Part 40: Update XXXII - The Soul Dilemma

Update XXXII - The Soul Dilemma



♪ BGM: Asgar's Castle - blood009.mid ♫

Alright, so after we've experienced the wonders of the cheat tree, we're back off to regular business. Our first point of order will be introducing the recently vampirized thief to her new role in un-life.



Welcome to my castle!
What happened?
To keep it short: You are now a vampire. A creature of the night.
Oh... my God...
He can't help you anymore, either.
What do you want from me!? Why did you do this to me?
I have a proposition for you. You're going to steal a few things for me, and as a thank you, I will turn you back into a human...
That's possible!?
Of course. Trust me.
...



I guess I don't have a choice. You cursed bastard!
Hehe, your little friends will also be coming soon. Then you won't be alone anymore!
You son of a bitch! I hate you!
Careful, or I won't turn you back into a human. And then, you'll have to stay like this for your whole life. As a blood sucking monster...
...you rotten...!
Just put everything you stole inside the chest over there.

Alright, so, the thieving. How does this work? Well, it's simple!

There's a timer running in the background, which gives you some goodies once the timer hits a certain number. That number is as follows, depending on the skill level in thieving you have.

At level 0 (where we are), an item comes in every 300 seconds.
At level 1, an item comes in every 270 seconds.
At level 2, an item comes in every 240 seconds.
At level 3, an item comes in every 210 seconds.

When an item comes in, the game rolls a number between 1 and 100, and then adds an item to the chest based on a drop table, which depends on the amount of thieves in our crew (we'll be finding the other thieves and turning them into vampires... eventually). Here's the rundown.



Item table excitement! So, the general idea is that the items get better the more thieves you have. That was worth about fifteen minutes of work, wasn't it?

Anyway, depending on the roll, one of the noted item is going to be put into the chest, and you can then eventually pick all of those items up. And, y'know, I think I see something here. Now, Mraagvpeine asked in the thread whether it would be possible to get tax income while in bat form, since you don't get the castle attacks while in bat form. And while that does work, the mechanics of the bat transformation (which we'll get into fairly soon) make this not a liable way to get money easily. However... I think this thieving might be a way. We just need to get into dialogue, which flips the "no castle attacks" switch. Time continues to pass during this, I'm pretty sure, and that means items should continue to accumulate. So I just let my computer sit there over night, running up the items, and then I just cash all of them in at once, giving me loadsamoney. This should work. I'm going to test that and report back with the results later. I could maybe work this out with my RPG Maker test game, but I don't know all the variables at play, so testing is difficult apart from doing it directly on the subject at hand.



Next on the agenda, more torturing, and we have a success!

ARRR, please, let me go! I am... an old man!
And soon, you'll be a dead old man! If you don't tell us where the other three keys are!
Please... just let me go!
Where are the keys?
In the desert...
Where in the desert?
In the big... desert between Castle Wharis and Syrahs...
That's not specific enough! We'd be searching for days...
Near the most southern sand hill...
Good. And the other keys!?
UUUUUHHHH...
He's passed out...

Alright, that's another one down. Progress!



Before we head out, another letter update.

Good day. As you probably know I ordered a woltlab boarning board 2.1.3 from you and I wanted to ask now whether I'll ever get sent anything at all.
Good day. The Wotlab Board you ordered is currently still in production, but will get sent to you during the next few weeks by the mailman of your confidentialness, I promise!

Yay. Now, moving on.



♪ BGM: A Truth Revealed - WraithTouch.mid ♫

Next, we're going to take the bat transformation out for a spin.



So, how's the bat transformation work? Well, it's simple!

The bat transformation allows you to go basically everywhere by virtue of allowing you to fly over mountains and water. It drains 1 BP every "tick". A tick occurs every 2 seconds if you don't have the Shapeshifter skill, every 3 seconds if you have the first level of that skill, every 5 seconds if you have the second level of that skill, and every 6 seconds if you have the third level of the skill, with the added caveat that if you have the third level of the skill, the "tick" no longer removes BP, making the skill free. Another sign that something was changed during development.



Alright, so, next, I have a bit of a... let's call it a dilemma. I need souls. Basically, I need 50 souls to learn the first level of the Ancient Languages skill, because there's a book in one of the castles of the Clan that improves the strength of my units in the castle battles, which I very much want. That book requires that skill. However, the only real way to get souls is to kill enemies, which also gives me experience. This essentially means that there is a limit on how many souls I can get before hitting level 10. Now, the solution that eluded me at the time was to just let Valnar die without BP so he doesn't get revived, then grind for souls that way. Instead, I tried to maximize the amount of souls I could get while minimizing the XP gained. So I started killing these first enemies for a while, but that was too slow for me. I end up leaving - we'll find a better way later.



Now, while exploring the world map, we find some sort of smoking town. I wonder what this is?



♪ BGM: Asran - calmness.mid ♫

Oh! Now this is interesting!



We then get a bit of a flyover of the town, showing how Asran has been doing since the world shifting.









The answer is "not well".

Where did all the people go?
Pfff... they're probably all dead. Whatever.
You are truly unbelievable, Asgar!
The entrance to the dungeon was under the gravestone. Let's search there.

Uh, right. We have not gotten to that part yet. ...I think. I genuinely don't remember anymore if the party has floated the idea of searching for Asran because of Valnar's visions yet or not. Anyway, that's not what we're here to do, we're here to pick somebody up. You might have noticed him in the above screenshots.



OK, you can't see it here, but it's the robed guy from the last picture. Who turns out to be...

Of course. I am one of the Children of the Apocalypse.

Lord Mandrake! You know, the guy that we had an opportunity to talk to way back in the beginning of the game, which I missed and had to show off in post.

Ah, that's right. We had bought quite a few blood potions from you...
You don't happen to know what has happened here?
Well... at least we don't know where all the people are now.
This town is completely dead. That white light must have destroyed everything.
So it seems.
Say, you don't need my help again by any chance, do you? A lot has happened recently. And it looks very much like you are once again hunting or searching for something. I can provide some good blood potions!
That sounds good. I'd say we're rekindling our business relationship once more. We could use your services.
I can't provide much on my own, though. I do know, however, that I am not the only one of the Children of the Apocalypse that survived the catastrophe. I heard that other people with a cloak like mine have appeared in several towns. If you can find them, bring them to me. The more you can bring together, the better service we can provide for you.
Fine. Then close your eyes now, it's going to flash!



And Mandrake gets teleported to our castle.

The Children of the Apocalypse are renewing their businesses. Should this worry me?
Nonsense. They serve us. And that's a good thing!
Somehow, I still don't have a good feeling about this.

That's all we're going to be doing in Asran, so let's bail.



♪ BGM: A Truth Revealed - WraithTouch.mid ♫

Our next stop is one of the castles we've conquered. I think there's something here.



♪ BGM: Castle Ardos - Ardos.mid ♫

Alright.



So Ardos is pretty big, and the map is split up into five different smaller buildings, so we're not going to be looking at all the maps here. Instead, let's just give the castle the old run-through. To note, there are about four things we find in castles. The dungeon, which we can't enter. Chests, which have some stuff that is sometimes interesting and sometimes not. Secrets, which are usually not interesting, albeit welcome. And bookcases. A whole fucking lot of bookcases. So be ready for that.



I guess we were due for one of those.



Five Elras attack and take out seven mercenaries.

Mercenaries Lost To Global Domination: 136 + 7 = 143

Now, on to the bookshelf bonanza!



That book is extremely boring. Let's keep going...



Apparently, that ring is buried deep inside one of the forests of this world.
Too bad that the descriptions in such books are always so vague.



Isn't it astonishing how many humans think they know enough about us that they write a book about it, but in truth are then completely wrong? Mankind is simply stupid.

Odd thought. Didn't Vincent Weynard create vampires - meaning that there were no vampires before that. So how can there be books about vampires in castles from the past?



It has no title.

A dream... a nightmare! Dreamt by a creature feared by some... but the fear of that creature is far greater!

I... OK?



Handy items!



Healing Potion obtained!



Well, that wasn't interesting. Let's take a look at a bookshelf I missed somehow.

"Waldemar, The Little Imp" is here on this shelf.
I once sucked blood from a boy called Waldemar.
Thank you for this enriching contribution, Asgar.
Although the little Isabelle tasted better, hehe...



Again one of those books that are SO far away from reality that it just makes you want to smash the author.



Oh, cats are useless. They taste like nothing...



Don't even ask, Asgar.
Hrmpf.



Speaking of wood ants, have you ever heard this one before? A man stumbles over a pile of Argora-Ants and gets agonizingly eaten in seconds.
If that was supposed to be a joke, it wasn't funny.
Hm, the guy that I pushed didn't laugh, either. But maybe I was just telling it badly...



I like "Blasphemy - Sense or Nonsense" more...



Oh, oh, it seems like someobdy knocked over one of the bottles...



Wooo, vendor trash!



But unfortunately, I don't understand anything that's written here.
And how did this book get here?

In another building, we find the book I've mentioned before - the one we need the skill to read the ancient languages for. So that's what we're working towards. Also, good question, Alaine.



Isn't that the story where all the protagonists grew up in the same orphanage? Trash, simply trash.

Man, that's the second time Marlex took the piss out of FF8. He pulled the same number back in VD1.



It's about time that I wrote a book about myself.
Number of prints: 1.
Nonsense. Everyone would want to read that book. Maybe I'll call it "Vampires Dawn, or How Asgar Ruled The World."
...



1899? Always these books about the future...



I bet her little secret is her tail, hehehehe...
ASGAR!
I didn't say anything, hehe...

OK, I think something went wrong in the translation here, because "tail" is not slang for "penis", whereas "Zipfel", the word used in the German original, very much is. In fact, "tail" is basically the opposite!



Hm, that might be interesting. We'll hear about blood roses later on.



Am I in there?
Hmmm. GottMrKnister... The_Vampire_Master... no, doesn't look like it.
Botch-up!
Enough already, let's keep going.

Asgar, you're undead. Would you belong in a book about "living" legends? Also, who likes community shoutouts? Marlex likes community shoutouts!



What, show me!
How can men be so fixated?



What does it say?
"Clean's cleaning products also clean YOUR laundry at 10°!"
Great... they should finally invent something that can get out blood stains, as well.



"WoW"? What is that supposed to be?
Hm, it says the following: "Shaman is IMBA, druid buffs the best, respeccing costs 1 Gold at first, silk cloth farming is a must, mage roxx and Orcs are L0osers!
Who writes something like THIS?
Probably some kind of retarded children...

Oh, snap! Anyway, that's all there is to find in Castle Ardos. I mean, we have the dungeon, but we obviously can't get in there yet, and we don't want to get in there for that matter, given that the monsters would murderize us. Now, next time in Vampires Dawn 2, we'll be seeing a new gameplay system, but before that, it'll be another Behind The Fangs chapter, in which we'll start getting into the insanity that is events, and you know it'll be fun.