Part 79: Chapter LXX - The order of the world must not be changed
The order of the world must not be changed -OR- Seeker of the Ancient Path, Part 2
Last Time:
To get the first of two bonus quests started, head over to Melphina’s tavern. There’s a Yama with a red bubble.Music: A Friendly Ear
Nope.
The Imperator was rumored to have his hands on the art. Evidence of this was found even at some ruins. But just as we were about to discover the truth, the soldiers I hired to protect me began getting slaughtered one by one. I eat danger for breakfast! Thank you. The area I speak of is Siebenbur’s First Path. Good luck to you.
Music: Labyrinth
We’ve already cleared out two of the boss fights, so there are two more to go. We’re starting at the middle dot where the second fight ended, and heading for the lower-right dot.
Not much to say on the union front. I put Emmy back in charge now that Glenys has learned Rejuvenating Water.
There are a bunch of one-way slopes to slide down.
Near the final boss, I found the rare Homunculus “Suicide”. It died fast and wasn’t that threatening. It made for a boring video, so forget it.
learned 
Orphic Ward II!
learned 
Nimble Thunderclap III!
And here’s the third fight.
Magick… A cherished one living within… Found not even at the end of an infinite road.
Defeat the Enemy!Music: Beat the Odds
- Boss Video: The Tested (Oculus)
This time, the Tested we’ll be facing are Oculi. They tend to be tougher than Demons, but nowhere close to as tough as Spiritlords. So this shouldn’t be too much trouble.
Come on, let’s kick some A!
These guys like to use Switch, which lowers morale, and does some damage to each unit in a union.
Which can be pretty devastating.
Look sharp! Face these fiends with all you’ve got! Three/fifths of the party are at half health. Only Emmy’s Squad, which held back to heal, and Kate’s Pack, who were healed by Emmy are doing okay. That means that we’ll have to keep up our HP for the most part.
Wait, I still gotta… The eyeballs aren’t as dangerous as the Spiritlords, but they can’t be taken lightly.
Between Gaou healing last turn’s damage and Irina this turn’s, I was only able to do 1439 damage. I will definitely want to try and focus these guys down one at a time to free up enough unions to handle healing.
Emmy will have to bring Rush back. Torgal’s squad will break away from B to pile onto the wounded Tested C.
Gabriel knocks contestant C into critical. And Torgal’s about to move the morale in our favor as well.
Only taking 1/3 damage from the Discharge is helpful as well.
Music: Struggle Eternal
Three unions are already piled onto the critical Tested C, and the other two are free, so I’ll have them engage the other two Oculi to keep them from flanking. Jager will heal anyone hurt, and Torgal will heal himself.
Spoilers: Irina’s physical damage still sucks.
One down, which makes things quite a bit easier.Music: Turn the Tide
This shouldn’t be too much longer.
Interesting…
Jager and Allan crush their marks into critical health.
Yeah! This is our big chance!
learned 
Snare Shot! class changed to Bishop!
learned 
Cutting Lunge! And that does it. Three fights down.Music: Labyrinth
At this point, the quest isn’t over. So where to next? In the bottom part of the map is a yellow line indicating a map transition. We’re heading deeper into the Final Fortress.
There’s not much too this.
There are a few enemies between us and the door to the inner chamber, but I’m going to try to ignore them and get this chest. It has a couple accessories in it.
Hey it’s this room again… but something seems different here.
You think maybe it’s that big glowing seal thing? No… that’s not it… Magick… Born from the pit of darkness… It is the undeniable truth of the world’s order. Mission: Defeat the Charged Idol!Music: Beat the Odds
- BOSS Video: Charged Idol
For the first time, there is a completely unique enemy in a sidequest. In all other sidequests, even the boss enemies were used elsewhere. The Charged Idol is most definitely something we’ve never seen before, and something we will not* see again. It is accompanied by two Death oculi unions and two Hypnos unions. It’s a good idea to clear out the trash first so they don’t get in your way.
At the start of the first turn, the Charged Idol does the move Fulgurate. This does nothing now, but it means it’s charging up for a special attack.
This fails, fortunately, because it sucks hard when a union of yours gets charmed.
The Silent Gas cancels out the Bluff V I was counting on to boost morale.
This is not a “casts this on the first turn but never again” thing like the Spiritlords, the Charged Idol can cast this at any union in deadlock if it feels like it.
Everywhere we go, slime like you are creepin’ around!
Get ready to be taken down! Not dying is more important than lowering morale, although I still would like to do more of that too. It’ll take a couple turns before I’ll get enough AP to finish off the other guys.
Thank you. I had set Darian back to grinding Eye Cream and not using Restore. Unfortunately, Eye Cream only heals 250 HP per unit.
Impossible… And that just wasn’t enough to not die.
So after two turns, Emmy is dead, Torgal is cursed, and Rush and Jager are at half health, and only one of the enemy unions is at half health. I send Rush to cure Torgal’s curse and heal them (and himself). Kate’s union has the health to handle a raidlock, so they’ll bring back Emmy, Jager will keep his HP up, and Torgal will full attack, since it doesn’t matter.
Emmy and Torgal get resurrected on schedule.
Ch-chill, guys! We gotta stay cool!
Since the minions are not going down easily, I’m going to focus them down. Rush will use his ninja skills to perform a Rear Assault on Hypnos D. Emmy will try to prevent the Charged Idol from flanking anyone else, Kate will pile on Hypnos D, Jager will keep his HP up versus Hypnos E, and Torgal will unleash a full attack on Death B.
I finally managed to land a critical chain.
All right! These guys are slippery and dodge a lot of physical attacks, which makes the effort of trying to take them down even more obnoxious.
Oculus C uses the Smoke Canister hex from long range.
A well-timed Block + Shield Bash from Gabriel saves his bacon, but also adds 6510 damage onto the pile.
Hmmm… not bad.
Come on, we’ve caught ‘em with their pants down!
About time something went right for us. The Charged Idol tries to curse Jager’s union, but it resists the effect completely (thanks to Irina, maybe?).
Hunter’s Claw is a unique physical attack by the Charged Idol. It’s not the big gun, though.
This is.
That did pretty substantial damage, but it could have been worse. Now we get a music change, but a special one.Music: The Gates of Hell
Immediately after unleashing the Tempest Insignia, it starts to charge up another one. And there are still three enemy unions left. I was trying to go for a Rejuvenating Water here…
But after the battle where Glenys learned it, I disabled Darien’s Remedy spell, which means that Emmy can’t perform it here through the force method.
Charlotte… Mystic Mine is the highest-level Evocation spell. This one did 4008 HP, more than enough to one-shot Rush’s union from full health.
Two unions down, our morale is at minimum, and the boss is charging a special. I have to bring the dead unions back. Even though our morale is low, the Gates of Hell music continues.
I survived this, but only barely.
Aah! Impossible… You punks are just askin’ for it, huh? Status report: We’re fucked.
Was I really… dead? Even though Glenys and Jager’s unions are at full now, we’re still fucked.
Reya…
Yep. We’re now in a 3 dead/2 healthy situation, but it’s still bad. I have no choice but to try to save the dead unions.
But the Charged Idol is fast enough that I get Intercepted and Raidlocked on the way to bring someone back, which puts me in low health AND fails to revive anyone. This is your classic death spiral, and while I’ll try to play it out, I know that it can only end in one way.
Torgal was already KO’ed when this happened.
After a turn or two, I attempted to try and get out of the spiral by taking down the Oculi.
But there was nothing I could do. We haven’t seen that Game Over screen in a while. I thought that I should show off that this fight is not an easy one. I needed to change things up a bit. - Video: First Path – Final Fortress fight
So I went back and linked together all five of the unions who were in front of the door leading to the Charged Idol fight. You can watch that on video, but I don’t have the budget to show it in screenshots. The fight itself is not important. learned 
Paralyze Gas II!
What is (somewhat) important is that a whopping fourteen of our eighteen units gained some HP after that battle was over. I also made a point to disable Eye Cream for Darien, and put Restore back, so I will be able to force a Rejuvenating Water if circumstances allow. So, let’s try this again.Music: Beat the Odds
- BOSS Video: Charged Idol (Success)
My tactics failed last time, so I’m not going to do it the same way. This time, I’m ignoring the Idol, and will be focusing on taking down the Hypnos as fast as possible. Smash ‘em from the sides!
This was already a lot more effective than spreading out all my unions. Even better, by not targeting the Idol, it tried to flank instead of doing a Fulgurate.
A spectacular critical chain Dispirit did 22k damage and sent that union all the way to critical on turn 1.
Plus, Torgal moved the morale in the right direction.
Do it like that every time!
Yeah, this is our big chance! We’re already doing much better, even with Rush in critical health. He will break to heal. Emmy and Kate will head for Oculus B, while Jager and Torgal try to finish off the last Hypnos union.
The Death is at half health from just one union’s attack. This is the benefit of having high morale. By this point, the game expects you to know how to manipulate morale, and you really should take advantage of it.
There, that’s one more nuisance eliminated.
High morale also increases the odds of getting critical triggers, and moving up in the turn order is really useful at times, like now. That Dispirit will kill us when it goes off, but if I can get a full attack round in before, it’ll be worth it.
Look who’s here.
I am Lord Paris of Balterossa! Huh? (Psst. Royotia.) (Errrr, right.) The scriptwriters missed that one when recording the audio! Rush and Jager will be fighting Oculus B, Emmy will cure her poisoning, and Torgal will keep the Charged Idol busy by defending against them. Kate will stay dead another turn.
The Oculus’s attack was blocked, Emmy cleared the poisoning, Glenys has just knocked it into critical, and Darien’s about to do a weak Restore to heal a bit of health. A productive turn for this union.Music: Turn the Tide
I’ll take advantage of the high morale and will use both the special attacks. Emmy will assist Rush in finishing off Death B, Jager will bring Kate back. Torgal will unleash Lugh’s Revenge on the boss.
Oh ho!
Remnant! Obey my command!
It’s just the boss left now.This fight is going spectacularly better than the last attempt. I don’t think it’s just because of the increased health. I think the changed tactics was greatly responsible for this, which is why I wanted to show off the failure version of the fight.
I’m definitely getting Rush out of that “impotent leader” formation.
When your morale is all the way up, you have a very high chance of getting Critical Triggers, which lets you chain together even more critical hits.
I can’t believe this!
I have Rush break to heal because he needs it, but also, it will take him out of Deadlock, which means that there’s the chance that he could get the “Hit ‘em from behind” command at the start of the next turn.
Farewell… cruel world…
Music: The Gates of Hell
No Rear assault command, so Rush is going to kill Emmy, who is in turn on reviving duty. Jager will have fun with Beowulf, though. The music has switched to the medium morale music, so Kate will try and swing the bar back the other way.
Son of a -!
I have only begun to fight! Woah! Rush moved before Emmy, so that cancels out the order she was going to do.
Don’t let ‘em take you out!
Uh, no thanks, Pagus.
Blocter knocks the Charged Idol into critical. We haven’t yet seen Tempest Insignia.
I’m just going to keep Rush piling Rear Attacks on as long as possible. Emmy’s going to summon a friend to add even more flanking power.
Music: Turn the Tide
We’re doing well, but this guy is still dangerous.
Let’s finish this quick!
Finally, nine turns after the Fulgurate which charged it, Tempest Insignia is fired for the first time.
The next turn will be us bringing Jager back because I want all my unions up before we finish the boss.
Here’s something to remember me by! Thank you. I was expecting to need to use this a lot earlier, but now’s fine.Music: The Gates of Hell
Boom. class changed to Expert Ninja! learned 
Nimble Bladedancer III!
learned Mighty Dragon Crush II! learned 
Rejuvenate! learned Dragon Crush! learned 
Enrage!
We also get a special component. I’m not sure what we can create with it, but it’s sure to be powerful.
Is magick an uncultivated power of the earth? If so, any spell that can extract it is far more dangerous than anything in existence… Uhhh….. what? I’m glad to have you back safe and sound. Here is the promised reward. Obtained Amethyst Orb! Rush can now use Psionics! Now that I know the dangers of magick, I’ll refrain from doing anything reckless when dealing with anything related to this art. Maybe I can find some answers traveling with you and your friends. If you ever need another body, please come and seek me. Thank you again, lad. Completed quest: Seeker of the Ancient Path
Yuniver's investigation is over. We didn't figure everything out, but apparently, if we kept investigating it, the world would lose its balance or something.
We don’t actually need another body, but I’m hiring him anyway.
Yuniver is a yama mystic, which means he’s tanky and a good caster. He starts out with pretty high levels in Invocations, Hexes, and Psionics, which is pretty good.
Anything new is worth trying! Heh. Obviously I had already planned to do that.New Arts Summary
learned Nimble Thunderclap III! learned Snare Shot! class changed to Bishop! learned:- Orphic Ward II!
- Dragon Crush!
learned Cutting Lunge! learned Paralyze Gas II! class changed to Expert Ninja! learned Nimble Bladedancer III! learned Mighty Dragon Crush II! learned Rejuvenate! learned Enrage! learned Poison Gas!
Boss: The Tested (Oculus)
BOSS: Charged Idol
First Path – Final Fortress fight
BOSS: Charged Idol (Success)
Next Time: The order of the world must not be changed…
I’m going to have to figure out what to do about the next update to try and keep the screenshot count to something close to reasonable.
Discussion: Why does what happened in this update seem so familiar? I’m sure we’ve seen something similar to this before, but where?
Next Time: Sorry for roughin’ you up.