Part 28: Thornication

Well, we got the Unicorn Horn. Might as well see if it works or not.



: I'm going to try using the most powerful Methodism I know.

Yet again, she opts to use Nurse. I'm not entirely sure why either; it's not predetermined or anything. She actually will use the highest level healing spell she has. Apart from Cure apparently.



: What's happening!?
: T, the Unicorn Horn's power... i, it's too great!
: Mint, hurry and get away from the Unicorn Horn!!
: I cannot!!
: If I were to stop now...
: The Unicorn Horn's power would run completely out of control!!
: If that were to happen, the Yggdrasil would...

: Father, mother... Lend me your power...
: Please give me strength!



You'd think this would be a bad thing, but...



It certainly looks like we fixed the world tree.



: this is no doubt thanks to your holy power.
: No, it wasn't just my power... It was only because of the Unicorn, and because of everyone's support that I...
: Don't be so modest.
: Mint is our one and only Methodist!
: That's right. Without Mint, none of this would have been possible.
: Thank you very much. With this, both the Yggdrasil and I shall live on for ages to come. However...



: It's probably safe to assume that this was all related to Magitech...
: I can't imagine that there's anything else out there capable of consuming such an incredible amount of mana.



: I wish we could have talked a bit longer...
: You have to remember that she's a Spirit too. To manifest herself in this world for as long as she does, it's truly incredible when you think about it.
: Right now, I still don't think we completely understand the situation surrounding mana...
: You don't think that...
: What is it?
: You don't think that Dhaos reason for continually attacking Midgard was...



: Do you think he has his own purpose for the power of mana?
: Couldn't he just have been afraid of the power of Magitech? After all, Dhaos can only be harmed by magic, right?
: Now, now, this is no place to have this kind of discussion.
: Yeah, I suppose there's no point in worrying about it now.
: Then, we're off to Thor?
: Yes, that's right.



: Let's make sure we're fully prepared before we set out.

Fortunately, we know where Thor is supposed to be in relation to other places in the world. It's just north of Venezia and that's pretty close which is nice.

Skit: One Job Done



: We couldn't have done it without the Unicorn's power.
: You're absolutely right. If only there were some way we could express our gratitude.
: Well, this time it'll be my show. That said, let's make our way to the Ancient City, Thor.

I can think of exactly one way to express our gratitude.



To use the Unicorn Horn from now until the end of ever. Like I said before, it's not necessarily Mint's strongest weapon but it is her best. The fact that it boosts defence makes it worth using over everything else. And, if you're curious, it deals Light elemental damage if used to actually hit things with.

Since we need to pass through Belladam to get anywhere from here, and this is really our only chance to finish a certain sidequest...



Old Man: Once upon a time, in an era unlike ours when...
: We already heard this story.
: The Spirit of the Moon was saved thanks to the actions of the Soldier, right?
Old Man: Hohoho... Don't be so naive. The story doesn't end there.
Old Man: Afterwards, the Soldier planned to once again enter the barrier. He could have remained in the world outside and lived happily there... However, he wished for everyone to know the truth about what awaited them in the outside world. However, before he could do anything, he was captured by the King. No matter what the Soldier said, the King would not listen to a word. He was charged with treason, punishable by death. However, since the Soldier had always served his country faithfully, he did not receive the maximum sentence. Instead, the King used his mysterious power to transform the man into a bug and sent him into exile. Watching all of this from the heavens was the Spirit of the Moon, who overcome with grief, called the Soldier to her side. Together with the Spirit of the Moon, he lived happily ever after. And to this day, we know that <<bug>> as the first fairy.

And there we have the True Ending to the tale of the Spirit of the Moon. It ends with Artemis being able to exist in this time era. Great...

Skit: Pre-Emptive Celebrations



: Yeah, the <<We Beat Dhaos Celebration Party>>!
: Rejected.
: Why!?
: We let Dhaos escape.
: Therefore, we have to go to our present and bring an end to this.
: But, I mean, we knocked him out of this world, right?
: Can't we celebrate just a little bit?
: It looks like there are no objections. Let's set our course for Thor.
: Hey! Ignoring people is cruel!

Skit: Paradox Problems



: I don't know, but even in our era, magic should still exist, right?
: Yes.
: In that case, we'll just have to defeat Dhaos again!
: You're right. If we can do that, we can save Morrison and Chester.

Skit: The Ancient City, Thor



: So how are we going to get to Thor anyway?
: Oh yeah, Thor is on the ocean floor...
: First, we should find a ship that will set out from Venezia.
: Once we get above Thor, just leave the rest to me.



At least this guy is nice enough to take us wherever we want to go. First Demeter's mansion in the middle of nowhere, then the Corroded Grotto and now the middle of the ocean so we can jump off the boat.

...He still charges us money for this.



Captain: Are you sure this is the place?
: Yeah, the rest of our journey is underwater. Sorry for the trouble.
Captain: Don't worry about it.
: All right, then I'll summon Undine.



: We need you to lead us to the Ancient City, Thor, which lies on the ocean floor.



As you'd imagine, there's no way to leave Thor once you get to it. Once you pay the 1200 Gald to come here, we're stuck doing this no matter what.





It has some nice super ambiet music and an interesting, albeit somewhat annoying, water effect at least.



: Is this truly the bottom of the ocean?
: You can see the ocean up above us!
: I can't prove it, but my guess is that we're surrounded by some sort of barrier that acts against the pressure of the water.
: Are we really going to find a time machine in a place like this?
: At the very least, the fact that Thor sank here was the truth. We've got no reason to start doubting Edward's research at this point.

Thor is both remarkably short and simple and yet stupidly long-winded and annoying at the same time. Right now, there's no random encounters to worry about and we can only go in two buildings. One of them (to the south) contains a means of getting a free set of 15 Apple Gels, Orange Gels, Life Bottles and Panacea Bottles... assuming you don't have 15 of each all ready. The only other place we go is that building just above us.



Inside the long since abandoned weapon store, there's this Card we have no apparent use for and no way of knowing we'll need it.



Naturally, we need it to enter the only other building of note.



: Could there be someone else here?
: But there's no sign at all that anybody still lives here, right?



Inside that building, we have possibly the worst idea in the game but it's not so painful. In theory. Naturally this means I get to spend over half an hour in this bloody place trying to get it to play nice.



The big guys in the Common Room are palette-swapped Jinns and just as unremarkable. If anything they're easier, because they have maybe a bit more HP and nothing else to go with it.

Anyway, the Common Room is why some people probably hate this place as much as they do. It's the only room with random encounters, and they're mostly not so bad.



You may have noticed a lot of doors along the top. That's because this dungeon has a terrible gimmick that rivals even the Tower of the Zodiac in "dumb shit you should never do."



In exactly one of these chests, there's the key you need to continue. That chest is random.



The key will fit exactly one door along the top of the room.



Again, which door it will fit is completely random.



When you go through that door, you could end up in one of two possible places. Fortunately, this part is actually predetermined and you will always go through them in the same order.



No, wait, that's random as well! This room is the room you want in order to finish the dungeon. This means it's the exact room we do not want just yet.



These things are the worst goddamn things in this place. They float just above Cless so you can't stop them from hitting your mages when they go zooming in to attack, but that's not the worst part.



In addition to seemingly Nullifying everything (just like a boss!) one of these Nullifications is either a lie or what you'd actually want. Based on my experience, I'm presuming the prior but I'd hope it's the latter instead. This bugger actually absorbs Light attacks. You know, like what the Moon Falx, Luna and Ray all are. What a fair few of Cless' artes are. What every arte of his will end up dealing if you have the Moon Falx equipped and it doesn't have its own inate element.

When there's one of these guys, they're not so bad. Oh no... you can get into a fight with two of them. That are one on each side and they bring friends as well!



That's probably the hardest fight to date. These dudes are fast; their Mermen friends that are one on each side have a fast multi-target multi-hit attack. The AI craps itself if something gets within a close proximity and will try to melee the hell out of things no matter what. Mint is set to focus exclusively on healing when possible. This is precisely what she spends most of the battle doing alright... because she's chucking Life Bottles around trying to keep people alive and failing badly at it. As smart as I keep saying the AI is, it has its moments where it all just goes to hell and you wouldn't trust it with so much as a piece of paper for fear of it managing to injure itself.



At level 40, Mint gets this.



FINALLY! God Breath is the much, much needed upgrade to Cyclone. We've been using Cyclone since we basically got Arche and we're now finally getting the top-tier Wind spell. Yes, top tier. This is the same level as Indignation.

Oh and remember what I was saying about the room you enter being randomly generated? For my trouble, I get this room over and over and and over again for about 5-10 minutes. Minimum. I think I'm starting to understand why people hate this place.



Hey, it's boss time. Alright!



Oh I'm sorry, did I say boss? I meant a random encounter from this place with boss music. Yes, this is literally an exact formation you can fight in the previous room, only here its scripted. Woopie. The 4400R's (small flying things) have, well, 4400 HP and the 2SH's have a little over 12,000. They both have a crippling weakness to Thunder. And Water too I guess, but we don't have anything better than Ice Tornado or Undine for that.



For beating the ever-so-difficult fight, we get the Diamond pact ring. It boosts almost every stat by 5; the two it doesn't affect are HP and TP.



: This device looks rather specialized compared to the rest.
Announcer: <<Main system initializing BioROM check.>>
: W, what!?



OS: <<Please identify your objective.>>

We get a choice here between either time travel or fully restoring HP and TP. We should probably do the latter first even if its not entirely needed; I get the feeling that the Not-Actually-A-Boss fight was just so we didn't get too banged up before fighting the real deal...

Anyway, aside from that there's only one thing we can do and conveniently it's what we came here for in the first place!



OS: <<Anti-gravity energy check. Insufficient energy... Restoration of city functions will be necessary. However, only the mayor of Thor has the authority to issue this command... The mayor's death has been confirmed. Processing. Approved. The system recognizes you as proxies of the mayor. Therefore, the authority to restore city functions falls to you.>>
: What the heck is going on?
: I don't really get all of it, but it looks like unless we restore the city functions, we can't use the time travel device.



Well, we don't really have much of a choice in the matter...

OS: <<Voice command accepted. City functions will now be restored. Warning citizens of Thor, warning citizens of Thor...>>
: D, did we just do something we really shouldn't have!?




We just raised Thor out of the ocean.

...This is also the only point where the Common Room exits to a predetermined location. It will always return you to the Mother Computer Room so there's no way of going outside.



: Still, what incredible technology! The whole continent was raised from the ocean floor.

This is a really, really good time to save if you haven't. What's coming next is probably incredibly obvious.



OS: <<Initializing time warp device driver. Anti-gravity energy check. Veryifying the energy charge required for the time transfer... Identify desired destination relative to the present.>>
: May 21st, 102 years from now. The location is the innermost chamber of the Underground Crypt!
OS: <<Voice command accepted. Scanning space-time coordinates. Safety conditions clear. Main process initializing. Please move all crew members into position.>>



OS: <<Isolating target space. Isolation of target space complete. Severing connection to current space-time coordinates. Releasing anti-matter energy... Wormhole detected. Baby universe verified. Time warp operation system - all green. Time warp start.>>



Well, I'm sure you can remember what occured when we last at the location we're about to end up. This time...?



: Do you really think I'd tell you!?
: Stubborn bastard... Well, it really doesn't matter where you sent them...
: But to incapable of sending yourself... your inexperience shows.
: ...Damn!!
: Hahahaha... This is where your life ends!!



: Oh ho...
: Cless...
: These are my companions and this is my world! I won't let you do as you please!!
: Hmph, we shall see about that.
: It cannot end here! I still have a duty to fulfill!! I will not be defeated in a place like this!!

Spoilers: he gets defeated in a place like this.



Time for Dhaos round 2. This time it's for real! Fundamentally, he's not that different from before. Inexplicably, he's gotten stronger since fighting him before. Given that he's just been released from a seal where he was left for 12 years or so, in which he was entrapped at his weakest he should be easier this time around... right? Well, um, remember how last time he had 30,000 HP? This time it's 45,000. He also has access to even more spells now; I've seen him use Ray in this fight but never in the first. He also has another unique spell now that he uses very, very, very rarely. So rarely, in fact, that I've seen it a whole twice ever. It's not even as strong as his laser attack or anything. Speaking of, that's now even more powerful with the same caveats as before. Really, this fight is just more of the same but he might take longer to beat I guess.

Also note what happens when you beat him here. Yep, he didn't run away this time.



Watch this sequence. (no, really, do it lots of things happen and they can't be accurately portrayed via still images)





Yes, Dhaos' already not moving body gets crushed by falling debris. Before the entire place collapses in on itself even further and he ends up taking a lava bath too. Well, that's our job done!



: Most likely it's due to the huge amount of energy released when Dhaos was revived!! All things considered, it's a miracle it held up this long!!



: The Underground Crypt is collapsing!!



: Morrison, what in the world is happening?
: Master Tristan, please hurry! We have to get out of here!!



Hurray, Dhaos is dead and there's no chance of him coming back! All we have to do now is chill at Morrison's place and throw back a couple of beers or whatever and then send Klaus and Arche back to their own time. We just did everything we set out to; what's the worst that could happen?