Part 47: As Long As You Have Enough Rubies
Update 47: As Long As You Have Enough Rubies
The adventures of Bush continue!
It's another rainy day, and I'm just remembering we have all this leftover tea! This'll be good for staying alive.
Music: Rune Factory 4 - FallHere's more autumn music! Will the rain ever stop? No idea.
Our plants are coming along nicely. Watering them sure is hard work!
Anette still can't see Kross for some reason. This will never be explained at this rate.
No mail today, she's still on about the melons. I think the only melon we've seen was the super rare beach melon we smashed with a hammer.
Good times.
IRIS NOIRE: It is said that the moonlight embodies magic.
IRIS NOIRE: Now that I mention it, the moonlit night seems much more mystical.
There is something peculiarly fantastic about the stars. They've always seemingly had a large impression on humanity, but I don't know what it is exactly.
GANESHA: "Demon Blood"! This is a rare one! Is that really for me? Thanks!
She's really hyped about the blood. There's more where that came from!
I do have a reason for raising her FP, but we won't see it in time for that reason to be useful at all. I've been throwing the occasional gift at all the other villagers to see if I can trigger some events we haven't seen yet.
Speaking of events...
Hey, Tabatha, I can't find that last rupee. Can I get a hint?
TABATHA: Have you found the 5th jewel?
BUSH: Well... I can't seem to find it anywhere.
TABATHA: That's odd... I don't remember hiding it in such a difficult to find place...
TABATHA: Would you please wait a moment?
*And so she goes to check where she hid it.*
TABATHA: I knew it...
BUSH: What is it?
TABATHA: The jewel that I had hid is gone.
BUSH: What?! Did someone take it?
TABATHA: No.
Well, then what happened? Did we fail the test?
TABATHA: Miss Bianca! I know it's you! Please come out here!
*Bianca starts walking down the stairs from off-screen.*
TABATHA: I know you have the last jewel!
Oh, that'd make sense, yeah. I didn't foreshadow this at all by saying how open to interference this ceremony is.
BIANCA: How did you know I took it?
TABATHA: I am your maid. I know everything about you.
BIANCA: Hmph... Fine. I knew I couldn't outsmart you.
Got the Kindness Gem!
TABATHA: Bush, now bring the last jewel to me.
The Kindness Gem happens to be a deep violet, but also represents love despite it's name? There's a certain symbolism in this being the one Bianca was able to find.
We just hand it over to Tabatha to get the last of the event.
Music: RomanceTABATHA: I will now begin the last part of the ceremony.
TABATHA: This follows the legend where the goddess used those gathered jewels to create a tiara and gave it to the new elven queen.
TABATHA: I will attach those 5 jewels that Bush found to the tiara and hand it over to Minerva.
TABATHA: Minerva, are you ready?
MINERVA: Yes, Sister.
TABATHA: I, Tabatha, shall relinquish my throne as the elven queen, my powers as the guardian of the forest, and my knowledge...
TABATHA: ...as the bridge to all races... And thus relinquished, I shall consign it all to Minerva.
MINERVA: I, Minerva, shall gather all my strength, to fulfill my duty...
MINERVA: ...and defend the knowledge and dignity of the elves until it is passed onto the next queen.
(Minerva sounds significantly younger here than she does in daily dialogue bits. I wonder if this was recorded earlier with a different voice direction?)
*Tabatha pulls out the tiara, complete with it gemstones.*
*She places it upon Minerva's head before we cut to a CG.*
TABATHA: The throne now belongs to Minerva.
MINERVA: It's just temporary. An official one should be chosen soon.
TABATHA: I'm sorry for making you do this, Minerva.
MINERVA: I don't mind.
BIANCA: Are you sure about this, Tabatha?
TABATHA: Yes. I am your maid, Miss Bianca. Nothing more, nothing less.
BIANCA: All right...
Music: To YouMINERVA: Then I'll head back tomorrow.
TABATHA: Already? You should stay a little longer.
MINERVA: I already stayed long enough. Grandma will get annoyed if I don't get back soon.
TABATHA: All right... Thank you, Minerva.
MINERVA: How many times are you going to thank me?! I only did this because I wanted to!
TABATHA: I suppose so. Thank you...
And so Minerva returned to the land of the elves, having enough rupees from the crown to afford cab fare
All in all, that was nice. Though, I do have to wonder why Tabs waited so long to do this. I get that this is a job she kinda fell into when she first came to Norad and ended up enjoying it much more than she thought, so maybe she had still been entertaining the idea of returning at some point?
Ah, well. Selphy would have a field day with this if she knew about any of it.
Oh, and there also seems to be leftover dialogue that gets skipped over?
"This is the first time you actually decided for yourself."
How strange- I've no idea who's supposed to say it. Maybe it's alternate dialogue if you've already married Bianca?
MINERVA: The other day, I talked to Selphy because I wanted to read something.
MINERVA: What surprised me was how many books that came out. And her explanations lasted until the sun went down!
BUSH: So what kind of book did you read, Minerva?
MINERVA: Whoops!
MINERVA: I got tired just from listening to the explanations so I didn't...
It's Selphy, we know exactly what kind of books they were.
Well, here's one last plate of charred ash for the road, your Majesty.
BIANCA: Francoise eats from my hand directly now.
BIANCA: I'm the only one that can do it.
And so, it soon seems that all will be back to normal with the Coquilles.
Or I guess, Croquilles. I still haven't forgotten about that typo.
BIANCA: My family is among the richest in all of Norad, but for some reason, our homes and getaways are always in the countryside.
BIANCA: I wonder if it's just a personal preference...
Honestly, it's probably the food and the festivals. Jasper, Herman, and Sherman are all big contributors in either funding and/or participation.
Besides, I don't think Norad has much in the way of cities anyways, Selphia is probably the closest to one we see, and it's half a palace to the resident elder dragon.
BIANCA: I heard that you went inside a book.
BIANCA: That sounds interesting.
We could take you there sometime, but I don't know how many interdimensional cows are still waiting to destroy us inside that thing.
That's enough of this place, let's go check up on the rest of town.
BUSH: Are you still having those strange dreams?
LARA: Not recently.
BUSH: That's great!
LARA: Well... It's not that I don't dream. I just can't sleep.
BUSH: Do you have any medicine for that?
LARA: I tried a myriad of herbs and medicines, but none of them work...
BUSH: I'm sure you'll find one that works. Please tell me if I can get you anything to help.
LARA: Thank you.
You might've prayed for the dreams to go away too much. Still, I know this frustration all too well.
But if the town's resident medicine expert doesn't know how to fix it, who will? I suppose we ought to ask around everywhere we can.
But first, we have unfinished business of our own. Snow Ruins, you're going down!
Music: Rune Factory 1 - Danaan CaveA similarly frozen place, Danaan was also the penultimate dungeon. Did it ever happen? Still no answers on if this is actually a sequel or not.
Cool, Platinum. For our sake, there's not a lot we'll end up making with it. The Wristwatch is the only thing we'll end up with that does need it.
And so we resume from where we last left off.
The following room is covered in Minotaur and Little Wizards. It's a giant rectangle, with the center having a raised platform with an easily disabled turret on it.
The northern hallway on the left is where we want to go. The only other thing here is a tiny treasure room only openable after we release this boulder held by ice at the end of the hall.
You'll need the Fire Rod for this- you don't have enough time to run away with a fire weapon.
This leads to a room with farm plots, a gate that spawns Souls (wind versions of Blazes) and to the south...
Our shortcut! Now there's only one actual floor left to endure before we reach the true boss of Snow Ruins.
That's right, Gelwein/Iris isn't even the real fight here. This is actually optional content but we need to do it if I want to gear Bush up.
We're also pretty close to a level up, so we've got that going for us.
Something I discovered in recording more footage for this is that I believe axes just use the Lumber skill and not Weapons. Maybe I already figured that out before, but I did again.
So Bush is way better at axes than I thought he was, although we still have some miss chances anyways.
The Fire Rod continues to prove effective, being good at one-shotting gates off-screen to stop enemy spawns as well as doing good damage to minotaurs.
This weapon is the most broken one we have in some ways.
collect wood
(I'm doing this for the expanded apothecary.)
then bath
BUSH: Melody.
MELODY: What's with that serious look on your face, Bush?
BUSH: Lara hasn't been sleeping recently.
MELODY: Really? That's awful.
MELODY: Everyone needs their beauty sleep.
"You got Pleasant Sleep!"
MELODY: Take this with you. Follow the recipe and get her to drink the "Sleepy Grass." With this, even the dead will fall asleep! ♪
BUSH: Thank you, Melody!
MELODY: What're friends for? ♪
Of course, the relaxation expert would know just the recipe we need. This is also one of the reasons why we need a bigger pharmacy.
♨ BATH FACTS ♨
Hot spring cleanliness is important, as they are subsceptible to a number of water borne infections. Legionella (Legionnaire's Disease and Pontiac fever) and Naegleria (same type as the human brain eating amoeba although that specific one hasn't been found).
There's improving standards on it, and even some have moved towards using a small amount of chlorine, though that itself has caused a bit of a divide in patronage in regards to the baths still being traditional and completel natural.
I'm not much a fan of chlorine myself, but then again, I wouldn't say I'm eager to jump in a public bath anyways.
Enough facts, have at you, Snow Ruins!
But first, the Sleepy Grass recipe. Black Grass, Mushroom, Magic Powder, Milk.
The grass is what hurts. Guess I'm off to hunt slimes at some point.
The staircase down is just over here to the left, just past some mining rocks. The Souls can inflict exhaustion, which as usual is extremely damaging to further progress.
The sixth floor is another labyrinth, but mostly without diverging paths. Don't worry, they made it into a warzone to make up for that.
Also up front, we find Tricky Mushes. They're the upgrade of the mushrooms we fought way back in Green Ruins.
From here, we head north.
Monsters, monsters everywhere!
These demons are Arch Daemons, although they don't do much more than normal demons. Really, the same as the Mushes. The latter are tanky as all get out though- almost not worth fighting them.
If we take a ramp down, we can find a room with a lot of loot, but a lot of Mini Dragons barfing fire everywhere.
Some are mimics, of course. Gobble Boxes, specifically.
Also, Garlic seems to be considered on the same tier as Gold and Platinum when it comes to box loot.
Peperoncino is good, don't get me wrong, but I can just buy this stuff by the dozen from Rita.
The actual path forward isn't beyond the hallway to hell, but to the right in the opening room, past all the turrets.
Continue right, dodging all the nonsense...
Continue doing so around this little spiral to a staircase...
And there it is! Floor 7!
just mind the dragons on the way down
Ah, here we are! Shortcut at last! I missed the shortcuts for floor 4 and 6, but 2,3,5, and 7 are good enough.
To the right is our boss door, but Bush is in no shape, nor do we have the time left in the day to think about it.
Chop some wood and off we go.
To bed, that is. Nothing left in the day but a little bit of nightly butter churning for more baked goods in the morning.
Music: Rune Factory 4 - FallTomorrow is raining too! Who'd have guessed?
Who's the bestest pony- that's right, yes you are!
In other news, Yams. These are like the tomatoes of Autumn, but they're not so easily made into spammable juice. We'll only keep a bit for ourselves, we'll sell the rest.
Spinach isn't particularly great either, but's useful for one recipe we'll end up maybe wanting to make.
I personally have never managed to like spinach. Tried for years to get used to the taste, but I just simply dislike the stuff. Even frying it won't save it.
Just give me cabbage instead, it's the better leafy vegetable.
We intercept Anette just before she puts the letters in our mailbox.
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~"It's more fun than I thought." - Bianca~
I recieved your Strawberry.
I guess exchanging letter is not too boring.
It feels a bit different from talking in person.
Anyway, send me a Veg. Stir-fry next.
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And that's what we want spinach for. The recipe also wants cabbage, but we don't have any of that. We neglected to grow any in the face of the Turnip Mafia's strong hold on our farming roots.
We'll eventually make it, but it'll be a long while.
Also, didn't Bianca ask for the strawberry like weeks ago?
The wild ecosystems are but days away from collapse...
Meh, I'll do it later.
I do have to say, I like how Lara's skirt is modeled to properly lay out when she's praying. It's just some extra poly loops, (you can tell from the texture on the back when she's standing,) but it ends up looking okay.
Never mind the fact that Bush just keeps walking up to her while she's praying and hands her a plate with a slice of chocolate cake on it.
Where is the rest of the cake?
LARA: Birthdays are the day when you celebrate the life your parents gave you as well as express thanks to them for it.
BUSH: Oh. When is your birthday, Lara?
LARA: My birthday is on the 1st of winter.
Norad has a much less one-sided view of birthdays.
To the inn!
TURNER: Thank you.
Ah, right, Minerva is leaving today.
MINERVA: Did you come to see me off?
BUSH: Yes, but where is Tabatha?
MINERVA: Well, I didn't tell her I was going.
BUSH: Oh, really?
MINERVA: Everything just gets so hectic when it's time to leave.
MINERVA: I'm just not good at dealing with all that.
BUSH: I know how you feel.
Bush, having walked away from Kardia silently to chase after Mist, is familiar with the idea of moving along without a fuss.
MINERVA: But I'll come visit about once a year.
MINERVA: I just need to be sure that she won't get tricked by bad people.
BUSH: Oh...
She specifically comes only on festival days, I believe. So for the large part, this is the last we'll see of her.
*Minerva starts to walk past Bush, but stops halfway.*
MINERVA: You do know the other reason why my sister is staying, right?
BUSH: Huh? Another...reason?
MINERVA: Wow... Looks like she's got her work cut out for her...
MINERVA: See you later!
Bush is too oblivious as always. The answer is obvious, she's staying for Bianca!
Of course that's it. What other reason could there be?
And so leaves the new elven queen. She wasn't even here for 2 weeks!
There's a bit of dialogue she eventually says where she notes a foreign kingdom is currently in a bit of an uproar thanks to a missing princess. A certain, unruly princess. We didn't get to see it, but there you go.
TABATHA: If I ever were to get married, Miss Bianca will... I am a bit worried.
I dunno, the answer seems pretty simple to me.
I might be wrong, but based on dialogue, I believe Tabatha keeps her job as a maid even if she does get married.
You know who hasn't left?
BRODIK: Why are the villagers so nice to outsiders like you and me?! You better not be taking advantage of them!
BRODIK: It's better for everyone if you just left before you become attached to them.
BRODIK: But that's only if you can still act friendly to people! Hahaha!
This guy! He's even taken to hanging outside our farm. Real outstanding guy.
Out standing in the rain!
got em
On a more serious note, it's evident that Sechs has some sort of global issue with interpersonal relationships. Lynette is shown in disbelief at the kindness of Kardia and spends much of her time observing the town's daily life as generally unusual.
Edward proves it's not universal, at least.
With all that out of the way, it's time we challenge this boss. Prepared is a 100 HP health drink, 2 Teas worthe 200RP each, and 1 Sandwich and 1 Pumpkin Tart.
The Sandwich is basically a full heal for us, and the Pumpkin Tart close to it. I told you there was a reason to focus food instead of meh medicine.
In we go...
Music: Ice Snake(This music's quite good, do listen to it when you get a chance.)
*We enter to find a large circular chamber, with a massive ivory snake thrashing about from a hole in the center!*
Meet Ice Snake, folks.
He's a right pain in the backside.
We begin the fight at the end of a long hallway of which the snake immediately begins barfing ice breath down. He will keep doing this constantly.
The breath itself only hits for 1 a couple of times in quick succession, but has huge pushback on it.
You can take cover behind these broken walls to not get pushed, but only if you're right up against them.
The breath is also just as strong as Pony's running speed, so we can't run against the wind to make this.
A lucky break gets us into the main circle pretty quickly. None of my other attempts are so fortunate.
This triggers him to use his actual moveset. The first is the massive spinning ice barf. He'll do a full 360 at just barely enough speed to not overtake Bush running while hugging the inner circle.
This does tons of damage, easily one-shots pony and Bush has to get lucky to survive it. There are safe spots though, namely 2 on each of the left and right sides of the arena, as well as the entry hallway.
(You have to be careful with the latter, as he'll go back to pushback barf if you're too deep in the entrance.)
There's only a small window to strike his head after he does this. His body is generally too far to hit with most attacks, resists a lot of damage, and heavily resists projectile magic, so the head it is.
Next is the back and forth head sweep. This does annoyingly high damage, a similarly annoying hitbox, and can combo for instant kill. It does always come in the same pattern, a curving forward sweep to it's right, then a close sweep back left.
You won't always be in the position to avoid it, but the solution is to run close on the first and then retreat outwards and to it's right on the second.
It leaves the head open for decent moment, but it also leans to the side a bit afterwards in a way that can make you miss a hit.
Next is the 3 head pokes. It goes centerish-slightly right, far left, and ends to the far right. The range on this is surprisingly avoidable, and while it's kinda quick, is one of the easier attacks to manipulate and get damage in on.
The last is the tiny ice breath. It does pretty heavy damage and can easily one-shot you if it pushes you into a corner. It's quite easy to avoid though, and comes with the boss's only weakness.
What is that? We'll see later, as it takes me a while to figure out exactly what.
In the meantime, here's 20 minutes later with barely 1/6th of the boss's HP bar gone.
Our damage is not good here. Magic is heavily resisted by the boss for some reason, and even our axe charge attacks fail to break 100 damage on the regular.
So I rewind time a bit and bail on this attempt. We need more damage.
The first thing on our list is to upgrade that Heat Axe we never use to a Flame Axe. Silver + Fire Crystal + Ruby, really should've made it sooner.
Looks pretty good.
I then take the Alldale we don't use and upgrade it with some more recent materials after a bunch of scrap metal skill grinding to Forging 40.
Alldale + Gold + Demon Blood + Magic Talon + Toxin makes the Demon Axe. Seal and Poison chance, plus it has the anime frontflip lightning strike charge attack.
The Demon Axe has more of a metal, Frazetta look. This one just seems to have a bad hit chance for some reason, but it will prove to be exceptionally useful in time.
A bit of crafting later, and I've made a Fire Ring, Ruby Brooch, and picked up our old Heart Pendant from the box.
Should fire damage prove to be the best against the snake, this'll give us the most boosts to fire damage as possible.
We then pull out our grass supply and start preparing some tea. It's going to be a long fight, even with better weapons.
Alongside this, I make a good amount of Tomato Juice as the attack boost it gives seems to make a substantial enough difference to warrant it.
Alright, NOW you go down, ya oversized worm
A buffed Flame Axe charge hit on the head is a little over 300 damage- not a lot, but we can deal with that. It's about 200 more than we were getting.
Pony has no chance of surviving this fight, unfortunately. She's too aggressive and gets wiped by the circling ice breath.
She did her job getting us into the boss arena though, forever MVP.
At seemingly random intervals, the snake will crawl out of it's hole and into one of the others on the side. It'll either fight from there (easier as it won't spam the circle breath)
Or it will decide to crawl from one of the darkened corridors across the room to the other. This is a prime time to hit the boss if you a can reach it as you can land tons of hits here.
But the hitbox is annoying and you have a decent chance of clipping into it with your attacks.
Also icicles rain from the ceiling during all this, foreshadowed by circular shadows on the ground. These do the most damage here, nearly 400 (Bush barely has 300 Max HP), which is appropriate I suppose for taking a sharp ice spike right to the noggin.
Here's where the other circle ice breath safe spots are. Right here at the edges of the weird dark hallways only the snake can go down.
When his HP gets low, he gets all pinkish-red as part of his rage mode. Faster attacks and more damage.
Also this screenshot is moments before death.
didn't dodge right
respawn at bonfire, lose all souls
The entire series of attempts was about an hour and a half of trying to beat this scaly ponce. I'd get him to rage pretty regularly, but it's just so easy to die at this phase.
Are we underleveled? Yes. Are we still undergeared? Yes. Am I going to brute force this? Absolutely.
Also he'll do a goofy motion where he swings his head back and forth and spawns 2 Glaces. This is his last new ability, only active around half health.
I hate it because I hate Glaces. It's always in pairs of north/south and east/west, and in rage mode, you'll probably die trying to get rid of the reinforcements.
I hate Glaces so much because they just spam ice balls for 60 a pop at decently long distances, are just as slippery as Blazes, and can also paralyze, which is about a guaranteed death here.
Shoulda made a Para Ring, I guess.
The last thing to note is that if you hit his body while he's doing the tiny ice breath, it'll stun him for a bit. I did this with the Fire Rod for a while, but pulling it out was too slow half the time.
you're kidding
like 2 hits from ending this
I eventually realize that the lesser axe charge attack can clip the boss's body at any point, meaning I can stun it out of the little ice breath without having to swap.
Axes remain an immensely good choice for a weapon in this LP.
here lies peperony and chease
BEGONE FIEND
*doink*
(it warps back to the middle for it's death animation)
Ugh, finally. Let's hope Gelwein isn't this bad.
Also this gigantic dingus didn't even give us a level. Seriously.
The snake drops all the usual level 10 cooking materials, but also it's Ice Snake Tongue. This thing that's needed to make the cheaper Critical 7 recipe.
Yeah, this was all for the Critical 7. At least it was a DPS check wake-up call and worth a bit of EXP in the end.
Also the description notes the tongue is still moving, so eugh
Music: Trampoli Daily LifeBack home, we get to crafting our goal items.
The normal Critical 7 needs Platinum, Four-leaf Clover, Magic Talon, Hard Horn, Sharp Fang, and Sharp Talon.
It's good not only for the critical up passive it does give, but also for the 77 DEF and 77 MAG- a huge jump for us defensively.
The alternative is just using the tongue instead of all the horns and talons.
...Now that I think about it, we could've just made the other one. Oh well. The tongue's not useful for anything else, I don't think.
But before that, we still have to get 6 Crafts skill from somewhere.
A short trip out for some materials...
That turns into a longer trip of woodcutting followed by a bath...
KROSS: Do you like the rain? I love it.
KROSS: The rain can wash the dirty earth. As it flows, it creates a river and heads toward the sea...
KROSS: Heh...
KROSS: ...It is only on days like this that I can sleep well.
I don't like being in rain, but I don't usually mind it that much. For a period of time in my life, rain just made me anxious as I was afraid of my roof falling in, even after it was fixed.
in short: "only grumbles mildly at inclement weather"
I also use our wood and cash to build the pharmacy extension. I know I let you vote on the other ones, but I think I've earned the right to pick this one.
Besides, we know out of these three (Apothecary, Alchemy, Magic) that Bush is a Magic kind of guy.
Here's what it looks like. I think it's quite nice! (You can't really see it from the outside.)
We still have to buy the upgraded alchemy station to do anything with this.
What follows is a mix of making Gold Rings, another Earth Pendant, a set of Rabbit Ears (decent magic headwear), another Fire Cape,
And at last, our Critical 7 necklace is ours.
We can barely see it, but the stat changes will be felt. There were a few other options to use that four-leaf clover on, but I felt like this was the best option.
And with that, Bush can finally get some rest. The Wristwatch comes tomorrow.
See you then!
Music: Goodnight