Part 34: Defeat The Three Demons
Prayer
Jack's Squad have this really cool thing. They presumably made it with the stuff we collected. We cannot also have really cool thing because reasons. Just... don't question it.
...yes okay it DOES get explained later but still
Someone hired them to come here, right? Who do you think could be capable of going over the Joint Project's head like that...?
But they're acting strange without notifying us and I can't blame anyone for being suspicious... I hate to say it, but it's seeming like our relationship of trust had a pretty shaky foundation. Be careful, now. Don't do anything to provoke them.
It must feel good for them, having power like that. But there is nothing more dangerous than an overconfident human. Yes... they can be uglier and more frightening even than demons at times...
I'd completely forgotten he was even here, to be honest. ...What on earth are they up to at a time like this?
Meanwhile, we have a lot of new things to give to Irving. And only two of them are Rare forma.
...Hm? Is that...? Give that forma here...
Mind if I take a gander at that for a second? Don't worry, I won't make ya do the work. Help me out here, Chen.
Sure.
...Hmm... Looks like the forma ya got can enhance yer Main App.
Tell ya what, Tadano... Could you come see us again when you get another forma? Ya get other forma that works with what we got and put 'em together, then we'll be talkin'!So we can't do anything with the Sun Mirror right now. That's annoying but something that should resolve itself over time.
The Hexagram, meanwhile, has no such problems and we can trade this in for an upgrade right now.
Forma Search C nets you the toppest of top-tier random Forma. I really cannot complain about that.
It's also required to get some very useful and important Rare Forma, so y'know. Definitely don't want to miss it.
Speaking of sidequests, and new gear, we can have Irving make an Answerer Knife immediately after it becomes available from the Fairy Village. The sidequest doesn't even really save time in this instance; it's AT Forite x2, Flight Tail x3 (Rukh) and Tyrant Eye x1 (Balor) so it's really easy to make. And it's still terrible, so fuck it.
Hey look, it's the Abba Dingo but for Ice instead of Wind. And even later. Thankfully it's piss easy to unlock but not at this stage; AT Forite x1, Reaper Rime x1 (Hel) and Fallen Star x2. We won't get to see what drops that last one for a little while.
So we got this early thanks to Bronze Forma. You normally have to wait even longer to get to make this terrible gun easily. Why is this a thing that keeps happening?
The Hardwired is... potentially a useful piece of armor for Fornax. I know, I'm shocked too. The Ice resistance is generally useful for a variety of reasons, the defense is higher than the Belobog Vest (yes I'm still using that) and its Elec weakness isn't THAT detrimental. Good job, Hardwired.
DF Forite x2, Femme Spool x2 (Clotho) and Raptor Ulna x1 (Gurr) are all you need to make this so it's also pretty simple to get.
No new accessories, but we can get stones that kill things. Mamudo Stones are actually pretty good; guaranteed to go first and a base 30% chance to inflict instant death. As much as I would love to complain about this, I can't. Not really. It's just AC Forite x1 and Enigma Sphere x2 (Kinmamon) to make as well so there's no difficulty in getting a ton of these things quickly and effortlessly. I mean, I'm not going to but I could.
A man's gotta have character, class, and passion! Ya think Jack's squad has any o' that? Hell no! ...They ain't worthy of all that fancy-pants technology they got. If they gave it to me, I'd use it for the good of the world... for the people, ya know?
I mean, he's as human as the rest of us. I think we should all be cooperating. Odds are, demons are pulling our strings, hoping us humans will kill each other off! Malevolence and Benevolence
I think this is the first time we've seen Terry outside of his Demonica helmet. He sort of looks like someone took Dent's character model and just changed his posture slightly. Boring.
You ready, Hitonari?
Yes.> Terry used the ship-wide intercom
Ops to all crew! The ship will be plane shifting momentarily! There will be two shifts.
Commencing the plane shift now!
Just in case you thought they decided to not just play this scene whenever it's redundant and pointless, nope. They just delayed it this time. Thankfully they only play the original stock version and not one involving the Vanishing Point as well.
Silence
Plane shift safely completed. We have successfully entered their space-time location. Patching the camera feed through to the viewscreen. Fear
Well, there's nothing in these atmospheric scans that indicates any danger.
It's no use. I'm not getting any response at all. Looks like they have no intentions of answering our hails.
Hope they're not putting together a little welcoming party for us...
We may be required to contact them directly this time as well. Therefore, I advise we disembark and approach them. The team should be composed of crewmen they are familiar with to make proceedings go smoothly.
Please establish communications with Jack's squad. Be friendly and take care not to cause any unnecessary trouble. A Scorched Nation
Now I'm REALLY curious what they're doing here... Nice place they got here, though... I's air-conditioned, climate controlled... Looks like we don't need our Demonicas here.> Jimenez removed his helmet.
They've practically built themselves a resort...
Jimenez, something wrong... What's up, Bugaboo? Hahah, you're just nervous 'cause you've never been here before. Calm down, li'l guy. Alright, Tadano. Let's go have a chat with Jack.I dunno, I think I'd rather leave for a minute since we got railroaded into this without getting a chance to fini--
Alright, fine. Let's go into the HQ and speak to Jack then. Bleh.
Malevolence and Benevolence
Go home if you don't wanna get shot down like a demon! Why? This your campsite for demon hunting? Can't say I approve of your taste. We came to see Jack. We want to talk.
He's a busy man, y'know. So are we. I'm sure you have plenty of questions about this base, but you're better off walking away. This ain't Earth. Alright, I get what you're saying, but... You're not even gonna let us drop in and say hi? Having cushy digs like this without saying a word is kinda...
Don't worry, we won't get in your way. As long as you don't get in ours, of course. But you step out of line... Well, you know what happens then. You're badly outgunned. Don't even think of trying anything.
There, that should be all the info you need! You wouldn't get any more out of the Captain, either! ...Fair enough. Let's go back to the ship, Tadano.
...Boo, boooooo! Jimenez, him, lie! What the...? You need to keep your demons in line, man. If I was his owner, he'd get a pop in the... Huh? That sure is a weird demon... Where'd you find him?
...He's kinda special. I don't think you could find another one. Sorry, but no sale. Sorry to bother you. Later. Well... if you change your mind, the offer stands. And don't get any stupid ideas...Yeah, yeah, back to the Red Sprite... Although, I do wanna try to enter again just in case.
If you weren't a human--hell, if you weren't the investigative team, I'd put a bullet in your head! We got no business with you. Now beat it!Hmm, okay. Jack's Squad are a lovely bunch of people and definitely make Chaos seem like a very reasonable and sensible alignment path.
They do not appear to have any intention of disrupting our investigations. However, their highly advanced technology alone should be cause for concern.
I can't say I'm not worried about what they're after, but...
Whatever they're planning, if we escape the Schwarzwelt, it's not our problem... right? We have our own business to take care of. Let's get back to Fornax.
Stay behind...? What for? I'm just saying we could leave someone here to keep an eye on them.
Hmmm... Well, maybe so, but... Whoever we choose for a spy would be here on their own, without backup. It's a dangerous assignment. I don't know if we could spare anyone, even if someone was willing to volunteer.
Jimenez...!? You're not... C'mon. If no one else is up to it, I'm more than willing to step up to the plate. Unless you wanna do it, Tadano? Feel like staying here as our spy? Sure. Um, well... I don't really know what to say to that...
It's just this hunch I have... I don't think we should leave Jack's squad to themselves. Bugaboo thinks so, too... And I agree.
Plus, I thought it might be nice to kick back here instead of running around a new sector, haha. I mean, technically, I'm Blue Jet crew anyway. I'm not even part of the Red Sprite. You're okay with me doing my thing, right Arthur?
If the crew as a whole approves, you have my permission. You know... I had the wrong idea about you, Jimenez. Frankly, I thought you were a selfish, hot-headed ass. But you're willing to make sacrifices too, eh? ...Hey, hey, don't get me wrong.
I don't know if you're telling the whole truth or not, but... I'm behind you. It'll be tough, but I know you can do it.
We will keep in regular contact, Jimenez. If anything out of the ordinary occurs, send us a rescue signal. ...... I'm not so sure it's best that we send you out like this, Jimenez. I think we should come up with another way... If you got a better idea, I'm all ears, First Lieutenant Zelenin.
...Hasta luego, Tadano. I'll see you later. Alright, c'mon, Bugaboo! Buga! Boo!> Jimenez disembarked for Jack's Squad HQ...
Prayer
Well, that was a bust. Annoying but at least it was also something happening. Back on the ship, some people have updated dialogue courtesy of Jimenez's plan.
I mean, I'm sure he has his own agenda, but... It's still a big sacrifice for the team.
Although... knowing him, he wouldn't stand for letting anyone else be assigned anyway. I'll continue to monitor Captain Jack's actions.
Zoe's dialogue isn't updated, but Maebe has been replaced by Wolf so this is kind of obviously new by default.
Well, if he didn't volunteer, I would have! ...I mean, I wish I could, but if something happened, I'm nowhere near good enough to take them on. So I'll just keep my mouth shut and go about my regular duties...
Oh, so THAT'S what goes in that corner, huh? I suppose that makes sense.
And if anything does happen, Arthur and the Ops team will come up with something. Let's focus our best effors into the mission at Fornax.We'll focus on Fornax in a bit. First, let's go back to Jack's Squad HQ since we can do that whenever we want now.
Malevolence and Benevolence
I'm trying to lay low, so I'd like to avoid any unnecessary contact with your guys, but... Meh, they probably know already. But look, you can leave this place to me. Go back to Fornax.I have a better idea. How about we instead go everywhere EXCEPT Fornax?
A Scorched Nation
We DID get that Forma Search C so let's see what it gets us. Well, not a lot honestly. It lets us see and collect Gold forma which is a very small list of new additions. Nectar Core X is the only one we can even do anything with, it's a component of making Bead Chains(!), and it's also in every single sector.
It also sells for 2000 Macca a piece so there's that if you have excess somehow.
More important is that each sector has one X piece of equipment Forma.
It's either AT or DF; there is nothing that has both.
There IS an AC X but that's exclusive to one Sector.
We won't actually be able to use the equipment Forma to make anything for a long, long time. It's used to make equipment for the end of the end-game.
Thankfully, the X stuff is not what makes any of that difficult or annoying. They're fairly common if you can find a good place to search and you only need a maximum of 3 to unlock anything. They're almost all used for exactly one thing each, that is usually pretty good. As you'd expect and makes sense.
Usually. There is one in particular that is a giant disappointment but we'll get to that when we get to that.
The Land Where The Seed's Memories Lie Buried
But for now we have Fornax to go back to and deal with. Let's see what's down the middle path then.
A lot of corridors. Each floor here is just a corridor that has maybe one thing differentiating it from any other floor.
You can't see him, but hoo boy is he ever angry.This floor's thing is this one Rukh who tells us that Horkos is super-mad. Sure, whatever. He did get rather pissy when we outdid him several times.
B2F gives us a single Soma Drop. Exciting.
Who? Dude, the ancient gods who've regained their powers, that's who. Heheheh... There ain't no turnin' back now.There's this Kin-Ki who tells us that we have boss refights with a slight twist coming up. Which we already knew about. There's also an Amrita Soda just off to the left.
B4F has... nothing. I'm pretty sure this AT X is NOT fixed, since all Gold fixed forma is either Rare stuff for Demonica upgrades or behind hidden/locked doors. I'll take it anyway, though.
B5F does not give us a demon warning, but it DOES give us a healing spot and a terminal. I guess this is either like midway to Horkos or we'll get the memo as soo--
Silence
> You can hear a voice from somewhere...
So, this is a dead-end then. There's an invisible thing here, it's not on the map as an Enemy Search demon and it hurts us if we try and pass. Horkos has some clever defences.
I DID notice that I missed part of the left-side's map earlier, at this point. It was all from the rabbit chase so that's easy to fix. Gonna go do that real qui--
well i cant say i was expecting this but at least its saving me time later
Fiend Black Rider An Honor Befitting that Name
Okay, so Black Rider is "weak" to Fire (exists for Co-Op only, yes). He drains Ice, null to all ailments etc. etc. All very standard Fiend stuff at this point. He has 1600 HP, so this'll take a bit of doing.
He can use both Luster Candy AND Debilitate - debuffs all stats by 1 stage on every enemy. Thankfully he does not have Dekaja or Dekunda and he seems to prefer to buff himself a lot more than debuffing you.
Since he can't clear, you can mitigate his damage output. This is a basic attack. After one War Cry. (And one Luster Candy on his party but shush.)
His third skill is a special enemy only skill. Black Rider is one of two things to have Dry Sea. It's a multi-target ailment skill.
It's Strain. At least he tries.
In a diabolical swerve, Black Rider is the first non-Boss to have more than three moves! And one of them is Megidola! It's nothing fancy, it's just a base power 300 multi-target Almighty spell.
And he has 49 Magic.
So, uh, yeah. That one hurts a fair bit if you don't debuffed, and doubly so if you don't get rid of his buffs!
Glacial Blast is one of the better Ice spells. Its damage per hit isn't anything super fancy (it has 80 power) but it hits 1d4 times on random targets. Kind of better in our hands as a result, yes.
So, yeah, despite how I have a tendency of making it look, because the Fiends are so rare and can jump you from any ES point, they CAN prove difficult. Or at least Black Rider can, because he does new things and one of them is buff a lot and then hit you with the most powerful attack we've seen to date.
Tied with Zan/Getsu-Ei during their appropriate moon phase, at least.
His restorative is an Amrita Soda. Cute, but we can already buy 'em if we really want them. The Megido Stone is very nice for Magic MCs (except again 2% spawn rate) and Judgment Scales are used in a lot of things. A lot of things.
One of those things is Luck Incense.
End The Land Where The Seed's Memories Lie Buried
The other reason I came this way, was to get to the part of the map that Mitra was guarding. It was a one-way door leading to a fixed Forma.
It's not too bad, I suppose. I don't think I got AT II here yet. I don't remember; Fornax just keeps removing itself from my memory.
Oh wait, correction. Mitra was guarding a one-way door.
How did he even get the... y'know what, it doesn't matter. Don't care.
Just gonna casually finish the first floor map as we begin our descent down the last path.
So, yeah, how about that right hand side?
The Fear of God
New demons, hurray! Lachesis is simple and we have one even. Her source gives Luster Candy (and Phys Boost for some reason) so that's why I'm using her. She's also immune to Sleep and you can see everything else of note right here. I'm just disappointed there are no demon noises in SJ so she can't sound like an angry duck.
Gryphon is a bird dude, so he's weak to Guns. I know he's a Beast but he has wings so it totally counts shut up. He resists Fire, Ice, Elec and Wind. He's pretty fast, but having Agility be your main stat is dumb.
The Land Where The Seed's Memories Lie Buried
That's it for now. We'll see more new demons later, I'm sure. Even if it just Asura's truer true form. Remember when he explicitly told us before that Asura WAS his true form? Good times.
bloody liar gonna put him so deep underground
Oh and this part of the floor? Is a big, not-maze that aside from that one Chakra Pot is completely empty!
Fornax just does this. It just has big rooms with nothing in them and I'm already sick of that.
So have a Cu Chulainn who can instant +4 of his stats with Blood Ritual and then drop Concentrated Floral Gusts. Charge to go with that Grand Tack would be better but whatever.
Floral Gust is honestly REALLY BAD. It costs 65 MP for a spell that's exactly as strong as Garula but Multi-Target, so its slightly weaker than Magarudyne for more than twice the cost. And that extra 35 MP? Comes from it having a chance to inflict Mute.
A base 35% chance. To Mute. 1MP per 1% to Mute. This is not a good ratio!
Tonatiuh is a simple guy who I want purely for his source. Not for what it gives by default but because look at his skills. He has an innate Repel Fire (which if you remove for some reason drops his resistance to Null). He can Bonus Skill that.
and he bloody well better
Second floor has a dead man with our requisite sidequest box.
The main motif seems to be equilateral and reverse triangles. It looks like a giant storage facility for data.
There's memories of everything stored here... absolutely everything.
> The data is corrupted, preventing you from reading further.
You noticed how the Black Boxes have gotten less useful for deciphering what the Sector is supposed to represent? Yeah, I think whoever wrote them kinda forgot that's what they were clearly supposed to be for, as well.
Anyway, there's a door near this guy that's the only way we can g...
for fuck sake
At least Fornax has the decency to sequester these off to their own corners of the area. Left-hand room gets the most boring pit-drop non-maze, and the right-hand room gets dark rooms.
This is not a fair trade!
Fortunately, Fornax has the decency to at least START off by being sensible and easy.
Which is weird considering yet again this is NOT the first time we've seen these and the first time was way harder for no reason.
Two Magic Mirrors sounds very nice, and in theory it really is. Just a shame that in practice it makes things mad and then they just smack you with things that can't be reflected, huh?
Smallest of mercies here, but we're done with this area now.
And as a result, B2F as a whole. At least I can't complain about this; Fornax is kind enough to let us clear it out entirely as we go. Thanks, Fornax.
B3F starts us off with this. Well, alright then. There's just a Heal Spot here though; no terminal.
.....instead we get a fairly vicious dark room
Not because of any traps or extra tricks or anything. But because it's a big, wide open area. The mini-map is only a small mercy since, as a reminder, it does NOT map the dark room tiles.
The Fear of God
So, as a break from that, let's look at the dark room's enemies. Tlaltecuhtli is pretty boring. She's weak to Ice, resists Phys and Fire. Her skills are boring, and her Source gives Life Surge. And nothing else.
Grendel is a bit of a bad, weird mess. He resists Phys and Gun but he's weak to Expel. And he's 300% weak to Stone, Paralysis, Bomb, Strain, Poison, Charm, Mute and Fear. He makes up for this by being only 200% weak to Sleep. He's neither Oni nor Ares so he's still neutral to Rage.
Ose is good and fun though! He's immune to Curse, resists Expel, has Dekunda as a default skill, he's 50% resistant to Strain (thanks...?), Charm and Fear! He's annoyingly 300% weak to Paralysis and Poison. Also his basic attack is a flat two hits but with no added effects. Oh and he drops Fallen Stars if you really want that Blizzard gun (you don't).
The Land Where The Seed's Memories Lie Buried
......ughhhhhhh this is a dead end 3 tile dark room behind an easily missed door in a giant open dark room
why does this exist what does this add
Thankfully, there's some fixed form in the bottom right corner but getting to it can be a mite bit of a pain because there's no way of knowing it's there. Irritatingly, it's even one space outside of the search radius so doing the middle path first does NOT add it to the map.
Same thing applies to the one in the top corner. Thankfully, this one is right by the stairs down.
Well, I say stairs but they're more like weird diamond shaped tubes? Kind of? Seems more like a slide or something to me.
But that's another floor done and dusted. Can't complain about that one.
B4F starts us off with a terminal dead ahead, and a door to the north and another door to the south.
why yes i am already sick of these constant dark rooms
this one even has a half-dozen doors so finding progress is somehow even more annoying
What doesn't help is that each door leads to a small room. That has a staircase leading down to B5F. And, why yes, only one of them IS the right way to go.
You really pissed him off... Better prepare yourself for death, because your days are numbered.So, in other words, this area exists solely to tell us that we need to brace ourselves for Asura's wrath.
Well, that was a colossal waste of our time. What about this one then?
Well, there are broken tiles here so that's a good sign.
...Except whoops, it's a dead-end with just 3 Rising Cores in it. Nice, but that's it. We're done over here now.
So that leaves this one. I'm sure this one will be at least somewhat useful, right?
...I wish. It just leads to stairs back up that bring us to that conspicuous gap you probably immediately noticed on the map.
The one over here. That's stairs now. That's just a normal passage under the dark room for no reason. Well, maybe a sensible-ish reason in that you can skip part of the dark room but... it does nothing.
Well, at least there's slightly less doors down here? Doesn't mean I have to like it mind.
We'll start off with the right most descent and go left from there I suppose.
It doesn't start off particularly exciting, but at least a Magic Incense is something different.
Well, no it isn't. It just feels like it at this point.
So, how about this one, then? I'm sure this'll give us something worthwhile.
...Oh. I guess not. Just more AC II fixed forma. I suppose this isn't all that bad since it lets us make Mamudo St-- no wait that's base AC Forite, never mind.
So, this is the last staircase. This HAS to be the right way to go.
Unless I somehow missed a hidden door. But this is Fornax and that's not this part of the sector's gimmick so I highly doubt it!
Also, uh, we have the entire floor mapped out now so I definitely haven't.
Plus as soon as we go down that staircase, this happens. You'd think it'd happen when we entered the floor, regardless of where it was. But at least it's being consistent with itself rather than, uh, every other sector.
Just to make it really blatant, there is a healing spot and a terminal right away too.
Past a one-way door, we get a Moon Mirror. This is a Rare Forma of course, and it's a mirror with a celestial body name. This is definitely what we were missing earlier. That door's one-way so we can't just warp out right now. Guess we gotta walk all the way around and then we'll eventua--
In The Master's Name
...Wait, why is Horkos here?
Buoooooono! I found you, human! You haven't forgotten the day you slayed me, have you!? I, Horkos, will return the favor in my true form!
You will be the next sent to the land of the dead! I can see it now! The way you squirm as you face your fate! You humans drowned in civilization and came to enjoy yourselves too much. That is why you fear death so! You cry that you may not lose your pleasures! Humans breathe their last, unable to gracefully accept death like their ancestors! Fools... Muahaha! Tremble in the face of death! I'm not afraid to die. You put on a brave face, but is that what you really think...?
Now comes the time to unleash the power I collected as Horkos! I will not stop until I have sipped on a chalice of your blood! Reaper Orcus Vehement Rage
Eridanus was the representation of Pride due to the belief that we could escape, the Schwarzwelt could be destroyed, that Ouroboros was an unbreakable cycle. Hubris bit hard and all came crashing down in rapid succession: Ouroboros' revival was easily stopped by killing a few trash demons, the Schwarzwelt did not let us even come close to leaving, the computer simulations were wrong and nuclear warheads could not destroy the Schwarzwelt...
As far as the refights go, Orcus may be the least interesting so far. And, yes, I am including Moloch who has the novelty of coming almost literally out of nowhere and being a surprise.
He's still weak to both Fire AND Elec, he barely has more HP than he did before (2400 now vs 1800 previously), his only resistance change is adding Ice. I don't think he has any new moves or anything either.
Oh, but he HAS gained some degree of intelligence and will Dekunda or Dekaja whenever he wants. If he wants to waste a turn getting rid of a -1 then good for him. Keep doing that, Orcus.
He's aligned to the right of the screen because he spawns in Katakirauwa, of course. She's level 44 now, for all the nothing that matters. Still completely normal otherwise.
Orcus CAN still do like Air Dive when low on HP and all, but that's it.
He... gives a surprisingly decent amount of Macca and EXP, though I'm sure the Katakirauwa spawns affect this some as well.
End In The Master's Name
I will wait for you... in Hell... I'll have your coffin waiting!> Orcus disappeared.
Crisis
All hands are to return to the Red Sprite.
They caught Jimenez!? No...! Oh, I knew it would be dangerous for him to keep watch by himself! We are leaving this sector for Jack's Squad HQ to rescue Crewman Jimenez. I say again: all hands, return to the Red Sprite.