Part 24: FUCK THE CHOSEN PALACE: Part 1

I liked the ending.

You'd better believe I've been abusing the auto-win command for this, though.

Yes, but not by nearly as much as physical attacks do. It's not really worth it unless you're trying to wring every last damage point out of your Core.

No, I haven't. Thanks for the suggestion; I'll chuck them into Audacity and post the results sometime.

24:

This is, I think, the second least pleasant dungeon crawl in the game. First place goes to  Buried Jinam , but it's still pretty nasty. So, in the interests of preserving my rapidly waning sanity, I will be pretty much skipping over the dungeon-crawl bits and only hitting boss fights and plot.

Ready? Go!




The Chosen are fighting among themselves again!

That's right, we arrive in the Capitol only to find out that it's full on civil war. Given a choice of three districts to visit, the central one seems a logical first choice.




Inside, the enemies are just beefed up versions of the ones we fought in the Shell 7 mining outpost. We also get to see some fights between Loyalist troops and Doskias's personal guard, with the former usually ending up as worm food.

We can't get very far, though, before...



It looks like something is missing.
This place reminds me of my past.

The war-torn, corpse-littered streets of the Capitol, Selina? Really?

Anyways, off to the West District!



Same drill as the Central District, although we do run into these little guys. The omnidirectional beam attack doesn't hit very hard, but it sure is shiny.

The west district culminates with us finding the Red Capitol Key.



Which conveniently unlocks the entrance to the East District.



Scattered around the East District are groups of civilians held prisoner by Doskias's troops. They have no dialogue, but give you some nice healing items if you rescue them.



Our real goal is the Tank Engine in this chest here, though.



Back to the central district, where all of the enemies have respawned, to install it.




More violence and we find a lever, which moves some trains to the north out of the way and lets us get at the rest of the area.




A little ways past this desperate last stand, we find some loyalist troops who miraculously aren't dead, and one of the game's biggest dick moves.

Gunnar has been looking for you! Come with us.



What?! He's attacking his own people?

Haven't you been paying attention? Who did you think was commanding all the troops you just killed, the Easter Bunny?

Doskias has grown tired of the Emperor's meddling.
So we were successful in stopping Doskias's lenses?
Partly. Enough light was brought into the Core to upset the balance of the world. The Core is unstable; the rotation of the world shells has been sped up.
What does that mean?
Calculations place the next Conjunction to within weeks.
Weeks? What happened to years?
Because Doskias has interfered with the natural course of things, the intricate clockwork of the planet has been upset. The next conjunction will be our last. Afterwards, the planet will continue to speed up its rotation, faster and faster, until we are all destroyed...
There's gotta be something we can do to stop it!
Aye, there is. Doskias has the Keys that Marduk hid so long ago. You must retrieve them from the Heretic, and, at the time of the next conjunction, use them to obtain the power of the Core for yourself. Use that fabled power to save the world from its doom, as Marduk Prophesized!
You don't sound like you're going to help.
I was charged with protecting those Keys, and I let them fall into Doskias's hands. I must confront him personally; I will end his plan by ending his life.
Where can I find these Keys?
Doskias has them guarded by his advisors, the Magi.
I think I've run into them before.
Then you know their power. They have been dispatched to assassinate the Emperor, and are on their way as we speak. Protect the Emperor and retrieve the Artifacts.
Lord Gunnar, the Imperial Fleet begins its final assault.
My guards will show you a secret way into the Palace. Good luck!



Note that at no point were we given any warning, asked if we were ready, or given a chance to turn back - as soon as you run into those surviving guards, you're inexorably carried into the palace. And once in, you can't leave.

Fortunately, I knew this was coming and stocked up on healing items.

Just how bad is the fucking Palace? Well, here's where we start out:



Which doesn't look too bad, but it's a hub area; we'll be running back and forth through this area a lot as we visit and revisit the four areas it connects to. There's a lot of back and forth to open doors, get keys, and kill Magi.

And every time you leave an area, all of the enemies respawn.




Take the first left to end up in the library. We have to run to the far left and right rooms to open the doors to the staircase...




...which puts us up here. We can't actually do anything up here because the doors are locked, though, so, back to the hub and take the first right to open the blue door!



More running around, pull lever, open door, down the stairs to the basement...





Our goal in hell-basement is the lever that opens another door on the upper floor.



This lever, specifically, guarded by two Assassins and a Holy Guard. The assassins go down easily enough, but the Holy Guard, well...



BULLSHIT



MARDUK SUMMON



OUT OF FUCKING NOWHERE



All Holy Guards can do this, by the way; this is just the first one I wasn't fast enough about killing.

Anyways, Pull lever, door opens upstairs, doors open and close downstairs so that we have to take a detour to get back to the stairs and fight more enemies.



Also, we can try rescuing the jailed monks, but they're actually disgused assassins.



Our reward for all of this is ANOTHER FUCKING LEVER. Pulling this one, however, opens the door that gets us into the room where the first of the Magi lives! Finally! We're one-third done!





What ARE you?
I am all powerful, girl. I and my brothers are sacred Magi, raised and sculpted to be the fates of the savior, Doskias!
Doskias is no savior, he's a destroyer!



Selina draws first blood...




...and the Speaker counters. Protip: do not attack this guy directly.




Instead, wait for him to summon some glow balls, and then attack those.



You'll knock them back into him, causing them to explode.




This pisses him off, but not nearly as much as stabbing or shooting him does.



The fight takes a while, but if you want to see the whole thing just alternate between looking at those two screenshots for another ten minutes. Our reward for all of this? The Red Key! And the Law card, which is alright, I guess.  Actually, it's fucking amazing and a key card in the best spells in the game.  It cures all status effects, similar to a Ward item, except that unlike a Ward it also cures Slow.