Part 15: Episode 14: The Duty of Kings

Last we left our brave fellows they had carefully snuck into the castle so they could loudly murder everyone who gave them a funny look. The percentage actually giving us funny looks is surprisingly low for a dungeon area though! Go go fancy researchers


If we head east from where we came up we find a shopkeeper. Sure, why not. We had a guy that would sell to invaders in a prison. Why not just outside the Emperor's throne room. And tucked in behind the door a beast fang for Haschel. Pretty handy since he ends being one of my beaters in the boss fights ahead.


One more room east and we have one of the fancy magic oil elevators. A short trip up and, oh hey an entire squad of practicing Sandoran Knights.

Knight of Sandora 1: "Invaders!?"

Knight of Sandora 2: "You had such good luck sneaking into the practice center,
didn't you!!"

Knight of Sandora 3: "Catch'em!!"

Hooray! We'll to fight three knights at once! Or they'll be some elite knights sandora!


...Or they could come at us one at a time to show off how honorable they are in combat or something I guess? We have no such compulsions and boy howdy do they go down fast. Cause these are the same exact scmucks we've been fighting the whole time, except without doggy back up.

Knight of Sandora 1: "The, these guys are unbelievable!!"

Knight of Sandora 2: "Don't think!! We are Knights of Sandora, so just
defeat'em!!"

Me am knight of sandora. Me got biiiiig muscles. No need to thinky much.

Knight of Sandora 3: "Ag!! Am I the last one!? But I won't give up!!"

Knight 3 is quickly vanquished. I guess they should have practiced a bit harder.

Dart: "Well we took care of that."

With those clowns out of the way we can use the elevator just behind them to visit a figure we haven't seen for a while.


Dart: "You said "The girl from Seles"?

Shana: "You, you took me away to Hellena."

Great Commander of Sandora: "Indeed. I am the one who assaulted Seles under
the orders of Emperor Doel."

Dart: "So, you killed everybody!!"

Great Commander of Sandora: "That was done by the brutal unit loyal to
Fruegel. I wouldn't let them kill unnecessarily if
I were there... "

Let me take a moment here for:

http://lpix.org/306783/6.jpg
Him being there. Carrying on:

Great Commander of Sandora: Anyway, it doesn't change the fact that Imperial Sandora scorched Seles. If you want revenge for your home, you can draw your
sword against me. But please do me one last favor."


Great Commander of Sandora: "He must have instilled something into
Emperor Doel, a demonic word that ignites his
desire to vanquish.... You were able to make it
here, so you might be able to do it. I beg you!
Wake Emperor Doel up!"

Dart: "Do you understand what will result?"

Great Commander of Sandora: "Yes. If you can accomplish that, the Imperial
Sandora's dominance will end and we even might be
defeated by Basil.... But the result will be the
same if the current oppression of Emperor Doel
continues. So we might as well make it happen
faster and remove hardships on our people."

He's probably right. The castle itself is stuffed the brim with rebelious scientists, lunatics, and merchants with basically no loyalty to Doel.


Dart: "Lavitz would be happy to hear this."

Great Commander of Sandora: "So...are you in!?"

Dart: "That's what we are here for.

Great Commander of Sandora: "I'm relieved to hear that. Now, take this with
you."


Dart: "What is this?"

Great Commander of Sandora: "It's the 'key' to the chamber of Emperor Doel.
Hurry up. We have no time."

Apparently I am an idiot that didn't take any pictures of it, but back east of where we fought the sandoran knights we can head up some stairs. There you beat up a Sandoran elite like from the battle at Hoax and then grab a few bits of loot, one of them quite handy. The Spirit Ring doubles the wearers MP. Handy and I have no idea why I didn't have it equipped in later battles.

Then we head back to where we beat the knights up and take the large elevator up the fourth floor.


Father Faza: The long war decays people's heart. It must have happened to you
too. The bloodstained armor tells all. However, His Majesty Doel is also experiencing the fatigue of war.


Dart gets ... number two. I am still alright with his use of it.

Father Faza: This statue of a goddess was created in memory of the late wife of
Emperor Doel, Emperess Karina. It shows the frailty and fondness of Emperor Doel.


Father Faza: He, however, continues the war for his own ambitions, with increasing
scenes of carnage. It shows his strength and cruelness.

I think Father Faza has been getting into the incense a little too hard

Father Faza: Strength and frailty. Fondness and Cruelness. You must have them inside
you. Because the human heart can envelop them all.


Father Faza: This is all I want to say. If you are lost come visit me anytime.

With that out of the way we shove all three stones we picked up in the castle into the slots above him. A door opens up in the base of the statue. Two areas to go until disc end!


Dart: "Stay back!"

Rose: "I smell blood in this air."

Haschel: "It's not human..."

Shana: "Kongol!!"


Kongol: "Gigantos don't lose twice!! Gigantos make pay back for Hoax!! For His
Majesty Doel!!"

And here is a quick demonstration of how my first fight with Kongol went:

Shana does not have that much HP. Not at ALL. So lets try this again with Albert and Haschel


So once again we are fighting our good buddy Kongol from back in Hoax. This time he doesn't have his axe, but he does have some huge fuck off armor on. Complete with foot long spikes on his gauntlets. Which he is NOT afraid to use.

Luckily he's slow as balls so he didn't get the first hit in.


During our escapades Dart got to enjoy the fruits of my labor of staying with Burning Rush. He's my first team member to hit level 3 Dragoon, and with it his level 3 spell: Final Burst. Kongol has wretched magic defense. I htink you see where this is going.










Poor dude just got blasted for about 1/3 of his life total.


Hover he is a total jerk bag and puts up a magic shield once you hit him with a spell. This reduces magic damage by half which puts a crimp on my style, but he's still not going to be too hard.


Kongol's normal attack is a downward smash with his gauntlet spikes. Hits for someone in the range of 100 damage. Not too threatening when its just a single enemy you are fighting. His special on the other hand...




yes. First he uses earth magic to make a god damn wall. Then he pins you to that wall by throwing his gauntlet through your kneck.


Which he procedes to boot heel.


Then punch


And then explodes you with some sort of shoryuken


It hurts. A lot. Luckily he isn't going to last long enough for it to matter much.


Fuck yo magic shield. I got dragoon additions.


Also Albert stabs him so hard his head explodes in a cloud of red.


He knows he rocks.


Following the battle Rose fucking shatters his entire suit of armor with one thrust of her rapier. In the running theme of this LP: Sure, why not?

Kongol: "ARRRGGHHH! Gigantos, with strongest armor...lost. Me, brother of
hero...has pride. Cannot live in disgrace.... Kill me."

Rose: "As you wish."

Dart: "Stop it! The game is already over!"


Shana: "It's over. He cannot fight."

Rose: "Hope your sweetness won't kill you."

Oh you will not even begin to know the consequences!


Did I mention the Emperor has a throne elevator?




Cause the Emperor has a god damn throne elevator.

Dart: "You must be Doel!!"

Albert: "Uncle.... Do you remember me!? I am the son of your late brother....
Albert!"

Emperor Doel: "You remind me of...Carlo, 20 years ago.

Aww. Maybe he isn't such a bad dude after all. We'll exchange apologies and get this whole situation straightend right up.


Ah well, uh. Nevermind

Albert: "Why did you kill him!? Why did you have to divide Serdio by killing
my father!?"

Emperor Doel: "To save Serdio from an incapable leader named Carlo. And now
my hands are about to give birth to the new Serdio!"

Dart: "'Birth'!? What you are doing is only destructive!!"

Albert: "Yes! You have given birth to sorrow, pain, agony, and our anger!"

Dart: "Tell me!! Why did you have Shana taken away!?"

Emperor Doel: "Oh, you are talking about Lloyd's conspiracy.


Emperor Doel: All is ordered by the reborn Emperor Diaz. Lloyd is a mere pawn.
Along with the Dragoons...."

I wouldn't be downtalking Lloyd too much. He's already out of here. You probably aren't going to last long, being a disc end boss and all.

Rose: "Silly. Emperor Diaz died in the Dragon Campaign. As a human...hero."

Emperor Doel: "I don't care whether you believe it or not. It won't make any
difference to the reality! You thought, you would defeat me with
greater numbers, right!? Come!! I'll send you to your father's
placed!!"


Final disc 1 boss fight gooooo


Emperor Doel. Killer of brothers, lord of gigantos, rider of throne elevators. Like all "good" boss fights he has more than one form. So we aren't going to blow our load here.


Right now he has two attacks.


The first he shoves both swords into the ground, starts getting all glowy, then launches a few energy waves at the target.


Attack 2 is a lot more hardcore.


He slams both of his sword into the victims chest, lifts them, the slams them into the ground.

Luckily this isn't a cut scene so we can take plenty of these center of mass blows no problem.


And still have plenty of vigor to back hand him with a sword pommel.


Doel: I can play that way too!!!






God damn it. How many dragoons are we going to have to murder this week.


I'm beginning to think that the Dragon Spirits are really not too choosy about who they link up with. Match affinity? Batshit crazy? Aw yeah lets shoot some shit with lightning!


And NOW we are into the long knock down drag out part of this fight.


Have one of his his quick attacks first. He shoots a few crescents of lightning at a single target


Charges up


And sets the taser to kill


And here is the start of the attack you will learn to hate. I think about half of my time in this fight was spent waiting for this spell to finish










Not only does it take half an hour, it hits like a freight train.


This seems like a good time to transform Albert and bust out a Rose Storm. 2/3 attacks Dragoon Doel uses are full party hits. This will really knock down the healing we need to do.


And our first view of Dragoon Albert. Shockingly not that different from Lavitz. May he rest in peace.


Team Albert is blasting of agaaaaaaain


Once we drop him down to half his health he pops up a shield that prevents all damage. Pretty much the only thing you can do here is guard up and heal.


While the shield is up he can drop a Flash Hall that hits everyone for 100-150. Luckily you should already be blocking. So take half that instead.


With the shield down its time for Dart to clean this mess up.


I have Haschel feed Dart an MP restore item so he can use Final Burst 3 times in a row for some serious damage. And after a few more attacks and 10 minutes of waiting for magic to cast we beat the bastard.












Doel: "He is in the Western country of...Tiberoa."


Doel: "Go, and find out...about the world, about...everything."






So ends the tale of Emperor Doel. He went out like he came in: at the hands of family. Hopefully Albert is scarred for life at having to murder his closest living relative.


Albert: "It places and end to this ceaseless long war that has divided Serdio
into two. This is the end of our journey everyone...."

Music: Dart's Theme Electric Guitar Cover
Or the slightly less rocking original version

Dart: "Not yet.... It's not over yet.... This journey began when Shana was
taken away! Then Lavitz was killed, and Lloyd headed for Tiberoa leaving
the mystery about Shana behind! I am pursuing Lloyd! I'll make him
explain everything!"

Shana: "I'll go with you.... I still don't know anything about Virage or what
was said by Emperor Diaz. "


Albert: "My journey 'cannot end' either.... Whatever conspiracy the man is
forming, the Moon Gem is one of the keys. Hollowed object concealing
the magic power of the ancient Winglies. We have to stop it before it
ignites a catastrophe in Tiberoa.


Albert: "and live as a Dragoon instead. Lavitz would have completely agreed."

I mean, he would TOTALLY want me to just abandon two kingdoms that have been at war for nearly as long as I've been alive! Who needs leadership in a time like this.

Haschel: "Rose, how about you?"

Rose: "I told you. I'm intersted in you guys."

Dart: "So...."


Haschel: "If Rose is going.... That's the end of my role."

Dart: "Haschel, where are you going?"

Haschel: "This is?"




Rose: "time does slow.' It's your choice to leave your fate behind."

Haschel: "The question is answered."

Dart: "Dragoon Spirits are leading us!"







Bonus art! I think someone saw the original Star Wars poster then made this.