Part 17

“It is quite warm inside the mountain.”

“So it has a name. And yes, it’s definitely an improvement over the weather outside.”



“…okay, but only because I can see another exit. I’ve seen how stories that start like this end.”



“Oh. Uh.. I probably won’t be quite as much help as you’d think there. They still baffle me.”



“I’ve heard that sometimes marriage is like that. Well, at least you’re old now and presumably had a long and happy marriage before the magic went away.”

“What? NO! I mean real magic! The other magic’s still there, I’ll have you know.”

“Whatever you say, gramps.”




“Harsh, but fair. Especially after I just talked with a disillusioned old man who didn’t think things through that carefully.”



“That’s… great?”

“There is snail goo on the bottom of these shoes. If you wear these you will not slip on the ice. You’ll still slip on the slopes, though.”

“That makes a bit more sense, but I’m still not sure why you couldn’t just put snail goo on regular shoes.”

“Wait, how else would you make shoes except with mushrooms?”

“Given that you live in a warm moist hole in the ground I have no good answer to that question.”



“…and this explains the snail goo.”



“They get married, have children, and pass away in a year.”

“Wait, a year after they have children or a year after they’re born?”

“I don’t think it really matters. Also, aren’t you a bit astonished to be talking to a mushroom?”

“You have NO idea what my life is like.”



“I guess that makes it a bit better, but it’s still a bit weird.”



And for the curious, the mushroom shoes are literally shoes made out of spotted mushrooms. I don’t know why these are so prevalent in RPGs.




A few more lairs release a grandma and let us proceed on to the next section of the ice caverns.



The next section is a wide open expanse of ice that would be pretty much impossible to traverse without the Mushroom Shoes. This isn’t like other ice puzzles, which have cleverly placed rocks to allow you to move around.



The other side holds a Green Slime lair that is keeping another talking mushroom tucked away. The mushroom is tucked away in a side room, and releasing it opens the room and expands the caverns in the Mountain of Souls.



Next up we have another new enemy, the Wizard. They appear on the base plate, spin around, and teleport to a nearby location and shoot fireballs at you. You can’t attack them while they’re spinning, so you have to move in once they appear and try to stay out of their line of fire.



The two lairs above the wizards hold Green Slimes, and clearing them gives us a matched pair of racing snails to accompany the previous one.



Proceeding south we find our first Star Spike. These are normal, non-lair enemies who burst into 8 fragments when you hit them with your sword. You can’t get experience from them, however, so the only thing you can get from disturbing them is damage.



The area south of the Star Spikes is a series of blind pathways, one of which has a lair that releases a girl into the Mountain.



Snaking through we get the most annoying enemy of the Ice Caverns, the Bat. They’ll emerge from their lair, circle around you just out of reach of you sword, and that’s about it. Since you can’t clear the lair without killing them, you have to use magic. Some people like using Rotator for this, but I find Light Arrow to be sufficient.



A bit further along we get our first multi-Wizard lair. Some lairs will spawn only one monster at a time, while others will just keep sending out enemies. Once wizards can catch you in a crossfire they become a good deal more dangerous. A riderless snail dwells within.



After that, we work our way around to the lair we saw earlier and put another fungi into the caverns. At this rate, they might outnumber the people soon. Other than that, we have nothing left to do but proceed deeper into the caverns.



“This whole strategy would work a lot better if you actually stayed within the shelter of those crystals.”



More bats. At least they’re relatively weak, although trying to peg them with magic while they’re flittering about is a bit of a challenge.



Soon enough we get a route back to the Sky Palace, as well as releasing a Grandpa. The relative number of old people makes a lot more sense knowing about the life spawn of the cave dwellers.



We’ve still got a fair number of lairs left. As a note, this is the only way to really know the name of the area. Laynole isn’t mentioned anywhere in dialogue.



Looking carefully you can spot phantom bridges across some of the chasms on this level. You can walk across them whether or not they’re visible at the moment.



South of the invisible bridge we find our first Red Wizard. They’re slightly tougher than regular wizards, and throw three fireballs instead of one. Their fireballs also stay for a few seconds as pillars of fire that can damage you if you blunder into them. On the plus side, they’re worth 100 experience each.



Clearing out the lair releases a Grandpa and a rather unique prison. Just a bit disquieting to think that they’d need one.




Another wizard lair provides enough experience to push us up to yet another level.




Clearing the lair out allows us to access a twisting maze of ice passages and clear a few more lairs, releasing a Grandpa and a Snail. More importantly, there’s another item across a phantom bridge…



The Lucky Blade is our next weapon upgrade, and supposedly increases the change of getting larger Gems from enemies. It’s only a stopgap to more important weapons, but I’ll take it! It’s also a good place to break before we continue exploring the ice caverns.

Next update: Snail Races, new magic, and a bunch of secrets we’ve already discovered.