Part 2: Episode 1: Part 2: The Second Asskicking.

Episode 1: Part 2: The Second Asskicking.



"Yes, I believe so."
"Looks like he's coming around..."











Yes, a Mender. I draw power from bloodlife and refocus it in order to mend wounds.

There was a good amount of blood on the ground when we got here so that made things easier.

I draw power from an "element" in the blood called bloodlife.
This spiel about bloodlife and menders is really odd for reasons I'll point out when it's relevant.



Wes hadn't heard of it either when we first met.

I didn't believe it at first, but I came around rather quickly.



So, I guess you got jumped by bandits, huh?



Looks like it's going to rain, we better get a move on.

We should be nearing a settlement if I was told right in the last place we visited.

Good, we'd better hurry though. Do you want to come with us?
And Rhue agrees.


Hours later... We rejoin our heroes as a downpour begins, and even lightning and thunder.



Dana adds something about hurrying before it gets worse and off we go, rightwards. Only a short way to the right a cutscene begins.



You can just make out the glint at the waters edge on the rock.







Should we run?

No, there's only two of them and their spikes fetch a fair price in settlements.
You ever been in a fight like this, Rhue?

A few, but why do you ask?

I was just thinking that this might be the ideal time for me to explain the X-Life System.
Here's the problem with lots of custom systems. Lots of tutorials. Get used to this across the first couple Episodes.

Wes continues: "As you know, Dana draws power from bloodlife, but there are other sources power as well. (this is how the game phrased it grammatically. probably an error!)
We generally call the power gained from all of these sources X-Life.
I can tell by looking at your sword that it has the ability to draw XL naturally in combat situations.
Your sword will add +1 to your XL automatically every turn.
You should be able to eventually level up that sword until it is able to draw 2, 3, or maybe even 4 XL per turn though.
You can also use your turn in combat to concentrate on drawing in more XL.
For example, you have a technique called Draw. Using it will add +1 to your XL pool.
After you have acquired enough XL you will be able to perform a variety of other techniques that will unleash the pooled power.
The only technique you know so far is Spin Blade which costs 4XL. It deals damage to all enemies.
Your allies in combat store and use Xl in the same manner.
That's enough information for now. Let's fight!



This is a simple battle. The Spiked Flyers do ten damage per hit on any of our three. Dana only does one or two damage with her attacks, Wes does not much more and Rhue does about 4. This is still enough to kill one per turn. Don't even have the time to get the XL to use anything!
Also I'll point out now that if I showed the actual battle menu, you'd probably note theres no use items command. That's because this game has no usable items. At all. You might wodner 'What? What about healing?" Well, at the end of every fight, your XL is reset to 1 and HP is restored fully, KO'd characters revived and all status effects are removed. Battle healing has to come from X-Life moves. You might also ask "Didn't you talk about finding secret tiems and such earlier??? Yes, I did. But those are all stat raising items. The games equivalent to leveling up. And you don't simply use them, oh no. There's a bit more to it than that.

Anyway, two turns of attacks and we win. Wow!



We move on to the next screen.



On it, a dull glint lurks in the shadow of this boulder/hill combo.


It looks like a Kritar Snail.

Lands, those are rare!

Are they good for anything besides squashing?

Eating. They are good to eat.

Ugh... No way.

Supposedly they help give you some kind of mental edge in combat.

Maybe if you ate it you could gain some kind of edge over those bandits that attacked you.
Hey, it was just one bandit that kicked my ass! Oh... uh...
Uhhhh also if someone called Thelin brags about kicking my ass, that was my first Plunge! And he called it quits before either of us lost! I'm undefeated!

Think so? Well... here goes...





This isn't going well.


Rhues head bobs up and down during this dialogue box and a sound that's obviously meant to be puking plays. Something I should add actually, but all lines of dialogues have time cues. Usually sentences have a pause inbetween and the sentences appear at varying speeds, to kind of pace out the dialogue cinematically. There's no real way to emulate this without making this a video lp or a lp of gifs, but I think this small point isn't worth it.



Gahahaha. This was truly worth puking your guts up. Now you have 2% crit chance!!!


Ah well. Let's move on.

On the next screen...




STRANGER: I'm looking for a person named Jeruh. Have any of you seen him?
Both Wes and Dana say nope and Wes asks Rhue.



STRANGER: Well?



The No takes a moment to appear after the dialogue box, making this feel hesitant.









IT'S NOT THE ODDS YOU STUPID

Anyway, Wes mansplains basic rpg tactics to Dana by telling her to keep him and Rhue healed while they attack. 'This rogue can't be a match for the two of us.' Yes. Yes he can.
It's really funny our very second battle is a kind of challenging boss battle too.



This fucking asskicker is only a novice too.



Wes has this, which causes Focus to go up, which confirmed my faint memory of focus being attack. I don't think I've ever used this before because I'm a damn idiot and only tried this just now to show off for this LP. It actually helps a fair bit if you have him use it on Rhue repeatedly.



I have Dana spam this whenever shes not healing for obvious reasons.



It also makes her attack too. Thanks Dana. Wes only does 2-4 damage while Rhue does 6 or so. After two amplifies, Rhue does 15.



This is the result of turn 1. He nearly oneshots Dana. Having Dana go down is Very Bad. I've had this happen before, and its impossible to last more than a few turns since he does anywhere between 10-20ish damage to even Rhue.


Anyway, thanks to my newly discovered buffing tactic, this fight ends in only a couple turns instead of the usual drawn out struggle to survive.



"Yaaaaahh!"



The screen flashes red a few times as he does... something.



It's even funnier that our second real battle is a challenging boss fight that ends in a forced loss.



Uhhh... Thanks Wes AKA Stranger What a goofy mistake.





The Headhunter slooowly walks across the bridge.

Rhue, have you done this before?

Once... I know the bare essentials.

Well, then, you probably don't know about Risk attacks.
I don't know, if I lived in this setting I'd definitely consider Risk Attacks bare essentials. Also is now really the time!?

She goes on: When choosing your attack before each pass you may also choose if you want to use a Risk Attack.
It is VERY important to note that each attack has a seperate Risk Attack.
The Drop Slash is the strongest Risk Attack and can give you a 35% damage bonus.
The Cross Sweep is the weakest and only gives a 10% damage bonus.
If you change between Risk Attacks it automatically changes your normal attack to the corresponding one.
But, they aren't called Risk Attacks for nothing.
Take the Drop Slash for example.
I can only imagine what the Headhunter is thinking right now.



And then hit the action key.
Either you or your enemy may get the 35% bonus. It goes to whoever chooses the correct attack.
So if you choose the Drop Slash and your enemy chooses the Cross Sweep, then YOU get the bonus.
But, if your enemy chose the Lunge Cut, then they will get that 35% damage bonus.
Remember, this only happens if you opt to use a Risk Attack.
Finally, it is a good idea to remember that your opponents also use Risk Attacks.
Check the Wanderer's Guide Book for an even more detailed explanation.
Hahahahaah FUCXK YOU



Running out of air, Dana topples over. The camera pans right...



Rhues first life or death plunge!



On the first pass Rhue takes 4 damage (even with me giving him a 35% damage bonus from Drop Slash Risk Attack) and Stranger/Headhunter takes 2, so I'm not exactly impressed with him either.

On the second pass, Rhue takes 8 (which is a step 1 injury for him! uh oh!) and delivers 3.

Third pass, both only deal very minor damage and this exchange happens:





Next pass is the same even with the Headhunters finisher going off. We'll explain those much later.





Asshole I still got half my damn hp.

Though, he's still on a nice bright green.

He delivers another step 1 injury and Rhue's suddenly on dark orange.

On the next pass the battle auto ends despite Rhue still having some HP.


Rhue staggers, and the Headhunter approaches, sword ready.



It buys some time, for this Setzer Sprite Edit guy to show up, guy.





There's a cutting sound, some blood, and the Headhunters sword flies away. He says "Who?"





And then he gets eviscerated.



And tossed off the bridge.



Fade to black.


I've got to say, two unwinnable in a row plunges is a really strange way to introduce your new system.
Add a forced boss fight loss to the mix... I don't know, something about it is just really amusing to me. It's a pretty naive way of starting the game. But I guess it does help make Rhue feel like the out of his depth scrub against badasses that he is.

There's a tidbit about this scene I should add. In early versions of Episode 1 (don't ask me if it was v1.0 or a beta test, I don't know, it was definitely changed by the time I played it) but the original dialogue in this scene had the Headhunter asking about a Gaius instead of Jeruh. I'm not sure why this was changed. They both work for very different reasons. I think maybe Lun wanted a mention of Jeruh earlier in the series and realised who the hell would send a headhunter after a nice guy like Gaius? That or there was some plot changes at some point. We'll be seeing Gaius relatively soon.

Oh yeah, and you might think from Rhues reaction to the question of if he recognises the name that maybe he's hiding something from us. That he's an unreliable narrator. Don't think that. Rhue never lies to us. He is a good boy with a nice face. The reaction is still noteworthy though.

the end