Part 6: Mythe's Adventure - Part 6

Unlimited Saga, Part 6: The Festival of Regina Leone

This is going to be an exposition-heavy update, because everyone gets a bunch of story stuff when they go to Vaftom for the first time.

Mythe saved a photo of some lady from a fire, and that means Laura is now in our party. I can't complain about having Laura but you'd think they would give more of an explanation for another protagonist joining up with us.



Laura is very good at everything except healing. She starts out knowing some basic fire spells, and if you want to make her cast magic that's fine. If you want her to be a thief-type skill character, also fine. We'll be making her a strength character, though, because I don't have one of those yet and she's also good at that.



The game drops us off in Vaftom, which is the site of Iskandar's mausoleum. That fact isn't really relevant for most of the characters, but every protagonist ends up in Vaftom at some point so they can meet up at the Festival taking place there and get some exposition. We can head to the plaza at any time to go start that off, but since it triggers an adventure as well I went shopping first. Found another bone cross -- nice! I also grabbed some ironstone, so we can make steel.

Now, here's a fun experiment. I noticed that one of the characters -- Grace, I think -- had a mullock armlet. This inspired me to make steel early, so I could increase the odds of actually fairly making damascus instead of save-scumming. Whenever you repair steel stuff with a wooden material, like so:



You may end up with a weird result. The damage will be 1 less than normal. Here's what it looks like:



That means it's tempered steel and can be made into damascus. To do this, go to a smithy that handles daggers and combine mullock with topaz, lazuli, ravenite, opal, or carnelian (the elemental materials) to get a stone dagger. There's no indication this worked, but it's got a 100% chance as long as you have the materials. Then you repair the steel weapon with that and you get a black weapon (or armlet, if you want an accessory).



I will probably end up making this into an armlet someday, but for now it's nice and powerful. Damascus is super heavy, so that restricts the kind of attacks you can get on it... unless you start with an iron or steel weapon that has the attacks you like already, in which case the upgrade to damascus won't remove them. So that's a good way to get rear blade or whatever on a black sword, or to get the notorious TIME LAPSE on a black axe. But you can go for super heavy attacks too, that's cool.

Anyway, the only part of this that has low odds is actually getting the special steel, which makes it a popular weapon for people doing playthroughs. If you were going to save-scum, you only have to do it once; if not, you can just keep shoving wood into a steel knife until you get lucky, or just as a matter of course when doing repairs, and you won't lose anything valuable if it fails. The problem is getting the mullock, which more or less disappears after a while apart. Similarly, if you have silver equipment just keep putting elemental stones into it and you'll get platinum.

Anyway, that's enough faffing about. Time for the festival.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvEVaP-Ck9c



Lots of people are at the festival, but they don't really matter so they don't get faces.



Mythe's on the lookout for the woman of his dreams.



Some weird animal things are here too!



Also, copy-pasted identical dancers!



There's the girl, but alas Ruby shows up as well. Remember Ruby?

Hey come on, let's dance!



...What's the matter?

Sorry, I...

He wanders off, but the girl is gone. Finally, the festival ends up at the mausoleum of Iskandar.





The fires seem to be a religious thing, from what this guy says at the inn:



Iskandar is the great hero of legend, and built most of the empire, but nobody knows much about him. Ruby actually gets to meet him, though, so he's still around somewhere. Everybody ends up at the festival at some point, and they'll generally interact to some degree with another story's protagonist. I guess Mythe meeting up with Ruby makes sense, since she was a part of him starting his journey, but since Laura is actually in his party you'd think he would do something with her instead. Anyway, that part isn't important; what is, is that the silver-haired girl is in Vaftom and we have to find her to assuage Mythe's increasingly pathetic dreams.

To do that, we have to return to the plaza.



We're allowed to enter the mausoleum, presumably because of the festival.



So we only have the sarcophagus in this grand mausoleum. He is, indeed, everyone's hero...



I think the speech bubble is backwards here because it's definitely meant to be Marie, this new character, saying it. Marie is part of Judy's family, all of whom are magically-inclined. We're getting several powerful characters all at once, and it's awesome. However, she has very low LP (doesn't everyone) and doesn't have as much potential as some of the other people in our party. She does start with a tablet, which is nice, and some unusual spells learned. She has Anti-Fear, which cures some annoying status ailments we can't handle with Purify, like fear (obviously) and confusion. But the real trick to powerful magic is somehow getting a Magic Blender panel, which is pretty rare and only comes from actually casting magic, not from familiar magic, and nobody starts with that. It allows you to combine spells and create new ones, which is how you get stuff like ICE NINE (turns all the symbols on the magic reel to water, which is rather pointless) or REFRESH (heals a ton and cures everything, which is great) or alternatively CRIMSON FLARE (kills everything with fire, which is awesome). Marie has low water growth, like Laura, but she's still nice. She also has the highest possible skill growth, so you could make her very evasive or give her a dagger if you were inclined that way. Bad endurance, though.

What's wrong?

I saw a girl do down to the sublevel.

Please calm down, young lady.

But I am calm. Suddenly some steps appeared, and this silver-haired girl...

What!?



Marie's in our party now, but she will actually have more stuff to do later so she's not merely another party member for our team.

Laura starts out with a low-level Aura skill, which you can use from the skill menu while exploring. It reduces the odds of being attacked or triggering traps, so it's handy. You can always attack stuff yourself if you want to fight anyway, so there's basically no reason not to use it as much as possible.



While there's clearly lots of offshoots for the corridor we're in, this is a story thing so we're stuck to a linear path for now. We'll come back later on and explore it more fully.



The second floor is green. Tiffon failed to dodge a trap:



Finally, on the purple level of the dungeon, we run across the girl again.



But she leaves, so we gotta follow her.

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/ScentedWe...ngel-mobile.mp4



So the mission ends right there, and everyone gets new skill panels. By now, everyone is full, and once that happens you have to replace old skills with new ones. This can result in characters actually getting weaker, if you didn't build your characters well. If you don't feel like actually planning someone out, then just decide on a spot you'll never need to put anything in and dump stuff you don't want there. Magic, for a physical fighter or Strength for a mage are both good choices here; if you're trying to do a warrior who is also a mage you can try dumping spirit or endurance, depending on the circumstances. Remember that elements are also on the grid, so while a mage doesn't need strength they may want to put something there anyway, if it's next to an element you like.

So Mythe and the girl go outside. The game literally calls her Silver Girl, by the way.

Um... I work with relics. Relics of the Golden Age, like the Seven Wonders.

Seven... Wonders...

Right! I study the true nature of the mysterious relics to rework them, eventually bringing out their true powers.

Powers...

Right, powers. I'm skilled in finding such powers and utilizing them.




I was floored. She had a strange way of talking and her expression was difficult to read, but it seemed to show disdain and pity. As if she were looking at a mangy dog.

Iskandar is the one I seek. Tell me where he can be found.

Iskandar?



HEY! Is there an Iskandar in the house?

Yes, you rang?

What do you want?

See?

Iskandar is the one I seek.

Very well, I'll help you find him. Is that okay?

This I will permit.

But why Iskandar? Could she be... Nah, I should stop dwelling on it. I was just thrilled that she allowed me the privilege of joining her.

The saddest boy in the world has succeeded in his quest! Both Marie and Silver Girl join our party, and we're left with little clue as to where to go. As far as anybody knows, Iskandar has been dead for a thousand years! However, we still only have eight characters, so next time we'll go get the last one and see what else lies in store for our cool hero.