Part 27: Sector Eridanus
Alright, let's step into Eridanus. I'd say we put it off for long enough, but no that's really not true. I almost put off those sidequests but I have a system and it works so...
A Land Controlling Roads 
I wanna just get back and get paid.
It's here in the home stretch that we most need to stay alert. Overconfidence is the greatest enemy, huh? Yeah, you're right. I can't fault your enthusiasm, but let's stay focused. Right! Let's find that Vanishing Point and--
Did you hear that, Tadano? Zelenin made a joke!I know, it's amazing!
But anyway, Eridanus.
Right out the gate, it's different to everything we've seen before. Antlia, Bootes, Carina and Delphinus all started you off in a tiny corridor (in varying ways). Eridanus starts you out in the open.
It's doors are just normal, simple doors. Carina sort of had that as well to be fair.
But it's not just this that immediately sets it apart from the otherwise. Everything is green and looks like its actually living plant life rather than a facsimile of life. The area is referred to as a "Land" and not a "Nation" in the music name and it sounds way less oppressive too. We're definitely on the cusp of freedom from this place, and everything about the area is signaling that already.
My wife's a great cook.Not much from this guy, just appreciating the finer things in life I see.
Also there's a... Thoth, and not Demon again??, just next to the entrance.
The wind told me about you... About the humans that came to this extreme world of spacelike conditions... Still... to think you've come this far... I must say, I didn't believe you could do it. Is that the power of human wisdom?
That's right. Hoh hoh hoh...! Pretty confident in ourselves, aren't we?Considering what I could do with this Mayahuel I'm carrying around, I have good reason to be confident...
By the way... Do you know who I am?
I'm not as special as all that, though... I just know a little more than your average god. Now then... As the god of books and knowledge, tell me this... Do you like riddles? Y'see, it's my duty as that kind of god to test whoever I meet. Those who pass gain more knowledge. It's a little pastime of mine. So? How about it? Want to take a stab at my riddles and earn some new wisdom? Yes. Hoh hoh hoh... I thought you'd agree, my boy.
But first, let me explain how this is going to work. I predicted this would happen and gave a certain demon one of my books in advance.
You job is to find some book and bring it to me. Here's where the riddle comes in: I'll give you a hint as to who this "certain demon" is. Whether or not you earn your new wisdom depends on if you can solve the riddle. And now, the first riddle.
Alrght, my boy, now show me what you can do!So this is basically just a way, way less creepy coat of paint on the sidequests we've been getting from Anthony. Go to place, talk to demon, come back. We obviously haven't just gotten them from him but it's the easiest comparison.
Anyway, the thing about Eridanus is that it has A LOT of sudden dead-ends. This one has a hidden door that we can't even open yet.
But there's a lot more that have absolutely nothing in them. It's kind of ridiculous, really.
...Okay, this one isn't exactly the best example either, but you can see several on the map.
Anyway, the other major thing about Eridanus is that it's kind of big and sprawling. It's not exactly a maze or anything, but it can take a while to navigate at first.
Also next to that Bead is a hidden door we can only open from this side. That's... kind of weird really. It's not like this is any quicker than the other door we could take to get here.
Presumably from there, some of these other dead ends have something similar. Otherwise stuff like that empty one square past that door are just... irrelevant and dumb.
It also keeps up the trend of having Fixed Forma to lead towards general locations. Except this doesn't help now. It's more of a "hey there might be a thing here!" and then there isn't and you have 5 Recovery Cores when you probably already had 99.
It mainly just exists to lead you into more fights. Speaking of which...
The Fear of God
Toufei is, uh, pretty much exactly as he looks. So, not very good at all. At least his Source gives Garudyne if you really need that still. It also gives Diarama and Giant Slice so even that is kind of terrible!
Kin-Ki resists Phys, is weak to Wind and is immune to Elec and Curse. His base skills are a weird mesh (he has Fang Breaker! And Zionga...????) and his source is even weirder but consistent. It gives Ziodyne AND Elec Boost! It's basically Electric Inferno and I am kind of very okay with that.
Vouivre is here and she also has
Bai Suzhen is awful. She only resists Ice, and she is weak to Fire. And has a 300% weakness to Paralysis and Charm. And her best skill is Bufula. Her source gives Ice Boost... and Mutudi and Recovery Boost? Bai Suzhen what are you even doing?!
Titan turns up here as well. Which I'm only pointing out in case he ends up relevant in the future in a way that I forgot.
An Honor Befitting that Name
Let's do the Enemy Searches now as well. There IS a Fiend, because this is a Sector that is not named Antlia, but they have a 2% chance of spawning so that might take some work.
Anyway, Tlaloc has a 49% chance of spawning. 20% chance of appearing solo and a 29% chance of appearing with a couple Toufei. He's weak to Ice and resists Fire, Electric and Curse. He has no ailment resistances or weaknesses. His skills are Maragion and Zionga.
I shoot him and he becomes a statue. Hitonari with a Luck build is disgusting because Rock Bullet works almost every single time you use it. It's great. Get the Jackal. Do it.
King Frost always rocks up solo and he has a 49% chance of appearing. Yes, there are only 3 enemy search demons here. King Frost is also notable for being the first Tyrant that isn't a Sector boss!
Anyway, he's weak to Fire, drains Ice and immune to Expel. He has Mediarahan which is cute and irrelevant, because he does not resist Petrification. Or any ailment really.
He's a special fusion when we hit level 40. He requires both Frost Ace and Black Frost and is strictly worse than both of them. Cold World is kind of a unique skill; it's only on him by default but he doesn't give it as a Source skill (only as a Bonus). Two demons DO give it as a Source skill but they're level 70+ and neither has it by default.
Cold World is good but not great. It's got a base power of 150 (same as Bufula) and hits everything. It costs slightly more MP than Mabufudyne and is only worth using because it inflicts instant death.
At a 15% base rate. If he had a good Luck stat this might be worth something.
Malevolence and Benevolence
Anyway, once we blunder into what I can only presume is progress, Arthur chimes in.
An abnormality has just occurred in a crewman's radio on the field. There were no major problems, but all hands should be aware of radio conditions while investigating.
Maybe our Demonicas are finally starting to break down.
We're looking into the problem, but there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the Demonicas.
The magnetic field was disturbed by a large energy source...? Could it be...? Has the Joint Project begun the destruction of the Schwarzwelt!? That is not a possibility. There is still time before the operation commences. They will not begin without our signal. I wonder if it's possible that the energy source is moving on its own.
I just hope it's not another demon out to cause trouble for us. Anything is possible. We cannot allow ourselves to be distracted by unverified data. Strike team, focus on searching for the Vanishing Point. Fear itself is usually worse than what you're afraid of. Let's keep our priorities straight, guys. I'm not sure that quite applies to our situation, but... I'll agree that we do need to find the Vanishing Point now. Work quickly, Hitonari. A Land Controlling Roads
There's a terminal over here in case you want to, I'unno, have to make that long trek again for no reason or something.
There's also this guy over here, but he's not got anything exciting or interesting to say.
There is a set of stairs over here, but you probably noticed the other set on the map didn't you? The one in the bottom left. Gonna use the terminal to warp over there real quick and take off Medic since it's clearly irrelevant here.
The stairs in the bottom left lead over to this open area that has nothing in it.
There IS a hidden door here, but we can't open it yet.
Oh and I guess one by the stairs as well that we can open.
It's kind of a shame and a major annoyance that I can't open this one yet either.
Because surprise this entire path is nothing but damage tiles. I may have been a mite too hasty to declare Medic irrelevant.
Oh but wait, there's more! There are also ailment tiles here. And they put you to sleep.
Being asleep on the map regens HP at a much better rate than it does in combat but doesn't affect MP. Hitonari being asleep on the map means that we can't do shit and every clock tick the DP Indicator steadily advances towards combat.
This path of danger and tutorials leads to a Summon Stone and nothing else. If we could open those hidden doors, it'd probably make for a minimal effort way to this spot and/or back again. Still eat the one damage tile but that's not as big a deal.
I'm really glad it's so easy to have a ridiculous surplus of Life Stones, because they heal 25% HP and all.
Anyway, what about this tile? I sort of forgot to map it huh. My bad, let's fix tha--
Oh, this is new. This is very new.
It teleported us to some very different looking area. Still on the second floor though, according to the map.
There's a terminal AND a healing spot here, at least. The terminal makes sense, but the heal spot is weirder since we are, or at least were, so close to the entrance.
But aside from that one door we can't open, there's nothing else here so we'll take this warp panel in the top-right back to that tiny chamber in the 2nd floor from before.
As for the actual main part of the floor, there's just a door immediately.
And, huh, that weird white techno room is pretty close by according to the map. That's kind of interesting and cool.
...Okay, Eridanus does this and I don't like this. This is just a really bad decision and is honestly just flat-out not defendable IMO. It has a second tier of Dark Rooms because you just got the Visualiser so you're not allowed to use it any more. It was basically there for Delphinus 5F and that's it. Back to blindly wandering for you.
It wouldn't be a big deal but this one dark room is pretty big and has one hell of a complicated layout compared to all those simple corridors we got used to before.
There's those four rooms in the corners and two arbitrary and ridiculous ones over on the left. We'll start here I think.
Well, this ain't such a bad place to live. If you get lost, just trust your instincts and walk straight ahead. You might see somethin' then...Okay, so the top-left is probably the exit then. Gonna save that one for last.
The Fear of God
Pellaidh is pretty boring and bad. Resists ice, weak to Fire and Elec. His best stat is magic and his only spell is Diarama. Just... augh why is everything in Eridanus so underwhelming?
A Land Controlling Roads
The bottom left just gives us a fixed forma to help alleviate minor ailments. Although with the sleep tiles, this may help.
Man, I can't get anywhere in this darkness... I've just been walking forward. Hm? Just walking forward... Maybe it's not as complicated as I thought...Yeah, so that next door up is an empty corridor. The forma there is, uh...
At least it's potentially nice and useful. The last door in the top left is clearly where we want to go so...
I'm going ahead for another try. See you later! Gotta keep trying until we get the hell outta this damn world, after all.
Just past Jimenez, there's probably progress. We just have a set of stairs leading back down.
And now Zelenin interrupts immediately. Sure.
How's the investigation going? I called because I wanted you to help me out with something.
You're not far from my position, right? Could you come here and give me your opinion? Just go on straight ahead from where you are now.Alright, so that's exactly what we're not going to do then.
There's a door right to the left there and it... leads to a white room with a set of stairs? Huh.
Of course, the brings us up to just adjacent to the teleport-y area.
There's also an Ame-no-Uzume-no-mikoto just round the corner.
Hm? What do you want? Ah, worse and worse... to run into a human at a time like this. No matter! I must bring back the Lady Amaterasu! Hmm... a thought comes to mind... You humans can find hidden demons with those unearthly machines of yours, no...? I am Ame no Uzume, attendant to the Lady Amaterasu, the goddess of a foreign land far from here. Then I might be able to rejoin the Lady Amaterasu... Very well! I have a request for you, human.
Yes. Thank you. Oh yes, it nearly slipped my mind...
Should you cross paths, tell him what happened. His is the power to tell fortunes through Futomani, so he would be no small help... My hopes are placed on you.I suppose we'll be going back to Delphinus sooner or later.
Later. It's going to be later.
At least we can open a door on this side that gives us a convenient shortcut back here.
Maybe it's time I upgraded my Forma Search function too.I'm not at all sure how he plans on doing that, but this does raise a good point. There really hasn't been much Forma at all in Eridanus.
Speaking of which, just around the corner from that guy we find this rare Forma. Seems weird that they'd have this (obviously named after the Ars Goetia) and the Lemegetonite at the same time but... hmm, wait hang on. I wonder, then...
Malevolence and Benevolence
And here's the thing that Zelenin was talking about. At least I hope it is.
Thank you for coming. What do you suppose this is...? From the look of it, I don't think it's merely decorative... On examination, I found a weak energy reading. The waveform is... similar to those of the terminals.
Oh yes, and here... Some kind of mechanism is in this recession. Have you found anything that might fit that description? Any possible keys to the device? Yes.We DID just pick up that Goetite around the corner. That's all I can think of.
Really?! Let me see! ...
I'm fairly sure what we're looking for is in the Schwarzwelt... I wonder if we can find it with our Main App. Well... I'll examine this for a little while longer. You keep up the hunt for something that might be used with this. A Land Controlling Roads
So now we need to find... something, I guess. Well, let's get looking then.
The one thing you'll inevitably notice around here is that there are a lot of sleep tiles that... just exist to troll you. Like those down there that lead to a one-way door back in a loop.
I'unno, I kinda think that's pretty funny.
There's also just kind of a lot of sleep tiles in general around here, jeez. If you don't have Medic equipped, why not? Go fix that!
The Fear of God
This part of the floors brings us some new demons to deal with. Let's see what we've got.
Spriggan's an unusual one. She's a Fairy but she's also a Physical demon. Her Magic is even her lowest stat and has the lowest chance of increasing. Fancy. She's weak to Expel/Curse and resists Phys and Elec.
Dantalian meanwhile would explode if she ever looked in his direction. He's immune to Wind and Curse, resists Fire, Ice and Expel and is weak to Elec. He's also extra weak to Phys because he takes 150% damage from it. Also 300% Charm weakness. At least he knows Tetrakarn...?
Shiwanna is much simpler. You can see his skills and resistances here. His source is nice because it gives Resist Phys AND Resist Gun!
Sui-Ki is basically an Ice version of Kin-Ki. He's weak to Fire and is immune to Ice and Curse. His source gives Bufudyne and Ice Boost.
Basilisks are weak to Ice and Wind. Null Curse. Has an obvious gimmick being a Basilisk in that it really digs Petrifying dudes to the point where its basic attack has a 3% chance to Petrify.
A Land Controlling Roads
Right, so where were we?
> A crew member that looks like Jimenez is on the ground.
Malevolence and Benevolence
This is an absurdly stupid thing to care about, but I do appreciate that this IS a sleep tile. It could've been so easy to just not do that.
> You shook Jimenez...
> But Jimenez did not wake up.
> You punched Jimenez!
> But Jimenez still won't wake up...
> Try kicking Jimenez?
For some reason, I'm aching all over. Yo, Bugaboo, you know what happened while I was asleep?
B-Boobooo! ...Yeahhh. I guess asking him won't get me anywhere. Anyway, here's something to thank you for saving my ass again.
> Jimenez left with Bugaboo.
This is kind of a deeply ironic reward you got there, Jimenez. Like, very ironic.
A Land Controlling Roads
Strictly speaking, we could've just ignored Jimenez wholesale and not gotten those 5 Patra Stones but what kind of friend would we be if we did that?
Those purple tiles you saw ARE poison, yes. But you know what makes this actually amazing? This is just an empty dead-end!
Progress itself is probably over by where Jimenez was, but looping back from there was the easiest way to get to some places, so.
Okay, yeah, there's a terminal here. This is definitely the path to progress.
And stairs leading up to the 2nd floor. Again.
This part of the floor is fairly sprawling and sort of open but not really? I'unno, you'll see.
Like there are a lot of turns and intersections but not really any directly open-open areas.
There's also a lot of hidden doors. This is kind of Eridanus' MO in general as you may have noticed by now.
But this takes it a step further. This door leads to a corridor that has nothing in it. At all.
I thought this was the main path... No, wait. I've seen something like this before. Is this like that place in sector Carina? Do we need to switch spaces? Or maybe there's a hidden door somewhere... I'll look around a little more.
Speaking of hidden doors, this one here might be my favourite. Clearly leads to a small room, right?
And it sure does, but there's nothing in it!
This really does just feel like, I dunno, a D&D map designed by an overly eager child or something. A lot of the "traps" and things like this just give off that vibe and it's pretty great.
But this one is different. This one actually leads to something. I know, I'm shocked too.
Turns out that guy was right and there's a phase shifter right here. Good guess, guy!
The sanctum is pretty small and simple, honestly. It doesn't do much, but it doesn't need to do much.
The one thing of note inside the sanctum itself is that there is a hidden door leading to an open area. That is empty. No items, nothing to talk to...
But the area is super linear and leads to stairs back down to the first floor. I'm beginning to see a trend here.
Alright, so this part of the floor has a fair few doors that are all visible and none of them are locked.
I have to get home... My daughter's waiting for me!
There IS a hidden door here as well, but we won't be opening this one just yet. You'll see.
Thanks for the... vote of confidence...? there Itsumade. Appreciate it.
Oh and the top-left door leads to a 2x2 room of sleep tiles. And nothing else. This is so ridiculous that I can't even pretend to get mad at it.
Speking of sleep tiles, the last visible door drops us on one as well. Anyway, let's just wake this guy up.
Thanks, man, you saved me. Here, this is for you.
Well, it could be better but this might prove more useful later? At least we can use this one if/when the ailment tiles affect everyone or something.
Oh and for what it's worth? That hidden door seems like it's designed exclusively to let you skip these sleep tiles.
But there's a Soma here so you probably don't want to do that, at least at first.
After that though? Feel free to crack it open and ignore those tiles if you care that much about it.
A couple of Agilao stones is fairly underwhelming at this point, to be honest. It wouldn't be too bad for a Magic MC in theory but he would be falling far, far behind in damage output at this point anyway so.
South of there is a shortcut to let us get back here quickly if/when we need to. Eridanus is really beginning to feel a lot like, I dunno, an Etrian Odyssey stratum rather than a usual sector and I am super okay with that.
Door to the left there leads us back to a white area with stairs heading on up.
This brings us back to the large open spot on the second floor but... now we've been everywhere we CAN and we just basically went in a giant circle. We didn't even find a thing that could be used as a key for that spider not-terminal. I suppose the Goetite will help with that after all.