Part 15: Blood and Iro- I Mean, Silver

Alright. So last time, we hit level 30 with all our party members, which means that we can now max out the amount of workers in our mines, and of course I take advantage of that because MORE MONEY. However, we're still missing two mines - a "Tranak mine" and an "island mine". Now that we're level 30, I think we're about ready to take over those mines as well and get EVEN MORE MONEY.



But before that, I need to make some more medium soul stones to create more skeletons with, and while we're at it, since we're level 30, let's get more spells!





A: "White Power" (yes, I went with this translation intentionally) - "Increases Agility and Intelligence; entire party is affected". Blood cost: 36
B: "Shadow Ray" - "Base damage: 120; one enemy is hit". Blood cost: 48

Once again, we're going with the light skill, though if I had a choice, I would have gone with the other one, really - boosting Agility and Intelligence doesn't seem that great. Seem. Operative word here. I'll come back to this.

Valnar's seventh spell: White Power







A: "Poisoned Ice Rain" - "Base damage: 80; chance to paralyze: 50%; chance to poison: 50%; all enemies are hit". Blood cost: 50
B: "Shadow Ray" - "Base damage: 120; one enemy is hit". Blood cost: 48
C: "Weakness" - "Reduces power; one enemy is hit". Blood cost: 34

Well, I love me some spells that attack everybody. Really should have gone for Weakness, though - it sounds like it just goes against Attack, but it actually reduces all four attributes, which is pretty nice.

Asgar's seventh spell: Poisoned Ice Rain







A: "Flame Ray" - "Base damage: 100; all enemies are hit". Blood cost: 48
B: "Paralysis" - "Chance to paralyze: 30%; all enemies are hit". Blood cost: 47
C: "Weakness" - "Reduces power; one enemy is hit". Blood cost: 34

Same reasoning as with Asgar. Should have gone with Weakness, went with the attack spell instead.

Alaine's seventh spell: Flame Ray



With that done, let's head out and conquer ourselves some mines.



Well, red skull, but eh, I'm feeling lucky again.



A tiger!
This cave must be its territory!



So, we've got another boss to deal with. How threatening is it?

HP: 1500
Attack: 240
Defense: 200
Intelligence: 120
Agility: 130

Attacks: Regular attack (66% to use), medium attack that can inflict Bleeding (33% to use).

Not very. Really, there's three things to pay attention to when analyzing enemies:

1) Attack
2) Defense
3) Extraordinary attacks

This enemy has none of the three. We inflict Blind on the first round, Poison on the second, and it drops in the fifth or sixth, having done no major damage to the party.



Now this is our territory!



This cave looks like a good place to mine silver! And that's what we should do.



And then we use our soul stones to max out the workers in this mine. Only one left to go! Also, I don't know why the red skull hasn't gone away. There are no random encounters in this mine, so the now dead tiger was the only threatening thing here. Oh well.



Our next stop is a cave southwest of Castle Tranak.



This is King Gerald's mine! It will definitely be guarded by some of his best knights! I don't believe we're strong enough to take over this mine yet! Do you really want to go inside?
Um... 1) ...let's try it! 2) ...no, better not!

In another one of Marlex's bizarrely fair judgement calls, Asgar replaces the red skull warning because there will be a fight the moment you enter the mine. I honestly would have figured that he would just let you stumble in there and die. Still, I want more money, and I saved beforehand, so let's just take a shot at this.

Alright, then let's get going!



Well, look who wandered in... some unexpected visitors! Why, I'd say that they look just like those monsters from Castle Aldaines! Let us avenge Sir Esthir!
Bring it!
You will bleed out miserably in a corner! Actually, wait... no, your blood will not be spilled uselessly! I will enjoy every last drop of it!
Die, creatures of the night!



Well then. Now THIS is a boss battle. So, let's take a closer look at our opponents:

The "strong knight", of which we're fighting three:

HP: 400
Attack: 290
Defense: 210
Intelligence: 90
Agility: 120

Attacks: Regular attack (40% to use), attack that can cause Bleeding (20% to use), stronger attack that can cause Bleeding (20% to use), attack that can cause Paralysis (20% to use)

And Korina Heldar herself:

HP: 1200
Attack: 280
Defense: 260
Intelligence: 100
Agility: 110

Attacks: Regular attack (40% to use), stronger attack that can cause Bleeding (20% to use), heal everybody (20% to use), inflict Confusion (20% to use).

You're noticing that they now have four different attacks. This is a general motif for the game going forward - enemies become stronger, and they also get more attacks that can do different things like heal and inflict more status effects. Though they don't go further than five - in the late game, the special attacks just get more and more potent instead.

Either way, once again, we have a fight on our hands. However, for once, we're at an advantage in this fight - my constant focus on getting spells that attack all enemies finally pays off.



Alaine's Flame Ray deals about 130 damage to the knights, and as an added, undocumented bonus, inflicts Blind on one of them! This is the only fire spell that does this - I presume this to be an error, but I'll take it!

Valnar's Holy Storm does fuck-all, sadly. If it can't inflict Berserk, the damage it does is absolutely pitiful - about 30 on these guys.



Asgar is being more credit to team - his Poisoned Ice Rain deals about 100 damage and poisons one knight.



However, that comes with problems - this shows the dangers of enemies ganging up. Asgar was the target of all four enemies, and if one didn't miss due to being blinded, he would have dropped. Valnar gets relegated to healing duty...



...while Asgar and Alaine clean up the riff-raff.



With our damage taking being cut down drastically, Valnar is now able to give White Power a spin, and who knew, White Power is actually kind of rad, because god damn those boosts.

Valnar gets his Intelligence and Agility boosted by 64, Asgar's are boosted by 77, and Alaine's are boosted by 76. That's pretty insane.



At this point, I largely just start spamming magic spells, hoping for a lucky status effect or two.



It doesn't quite work. Everybody's running low on blood, Asgar is bleeding, Valnar is confused and will be attacking the party, shit's looking kind of bad.



However, thankfully, Alaine has enough in the tank for one more Flame Ray, and that's all it took. This was quite the fight - all of our party members are pretty much entirely out of BP, and should be going into Berserk mode now if we can't heal up. Thankfully, there isn't another fight right after this.



How pathetic...



Mine Worker: They killed them! Fight to the DEATH!

Wait...



...shit.



Fuck. So yeah, those mine workers aren't that impressive (HP, Attack and Defense are all 200), but when all we can do is just use basic attacks, and they have a stronger attack, and any and all targeting is left up to complete chance, things aren't looking good for us.

This is one of the few prime dick moves the game pulls on the player, and I'm not even saying it's a bad thing. You just assume that after a tough fight like that, the game wouldn't just throw another one right in your face without a chance to catch your breath, but here we are! There's one more of these that I think really stands out, but we'll get there when we get there.



And let's just say that take 2 went better. Surprising, I know. Turns out being able to cast a flame spell that does about 150 damage to both enemies is better than plinking away randomly for about 30 damage and getting hit for 60 in return.



HARHAR! What a massacre! Alright, I think we can also have silver mined here...

And there we go, all mines are now in our possession. You'd think vampires claiming a worldwide monopoly on silver would have a bit more of an impact. I guess the one most likely to care, that being King B3 over in his castle, is likely just counting his blessings those vampires haven't come to shove their foot squarely up his ass yet, given that they first killed one of the highest knights in Sir Esthir, kicked the door to his castle down, killed the head of the knights in Jagoff Gorda or whatever his name was, plundered the knights' weapons and then just left like nothing happened, and then to top things off they also take over your silver mine, once again guarded by his elite soldiers.



Anyway, to get the maximum amount of workers here, we need more soul stones, which means we need more souls, so I head back to the icy region to grind some of those out, and while I'm there, I decide to check out that cult we got told about a long time ago.



Hm. Red skull and boss enemy nearby. Well, I saved, so that's not really a big deal. Let's see if we can take these guys.



They don't look so tough.



Oh. No damage. Well, let's try some spells then.



OH.



Well, spells do a bit of damage...



...yeah, there we go. And nobody died on our side. Still, I'm not feeling too great about these guys. Let's check out their stats.

HP: 280
Attack: 370
Defense: 360
Intelligence: 200
Agility: 170

Attacks: Regular attack (40% chance), heal everybody (20% to use), high-level all-party ice attack spell (20% chance), shadow spell with chance to inflict outright death (20% chance).

Oh lordy. In this fight, he only used regular attacks and a heal right at the start which did nothing. And there can be up to three of these fuckers to fight. And these are just the random encounters. Yeah, no, leaving right now, Refuge to the rescue.



On the way back to the icy area to grind some more, I run into a ship and decide it's time to beat up some weaklings to feel strong again. A choice quote from the fights:

Sailor: What are you? God damnit, you turned into a bat!
So? You're going to turn into a puddle of blood!

And then after the fight:

Hey, look, your transformation is starting!

The loot is unexciting. Two save stones, a +1 to BP. Meh.



And there goes another ship. I think there's only one left right now, but since they constantly move, it's hard to find them.



In further "building up confidence" news, we head back to the area around Isthar and beat up the enemies that caused a Game Over for us way back when. Two shots and they're dead, and they only deal 1 damage now. Fun.



For some reason, I decide to go to the desert area next and stumble across one of those spots on the world map that lead to a little area with some treasure strewn about.



Apart from this red stone, the loot is unexciting, but that red stone is very nice.



Enemies around here aren't much of a threat anymore either - "desert lizards" and "desert giants" galore, but nothing that packs a punch.



Or so I thought until I stumbled across this other spot.



Red skull again... let's see if the roll of the dice is in our favor this time and we can actually deal with these enemies.



Oh dear. That's 3 HP of damage caused on a regular attack.



Oh dear. That's about 90 damage and Blind to every single one of our party members.



Welp. One of the few times I actually run away from a fight. I hadn't saved in a fairly long time, and I'll be damned if I'm doing that grinding again. I run away and cast Refuge.



...and it drops me here again because of how Refuge works. I hate this spell sometimes.



After returning to the castle, we head out and pick up our ~100K Filar in silver, which is always nice.





We grind some more in the desert area and get our soul stones to the last mine to completely max out our worker capacity. So with that done, let's do some more math. The way the system works is that every worker means one silver bar per 30 seconds. So 20 + 10 + 15 + 20 + 15 = 80 workers means 80 bars per 30 seconds. Then we divide that by 30 to get the per second number and multiply by 8 to convert bars to Filar, and we get... 21 1/3 Filar per second. Well, that's a number. I have no idea how to actually interpret that number, though. Oh well.



Time to move on, it seems. Next stop, those two caves around Limm we got directions to way back when.



First, the cave where we're supposed to find some sort of bracelet or something.



This is a nice place. It's not too big or complicated...



...and the enemies here - "evil warriors" and "priests" - are two-or-three-shottable with regular attacks. I like this place. This is where I'll come if I ever need more normal souls.



In the center of the cave, we find a switch.



And much like Grandy, we just LOVE switches, so it gets flipped. No idea what it does yet, but, y'know, it's a switch. It's probably good to flip it.



After a bit of bopping around, we find a treasure chamber in the north of the cave. Turns out that this place would have been locked off if we didn't flip the switch. Inside, we find 3000 Filar, some crap equipment...



...and the bracelet we were looking for!



Though that's not the best thing in the cave - that's this antique vampire ring hidden in a red chest locked with a 130 Intelligence barrier. Making good progress on Operation Make Valnar Less Stupid - soon we'll be able to get that great armor! Anyway, let's bring that bracelet back and get our reward.



Woman: Have you found the bracelet?
Yes, here it is!
Woman: Oh, yes! That is indeed it! This unique form... these wonderful colors... here, you've truly earned your reward! It's a rare rhing I've bought off a traveller. It's really beautiful!
"Obtained 1 Vampire Ring!"

Hm. Guess that's nice, but I think we're kind of at the point where you want an antique one or you've got other, nicer gear to use (like the mage belt, ring of agility or warrior mantle). Regen is nice and all, but when you're shitting silver like we are right now, just having an endless supply of healing items to use is trivial. Now, let's check out that other cave.



So this is the place that we heard of in that conversation between those two old people in Limm, the cave that those children found.



The first level is rather unexciting.





The "tree women" and "dragon lizards" aren't too much trouble to deal with, I don't need to use any magic for them, so that's nice.



Nothing interesting as far as loot goes, so let's jump down to the next level.



Down here, we have... statues... and some light up when you go past a certain point and then go off again when you go past other points... hang on, I remember this. I read about this in the FAQ. Oh, fuck me, we're in the next dungeon. We're not supposed to be here yet, and going further would be a waste of time because we'd just get stonewalled at the end because we haven't dealt with Aysha yet.

I guess that's as good a signal as any, so that's it for this time. Next time, we're finally going to deal with that whole Aysha problem, and make one man very, very mad. We're finally getting back on the plot train and should stay there until the end of the game, mostly! Rejoice, as actually interesting things might happen!