Part 5: The Castle of Overrated

On the way to Aran, which is the dot east of Rabelsk, I encounter a whole one new enemy, the Demon.

In addition to looking stupid, the Demon is surprisingly easy. It can cast Petrify, which would be a risk if it hits, but only one of them ever casts it and Wilme shrugs it off. I'm now somewhat overleveled, but I don't quite believe it yet.

Inside the castle. Notice that the crystal ball system is still in place. Random encounters are handled in exactly the same way inside as outside.

The enemies we face inside are Chimeras (who look more like ghosts, on the left) and Statues (which are fucked-up metal plate faces, on the right). The Chimeras can drain Wilme's MP, but who cares.

Still a little concerned, I decide to do a little grinding. I shouldn't have, as it turns out a couple levels make this WAY too easy and I'll gain a full level just walking around.

HPCTCHER, by the way, is a HP drain spell, and Wilme's only magical form of healing. It sucks, but it could be handy in an emergency. Hopefully I'll have a partner who can heal before too much longer though.

Down in the basement, I see two new dots on the radar. They're yellow, and they don't move around. What could they be?

Getting closer. I have to thread my way through switchback hallways to reach them. Notice that there's a big clump of enemies in the south and none north. Basically, it is possible to outrun the radar dots (they don't move faster than you do, surprisingly) and, if you can lose them, you can go long distances without encounters. They ignore things like walls, so they can catch up when you have to double back, but you can actually maneuver to avoid random encounters if you're good.

About as I suspected, the yellow dots are chests. They contain a few nice items. The Psyte Dagger is useless to Wilme, but it's basically free money, as is the Topaz (again, note gems instead of GP in chests; a kindly move on the part of 7th Saga's designers), and a very nice seed that boosts Wilme's Power. I also gained another level kind of by accident.

Up the stairs is the boss, Romus.

An interesting thing I noticed: You can't have a random encounter when standing next to a boss. I'm being swarmed by every white dot on the level but they can't do shit to me.

Romus explains his motivation for holding the Earth Cave hostage.

Boss Fight Video - Romus

Unfortunately, I'm WAY overleveled for him, and with the use of a B Defense and B Power the fight is trivial. My apologies. The way this is supposed to work is you're supposed to get wasted by Romus, then when you wake up in Rabelsk, an old couple will give you a whistle that drastically weakens him. But you can beat him the regular way fairly reliably at lv5, and I'm lv9 here.

I promise to get my ass kicked harder next time. To be fair though, Romus is supposed to be a little easy. Obviously, having high Guard makes a huge difference, especially since Romus doesn't use any tricks or spells (except HPCTCHER, but that barely damages anything no matter who uses it). Wilme's got 3-4 levels more Guard than intended, which is nearly double at this low level, so he gets plinked for almost nothing.

After that we get the stupid fucking Earth Key. Maybe now the citizens of Rabelsk will have interesting things to say.

Also, would you guys prefer I rush ahead or play it safe? The former allows for hilarious boss videos, but the Apprentice fights won't be any easier no matter what level I get to (and may actually be harder). Grinding is safer on my sanity, but a bit less funny.

Next Time - Rushing Ahead to the Earth Cave With Reckless Abandon