Part 20: Part 3-6

Brahms' Castle appears on the western part of the World Map in Chapter 3. There is no indication of this unless your eyes have spotted that red dot on the map that wasn't there before.



OST: The Name of His People is Fear

The dungeon is special as well, as we're given a four-minute timer once we enter, to represent the time before sunset, where the castle will disappear. The timer runs down while we're in the dungeon, but pauses when we open up menus or enter battle. If we run out of time, we get booted out to the World Map and will have to use up more periods to re-enter. There's plenty of treasure to be found in Brahms' castle, and it is possible to get every piece of treasure and find him in his castle if you know where to go. As such, I'll be detailing my route through the castle as well.



Enemies here can be visibly tough if you came here right at the start of the chapter. Lesser Vampires make a reappearance.



I've never seen Succubi do much.



Demon Servants aren't special now that we have some levels under our belt. They can hit for around 1500+ but unless it's on an Archer it's not too threatening right now.



The Vampire Lord from Gorlha HQ also returns as a regular enemy.



Fortunately, Ether Scepter demolishes all of them if you so desire. I opt not to to gain more experience and treasure, but it's a good fallback option.



The other note is that several of the treasure chests are facing the wrong way while against a wall, so you have to spend some time picking them up, putting them the right way round, then opening them. Some of them are booby trapped, too.

Anyway, first we go right, then up twice, then left to find a Unicorn Horn and a Moonflax. The former is useless... for now, while the Moonflax is a Holy-elemental sword with a 5% chance of breaking.



We then go right twice and take the first passage down to get a copy of Normalize, and then the second passage to get a Burgundy Flask, which transmutes into a Shadow Crystal.



The screen to the right after that has another room down with a Beast Slayer. No surprises as to what it's effective on.



Then we go right and head up some stairs, to get a copy of Combo Counter and a Nightshade.



Then it's down through a series of identical pathways. When we emerge, it's left and into a room for a copy of Heal.



From there, head left twice to get another Flare Baselard. We then head right twice and up twice to find a Vegetable Seed and a copy of Throw in the rooms.



We go up the stairs, where there is a passage to the right with treasure rooms to the north and south. More interesting is a stationary Ram Guardian we can choose to fight. At 25,600 health, it's the toughest thing we've fought so far.



We even get to bust out the PWS for this fight.



The good news is that the Ram Guardian is vulnerable to status effects. Janus' Ill Injection works very well to inflict Poison, and Icicle Edge/Frigid Damsel have chances to Freeze it, giving you a few rounds to heal if necessary.



Which you might very well need, since the Guardian hits very hard, doing near 20k on characters like Arngrim.



It can only kill one character at a time however, so as long as you have enough Union Plumes he's not too big of a threat.







The experience awarded is generous at the very least.



The treasure, not so much.



After collecting the last treasure in the castle (a Warhammer, some transmutable items, and a copy of Stone Torch), we then head back to the stairs and hit left.



And hit the save point with about a minute to spare.



I swap Jun out for Yumei - having as many mages as possible in the next fight is a good thing. I also equip everyone with a maxed out Guts skill.







I assume you are prepared.



What...?

Valkyrie. What has happened to you? Do you not remember me... let alone your own sister?

...What are you saying?





!!

Don't move. I always believed that you would be the one to fill my cold, empty heart...



He's the Lord of the Undead. Clearly we can't trust him.



Your condition is very serious. Look there. Do you still feel nothing, seeing this?











Lenneth. You and I need not do battle here.

Brahsm is, to his credit, a tough foe. With 52,000 health, he's got more health than even the Ram Guardian.



Physical attacks do next to nothing to him.



And to say he hits hard is an understatement.



Brahms PWS

Incidentally, Brahms is voiced by Ken Gates, who also voiced Odin.

Clearly, we aren't expected to win this battle. In fact, the game just kindly kicks you out of Brahms' castle if you lose this fight.



That said, there are a few things in our favour. First off, magic is the only way to hurt Brahms, hence why we brought both Yumei and Jelanda. Jelanda's using our Ether Scepter, but Yumei will do fine with an Element Scepter.



Secondly, we have Guts. As mentioned before, Guts will automatically revive a character when they die, with a higher chance of it activating the higher the level. With maxed Guts on everyone, we have a good chance of invalidating Brahms' efforts each time he kills a character.



Even without it, Brahms can only kill one character per turn. So Lenneth/Arngrim can just toss Union Plumes at whoever dies if Guts doesn't save them.

With that, it's just a battle of attrition.



Amusingly, when Brahms does his PWS after his attack chain, sometimes he'll end up facing the other way and whiff the initial portion of it.



Lenneth and a fourth character are still helpful for gems, to give your Sorcerers more chances to cast their spells. Logically I should have brought Janus instead of Arngrim, since he deals more hits, but ah well.



Eventually...



...We do enough damage.





It... It cannot be!



We don't get any rewards for beating Brahms, and after the battle we get kicked out to the world map. If we re-enter Brahms' Castle, his throne room will be empty, but we can still pilfer any remaining treasure.



We'll worry about what he said another day. For now, we have a date with Freya, after we send up Janus.