Part 6: Antlia B1F

Prayer



As seems to be becoming a bit of a pattern at this point, we'll be starting off by checking in on the rest of the crew.

I'd say we were damned lucky to have found that out when we did.
Your team should go investigate the energy signature. We'll do what we can to prepare here.
Now, if you don't mind, this job does take some concentration...



Arthur's okayed it, so I doubt it carries a virus or anything, but I'll keep up my own analysis.
Who knows? Maybe we'll learn something useful about Demon Fusion...
If I find anything, I'll let you know.



Listen. Don't be in too much of a rush to get things done.
I mean, you'd know that, being an elite soldier...
But you won't get much done if you're dead.

Tadano Hitonari... jakuten wa nai.



Hopefully there'll be a situation in the future where I can be of more use...
...Anyway, let's focus now on getting out of this sector.



Analyzin' the forma you bring in, then analyzin' this world itself... It all leads to a great harvest!
Demonica Sub Apps are ready for mass production!



Sub Aps have some giant flaws with their implementation but thankfully they don't come up for a while, so all that matters right now is just how useful they can be.

Also whenever we return to the lab at this point, there's a good chance of having some more/new Forma on hand which means Irving has a thing or two to say in relation to that. It just boils down to either "need more things" or "got enough to sell a new thing!" though.



So, let's check out the store right now. We can't make any new Swords or Guns with what we have, but we have enough Base Forma to see what else we need for some things.



The Sub Apps we can get are pretty handy though. Their names are... not always the most helpful in determining their actual effects. Also Size is very important but it doesn't affect anything right now so whatever.



We'll buy Lunatic because it's useful. It's also VERY MISLEADING! It does not allow you to converse normally during a full moon at all; it allows you to converse with most regular demons during a full moon. It does this by internally treating them as Unknowns. The good news is, this is how you can negotiate with Dark tendency demons! The bad news is, well, good fucking luck.

HP Recover I restores 1% of Hitonari's HP every ~10 steps out in the Schwartzwelt which can be useful but it's still not that great. We started with it equipped, which is why you've never seen it anywhere before now. Before too long, it'll also probably be removed and never touched again.



In the new items, Recovery Cores are used with a small bit of macca to make Life Stones. 1 Recovery Core = 1 Life Stone, and since you always find Recovery Cores in groups of 3 (barring one-time fixed forma spawns, which break all the normal rules)....



We'll be back to see what else is new in the Lab later I'm sure. We're not going to worry about the Sub Apps we can't afford yet for obvious reasons.

I've noticed things getting pretty dismal since the briefing. Good to see that starting to change.
Let's hope we can ride this wave all the way to the mission's completion.



Which is exactly why we have to go.
Opening doors and paving the way in the face of death... that's a soldier's lot.

A Scorched Nation



They just keep coming one after the other.
Well, let's try 'em out one at a time and head for the underground.

This seems like a good plan. We've finally got the chance to do some real dungeon diving!



We'll just start by opening up that shortcut over to the right.



Much like with Forma, we get a short scene that we'll skip in the future. We can even see it turn the door into an actual door, which is nice.



More important is this door directly opposite, over on the left. It leads us to new things after all!



Immediately, we get a fork in the path. Going right from here just lets us snag that random Forma we just found.



It's just more AT Antlite, which is nice at least.



Heading to a way that isn't just a dead-end brings us to a more open area.



Despite that, it's only got three things of note. First is this new forma, which is clearly used to create some ailment curing items.



You really shouldn't... Even the demons around here rarely go down there.
There;s a lot of tough demons. You could get wiped out in one shot...
I'll bet you 50 Macca you don't last 10 minutes.
Er, well, not that I have 50 Macca on me...

In a corner of the area, a Knocker just hanging out lets us know that B1F actually does indeed exist and judging from how he's talking, it's nearby.



Wouldn't you know it, a few steps away there's another door.



But there's nothing here to indicate any actual progress. Just a single Agilao Stone in a floating cube. Having easy access to mid-tier ST Fire magic seems like it's going to be useful here, doesn't it? I mean, Orias was weak to Fire and most demons hanging out are as well...

Nothing else here though, so we'll head on back to the entrance and head over to the next locked door now.



On the way there, a Slime drops its Mucous. Gross, but definitely going to be useful.



A Dybbuk also hands over some of its broken handcuffs. I'm sure we'll put these to good use too.



Our next door is one in the top-left corner of the map. This one isn't quite so useful but it's needed for like map completion progress (for achievements, you see) and there are some things here.



Granted, not very many. Just some Recovery Cores in a one-time fixed Forma (you can tell because it's 5 and not 3!) and this non-descript guy.

There might be some forma in spots we've already covered.
Let's turn over every last rock and take 'em back to Irving.



Hm, now this is different. Behind that guy is this door, but it's not on the map and from the other side there's a wall.

...This is obviously a one-way door. On the first floor of the Schwartzwelt. This is a good sign, I am sure.



Of note is that the door at the top still cannot be opened, because it's not an Unlock A door. You can tell which ones are and aren't from their color at least. Unlock As are blue!



Random forma en route to the last locked door gives us this. DF, of course, stands for Defence and is used as Base to make new armor.



We've past the final door a few times now, but as a refresher it's the one over in the top-right.



Past it is a straight line that ends with stairs leading down.



A few steps away from the start we can grab new forma. It's clearly assist given that it starts with with a race!



One step past that, just before we can decide to take that turn or not...

You can hear a voice ahead.



Why's there a human here...?
Well, that's not important now.
Hi there. I'm Pixie.



I managed to fend them off, but I used up all my magic doing it. I'm beat.
I'm hurt pretty bad, too... I can't even move.



I think you should be kind to girls! Especially faeries!



EX Missions are just sidequests. There are lots of them. We'll be doing every single one at one point or another. Getting a Bead at this stage can either be really easy (Unknowns love throwing them at you via negotiation, for example) or really tedious but either way you should still be done before finishing up with Antlia.



Anyway, we'll leave her be for now and come back when we get a Bead. Round the corner there's just another door leading to the next chamber.



It's a fairly big one with three possible exits that are all locked. For no reason, because they're all Unlock A doors. There's also a new terminal and healing spot here just in case we need them.

The blue dot in the top left is the Pixie; she's on our map until we finish her quest.

We'll start off by going through the door on the right here, I think.



Oddly enough, when the door opens instead of getting to see what lies behind it, we just get inky blackness...



Within the passions of the human spirit, none are inherently forces of good or bad. Anger is a passion. It seems negative by default, but it can be beneficial. It becomes Wrath when directed towards an innocent soul. The malice aforethought to inflict pain, or even kill, another is when is when it becomes a negative state of being.



Tell me something... am I cracking under the pressure?
An ice cave in Antarctica, sure, but... am I really seeing this right?
Have I gone crazy?
No, I see it too.
Haha...! Well, that's a relief.
...I tell you, the Schwarzwelt's just full of surprises.



It's hard to believe.. it was really true...
Huh? What was?



Oh right, you may recognise this general map design from that opening conference.

It seemed so strange that we all assumed it was a mistake.
None of us imagined they could be real... What should we make of this?
We're dealing with demons here. There's no telling what they might be thinking.
Is this their way of declaring war on humanity, or are they just making fun of us?
Either way... we gotta get out of here.
I feel like I'm taking my life in my hands every time I follow that damn Arthur thing's orders...



Alright, so this is the real Antlia basically. A new visual design gives us a whole slew of new demons (all of which are Unknown right now though, of course). If we follow the path around to that one Forma we can get too...



It's 2 of a demon's drop? Because it's 2 this has to be a fixed forma... Weird.



Anyway, if we pull a 180 from here and follow the path a little further along that way we can get to a door that actually looks like a door.

The Fear of God



This seems like a good opportunity to take a look at what's chilling out here. Poltergeists are weak to Fire, Ice and Elec (ouch), have no resistances and can cast Sukunda (Accuracy/Evasion debuff) which is fun but secretly not very useful here. I know, I know, but Suku just isn't good or useful here!



Kasos are not very powerful either. Weak to Ice, of course, but resist Fire so they might as well be immune. All they can do skill-wise is cast Agi so whatever. Oh and being Beasts, they're Neutral-Neutral.

Melchoms are a bit more interesting. Their only skill is Maragi, so they can hit everyone at once. Their basic attack can hit someone once or twice. Their only weakness is to Electric damage, and they... reflect Fire. This is dangerous enough the best of times, but Strange Journey handles reflect in a way that I both think is really clever and really stupid at the same time. You'll see.



Three more? Oh game, you shouldn't have!

Onmoraki are Dark-Law, because Raptor, and this isn't the first time one has appeared in a non-Unknown form (his analyze bar spoils that) but it's definitely the first time it's happened on-camera. They can appear on 1F as well.

Koppa Tengu are Neutral-Law, have no resistances and are weak to being shot with Guns. Their skills are a bit more fun in that they have Garu and Tarukaja (attack/magic damage buff).

Hua Po are pretty useful with both Agi and Maragi for free, and her Source even gives Resist Fire! Oh and she's weak to Ice and Wind. Also her base Vitality is 2 and it has a whole 5% chance of getting a stat point at level up which is... not very good.

A Scorched Nation



As soon as we're done with that, Pixie levels up and gives us 2 new mechanics when I was only expecting one.



At level up, a demon can of course want to change one of its skills into a different one. This has a relatively low chance of happening, though it does vary somewhat from demon-to-demon. Pixie here has a whole 4% chance of this ever happening, for example. The mechanics behind how skill changes work and what a skill can turn into are a little bit more involved but it's generally... a bad idea to accept, in my experience. If you like your odds, go for it I guess.



The mechanic I was expecting to come up though is this one. Sources are the big new thing about Fusion and are actually a neat thing that I like. It gives you some degree of control over demon fusion and lets you play around with creating fun demons without it being too boring. It also lets you get some wacky skills really, really early. This is basically why I like it. You'll see! We didn't get this before, because we couldn't get Sources until Arthur gave us the Demon Fusion Program.

You get a Source guaranteed at a demons level up provided its Analyze bar is maxed. Each demon has a unique source with 1-3 fixed skills on it, and it also adds 1 of its currently learned skills at semi-random as a bonus. Pixie's fixed skill is Media, naturally, and the chance of any give skill being added as a bonus is based on skill ranks. Skill ranks are simple, but a gigantic table (that also plays into skill changes...). All that matters is the lower the rank is, the more likely the skill is to be added as a bonus.

You can only hold one copy of any Demon's source at any time, but once you use it you can get another. It's just at a variable chance that's determined by the simple formula of ([current level]-[base level])*2% though. So if we used Pixie's source right now and levelled her up again, we'd have an 8% chance of getting a new one.

...Whew, that's a lot of words and it barely scratches the surface. If anyone cares, I can write up a more comprehensive explanation later when it becomes more relevant/appropriate/I'm in dire need of quick content.



Anyway, uh, the entire reason for coming out this way is for a fixed 2 AC Antlite. AC stands for Accessory, of course, and it used for... accessories. And items.



Nothing else over there, so we'll head on over through the one-way door that makes getting out quicker and head over to the left.



Taking the first turn we can, and then heading as far left as possible lets us snag 2 Patra Stones. These cure Fear or Sleep on one target, of course.



That's two, and Knocker's source gives Mabufu by default and Bufu as its bonus skill like 99% of the time at worst.



Heading back further left, there's a door just ahead and a turn to the left. That's gonna let us grab both of those Forma...



One of 'em lets us snag Hua Po's forma drop at least. The other's just more of something we already had.



Of course, if we go past the door to the far left we can grab 2 more AC Antlite. Just so that you're guaranteed it regardless of which way you go I guess.



Now with all that done, we'll head on out through the bottom door. We're quickly locked into this route via a one-way door though.

We'll take that left turn...



Which immediately gives us another fork in the path. If we go left again, then we get something interesting.



And by interesting I mean we find a one-way door that lets us out. Well, that was quickly a non-issue I guess.



Ignoring that for now, we'll head on over to the far right and grab a free Revival Bead from a floaty cube. We'll snag that regular ol' forma from the path above and then...

Prayer



Take a quick break as we head on back to the Red Sprite. We've gathered a bunch of forma now so Irving can make some neat new stuff for us!



Patra Stones and Dis-Poisons both just require 1 Detox Core and a small amount of Macca to make.

Poison Gas is an "attack" item that doesn't attack. It just tries to Poison a single target. It's not very good overall but it sort of has its uses because of item priority! We need 1 AC Antlite and 1 Foul Mucous for each canister of the stuff.



Armor is very important and of course we want some. Most armour changes your resistances, and usually adds a weakness as well; barring a tiny number of exceptions, none mess with our innate immunity to Expel though.

I'm not buying the Survivor Vest right now, because even though it adds Phys resistance, it comes with a Fire weakness.

As you may have gathered from the large amounts of Fire using dudes, that's not something we really want. Having a weakness (that isn't Expel or Curse) isn't super-crippling here compared to most other SMT games, but if Hitonari dies it's a game over so we want to minimise the chance of that.



New gun! We WILL be grabbing the Iperitta because of the skills it adds. With it equipped, Hitonari can no longer use Fire Shot but instead BC Shot (single target, light Gun; 70% chance to Poison) and Elec Shot. One of these is way more useful than the other.

Note that it also changes the basic gun attack from hitting every enemy once to hitting a single target once. Guns have more variants for their free attack than Swords do.



Lastly, we have the Heat Knife. It's a good damage increase for basic Physical attacks but we can get an outright better weapon not too much later. Heck, we could've gotten it before now (based somewhat on luck).



And while we've got the funds (from selling a few Chakra Drops and Revival Beads which are really good for money in Antlia!), we'll grab Hiroemon. It's not a significant drop-rate increase but it all but it's more than enough to pay for itself in no time.



Oh, right uh while I remember we'll take a look at Fusions.



It's pretty simple; pick one demon, it tells you what your results are from fusing that demon with everything else in your stock. The formula for that is pretty simple and not at all important right now.

Note that while some skills are potentially transferred over at this stage, these skills are semi-fixed! They're randomly generated from what skills are available based on inheritance rules (I'll explain later), however you can never reroll them. Cancel the fusion, retry it, same result. Leave the menu, retry it, same result. Reset the game, retry it, same result.

You CAN technically reroll skills by adding sources but we're not adding one right now.



Instead we'll ditch Pixie and Tangata Manu to make that Angel. Angel's not super-great but she'll do for now.

There's a reason it says success on the bottom there, and that reason is fusion accidents! Yes, they exist and they're both a major annoyance and completely irrelevant simultaneously. The chances of getting one is variable but it's adjusted by two other things: the current moon phase and are you adding a source? By default, you have a 1/64 chance of getting an accident. If you fuse on a New or Full Moon and add a Source (any Source) it jumps way up to 1/16.

I'm mentioning this now because until I actively want an accident, we'll be ignoring the fact that they exist. I won't want one for another... like 40 hours or so.



Instead, we'll just take this opportunity to look at new fusion options and be amazed by how absurd some skill distribution is. You can get Dekaja at level 9 if you make a Hamsa. There is no reason to care about Dekaja at level 9, but you can. We're not going to be bothering with Hamsa though.

...We'll be seeing weirder and stupider sooner, rather than later.

A Scorched Nation



Until then, we'll head on back to Antlia and continue along the main path south-east.



Wha?? Hey, rude!

Oh... sorry about that. I was just wondering what demons you're using.
Have your demons gotten stronger? They may be demons, but they grow more and more as they fight.
Looks like us humans are the ones getting left behind, evolutionarily speaking. Hahaha...
Oh, uh, sorry. I probably shouldn't have said that.
Anyway, go ahead and power your demons up all you can. They're working for you, you know.



Way ahead of you, mate.

Oh, sorry... I shouldn't be talking so much in the middle of a battlefield, huh?



Anyway, that guy then hands us a file on demon sources and walks off. You probably noticed the turn just behind him to the right here, but there's also a door in view straight ahead.



We'll check out the door first, naturally. It brings us to another open area, but there's something at the other side for once.



Got a chance to recruit a Hua Po while we're here. She's not super-great for the area but I want her Source!



That done, we can see that the new thing is the stairs leading to B2? We'll give it a quick gander I suppose.



On B2, we immediately come to a branch in the path yet again. We'll ignore the turn for the moment.



Heading straight on leads us to this dead guy. There's nothing else over here, so just remember that he exists for now.



Heading around to where we went before brings us to another dead end open area?



It does indeed. But we came here for this anyway. AT Antlite II just lets you make Better Things (in theory) than AT Antlite.



Nothing else down in that part of B2, so we'll head back up and head along the path we skipped past. Turning right here, since left is an empty dead-end.



Very quickly gotta choose between two doors. I'm gonna go through the one to the right. I just feel like it's got a better chance of being useful.



Or, uh, maybe not? It lets us get to a shortcut back out to the terminal and healing spot at least.



Taking the turn left from there lets us snag this forma that's apparently fixed. It never disappeared from the map which random forma do... weird.



If we take the southern path that you can see on the map before, it lets us grab 2 more Chakra Drop for free. Alternatively it gives us 1000 macca. Depends on how you look at it.



Back on the bottom-most main path, I moonwalked into this guy by accident. Oops.

The Schwarzwelt's a real pain... The deeper we go, the stronger the demons get. Let's be careful, okay?
Oh, yeah, have you tried out Demon Fusion yet? I can explain it if you need me to.

No, that's quite alright. I can explain it in way more needless detail than you could ever imagine, nameless soldier!



But we'll worry about that later. When we're facing the right way again, we can see another terminal just past him. This seems like a good time to take a break, since we've been running around down here without any real interruptions for a while now.