Part 46: Update 44 – Beneath the Clouds

It's that time again! As delightful as a Maria-centric update was, it's time we got this plot back on the rails, starting with getting the Delphinus fitted for Deep Sky.




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Seriously, I'll play a game that revolved entirely around fetching blueprints for Brabham just to watch his mouth drop open in gummy amazement.

What's this? These are plans to enable a ship to enter Deep Sky!

Can you use these plans to modify the Delphinus?

Darn tootin'! But it'll take me some time! Heh, I can't wait to get started!!! I can have it done in ten days!

Good...if anyone can do it, it's you.

Ten days without a ship? That would be intolerable, and in any case the game doesn't have any sort of day/night progression, so there's really only one thing to do.





Getting strong now...

We needed ten days to finish our preparations. Crescent Isle began to bustle with activity...



Won't be long now...

I can't wait to see what lies in Deep Sky with my own eyes...



Getting strong now...

We must reinforce the Delphinus's hull to make sure it doesn't collapse under the pressure...



Gonna fly now...

Looking back...losing Gregorio must have been the hardest thing Enrique has ever faced...



Flying high now...



Gonna fly, fly – ahem.

I should head over to the port. If everything went according to schedule, the modifications should be finished by now.

In fact, before we do that, it's time to pay a quick visit to Ryu-kan.



I require more sophisticated tools! All of the modifications that I need to make this area adequate will cost 4000 gold.

He's finally recovered from the journey and/or old age and is demanding money. Naturally, we give him what he wants.

It's good to know that you appreciate quality. I'll have my shop remodeled by the time you return to the island.

We won't actually see the fruits of this for a little while, for reasons that will become apparent before long.





Lower the pressure shutters!



The shutters are operated by Marco. Who is responsible for putting him in charge of my ship?

Start the submergence engine!

You're not getting a picture for this one because all that happens is the Delphinus starts moving very slightly up and down and I can't show that off in a picture.

Well, what do you think? We have successfully converted the Delphinus into a cloud-delving machine!

Good job, Brabham! Now we'll be able to enter Deep Sky! You really are the best!!!

Why thank you, lil' lady...before you go...I heard there's some sort of vortex near Shrine Island. You might be able to submerge through there.

The vortex near Shrine Island? Got it. Alright, everyone...let's get going!

Vyse...wait a second.





I...I must return to Valua. I cannot travel with you any longer. This will be my last voyage with you aboard the Delphinus.

What?!

Galcian and the Armada have freed themselves from the control of the Valuan Empire and are acting on their own free will. Galcian probably has some sort of terrible scheme planned. I must return to Valua and report this news to my mother. He must be stopped.

You...you can't! It's too dangerous, Enrique!

...I know the dangers that I face. And I'm sure that my mother won't readily listen to anything I have to say. But, I am still the Prince of Valua. It is my duty to go.



This cutscene has some incredibly clumsy soundbites on the part of Moegi, by the way.

Princess...do not worry about me. I don't plan on dying just yet. I will...I will return. This, I swear.

No...



Vyse, after we get Fina's ship, could you bring me to Sailor's Island? I'll be able to borrow a ship there...

I hope you know what you're doing...

This is the moment that everyone playing the game for the first time panics. No Enrique means no Justice Shield, and if you relied on Justice Shield as much as I did the first time I played this, that is going to hurt.



And as if that wasn't bad enough, we're now locked out of Crescent Island until he's gone. That's why we don't get to see Ryu-kan's updated inventory for a while, see. It also means that the only way forwards...is downwards.



We're not the only ones who've been busy over the last ten days, either. Dangral Island now has a huge rail stretching all the way over to a small island near the vortex. Which is where we're going.




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Yes, yes we do. I just said that.

I...I'm afraid I don't know anything about Deep Sky...I'm a little scared...

The world beneath the clouds...where not even light can reach....

Alright! We're going under! We have to find Fina's ship! Close the pressure shutters!







With the pressure shutters firmly closed, the only light in the Delphinus is an eerie green glow. Not pictured in this screenshot: An eerie green glow.

Start the submergence engine! Submerge!



And down we go...





The swirling clouds are all there is to see in the vortex, at least at first



Sometimes, you can make out strange, ruined shapes in the distance, lit by lightning. Ia! Ia!



Finally, the vortex ends. It has to, because we've reached the bottom of the world.



It really is. It's the only other place in the game to use the Dark Rift music.

The surface is covered in a thick layer of mud. Fina's ship is probably stuck in it somewhere.

How are we supposed to look for Fina's ship down here? It could be anywhere!



It is a device that uses the energy from Moon Stones to detect physical objects. You can use it by pressing the B button.

Enrique gives a tutorial on the sonar here, but dammit, that's my job!



Here's how it works: tab the B button and the Delphinus sends out a sonar pulse. If it finds anything, the squares around and under the Delphinus get filled in with a question mark on the map. We don't know which one of them holds something, so to narrow it down we can move and then ping again.



Pinging here also filled in the squares with question marks, so we know that whatever we found must be in one of the three overlapping squares. That or there's more than one object, but the locations are fixed so I know for a fact that there isn't.



Pinging here picks up nothing on the sonar, so all the squares are filled in with blanks, including the ones that previously had question marks in them. Now that we've narrowed it down to two possible squares, we can try delving into the mud to see what we found.





A piece of velorium, whatever that is. There are two pieces of this plus Fina's ship down here, which means a lot of empty spaces. If you really want to you can just dig up every square with the crane, but if the party weren't stupid enough to think that was a good idea, why should we be? They had the forethought to build the sonar, after all. But what happens if you do try digging too greedily, and too deep?







This happens, is what. It turns out that the Delphinus isn't the only thing alive down here after all. If you try digging in the wrong place, you get a ship battle with a Raja. Raja, as far as I can tell, is the Latin word for any type of ray, but confusingly is also the origin of the Order under which skates fall, and also for the genus of one particular branch of skates. Which is a shame, because that particular branch does not include the torpedo rays on which our friend here is based.



Torpedoes Skates away!

Rajas do have a couple of nice drops, namely the Soundproofing and Crystal Ball, but there's really no reason to fight them more often than you have to. Doubly so because Deep Sky combat is a little different to surface combat – not only is the turn counter blanked out so you can't see what your opponent is doing, but visibility here is so poor that cannons are just a waste of valuable SP. Skates Torpedoes, at least with Tikatika in the crew, seems to be unaffected. All the more reason to abuse the hell out of them, then!



I'm not going to bother screenshotting the second Velorium because it would look exactly the same as the first, so let's skip straight to the meat of Deep Sky.

Pull it up!



Jackpot.

We did it!!! It's Fina's ship!

Great job! Aika, hurry up and get it on board!

Aye aye!

Fina, you'll finally be able to get home with this!

Yes. Thank you very much.







Aaahh! What was that?!

There was an explosion off the port bow! Vyse! Something's coming!





I guess this shouldn't come as a surprise. We did know his ship was being modified for Deep Sky, after all.



I still haven't forgotten what you did to my ship, the Chameleon, at Ixa'taka! This underworld will be your grave! I shall have my revenge! REVENGE!!!

That was the ship that De Loco was building at Dangral Island. Aika, did you secure Fina's ship?

Yes, it's onboard already.

Alright! All hands to battlestations! Here is our chance to finally rid the world of that psycho! Visibility is poor, so it'll be hard to hit him when he's far away! Try and attack him from close range!



Vyse, Vyse, Vyse! The day for you to die is finally here!



Yeah, I think it's safe to say that De Loco has completely and totally flipped. Nothing left to do now but put him down.

Shame about his entire crew of innocent soldiers, but ya gonna do?



In a shocking twist, I'm not going to open this battle with Incremus. The reason for that is that there's a fun little trick you can pull with this battle if you're careful about damage. I want to get him to around half health, and two non-increm'd torpedoes should do that nicely. The items being used are a Gear Grease, for that oh so delicious 10SP, and the new Apo Wax that the Sailor's Island ship shop just started selling. It's Increm in a can!



Well, we could do that, or I could just keep raining torpedo-y death upon him. Yeah, I think I'll stick with that.



See? May as well not bother with regular cannons.



Still, it was more than enough damage to finish him off, netting us some tasty rewards.











Hehe...hehehehe...



MWAHAHAHA!!! This time, dear little Vyse! I've prepared something special just for you! It's not over yet, Vyse! I still have one last trick up my sleeve! Fire the De Loco Harpoon Cannon!!!



Sadly, any screenshots I can take of De Loco's knockoff harpoon cannon firing are either too dim to make out or completely whited out by explosions, so if you don't want to watch the video you'll just have to take my word for it that is isn't a patch on the original.







Nah.



And here's why I had to be careful in the first fight. If you get him to low health then the fight goes straight to the second half and you get no rewards for the first half. If you manage to actually deplete all the Chameleon's health in the first fight you get two sets of rewards, which means an extra Captain's Stripe.

Also, I should probably point out that I'm being slightly unfair to De Loco. He can really catch you out in that second fight because he tends to open by silencing you and inflicting Driln. He's still no threat whatsoever, particularly because with the ships tethered together we can actually hit him with cannons. For the record, the Chameleon has 30,000hp in all four fights with De Loco. Now scroll back up and look at that screenshot again.





Somebody help me!!! Somebody tell me this is just a bad dream!!



Nope. Adios, Admiral De Loco.



Yeah...but that was a tough fight. If we took on too much damage, we would have been stuck down here.

Literally did not get hit in the second fight.

Well, we retrieved Fina's ship...let's go back! This place gives me the creeps!

You heard the man. Time to get back to the great blue sky, because Enrique has a hard road ahead of him. See you then!

Video List
Deep Sky Modding
Deep Sky