Part 19

Heading back into the caverns, this is an example of the effects of a Spike Statue that’s just out of reach. The twinkles around Metatron are spikes that will injure us if we walk into them. Pausing in place will let them fade.



The next area is a set of loosely connected islands with monster lairs at the end of each branch. The general rule is that each lair opens up another avenue to move forward. We also release a mushroom who is imprisoned back at the Mountain of Souls.



Teleporting wizards combined with green slimes can result in them ganging up on you, even if you can’t see the lair the wizards are coming from.



Moving on we can use magic to wipe out some of the Spike Statues using magic and proceed to reveal a teleport square to send us back to the Sky Palace. This is a welcome chance to restore HP, as it’s easy to take a few hits on the way through here.



Clearing another lair and making our way around the pathway releases a Grandma near a dead end in the caverns as well as opening up another lair.



For the curious, this is what a Red Wizard’s flame attack looks like when it’s sticking around after firing.




Another example of multiple wizards popping out of a lair, as well as a weird example of a number of green slimes that are arranged in a straight line for easier killing. Clearing the lair releases a second Grandma right across from the next one.



“You’re actually the first people to even mention that you HAVE a king. I guess he’s not that big of a deal.”



For an encore, we enter the dreams of a sentient mushroom. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but this is a very strange game.



“The mountain winds carried my spores and now we live there.”

“So… are all mushrooms really one mushroom, when it comes right down to it?”

“Are you saying that we all look the same to you?”

“Umm… yes. You certainly do.”

“Fair enough. The only reason I can tell you apart from everybody else around here is that you’re taller.”



Walking around too much in the dream will kick us right out, but that’s not why we’re really here. As is so often the case, just visiting the dream and talking to the dreamer changes things in the waking world.



With nothing else to do, we have to return to the caverns. Clearing this lair releases a snail in an area that isn’t immediately reachable, but more on that momentarily.



Addressing the mushroom dream, going to the waking world area where we talked with that mushroom gets us another Emblem for our collection. We’re actually getting pretty close to collecting them all.




Going back to the Caverns there’s a hidden passage south of the exit, which we can walk through to meet the snail we just released and get yet another Emblem.



I mentioned the Rotator spell earlier. This is pretty much what it looks like, although it’s something that communicates well in images. Basically it circles around for as long as you hold down the magic button. Anyway, we’ve pretty much cleared this area so there’s only one thing left:



“Sweet Lord Godjesus, if the ice is to keep something this ugly penned up then I’m never complaining about the cold again.”

“You’re wel… wait, how in My name did he get into an underground lake? That’s not where you’re supposed to be!”

For some unfathomable reason, our boss in this underground ice cavern is Poseidon. You’d think he’d have fit in a bit more in the ocean, but who are we to judge? That green life bar isn’t just a screenshot catching at a weird moment, either. That’s how the game depicts a life bar that’s longer than the screen can depict. Eventually it’ll shift down into a normal blue and start to decrease the way previous bosses have.




As for his attack pattern, it’s not terribly complicated. He’ll pop out and swap his spear back and forth between his hands and then fire three fire darts, then close in an start stabbing. There’s not that much you can do other than just close dodge the fireballs and then close in and get as many hits as possible before he pulls away.



Once he backs up he’ll shoot out two fireballs that curve around and then dart toward the center. Once they’ve curved and are coming at you, you can either step forward or back to avoid them.




Repeat as necessary, using a medical herb, until complete. Beating him gets us a paltry 500 experience points, which is enough to push us up to level 17 at the same time. The EXP requirement is really starting to curve up drastically at this point.



Oh, and we also released the king. Not like he’s important or anything. The two grandmas we released later are outside of his door and pretty much rush in as soon as the wall disappears.



“Er… don’t you mean eight emblems? Because I’ve got like five or six to them right here.”

“Nope, the three symbols. Completely different.”

“…I’ll keep my eyes open. Can you tell me what the symbols look like?”

“Oh no, only the king can tell you that.”

“Obviously.”



“Yeah, about that… I mean, what did he do?”

“I would not trust all of the things Nome was saying. He told me monsters would invade our town. I put him in prison.”

“Did he tell you about anything you could do to stop the monsters? Cause if he just gave you a warning that you couldn’t do anything about that was still kind of a jerk move.”



“Not so fast, what’s this about the Master’s three symbols?”

“Oh yes yes yes yes. The Red-Hot Mirror, the Red-Hot Ball, and the Red-Hot Stick. Whoever gathers them will inherit the strongest power.”

“That’s a completely random series of objects, but at least they’ll be easy to recognize.”




“Why are you in here, anyway?”

“Mistakes were made. We’ll just leave it at that.”

“I think I might be happier not knowing.”

The bars are gone from Gnome jail, and the occupants are willing to talk. From this, you can probably guess that we’ll be getting our metal cutting sword soon since we’ll need it to progress past the next area.



“Great, can you tell me a bit more about him?”

“Dr. Leo was asked by King Magridd to build a machine that would call upon evil. Because he refused, he was taken to Magridd castle.”

“That explains… well, a bit about what happened. Any idea why the king wanted a machine that called on evil?”

“Search me. He… Dr. Leo, that is… gave us four stones and told us to run away. Those stones are keys to the World of Evil.”




“I’ll get right on that. Do you mean hurry relative to a snail’s pace, or anyone else’s?”

“That’s speciesist, you know. I could be pretty fast.”

“Sorry, I’m sure you could.”



Next up: the broken down laboratory, somehow in a giant desert all by itself. And yes, that is approximately to scale.