Part 6: Random Encounters, Random Encounters, And Random Encounters, Oh My!

Alright, so last time, we got some more tutorials, grinded a bit, got fucked over in a trial by fire, grinded some more, and then made it through. This time, more history lessons!

And what role does Vincent Weynard play?
Well, Vincent was a priest.



Not sure why this picture just shows up here. Am I supposed to be inferring that that's supposed to be Weynard, and that those save crystal quotes we got were from him?

A very powerful high priest, to be exact. He had many followers... but his position as high priest he would only get after the first vampires appeared.
Why that?
Well, he really only used to be an unimportant priest in a little village... he did all those little things that priests have to do in villages like that. Sometimes he would hold sermons and public prayers. But really, he was only a very unimportant priest in an unimportant village...
And then, suddenly the vampires showed up?
One day, Vincent started talking about a certain time being upon them... a time of blood and destruction. Vincent told the villagers that soon terror would envelop the land... he told of visions he had, visions filled with blood and hate, filled with monsters... visions of walking dead... powerful undead...



To begin with, the people didn't really pay any attention to him and wrote him off as having gone mental. Only his most loyal followers believed him. But only a short time later, the sky darkened around noon...



The people froze, and stared up to the sky... it was dark as the night, and even the crickets stopped chirping. All the people went quiet and looked up to the moon that was developing... it was the Moon of Death, or at least that's what they called it from then on. For a few minutes that felt like an eternity, the entire world went as quiet as the grave! But then, suddenly it began to rain... but it wasn't any normal rain... it was raining BLOOD! The ground went a deep red, and blood flooded the world for minutes... but it was over as quickly as it came. The blood burned in the eyes of the people as the sky lit up again... and as if the heavens were crying over what had just occurred, suddenly normal rain started to fall. The blood seeped into the ground with the rain water.

Can you say "product of its time" again?

And then Vincent took his chance to massively improve his status.



But somehow, Vincent had changed... something magical started emanating from him. The people, frightened by the rain of blood, looked up to him. He somehow seemed to have become more powerful. And he said the following: "It has begun! I have proclaimed this to you! The time of blood has come! Hide your daughters and wives! Train the boys to be warriors! It cannot be avoided... the age of blood has come. We must be ready..."
Grandpa! That story about the blood rain is disgusting!
Well, yes, but that's how it happened!
And what happened then?
Vincent used his oratory skills to bring the people on his side... the people started learning the art of war to be prepared to fight the hellspawn that Vincent always talked about. And then, a few weeks later, suddenly, a mysterious creature appeared in the night... it killed as quickly as it had come. The few people that still dared to go out at night were completely drained, and the bloodless corpses were found on the side of the road the next day. And Vincent started telling the people about vampires having spread on this earth.



Vampires that especially like to find female victims and kill them... the men became enraged that a creature like that was a danger for their wives. And so Vincent surrounded himself with men and went from village to village. After he had assembled a small group of warriors, he went on the hunt with them. He was hunting VAMPIRES!



And so now we flash back to whenever this shit happened. I think it's about 300 years before when our main story plays?

My friends... we are only few so far, but this morning, you have seen the proof that vampires already walk amongst us! Erik's corpse should be proof enough!

Master orator my ass. Look at that awkward repetition. Who does he think he is, Marco Rubio?

That's my political humor. People like it when you're topical.

It's time for us to embrace our purpose! DOWN WITH THE VAMPIRES!
Warrior: YEAH! DOWN WITH THE VAMPIRES!



Well, looks like he's got these people fired up at least.

It's time to show these vampires who's calling the shots around here! And now get ready to get moving and chop those vampires' heads off! I'll go ahead and scout out the area south of the village. I'll get you in about an hour, you should be ready by then!
Warrior: As you wish, Vincent!
I've told all the villagers to barricade themselves in their homes. So if you need something, use our secret signal! Alright then, I'll be back later!

So now we get to walk around with Vincent. Let's go and talk to the other people around.



Prepare for a difficult hunt...
Warrior: If you say so, Vincent!



Female Warrior: Down with the vampires! For the safety of mankind!
That's the right attitude!



Warrior: I'll show those vampires what happens when you attack innocents!
Yes, unleash your anger on these creatures of hell!



Warrior: We have to protect humanity from these creatures!
Prepare well for that!

Well, that's about standard I guess.



We can't enter any buildings, since they're all locked, and...

The door is locked, but I don't need anything from here!



Speaking of not needing things, let's check out what Vincent has. He's level 25, which is decent, has some good stats, but no spells/skills.



His equipment is a big unknown because I can't actually remove it because Marlex didn't figure out how to do separate inventories for separate groups, so we would be able to get the equipment to our main group by unequipping it. Not that it would help, since it sells for nothing, and I only know that by going in through the editor. Here's what his equipment is like:

"Holy Sword": "A holy sword with Vincent's engraving". +100 Strength.
"Holy Shield": "The best shield the church ever created". +70 Defense.
"Holy Armor": "A truly grand armor". +200 Defense.
"Holy Helmet": "A helmet with many ornaments". +60 Defense.

So really, Vincent's base stats are kind of shit. He's got like 60 Strength and 50 Defense without the equipment, which is terrible. Of course, we were never supposed to peer through the code like this.



Also, there's this thing.

When I die, I want to be buried here. The corpse that is in here now will be burned...

So yeah, the savior of humanity? Also kind of a cunt. Not that that's a surprise in this game. So now we head south to go scout the area out.



Warrior: Vincent, wait! We don't want to let you go alone! We'll all go together!



Warrior: Exactly! We're strong together!
You're right! Alright, come with me! The vampires are waiting!



So is anybody going to be watching the village or anything? No? Alright then.

And so Vincent and his followers set off to destroy the vampires that had apparently spread near the village and now were a great danger. They came to a river where Vincent felt that vampires were nearby...



River! Also, fish!



Spotted anything yet?
Warrior: I'm sure the vampires are somewhere nearby...
Keep your eyes open!



Then, when we walk up a bit...

Wait a second... a cold wind is coming in... that could be a sign! Do you see something?
Warrior: I can't see anything... but I can feel them!
Female Warrior: Yes, they're surely very close!



Vampires, masters of stealth. Or rather masters of using the "off-screen" camouflage.

Esmalia! Behind you!
Female Warrior: Wha-

She turns around.

Female Warrior: AAAAAAAAAAAHHH!



Female Warrior: Heeelp! I can't swim!

Vampires, masters of tactical warfare. Fighting a heavily armored foe? Just give 'em the ol' Barbarossa and knock their ass into the water! Bonus points if they can't swim, yet see no problem standing very close to a ledge with a body of water beneath you while attempting to find an enemy that is great at stealth. This is the equivalent of getting killed by the Prod in Worms. You done goofed.

And that's assuming the vampire knocked her into the water. An even less flattering image would be her turning around, seeing the vampire, getting scared to shit and just jumping backwards on her own accord like she's in a fucking Looney Tunes cartoon or something. There's no animation implying the vampire does anything, really. No movement or anything. So it could just as well be that she jumped down entirely on her own. Something tells me this rag-tag group of warriors is even more rag-tag than one might have thought.



And then he just disappears. If he could just do that to start with, why not do that to show up as well?

Warrior: DAMNIT! He's gone!



Female Warrior: Blub... blub... H... help me!
Warrior: I can't swim either!

Well of course nobody in this group can fucking swim. This isn't even a real river with a current or anything, it might as well be a lake.

Try to hold on to the rock!
Female Warrior: Damnit! Get that vampire!

Well, good to hear you're dealing with that situation you're in well enough. You sure look like you're in trouble with that flailing and all, but I guess that's not a problem.

Where did he go? Hmmm...



Vampire: DIE, YOU MISERABLE HUMAN!
Creature of evil! Your fate is sealed!



Vampire: ROAAAAR!

Vampire: Nooooooo-

And we fade to black with Esmalia still flailing in the water. Guess she's toast then.

And so it happened... Vincent had killed his first vampire... and there would be many to follow. Every time he killed a vampire, Vincent got better at it! And his name became known throughout the world - a world that was having more and more troubles with vampires. The people were scared... but in Vincent, they saw a light within the darkness. His popularity grew and grew, and the heads of the church started noticing him. For the first time, Vincent was being seen as a major player within the church. And with that, his rise to becoming a High Priest began... quickly and efficiently! His army became bigger and bigger, since the desperate people saw him as their savior. They joined up with him to destroy the evils of the world once and for all. Under the banner of the church, Vincent travelled from city to city, from continent to continent. He was respected... more than any one person had ever been respected before. And this was then called the Holy Crusade! Led by one man... Vincent Weynard. In the final phases of the Crusade, he had the people completely under his control. He was idolized, the people had become fanatics!



My friends! We have already killed hundreds of vampires! But we also had great losses. The vampires are strong and quick. But we are stronger... I have now been appointed as a High Priest so I can do more good in this world. I am honored to have finally reached this rank, and promise not to rest on my laurels. With your help, I will soon be able to execute the final strike against the vampires. We have already freed many cities from the vampire plague. Let us remember the fallen! And let us kill the last vampires in their name! The sky was blood red... but now it's almost blue again. And I promise that it will be even more blue! FOR NOW THE TIME HAS COME! THE TIME TO BRING THE REST OF THOSE DISGUSTING CREATURES DEATH!



Cheers.

TO MAKE THE WORLD FREE AGAIN! TO SHOW THE VAMPIRES THAT THEIR LIFE IS NOW OVER! AND TO ACHIEVE THE FINAL VICTORY!

More cheers.

TO END THE AGE OF TERROR! TO DESTROY ALL VAMPIRES!

And more cheers.

FOR HUMANITY! AND FREEDOM!

And more cheers again.

FOR US!

And again, and fade to black.

And with that, he finally made it! He had become one of the most powerful people in the world...



The way he worked his way up to being High Priest was amazing!
Yes, Vincent was a smart man. He know exactly how to bring the people to his side the fastest - by fighting against their fears.
And what became of him?
Well, Vincent killed the last few remaining vampires...
Hm, wasn't there some kind of head vampire or something?
No, not really. At least Vincent never spoke of a head vampire.

This is a strange concept. How the hell does the concept of generations work without a proverbial Caine?

Anyway, on his last set of travels to find the last few vampires he ran into somebody...



Soon, I'll be there...

We walk up a bit, and then another cutscene with two particularly familiar faces.



Man: Get lost!
HARHAR! You will die!
Woman: Please, let us go! We want to go to Vincent Weynard!
ROOOOOAAAR! Vincent Weynard!
Stepmother... why did you tell him that? HE'S A VAMPIRE!

Young Asgar seems quick on the uptake here. Also, god damn that hair. Can you tell this is an edit of a vanilla face set picture (Fun Fact: Wahnfried's face set picture is also an edit of the same picture that Asgar uses, but much, much better)? Also also, fun to note that those people are explicitly referenced to be Asgar's step-parents, because yeah, when you take a character portrait and sprite that's supposed to be for a drow (check the RTP, there's a monster picture that looks just like Asgar with the name of DarkElf.png) and then try to give the character parents while still using mostly standard assets, which are whitebread as hell, as befitting of a JRPG creation kit, you might run into some problems.

Woman: Oh no!

The man steps forward.

Man: Leave us alone, or I'll slice you up!
Cute... and now you'll all die!
Man: Nooooooooo-



STEPFATHER!



NOOOOOOOOO!
HARHAR! And now it's your turn!
Please...



VAMPIRE!



I will destroy you!
Vincent... Vincent Weynard!
You have had your last victim!
ROOOOOAAR!



I'll get you too!

Everything OK with you?
E... e... everything OK? MY STEP-PARENTS WERE JUST MURDERED!
I'm sorry, if only I could have arrived earlier...

You were like a fart away from that whole thing. It's like a screen's walking distance, which is nothing. You're just a lazy bastard.

Go to Asran, they'll give you a room there if you tell them I sent you... I'm so sorry...

And then we fade to black again and head back to the storytelling.



Hm, Vincent didn't notice that Asgar got bitten too?
No, he sent Asgar to his home town... Vincent didn't have a lot of pity for him, since he'd already seen many people die. That made him pretty much emotionless. He was just a power-hungry, fanatic High Priest. After this incident, Vincent continued on and found a few more remaining vampires. These didn't have a chance against Vincent anymore, since he had learned many powerful spells in the meantime. He could fight against three vampires at once without a problem.
But he obviously didn't manage to destroy ALL the vampires, right?
No. He claimed he did, but there were still VERY few vampires that went into hiding and managed to escape Vincent's blade. Abraxas obviously also managed to escape him.
Hm, but did Vincent then stop searching for vampires?
Yes. He did know that a few vampires survived, but he didn't really care, since vampires were no longer a danger and had instead gone into hiding. Furthermore, Vincent had reached his goal. He was now a High Priest and had great amounts of prestige. He was respected and idolized... so he told the people that the Crusade had been victorious, and all vampires were killed. And the people believed him. Why would he lie to them? After all, he was their liberator... their savior!
And the vampires didn't come out of hiding in the next few years?
Well, they were at least smart enough not to kill any more humans. They kept alive by drinking animal blood and stayed in hiding otherwise. They were really scared... scared of a continuation of the Holy Crusade. And so the vampires stayed well hidden for the next decades. The next 300 years, to be exact...
And what became of Asgar?
Well, a short time later, he changed just like Valnar... he had immeasurable pain. As his transformation was over, he obviously didn't have a clue what happened to him. But he immediately noticed that he could see a lot better, and that he was a lot stronger. And as he felt the sunlight giving him an unpleasant feeling on his skin, he managed to put two and two together. But unlike Valnar, Asgar accepted it... he even enjoyed it! Because he knew the power he now had. And the older he got, the more powerful he would get. But he also realized the danger he was in... the Holy Crusade had just reached its end, but Vincent and his army were a real threat. So he decided to hide for several years and live off of animal blood. Since he had never tasted human blood, the weak taste of animal blood didn't bother him. And he lived like that for many years until he decided that the time had come to kill the vampire that killed his parents. He started searching for him in secret, but never found any clues to work off of.
But it was Abraxas...
Yes, but Asgar had no idea that it was Abraxas that had killed Valnar's girlfriend... but sooner or later he's going to find out...
And what's going on with Valnar now? Did he calm down somewhat?
Well, in this night, he had a talk with Alaine...

Man, there was something here I wanted to bring up... oh, now I remember!


Just pointing that out. Don't wonder if some things this old fart says become untrue at some point, he's not above lying for the sake of the story. Or "being technically correct" for the sake of the story, because yes, technically Abraxas doesn't know Asgar beyond "some shithead I was going to kill before that fuckhead Weynard interfered" and Asgar doesn't know Abraxas beyond "some asshole vampire that killed my parents", but still, that statement is quite disingenuous. The "stuff garlic down the vampire's throat" thing I don't know anything about, though. Now, back to our main story.



Alaine... what has become of me?
You're asking what has become of you? I'll tell you... you have become something BETTER!
SOMETHING BETTER?
Look at it like this: You now have more power than you've ever had before! And yet you still seem to have a lot of your humanity left, since you'd never have asked that question otherwise...
That may be... but what if I don't want to be a vampire?
And why wouldn't you want to be a vampire?
I... maybe I just don't want to...

God damnit, Valnar, you little shit. You get an opportunity to convince me that you're not just an idealistic mewling fucker that can't actually work out a reason why being a vampire is a bad thing - not what you do as a vampire, not the stuff that Asgar is doing, just being a vampire, purely existing as one - and you strike out looking. You strike out looking like Koo Dae-Sung, standing a mile away in the batter's box and not even swinging the bat.

There's no reason to ever want to become a human again...
I don't know! It's all too confusing to me!
Valnar, you'll eventually accept it... until then, and of course after that too, we'll be friends, OK?
Friends? I've lost all my friends!
That's why I want to be your friend...
I... I... I want to see Aysha!

Oh god damnit.

AYSHA!? I thought she was dead!
YES, DAMNIT! SHE IS DEAD! But I loved her! And I still love her!

I really hate you. I might just have some sort of compassion problem, but my brain just tries to parse "I hate vampires they're shit I wish I just died instead of becoming one also I love my dead girlfriend who was also a vampire and probably mind-controlled me into loving her but that doesn't matter because she was a good girl and wouldn't be evil except all vampires are evil or some shit like that" and the two answers that come out are "fuckhead" and "still mind-controlled", and the latter seems unlikely, given the state Aysha/Molana is currently in.

You really just have to accept it! You won't bring her back with your childish flailing!
No, you're completely right! Not with my words! But with my deeds!
With your deeds?
Asgar revived you! Then he can do the same for Aysha!

Alright, hold up, I need to bitch again.

1) That means that it's not YOUR deeds, but ASGAR'S deeds. You're not doing shit in this plan.
2) Aysha is a fucking vampire. Bringing somebody back from the dead very much has something to do with their soul, and we've already established that vampires and humans are very much different when it comes to that.
3) Whose blood are we using this time? Yours? News flash, Valnar, you're a fucking vampire too! The spell requires the blood of a HUMAN! Otherwise, Asgar could have just sired some random woman, fucked her, then used his own blood! For that matter, I'm not entirely sure why Asgar didn't just fuck some random woman and take her blood. Seems like a process that's easier to pull off than finding some other schmuck that just happened to have fucked a vampire. I guess we wouldn't have a plot if he did that.
4) You still have absolutely no idea what the fuck Aysha was actually up to! She might have been working for Abraxas all along and just ended up not doing well enough for him, and then you want to revive her? She'd bring Abraxas Asgar's head on a platter to get back in his good graces! And that's just one potential example!

This plan is stupid! And 5):

Even IF! You don't even know where her corpse is!
Then I'll look for her! Yes, I'll go back to Klennar!
Be reasonable... you'll never find her corpse THERE!
We'll see!
Will you come with me?

Oh, fucking smooth. Fucking smoooooooth.

WHAT? First you grandstand about how you're going to leave, and then you want me to follow along?

Can Alaine just be our protagonist? Please? She seems like a much nicer character to follow around.

Why not? Or do you think Asgar can't handle things around here on his own?
You don't even know how to turn into a bat yet!
That alone is a reason why I'm asking you to come with me!

Memorial to the time I looked up "Alleine deswegen" ("That alone") and punched "Alaine deswegen" into the search engine.

Oh, is that all you want from me? MY TRANSFORMATION SKILLS?

Valnar, just shut up. You're worse than Grandy at this.

Um... 1) ...of course not! 2) ...what else would I want?

OK, Valnar, let's try not being functionally braindead when it comes to talking with people and try to convince her that no, you're not just asking her along because you're too god damn stupid to remember that you can't actually leave this island yet.

Alright... you'd better have meant that!
I'm sorry...
Forget about it, I'm sure you didn't mean it like that!
Are we leaving?
Alright... but we should really come back soon! I have some potions here that could be useful to us...
"Obtained 5 Healing Vials, 5 Blood Vials and 2 Potions of Eternity!"

Healing and Blood Vials are minor healing items, Potions of Eternity are the revival items.



And we're off!



But on the way there...

Damnit, what is happening?
Something is taking my powers... damn!









https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-GaXa8tSBE

So we just crashed into some sort of hidden mountain base, and wouldn't you know, Abraxas is right there. Let's go talk to him, this can't possibly be a bad idea. Don't worry about that weird floating head, that'll get explained later.



Well, who fell into my trap?
Wait a minute... IT'S YOU! YOU BASTARD! WHERE'S MY GIRLFRIEND?
Come again? What girlfriend? Wait a second... oh, I just now recognized you! You're that mutt that keeps sniffing around everywhere... you've changed quite a bit! You've become a vampire and everything!
OK, that's enough! Where did you hide her?
Tsk, tsk... you still don't seem to understand!

Fucking tell me about it.

Well, what else could I expect from a miserable mutt like you?
Watch your tongue!
Oh, right, you haven't introduced me to your little whore over there!
WHORE?
What's all this about?
Well, I kill vampires... that's all you need to know! Oh, wait, no, there's one thing that you're definitely going to be interested in! You're next! HARHARHAR!
Let's take care of this nutbar!
But he knows where Aysha's body is!
You'll make great blood ghosts!



And we're thrust into battle.

Damnit! WHERE IS AYSHA?
Aysha? You must be talking about Molana!
I don't care! WHERE IS SHE?
Why don't you beat it out of me?
Gladly!

Well, not quite. As you might have expected - we weren't going to be just taking out Abraxas like that, especially without the Asgar part ever coming into play - this is an unwinnable battle. You just trade blows for a while.

I don't know whether I should destroy you quickly or slowly!
Your problem! We don't have that - we'll destroy you quickly! Quicker than you think!
Vampire mutt! I laugh at you and your little whore!

And some more.

So, are you going to tell us? Or do we have to take your head half off first?
You're starting to get annoying!
You've been that for a long time now!

And some more.

OK, you little vampires! You've survived for far too long! Now, here comes your end!
Valnar, watch out!
"Abraxas casts Blood Rigor!"

The screen flashes red.

AAAAAAAAARGH!
NOOOOOOOOO-

And we get pulled out of battle again.



Fade to black.



And our intrepid explorers wake up in some sort of cell (there's bars currently covered by the text box, honest!).

Argh... every bone in my body hurts!
Do you think I feel any better? But it's strange we're still alive...
Alive? I'm already dead!

VALNAR THIS IS NOT THE FUCKING TIME I SWEAR TO GOD I WILL PUNCH YOU THROUGH MY SCREEN

Will you stop wallowing in your self-pity? We don't have the time for that!
We don't have the time? It looks like we're stuck here!
YES, WE DON'T HAVE THE TIME! WE NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE! Damnit, if only I stayed in the castle!
... 1) ...I'm glad you're here! 2) ...maybe that would have been for the best!

While yes, leaving your dumb ass to sit around and stew would have been the best idea, it's probably not a good idea to tell her that. First option it is.

You're glad?
Yes, I'm happy to have you here with me!
Well, that's surprising! Anyway, we really do need to get out of here!

Let's check out those bars keeping us in, then.



They don't look very fragile!
Now, Asgar would have had it easy here! He would have just walked through in shadow form...
...and would have left us behind here!

You, maybe. But since Alaine is with you, he'd have needed to drag you along by necessity.

I don't think so! But he's not here anyway!
And what now?
No idea!
OK, I'll try breaking them!



Damn! They won't budge!
Then let's look for another solution!
Hm... well, if you think of something, tell me!

Well, if we wait long enough, Alaine will find a secret passage, but fuck that, we're a vampire with a much stronger body, let's just keep slamming into the bars.

OK, one more try!
*POW*
Hm, they're just crumbling a slight bit!

And if we do that three more times...

OK, one more try!
*POW*



There we go!

Alright! Finally, your thick skull was useful for something! Now, welcome to Abraxas's caves, the first dungeon. Let me tell you about dungeons in this game. They suck. I mean, the mapping is good enough, and there's treasures littered around to make going down the wrong way not feel like a total waste of time, there's just one problem. The incessant fucking encounter rate! You are going to be fighting and fighting and fighting and fighting all the time going through dungeons. Transforming helps, but this early in the game you're just wasting blood by doing that, which you have precious little of. Let's take a look at the maps, courtesy of RPG Maker-vision:

This is the first level, where you start in the top middle, and which you exit to the top left:



This is the second level, which you also exit to the top left and enter from the right:



And this is the third and final level, which you enter from the bottom and exit to the top:



Thanks to the RPG Maker-vision, you can see the hidden passages clearly, and usually, if it ends in a dead end, there's some loot to be had there. So that's the layout - it's twisty and turny, and you're going to go along the wrong path more than once. And because of the bonkers encounter rate, you're going through a few battles on the way there and a few battles on the way back, which sucks ass. Speaking of the battles, let's see what enemies we can encounter here:



Perfect. The first encounter, and it has both enemies we can find here. So, we have "cave piglets" and "earth worms", which I presume are different to earthworms. The earth worms can only attack, and the piglets can either grunt loudly, which raises the Strength of all enemies, or attack. Normally, these enemies can hardly scratch our overleveled, fully geared-up asses, but when the piglets grunt, they can do some decent damage, which can be a problem. Also, we can only drain blood from the piglets, the worms don't have any blood for us to drain, which can be a problem when you just keep running into worms. Now, just let me say that I spend a lot of time in this dungeon, and a lot of it fighting these fuckers. In fact, let me just check my footage... alright, so I get the "waking up in the cell" scene at about 17 minutes in, and I leave the dungeon at about 54 minutes in, meaning this dungeon took me about 35~40 minutes. For zero puzzles and a pretty basic map, that's rough. There was some dialogue in there, but I'd still figure that at least 50% of the time was spent fighting random encounters. And of course, I can't run from any encounters. Ha, ha, ha... So here's the Cliff's Notes version of this dungeon:

1) Lots of treasure abound, but mostly just crap that is kind of useful but not worth talking about, like healing items and shit. Interesting items: A protection ring that protects against a fair share of status effects, a flame potion, which is another attack magic item that will come in handy at some point, and that's it. Like 50% of the chests here have Potions of Eternity in them, which I guess is nice, since this dungeon can easily fuck you over if you're not prepared, but still kind of annoying.
2) Valnar levels up and learns the "Summon Skeleton" spell.



Using it summons a skeleton to our party for a short amount of time (thankfully, the time doesn't go down in battle). It's kinda shit, but it's another body, I guess.

3) We find a g-g-g-ghost!



A ghost!
Ghost: Ahhhh... finally... I'm tired of my existence... no more joy... finally, somebody has come whom I can give my powers...
You mean me?
Ghost: I'm tired... take my powers, and fare well!
Hm... alright.



And that increased the length of our skeleton summoning. These ghosts are how you upgrade your powers like summoning, transforming and your regen rate. Also, these ghosts pretty much all have the same dialogue, so every time I find one from now on, it'll just be "I found a ghost, he upgraded this thing".

To note, while transcribing this dialogue, I accidentially clicked the search bar on my media player and it took me a minute to find where I was again. This shit all looks the same and it sucks.

4) The statue at the top right on the first level gives us save crystals.
5) One of the hidden passages on the second level teleports you to the floating island in the middle, so that's how you get there.
6) Several times over, I had to create healing vials from the souls menu because I was killing so many enemies I kept hitting 99 weak souls.

Now, let's just jump ahead to the end. On the third level, you can see some interesting looking area. We're south of that when this happens:



PSSSSSST... I hear something...
Let's keep going slowly!

Our group hides in a nearby corner. Abraxas seems to be talking to some statue.



...yes, they're here! Two more stupid vampires without a clue!
?????: Destroy them! They're only going to be trouble! I don't want to risk things...
How about my reward?
?????: The usual... great amounts of fresh blood as well as 10000 Filar per vampire!

That's some pretty good pay.

?????: But don't forget, before I pay you, you have to bring me their heads.
Of course! My trap is working well. I'll bring you many new vampire heads soon!
?????: It may be that your magic helps you find and trap the last few remaining vampires. But don't overestimate yourself, especially since there can't be a lot more vampires in the world, apart from the two of us and the two you're going to kill now. Then, the world will have one less problem!
As you wish. I hope that this means that you won't want to see me dead at the end of this.
?????: Don't you worry. As long as you don't create any more new vampires, you can live forever.
Good, then I'll take care of those two. Tomorrow, you'll get their heads!
?????: Good. I'll be waiting...
Alright, then I'm off to make some money! I love the sound of my blade cutting through their throats!

What should we do now?
I'd say... 1) ...we attack him! 2) ...we sneak past him!

Yeah, not attacking this guy. That seems like a bad idea.

If you say so!



Abraxas just casually walks past. That was easy! Now, time to check out that statue he was talking to.



What kind of a strange device is this?
Surely, he didn't speak with this statue, right?
I doubt it... if it was alive, it would have noticed us by now!
But with whom did he then speak? This stuff reminds me of what Asgar has in his spell chamber!
But this doesn't look like something to create soul stones!
Here's a button!
Be careful!
Let's see what happens!

Click.

?????: ...what is it, Abraxas?

?????: Damnit! Tell me what you want!

?????: Don't make me mad! Get me those two vampire heads!

Click again.

It's a communication device! So, Abraxas is his name...
Did you recognize the voice?
No... but we really should get out of here now!
I wonder who he was! He said he was a vampire!
Come on! Abraxas will be back soon!
Let's go!



We exit to the north and end up where we started.

Up there's the hole we made when we crashed into here!
Can you turn into a bat again?
I hope! I have no idea how Abraxas managed to just cancel my transformation! Alright, I'm trying it! And your girlfriend will have to wait. I'll bring us back to the castle.
Alright, then we'll go to Klennar tomorrow.

Valnar flashes blue, but nothing happens.

Hm... I'll try again.



And we're off! We fly back to the castle without incident.



Alright, Alaine... we'll talk about everything tomorrow! I should probably rest now.
I envy you if you can sleep after all that!
Good night, Alaine!
Good night, Valnar!

And fade to black. I guess I'll cut this here. I originally had a spot further down the line in mind for the end point for this update, but I completely forgot about another part that comes in between. Which is kind of odd, all things considered. So, next time, we'll find out what kind of effect that carrier pigeon from a few updates back had!