Part 8: Sic Semper Evello Mortem Vipera

Howdy, folks, and welcome back! Last time, on Secret of Evermore, we chatted with Fire Eyes a bit and then visited Strong Heart, who gave us a free collar for Zach. Today, we're going to take a step toward figuring out the Volcano problem, so let's boogie.





We're heading north out of the village this time.





Without the Spider's Claw, this is as far as we could have gotten.



However, armed with our axe, we can cut through the short grass like it's nothing! And kill an unfortunate mosquito at the same time.



These new flowers are called Carniflowers.



They have 30 HP, so they're easy to take down, but only drop 6 EXP and 7 Talons for doing so.





They have a special attack that we'll see in a minute; it's basically their defining feature.





There are a few gourds scattered about, too, but none of them hold anything that would kill us if we missed it.



No reason for this shot, other than showing off how fuckin' brutal Zach can be.



Thirty-four castings of Hard Ball might seem like a lot, buuuuuuut...



There's a boss coming up that I'll want this stronger for, and I'll need more than thirty-four castings to get it that powerful.



I toss my balls around plenty this update.

...I could have phrased that better.



However, I'm getting to be an expert ball-tosser.





Alright, so in this shot, you can see the flower readying to attack Zach.



And then it goddamn eats him.



Whoever it eats will be spat out after a little bit, but you can force them out sooner by smacking the plant a good one. It'll deal tick damage over time, like poison does.



This reminds me, has anyone here read The Ruins? I thought it was an alright book, and one of those that is just about perfect for a long car ride or a flight.



The movie was kind of silly, but with a premise about blood-sucking vines, how can it be anything but?



I'd say give it a shot if you'd like. I enjoyed it well enough.



Hey, 12 Talons. Neat. We'll need those to buy Clay and Crystals.





There was a Carniflower here. It's gone now.



And a mosquito who got his shit wrecked by a Hard Ball.



Nectar, if you forgot, restores 120 HP to whoever it's used on.



Getting shots for this game has been kind of a challenge. In the other games I've done, turn-based RPGs, it was easy enough to show new enemies when they came and to ignore battles otherwise. Here, enemies are pretty liberally placed, so it's not often I'm going to have a shot without them around or me trying to kill them before they kill me. It's kind of a shift from what I usually do, and it's throwing me off a little bit.





I'm not sure why some people choose to live outside of the village; I'm not seeing any real benefit here.



Then again, having two armor shops in the same tiny village might not be good for business. 'course, living past the more dangerous monsters probably isn't, either, so I'm just going to quit thinking about it.



If we had somehow missed the Mammoth Guard or the Shell Hat, we could buy them here. As it stands, the Shell Plate is the only new bit of equipment.



A small defensive boost, but not one that I'm going to turn down.



We also snag a total of four parts Wax here, so all in all, this trip was worth it.



And since I'd nearly forgotten, after robbing him, I sell my old stuff back to him.





Now that is a conspicuous rock.



And one that we can't do anything with. It'll come later, though, so for now, let's bounce.





I'm not sure how many mosquitoes I've balled this time around, but it's been quite a few.

_{Phrasing, Leave, phrasing!}



I can't help but like the bloodsplosion here. It really helps emphasize how much of a non-threat the mosquitoes are.



Welcome to the Mammoth Graveyard.



Hey, what's that little guy?



Besides a spider the size of most terriers.





Meet the Widowmaker; 40 HP, and worth 40 EXP, to boot. They also drop 12 Talons, and their attacks have a 25% chance of inflicting poison.



This is just a display of how fucked this one is.



I'm not sure if Zach or the Hard Ball killed it, but it is definitely very dead.



As is this one.



The little bastards are crawling all over the place, too.



Not for very long, no, but they are still plentiful.



When not getting his murder on, Zach will sniff out ingredients. I've mentioned this before, I think, but in case I haven't, Zach will help us find ingredients in the wild.





Hard Ball is getting pretty useful; it won't one-shot these guys, but it's definitely doing a good chunk of damage. I've mostly been using it to finish these guys off, which is why my axe hasn't hit Level 2.



Zach didn't get the kill here, despite his best effort. Hard Ball exploded the Widowmaker before he had the chance.



And when they hit, they fuckin' hit. Poison doesn't come up often, and it's not very dangerous; both are good things, in my book.



This is Cure in action; it heals status ailments. As far as I can tell, it will heal all ailments even at Level 1, so I see no reason to work at leveling it up.



Alright, let's get to the big fight of this update.





Well now, who's this happy asshole?



Look, you can speak and identify ownership, as well as having some sort of society. Can't you put up a sign somewhere?



Yeah, I'm just terrified.



And he rolls off again. Guess he didn't want any of this.



Well, alright, pink dinosaur guys. Let's get it on.



These are the Vipers. They've been mentioned before.



Now, there are four of them, and two of us. Those odds are stacked a bit in their favor, so I start the evening by switching to Zach.



And yes, I got my ass kicked. Don't worry, it's part of the plan.



Now, as Zach, we can bring up York's menu and have him use alchemy or whatever, much like you could in the Mana games.



Now, you'll notice I went from twenty-one castings of Hard Ball down to eighteen. You can also see the casting animation going on, frozen by the ring menu.



And multiple Hard Balls flying at one poor Viper bastard.



It blasted his ass across the map; in the lower right corner, you can see that I did 150 damage to him. They have 125 at maximum, and we'll get 80 EXP and 50 Talons for each of them.







Multiple targets, tons of Hard Balls for everybody!



The multi-cast glitch is really handy for laying down a ton of damage real quick-like. You can do it while controlling York, apparently, but I get the best success out of doing it while controlling Zach.



If I do it right, I've gotten eight Hard Balls out at once.



Really, this fight isn't too difficult. There are a bunch of enemies around, and they are quite hardy, while dealing good chunks of damage. Alchemy is definitely recommended here, but as long as you're keeping an eye on your health and taking it one target at a time, you should make it through it pretty well.





Zach's charged attack, like most of his attacks, hits like a mad bastard. Two of these would take out a Viper quite easily, but the hardest part is actually hitting one with it. They're fairly quick, despite how they look. They like to roll out of range and punish you with a tongue-whip.



I took a little over six minutes of video for this update, and I used nearly twenty castings of Hard Ball.





Alrighty, so here's the Viper Commander, our final enemy for this boss fight. He has 250 HP to deplete, so let's get to it.



And, once again, Hard Ball multi-cast is the order of the day.



The Commander has no earthly clue of what is about to wreck his shit.







And Hard Ball leveled up!



This is just a single tossing of Hard Ball.







And we get a new weapon!



It's our third type of weapon, the Spear. It's a little stronger than the Spider's Claw, clocking in at 20 Attack, which is twice that of the Bone Crusher. It's also going to be our main weapon until we get something stronger.





Not a problem, man. Really, it was my pleasure, due to making Hard Ball stronger.

Hard Ball is pretty much the weakest offensive formula in the game, but as someone in the thread mentioned, it's also extremely cheap for what you get. It's quite easy to keep the necessary ingredients around, but when we get a better offensive formula, you probably won't see Hard Ball much after that.



Well, that's not right. I found some Ash around here, and a bit of Clay.



: Yes--lizard people from the great volcano. They've been coming out in force lately, raiding the graveyard for mammoth parts.

: When we get to the core of the volcano, we'll stop them before they do more harm.

: Why are you going there? It's very dangerous!

: Well, Fire Eyes told us about the volcano cooling and...



Despite being the same sprite, this isn't Strong Heart. I'm not sure why one of the few named people doesn't have a unique sprite, but whatever, I'm not the developer.



And just mentioning Fire Eyes' name means that we're upstanding, trustworthy fellows. Uh, fellow. And dog.



...Top of the volcano? We've gotta go in through the top?! Jesus Christ, lava comes out of there!



Can we get a Freeze Ray and a parachute, too? Entering a volcano through the top seems a little...What's the phrase I want to use here...

Dick-explodingly terrifying. That's the phrase I want.



Entering a volcano through the top seems dick-explodingly terrifying.



Hell yes you should. I'll never turn down a free heal.



Compared to when we started, we've gained a good bit of health. Zach a little more than York, but Zach is definitely the beefier of the two.



This is one of the few healing alchemy spells we're going to get, and for a long time, the only one we'll have.



Considering that, it's cheap as hell to use. Water and Roots are every-goddamned-where, including in the field and for sale, so there's no reason not to have the stuff around for it.



It levels up pretty well, too, and if we're using it as needed, we're going to be recovering HP on a level better than the healing items. At level 0, which alchemy spells start at, Heal will recover 20 to 38 HP. Or so the Secret of Evermore Wiki tells me, and I'm going to trust those nerds.



But that caps things off for this update. Next time, we'll head through the gate and see about getting into that volcano.

Stay tuned!