Part 9: Undersea Caverns Full of Robots and Orcs

I fucked up the screenshot, but that little dot is flashing red. The red means a Rune is nearby, just as advertised. All we have to do is get down into the cavern and find it.

A swank new dungeon. Chests abound, but this is one of those "multiple tiers separated by stairways" a la the final dungeon of Final Fantasy 4, so this may take a while.

It also has a ludicrously high encounter rate (primarily due to its design making it impossible to dodge or lose the map blips), like these orcs...

...and older enemies as well. There are also Black Demons, which can poison.

Plus there's treasure!

The encounter rate is very high, but this is the only level I've gained in here so far. I'm trying to push on without excessive grinding, but the dungeons don't exactly give you much choice.

More random cr- wait, wait, that's the Wind Rune! What the hell. I didn't have to fight a boss or anything, it was just sitting in a treasure chest. Well, it's mine now. Six to go!

I should point out at this time that the other Apprentices, despite magical teleportation powers and hours upon hours of free time, were incapable of beating me to a chest in a dungeon containing one of the game's critical (and most useful) items.

Oh fuck you, 7th Saga.

Outside, we can see the power of the Wind Rune: Teleportation! It can warp me to any previously-visited town, which is important because the world map is fairly linear all things considered. Warping back to Zellis to rest up, I forget something really important and head back.

And run into THIS fellow, a Despair.

He is a bad, bad man.

But fortunately does fall eventually.

Back in the cave, I head on to the next area...

...and get stuck at a rock barrier. Oh, right, I need to find the historian and bring him here. I could walk back to Zellis, but I'd rather just reset.

Brantu the scholar signs on for a trip to the ancient land of Melenam which I don't care about at all. He doesn't fight, but at least he's not an asshole.

Brantu opens the door, revealing a bizarre techno-paradise of a city. I was certainly not expecting this. Okay, well, I was expecting a dungeon or area like this. It is a JRPG, after all. But I just wasn't expecting it here. Interestingly though, Melenam has no random monsters, so it's just a free treasure trove. And what a trove!

Broken-down robots, techno-doors, and gem troves aside, Melenam offers up no answers to its past, which is good because I don't care. Also note that Opals, and indeed all gems, are capped at 9 like any item. This means there's a limit to just how much money I can bank, and it makes "trading up" for the highest-value gems essential whenever I get to a town that has a new type available.

Passing through Melenam at last, we wind up in an entirely different cave that looks just like the first one. Could it be that this cave leads to a new area?

I guess I'll have to figure out what Pison wants this time before I can find out.

Boss Fight Video - Red Pison