunately, because today is the ubiquitous HOLIDAY that replaces weekends in Rune Factory, most stores won’t open. Guess it’s time to take on the cave hungry, then.



Starting off by killing my old grinding pal. Night night, friend.



I’d love to water these cucumbers, but I really don’t want to waste the RP. Another time.




Next up is the Orc Archer spawner. You’ve seen this before, should be familiar. I do like how the explosion kinda looks like rose petals scattering to the wind, though. It makes this death look so much more dignified than me just whacking an archer with a sword.



The Orc spawner near the second set of fields gets me a Swordsmanship level.




Moving onto the Goblin spawner. Sorry I’m going through this quickly, but it’s all stuff we’ve previously seen.



On to the 2nd floor, now. The save point is down south there.



Alright, don’t panic. Get the bees.



Managed to catch both Hornets and the Spawner in one sword swing combo, but if you see that little skull under Donnel’s HP bar?




We’re poisoned. You can see how dangerous that can be already if you compare the last two screens. It was about 3 seconds between these two, I took a decent chunk of damage, but not all that much. The biggest danger of poison is just that it does not wear off.



Thankfully, just one of those antidote herbs we’ve been finding all over will cleanse it.

Now, there’s an area to the right of the Bees I didn’t check out, so let’s see...



Oh shit, more bugs.



Just gonna sneak past ‘em here and blow up the spawner while they’re meandering around the other side of the room.



I doubled back to get that first set of ants we encountered, southeast of the stairs.



That gave me a Level Up, which heals off all those Bee related injuries.



Anyway, that corridor’s a dead end, the exit to the floor is next to the bee/ant combo in the east.



On the third floor, we enter a door and...



Ah fuck. It’s locked behind us. There’s probably some kind of horrible monster in here. Like a bee.



Oh no, it’s...it’s uh...a squirrel?




It’s not exactly threatening.



That didn’t take long. What a shitty trap.

(That enemy was called a “Chirori”, and like, as far as I know, it’s completely non-threatening. That’s also the only one in the game.)




Oh hey, door’s gone.




The path leads to another field full of stuff. I’m so tempted to start chopping those logs, but my RP conservation senses prevail, and I just make Donnel shove another Bamboo Root down his throat.



Also OH FUCK THEY’RE BACK



No more spawner, but…



I’m gonna be burning through these things.



Thankfully the next area is due south, through this small exit.



Just another Orc and poison tiles to the east here, one of the two is easily dealt with.



So, to the south is...also poison tiles.



Huh. These are the only two exits.



Guess I’m just gonna have to grin and bear it here.



Well, that was a minor annoyance. The bigger one being that I’m now out of Antidote Herbs.

And the only way back is the poison tiles.

I may have fucked up here.

ONWARD.



Here’s another new enemy, the Goblin Archer. Honestly I couldn’t even tell the difference between these and the Orc Archers. They might have slightly higher stats?




Still an easy win.



Out of the hall comes yet another spawner for these Orcs. You should be pretty adept at dealing with these jokers by now.



Through here is yet another save point, and a final staircase. This looks...ominous.



...Later, log. Later.



Using the stairs triggers a cutscene. Looks like there’s one spawner left.






Oh, Zavier, you have any antidote herbs? Please?


: You know Donnel, something’s fishy about this room.

Fine, be that way.

: I’ve been searching this cave, and I get the feeling that door will open if we can break those weird thingamaboppers. Call it a treasure hunter’s hunch.

: Sounds like it’s worth a try.



I love the way he keeps calling them that.

: Really?

This is kind of a weird place for the game to tell you this, since you almost certainly haven’t cleared this far into Carmite on your first visit.

: Yeah, so if you plan on destroying all of them, you have to stay in the cave until the job’s done!


: But my strength might not hold out that long.


: That’s what sleeping bags are for! You...do have a sleeping bag, don’t you, Donnel?


: Uh, actually…

: What? Are you out of your mind? You need a sleeping bag while exploring caves. Well, since you’re obviously clueless, I’ll give you mine. Here, take it.




He gives it to you regardless, but why not just be proactive in getting our free tools?


: It’s a little old, but you can still use it.








Then he explains RP in caves again, I just cut it because this is like the third time.


: Now then, getting back to what’s on the other side of that door. You know, that door didn’t used to be there. Clearly someone must have built it. I don’t like the looks of this. Hmm...sometimes it takes courage to flee, too.



What an inspiring motto.

: And now… is definitely a time to scram! Peace out!




Well, it was nice of this spawner not to do anything for that whole conversation. I even had to wait around a little to get it to spit out its first enemy.



Just a Goblin. I killed one, and another got spawned…



Right on the chest the first dropped. That chest apparently has collision, because this guy is stuck. Ah well, easy kill for me.



Huh?




That Goblin had just become a man. And we killed him. This is the pathos of Rune Factory. Actually I think we just sent him back to the First Forest or whatever, so never mind. (That’s a crafting item.)



Now that every spawner in the cave is destroyed, the door disappears at Donnel’s touch. Now, this door stays open if you leave the cave, even though the spawners return. You can use this to make sort of an emergency rest before the boss, but this update is all about me being reckless. Let’s move on.



But I mean, it would be a waste not to show this off.



You can only use the Sleeping Bag once per dungeon-trip. It can be upgraded for more uses if we take it to Leo.



Well, it’s morning now, and...how did we skill up?




Oh yeah. Like someone said in the thread, “Camping”, AKA “taking a nap”, is a skill in this game. It improves the HP/RP gains from using a Sleeping Bag.



Alright, now time for the final room!




Inside lurks...a baboon? A pretty big Baboon.



Baboon.



Oh, hey Mist.

: Mist? What are you doing here?


: I couldn’t find you on the farm, so I thought I’d look for you here.

: I can’t believe such a huge monster is here!


: And look at it. It’s frightened!

It just seems mad to me.

: Frightened?


: Sure! It was probably brought here against its will.
Donnel… Use your power to send it back to its world.

: You mean if I defeat it in battle, I can use the power of Retornen to send it back?


: That’s right!


: Okay, I’ll see what I can do. You’d better stand back though, Mist. This might get messy.

This monkey is going to splatter me all over the walls.

: Okay. Just...please be careful.

: I will.



And then I immediately get charged.

So this is the Greater Daemon. He has 250 HP, a variety of attacks, and he can give you some trouble on your first few tries, especially if you didn’t grind like I did. He’s a worthy first boss.



His most common attack is to stand up and beat his chest, then charge you.



He tracks a little, so it’s best to make a wide arc while running.



There’s a bit of lag time when he smacks into a wall, and that’s your best time to get a hit or two in. Don’t stick around for long, though.



That’s due to his second attack, a quick punch that can come out in any direction and covers a fair amount of ground. There’s really no way to defend against this other than “don’t be near the monkey.”



That’s nice, giant letters, but really not the time.




You can also get some damage in on Greater Daemon while he’s beating his chest, but this puts you in prime position to get smacked by a charge.



Once you’ve taken out most of his HP, he gets a little upset, and turns red. This is the real fight. When he’s red, he’ll start changing his Charge a little. He can bounce and ricochet off walls a little now, and he can cancel the Charge into a meaty punch. He’s a lot more dangerous now.



We have this, but...you can’t equip it in the menu, as far as I know. You have to try and press L+B, then scroll to it, then use it while dodging the bosses’ attacks. It’s pretty annoying.



When you see the Daemon smash his fist into the ground, START RUNNING. This is his third and most deadly attack, and he only uses it when he’s red, as far as I know.



It makes a pillar of stone erupt under you. This lasts for so long that, after it knocks you down, once you stand up, it’ll knock you down and hurt you again. Each hit does a good chunk of HP. So like, in summary, fuck this move.



So, in all honesty, the best way to deal with his Red form is just...don’t. As soon as he shifts colors, start hammering him with combos, and he has so little HP left you should be able to get him down.



And that’s the end of Greater Daemon.












I love how deadpan that is.

: You’re amazing Donnel! I bet you’re really a legendary warrior...or a knight in the Holy Order!

Nobody tell her that took me three attempts.

: Do you really think so?


: Well… since we still don’t know your past, you ought to think big!


: Hmm…

: At any rate, I was able to save the Greater Daemon’s soul.

Okay, that was Donnel. Don’t take credit for that one.

: I’m so happy! I wonder what it was doing here in the first place?

: I have no idea. But I wonder…

: Wonder what?

: Maybe it has something to do with those strange devices I found inside the cave.


: Hmm…

: But I have no idea who could have put them in there...and why.

: I see.

: In any case, there’s not much we can do but wait to see what happens.

: Right.






And that’s the end of Carmite Cave. We never have to come here again. (But I will, because of Monster pets.)

And now we have to cross the poison tiles.



TIME FOR AN ESCAPE SEQUENCE.



Oh, the fields here repopulated. And there’s...an Antidote Herb.



Welp, escape sequence aborted.



And hey, our cucumbers are still around! That’s nice, you don’t need to water cave crops every day to keep them alive.



That’s all for today, but I’ve got a bit of cleanup to do here.

Names for any of the Carmite Cave monsters are welcome. The new ones we met in this update were the Goblin Archer and the Chirori (That little squirrel guy.). I’ll probably not be collecting ALL the monsters, but for the ones I do, nicknames are nice.

The next update should go up with the marriage poll too, if I can figure that out in time. (Probably. Don’t doubt my incompetence.)

Next time, life beyond endless Carmite Cave.