Part 61: Update XLVI - The Grind Begins

Update XLVI - The Grind Begins



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

Alright, today, we have some world exploration to do, because we're going to be trying to find the other five shrines. But before that, some soul spending.



You see, there is a way in this game to get more learning points, and we're going to be using that down the line. Because of that, we can spend points more heavily now to get some useful stuff, and now that we've grabbed all the thieves, this upgrade is a lot more useful, so we'll get the first level of that.

Anyway, on to the different shrines. We've already visited the Shrine of Light, and we don't have the right stone to use there either, so let's skip that one.



First stop, the Shrine of Fire.



♪ BGM: A Truth Revealed - WraithTouch.mid ♫

It's all the way down here.



♪ BGM: Shrine of Fire - rotten.mid ♫

Now, these shrines do not have a lot in them. Enemies that will murder us, but not so hard we can't run from them if we get caught...



...and a hole! We throw a red stone in it, we get a flash, and then:

Attack of the party increased by 5!

And then, another flash!



Oh, my Masters, you have returned! May the Elras forever rule! As ordered, I have kept your rune generator safe, my Elras lords. And as foretold, you have used your stones. Now, take your rune generator that I have kept safe all these years. Use your soul fragments and create new runes. May the power of the Elras last forever.

And another flash, and the spirit disappears.

What was THAT?
It seems that the Elras have something to do with these shrines.
Let's take a closer look at this thing...

Let's!



soul fragments with this? Wonderful, off to the castle with it...



And Asgar teleports it to the castle. This is basically how every shrine will go, depending on whether we have a stone or not. Either we just pop in and out again to set the flag that we found it, or we use a stone and get a rune generator for our troubles. We'll get to the rune generators in a bit.





♪ BGM: A Truth Revealed - WraithTouch.mid ♫

First, next stop, the Shrine of Shadows.



♪ BGM: Asran - calmness.mid ♫



Sadly, no stone for this one. Next!



Next stop, the Shrine of Water.



♪ BGM: A Truth Revealed - WraithTouch.mid ♫

No stone for this one either, and I just immediately bail on this one.





Next stop, the Shrine of Earth.



♪ BGM: Shrine Of Earth - memories.mid ♫



We also don't have a stone for this one. I'm trying to find the one where I can use yellow stones, but alas, no dice so far, so it has to be the air one.





♪ BGM: A Truth Revealed - WraithTouch.mid ♫

Final stop, the Shrine of Air.



♪ BGM: In The Wilderness #1 - K0crrain.mid ♫

This place has something we can use.



An agility boost...



...and the blood rune generator. This concludes our short expedition across the world to find the six shrines.

So, with that done, what are rune generators? Well, it's simple.



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

Basically, they get stuffed here in the castle. And how do you use them? Well, you stick two soul fragments in, and you get a rune of the specific type out! Note - you only need one fragment for a rune on Easy and Normal. What are soul fragments and how do you get them? Well, that's the million dollar question. The answer is that we need to rescue the third member of the Children of the Apocalypse. If we get him, we also get a machine that can turn souls into soul fragments. On Easy, ten souls get you one soul fragment. On Normal, twenty souls get you one soul fragment. On Hard, thirty souls get you one soul fragment. So basically, on Easy, you need ten souls to make a rune. On Hard, you need sixty. Fuuuuuun shit. So yeah, it'll be a while until this is going to be useful.



♪ BGM: Genos - field7.mid ♫

Instead, let's hand in the quest.

Yes, we've found them all.
Really? Wonderful! Please write down their positions on this note for me!
All right, just one moment...
This will advance my research greatly!
Here you go.
Hehe, thanks. And now, my little stones will come into play!
1) Um, yeah, nice. - 2) They are useless. (Lie)

Once more, we don't have the capability to lie our way into more stuff - we'd get four stones from her on top of the regular reward. Alas.

This will be great! I'm going to be rich and powerful! But here is your promised reward...
Helmet of Magic received!
I have found this one during one of my expeditions. But thanks to the shrines, I won't be needing this anymore, hehehe...
Thanks.
It's all right, a promise is a promise. And here are three neat acid potions, as well. Helps against every kind of vermin...
3 Acid Potions received! 4950 Experience Points gained!



Also, this time around, I don't forget to read her thoughts to trigger the switch that lets us steal some of her stones.



And so, we steal them!

Red Stone obtained! Blue Stone obtained!



Anyway, let's check out that helm- hoooooly fuck. That is some good fucking helmet right there. This thing has no downsides, and it gives resistance towards all the major spell elements - fire, ice, light, shadow, poison, water and lightning. Awesome. This goes on Asgar to make our main damage dealer of the party more tanky.



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

Now, it's time to do something we haven't done in a loooong time - read some letters! In fact, let's do a bunch because it's been ages.

Oh ya know what i don't even give a shit anymore right now I don't want back into your crappy forum after ya took more than 1 month to do something, and answer I ve already registered under a new name for a long time and if that happens again i will login and cause a total rampage. so END!
Damn it, if he goes on a rampage, it's over. OVER! Don't you get it? OOVEEEER!

i'm sure you have a dvd software at home, right? mine is fucked up and the one from the sccrennfun too. I won't explain more. Can you send me a copy or something of the dvd software per e-mail? (if you have a dvd software)
Good day, here is the Marlex Software Pirating Shipment. Pirated software for super cheap! Purchasing orders are welcome at every police station

did you have some kinds of help with creating vampires dawn 1 or 2. i mean from companies like ubisoft and stuff............
Yes, both Electronic Arts as well as Ubisoft supported me with a budget worth multiple millions

it's not better that the gamer release always gets delayed. I hear all my friends and chat partners that they're fed up waiting for the game it's taking too long. I am the same. All this waiting kills the hype and causes you to not get bothered anymore. But part 1 was awesome, but compliment to you. If i were you I would hurry
Hm, well, hopefully, there will still be at least 5 or 6 players who will read this :/ :/ :/

It's me one again I know I'm slowling getting on your nerves, but I had to i just wanted to ask when VD2 & (beta) comes out?
Ouch, my nerves P.S. Here it is

my girlfriend wanted to know what kind of graphic VD has! 2D or 3D???
Greetings to your girlfriend, but everything's still 2D

my e-bay account as suspended.
Here the Ebay customer service. Yes, hmmm, I see what the problem is, it's because of your e-mail that reached the wrong addressee

I think your games are better than the ones you can buy for 45 euro or so. That's why I'm not even playing at the moment, 3rd time I'm playing through Vampires Dawn 1 and 5th time playing through Vampires Dawn2 "Demo"
Thanks, thanks a lot! Each of these kind of mails makes my heart jump of joy!

oh yeah, I walso wanted to say that the vd demo, because of the pictures, no longer runs smoothly... when talking to a person with a pc with 32mb ram and 330mhz
Unfortunately, it will be even worse with VD2. But better visuals requires more computing power, that's something even I can't change

Hi, I bet you're hearing this all the time. But I really wanna say it once more. The project "Vampires Dawn" has really blown me away. I'm not a big fan of retro games. But this one is just amazing and an outstanding exception. A huge compliment to you from me!
Thank you, thank you thank you thaaaaaaaank you

1. THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR THE INFORMATION FOR REAL THAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANKS 2. and there's one thing I really need to let out sorry that I'm just saying it but that's how it is... YOU ARE REALLY COOOOOOOOOOOL
And once again, thank you

A HUGE compliment for the 3rd trailer of Vampires Dawn2!!!! I am so amazed at it that I watched it 3 times by now!! The charas look awesome (the ones in battle look SUPER AWESOME), the castle conquering system: simply great, the intro (or the part of it): just awesome! The menu: clearly arranged and... well, you know! So all in all: SUPER AMAZING!! AWESOME!! GREAT!! EPIC!! UNPARALLELED!! I just can't wait anymore to play Vampires Dawn 2. (I'm already shaking!!)
Mails like these sadly are more rare than you might think. But I'm always really happy!

Hello Mr. Alexander Koch, as you probably don't know, I'm currently playing Vampires Dawn. You probably don't care, I bet. If you don't have time for fan mail, then I'm out of luck and maybe your Outlook is already full of them. But whatever, I think the game is cool. How old are you, anyway it might even be that I could be less formal!
As a vampire lord, I am blessed with the ability to read minds. Therefore, I know about it

That'll do for now.



♪ BGM: An Undignified Trip - dungeon2.mid ♫

So here's something I bet 100% have already forgotten about. Remember that part where we were bopping around some forest just with Asgar at the relative beginning of the game? Remember how we ran into some merchant there? Yeah, of course you didn't. But anyway, let's check in with him again, see how he's doing.



Oh. Welp.

...does he have any loot?



Who is that?
Oh, never mind that.
Look at that, he's holding something in his hand...
Rune of Damnation obtained!

Oh man, this is something we haven't thought about in ages, either. Remember the Damnation Blade? That thing Jinnai gave us that was supposed to have the ability to get stronger? Well, we've just found one of the pieces that make it stronger. When we use it from our inventory...



You should give it a try now, Valnar...
I will.



And it's exactly as strong as what we have now except it doesn't have the bonus vs. humans. Whooop, excitement. Anyway, the sidequest to power up the Damnation Blade kinda sucks. A lot of the runes we need are buried and only accessible by treasure maps, which requires us to upgrade that skill and go out hunting and blaaaargh, so much work. Meanwhile, the second best sword in the game, I believe we can get very easily once we're around level 50. More on that when we get there.



However, since I don't want to completely exempt myself from this treasure map business, we grab the first level of the skill. I'm going to have to do grinding regardless, so souls will be plentiful later on anyway, and buying more learning points also only costs souls, so we're good there.

And now I have to take a break in writing as I record new footage.

Anyway, what follows next is grinding.



♪ BGM: A Truth Revealed - WraithTouch.mid ♫

Basically, we bop around the area around Asgar's castle a whole bunch, fighting overworld enemies. The overworld encounters are based on your level, so you can basically always grind there, the enemies will always be at least mostly appropriate to your level. Our goal is level 30, because that's when the next level of equipment is available at the weapon shops. There's always a fair jump in power with every 5 levels, because that's when you get new and better gear to buy. So level 29 to level 30 is a pretty big jump in stats, actually.



Of course, we also get attacked during the grinding. Here, we lose 12 mercenaries against 15 knights.

Mercenaries Lost To Global Domination: 518 + 12 = 530

Anyway, more grinding ensues.



We eventually hit the soul cap, so I go and grab another skill. I don't really know why I picked this skill, and it's been... a day since I recorded that particular footage. I just don't remember what I was thinking.



Also, we restock some mercenaries.

Ongoing Costs: 161620 + 22400 = 184020 Filar

Looks like the next time we buy mercs, we're breaking the 200000 Filar barrier. Anyway, back to grinding again.



♪ BGM: Syrahs - field4.mid ♫

Eventually (about an hour after I started grinding), we make it to level 30 and unlock the new gear for purchase. Thankfully, we still have enough cash to buy enough for everybody.



♪ BGM: Coffins For Sale - stan.mid ♫

Also, we drop by Stan's place, because level 30 also unlocks these nice new coffins for us to have. These coffins not only heal 5000 HP, but also heal the status effects Weakened and Poisoned. But personally, I just think they look a lot better, and that's the main draw.

And now I have to take another break in writing as I record new footage. Man, that hour and fifteen minutes went by fast!



♪ BGM: A Truth Revealed - WraithTouch.mid ♫

Our next stop is slightly to the left of Ordun.



♪ BGM: The Graveyard - Deadcity.mid ♫



We've been tasked to clean up this graveyard, and this means that we have a whole bunch of beating up undead stuff.



Looks like there are a few undead that don't want to go to sleep...
Let's put them to bed!

This really is just like the mines we did earlier - we have an area, we have a whole bunch of enemies, we have to murder them all.



We fight headless zombies...



...non-headless zombies...



...and skeletons. And a lot of them. They're not really all that interesting as enemies - though the skeletons have a second form they can turn into, which wouldn't really be all that notable except for the fact that Marlex forgot to set the experience and item for the second version of the skeleton, meaning that if you kill them when they're in their second form, you don't get any XP or souls.

Anyway, we just beat up a whole bunch of these guys. And eventually...



...we just get told we don't have to do it anymore. Fine by me. Let's get our reward.



♪ BGM: Ordun - Wald2.mid ♫

That's one way to put it.
Thank God, you are our saviors! I thank you in the name of the restless dead and the citizens of this town!
Yes, yes, all right.
You were able to calm them down through prayers, right?
1) Um, actually, no. - 2) Yes, of course! (Lie)

Our reward for lying here is a ring that gives Regen 2 in exchange for -50 INT and AGI. Regen 2 is 30 HP every turn taken, which might actually be kinda useful, but whatever. Regardless, we don't have the lying ability for it.

You have destroyed them? Oh, God!
Hey, there was nothing we could do! It was full of raging skeletons and zombies!
You are probably right. It seems there was no other way. May God commemorate them. At the very least, you were able to restore peace in the cemetery so that it can finally be used once again. Take this as a thank you...
Life Ankh received! Blood Ankh received! Ring of Hope received! 2000 Filar received!
May these signs of protection lighten your way.
Thanks.
I will pray for you, my children.
29700 Experience Points gained!

Alright, that's another quest crossed off the list.



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

And in order to cross another quest off the list, we get this skill, which I mentioned earlier we need to solve one particular quest. So, back to Ordun to clear that up.



♪ BGM: Ordun - Wald2.mid ♫

This then allows us to spot the wallet we were supposed to be looking for lying here.

Come on, let's take the money.
Obviously, we're not going to do that!
Yes, obviously, we're going to!
1) We'll take the money! - 2) We'll leave the money inside!

The money in the wallet is like 800 Filar, and it screws us out of the reward.

Your ideas are getting worse and worse, Asgar.
You two are just too human friendly.
Wallet obtained!



Yes, here it is.
Ah, very good! Ah, everything's still here. Thank you for your help! Take this as a thank you...
2 Healing Elixirs received!
Thanks.
Now I'm relieved.
6138 Experience Points gained!

Those elixirs will sell for 2000 Filar a pop, so that's a better result for us all around.

Anyway, that'll do it for now. Next time, we'll be going through the Elras hideout to continue the main quest, and you know it's going to be exciting. But before that, we have another Behind The Fangs coming up, where I'm going to look at... something.