Part 16: Armic's Adventure - Part 3

Unlimited Saga, Part 16: Regina Leone, Again

Last time, we did the metal dungeon and picked up Edel. This opens up a fair amount of stuff we can now do, and some more items to go collect.



When you finish one of Armic's story quests, it opens up some new cities on the map. The Mine Adventure got us access to Zomar, Longshank, Vaftom, and maybe somewhere else, I forget. Zomar is the most important, right now, because that's where the Abandoned Castle is.



This guy's already got a diamond! Maybe Armic could have just stayed home.

Armic, let's work together for the good of the Chapa Village.

That Merito sure is something! I'd better stay out of his way.

Zomar's Inn has a new party member, as well!



What brought you here in the first place?

We were looking for these "Obsidian Boots."

Those look uncomfortable. I hate anything painful...

The big guy is named Vearst, and despite his appearances he is completely incapable at anything physical. He's not actually good at anything, in fact; his best stats are Magic and Spirit, which would be OK except he's got awful elemental growth so he's not good at casting either. He does, however, have 22 LP, so he's quite good at standing in front of people and getting hurt a lot. He'll be our healer, since while he won't be very effective at it, he also won't ever die.

We could certainly go get the Obsidian Boots, but I'd like to wait until we have more party members and a higher market rank. Remember, the market rank goes up when you buy or sell lots of things, and then finish a mission. It cannot increase until you do that. So let's make that happen. First of all, I bought as much stuff as possible, regardless of if I'd ever want or need it. After that, we're broke, of course, and we want money, so I went and did the cemetery quest. It's short, easy, and has several high-level chests as the reward, plus all the extra gravestones drop basic crafting materials -- helpfully, this is stuff we need to collect for our quest.



Also, here's Vearst showing off his raw, physical strength:

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/Occasiona...zard-mobile.mp4

With all that money, we can buy lots of Opal and Carnelian, which helps fill out the left side of the list. It also helps in making Faerie Silver, which is on the right. By combining silver with elemental stones, you have a 20% chance of getting Faerie Silver -- that is, Platinum.



Yes, just like that. Unlocking the dungeons seems to be based on which items you get enough of, which means that this puts us over the limit and Yun calls us in again.




I deciphered the item for Earth! It's Behemoth's Chain, and it's in the Cavern of Murals.

Oh, the Cavern of Murals...

We give Yun the order to work on Fire next, and it's off to the caves.




No, no, I can't read it. I'm not skilled enough yet. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I'll join you to find out what it really is.

This guy is Kong Ming, and he is a specialist in Earth magic. Comes with some nice high-end tablets on the subject, much like Norff. He'd probably be pretty good, but keeping lots of mages up to scratch at once is kind of a pain, so I never really did much with him.

So this dungeon is the Cave of Murals, and as such it has lots of murals in it!



You can examine them, and they will do this:



And then you get a fight.

Some, like this one, will leave behind a passageway.






In this case, it reveals our eventual goal, which is the weird starry cave across the way. Of course, it's all the way at the other end of the dungeon, but there you go.

Also, maybe it's just me, but I think Nuage looks silly when he holds a weapon. Dude always holds his arms out like he's looking for a hug.



This is a good dungeon for Armic, because you can access lots of areas only by swimming, and of course he's good at that. Unless you got rid of his Swimming panel, which would be fair. Also, it has lots of fish, which is basically the only thing Armic cares about at any time, ever. Like so:




I'm very good at dealing with fish.

As far as I can tell, he says this every time you fight a fish.

The dungeon can be kind of annoying, since not every mural is useful and some of the enemies are quite strong. Thankfully, there's also a lot of treasure, mostly hidden behind Swimming checks, and that helps pad out the item list.




One mural literally turned into the bird from Deities' Table.



It seemed weaker, but was still a difficult fight. Eventually, the path leads back to the start, into that cavern we revealed.




There is almost nothing to say about this boss. It has, like, 4 LP? All it can do is generic physical attacks, too, so it's not even dangerous. Armic and Edel punched and slashed it to death and it died in like, two combat rounds. Pathetic. And we get our second item! Hooray!

As I told you.

Hmm, the flow of energy has weakened a little...

Here's how our characters are doing.

Armic is mostly using martial arts, relying on his weight to inflict damage. Right now, it works fine; it's hard to do more than 1 LP with martial arts, but that's plenty for random encounters and ensures he never uses up durability. Hasn't picked up any cool techniques yet but I'll show them when he does.
Norff just spams Thunderbringer every time I bring him out. A one-note character, but an effective one. I'm working on getting him some familiars so he doesn't use up so many armlets with his casting.
Nuage has a spear, and has learned how to fire lasers from it somehow? So that's cool.
Edel is our Skill character. He has a bow, and I've been giving him all the lockpicking/defusing stuff to keep him busy.
Kong Ming's damage output isn't great right now, but another caster is appreciated and he's helpful when I need to switch the big hitters out but still do some damage.
Vearst is present in the party. He... exists.

Since we've got two of the four magical artifacts, we get a special scene. It's also time for the Festival!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHuyD7snH7M

Whew! I finally got two. So that means two more to go. I just want to go home.

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/Emotional...elle-mobile.mp4

I... yes. Sure. Ok.