Part 25: Chapter 8-1: Lord of the Undead

Chapter 8-1: Lord of the Undead

Hi everyone, we're back with a decently sized update. The next one is going to be a massive downpour of cutscenes.



But today, all we have is a new quest from an old friend.

http://blip.tv/michael-h/let-s-play...d-quest-5349202

An old Dwarf shuffled his way toward you. It was Garcia, the one who hired you earlier, to find Rui.



(Seriously, how hard is it to find pants? And it's winter, too...)

- That dumbass... He set out to fight the King of Darkness, the Vampire Lord. I can't believe him... You'd be surprised at his reason... the words of a woman. She was a cute knight named Grace, I think. It seems that her husband-to-be had an agreement with the King of Darkness. However, Grace was not happy with the arrangement, and wanted him to undo it.

Garcia sighed deeply.

- His reason for challenging the King of Darkness is a girl's words. It's either admirable courage or just plain stupidity...

He spoke ill of the man, but his face showed worry.

- Wolfe is just too good-natured. It's over when he sees a hungry kid or hears a girl's sad story. He'll just start acting without even considering the consequences. Well, it's because he's like that, that I got carried away and made this giant axe.

You were handed a Giant Axe. It was about 4 and a half feet long and including the handle, it stood as tall as a grown man.

(No, we don't get to use it or keep it)

- Can you deliver that axe to Wolfe? He's probably on the verge of tears swinging some lame weapon. He said that he was headed toward the 8th Floor, so as long as he's not dead, he should be somewhere around there. I'm leaving it up to you.

Easy enough. Before we take off for the Labyrinth, however, let's pick up a few AAs at the Guild.







Mixed bag. I don't think I've ever used Fake Attack, but End Lash is pretty good if you want to wear down a lot of weak enemies with high evade. It's even ninja-proof, so you're guaranteed to do a bit of damage. Deploy is really good at reducing breath weapon damage, though its reliability tends to fluctuate. It always works, but to different degrees. I'll include some videos of End Lash and Deploy at the end of this update... as well as another awesome AA I've glided over until now.

Anyway, as we start to enter the Labyrinth...

http://blip.tv/michael-h/let-s-play...hortcut-5349218



- I guess you're not dressed like one. Whatever... just check this out.

It looks like a Magic Circle.

- The Imperial Sorcerers created a Magic Circle here. I heard it's to catch that dumb fool, Eugene, who kidnapped the Queen. Since it takes you to the 8th Floor, it's a bit too hectic for the average person. But, the confident adventurers were full of zeal... Especially because there's a major reward for his capture. If you've got enough confidence, why don't you go ahead?



This is a really good shortcut! It takes us straight down to the entrance of B8, where we fought the ninjas and the rape golem. But it's a one-way ticket, so it remains important to carry a Transfer Potion for the trip back.



Anyway, I'm going to go over B7 really quick. There's actually not much to it; even leveling is sub-par.



Ogre Lords have a high attack and defense, obviously; they do at least 70 damage a hit. Thankfully they only have one attack per turn, and Restrict Shot works.



Up in front are the level 8 warriors, who are the same as their Luchador cousins but with a bit more attack and HP. Way in back is an Archmage, which is also nothing new. Their magic hurts a lot, but you expect that from mages by now; squishing them remains a priority.



Besides having unusually high evade, level 8 Priests are nothing new either.

What do all these enemies have in common? I can kill them in one turn. Wanna know how?



I was pleasantly surprised at this AA. One person spends their turn boosting the magic of another, increasing the power of their spells. Moreover, the person with the highest agility of the pair determines turn priority. So, by using Rui to boost Michele's magic, we can fire off any spell before the enemy can so much as blink. A level 3 Jateal spell turns this...



...Into this.

As long as the spell isn't resisted, you're pretty much guaranteed to annihilate about 85% of the enemies on B7 and B8 this way. Whatever isn't killed right away is weakened severely, giving your front row an easy clean-up job.







Welcome to the meatgrinder, everyone.





B7 has an unusually high rate of new treasure, too. Let's take a look.



Naturally.



Would've been better prior to B5.



New armor for Michele.



Also would've been nice earlier.



Good wisdom-booster for Michele.



Pretty good, not great. Haven't seen any dragons since B3 and B4.



Would be amazing if it wasn't cursed.



Fairly good if you want to give somebody a shield.



Again, might've been a little better if it weren't cursed.



A really, really good shield. Don't try to save up for these with the intention of giving your hero 999 HP, though; it only boosts your max HP by 1 per shield, and it's broken in the process. If you don't want to use them, sell them for 13k each.



Oh yeah, we wanted to go to B8, right. Okay.





Believe it or not, B8 is even more labyrinthine than the Labyrinth levels. And even more confusing at times than the B4 Cemetery. Lots of doors as you can see, but some will only open in one direction, trapping an unwary party. As old-school as it sounds, if you're trying to avoid FAQs it would actually be faster to sketch out the floor on a piece of paper and mark off each one as you go. You'd take a while to get through every one of them, of course, but you'd save yourself a lot of backtracking. Also, purple squares are teleporters, while red squares are slightly more desirable teleporters, just like B4's pit traps. The green areas in the upper corners are event-related, and will be significant in the next update.

For now, though, our goal is the southwest room. By the way, don't you just love the murals on the walls? It really gives this an ancient temple kind of atmosphere.



As you no doubt gathered from the map, the Sanctuary is comprised of narrow winding hallways. This makes evading monsters practically impossible due to limited visibility and maneuverability.



Lifestealers are a joke. Provided they can hurt the undead, a regular attacker shouldn't have any problem taking these out with one attack.



Fairies become a regular encounter here. Thankfully, they're significantly easier to handle at this point in the game.



And, in just one floor, we've upgraded to level 10 Warriors. Nothing new.



Lesser Demons are regular encounters now too, but by now they're also pretty easy to kill. Might want a reasonably good Zaiba from Rui if you want to hedge your bets so your front row will do more damage.



Frost Giants are even more ridiculously strong than Fire Giants, but thanks to Spell Assist you shouldn't be keeping them alive long enough to attack.



These are Will O'Wisps. They're undead, and they come in groups of six, so destroying them with Spell Assist Jakreta is recommended. Also...



They give out ridiculous experience and gold. Farming Wisps is a viable tactic at this point for powerleveling, but they're fairly uncommon on B8. Still, few encounters on this floor give bad experience, and even fewer are difficult if you have Spell Assist and good attackers.

So, once we get to the southwest room... which, I should point out, is done by going to the east side of the sanctuary, teleporting to the north side, and then heading south...

The air in the room made your hair stand on end. A loud yell echoed through the room.

Grace and a large warrior in red armor were trying to trap the Vampire Lord. But they could not even touch the demon.

The warrior took a big swing. The blade, as fast as lightning, seemed to cut the demon in half. But it disappeared, and the warrior lost his balance trying to avoid Grace. The sword hit the ground and shattered.



You gave Grace the Giant Axe you got from Garcia.

(No, you fools, a sword!)

- Watch out!! He's headed towards you!

When Grace turned around, she saw the Vampire Lord heading toward her.

(Naw, you think?)





So... yeah. That's definitely a Vampire Lord back there. And a couple vampires in front for good measure.



Magic seems to work just fine, and eliminates the two vampires in one shot. Oddly enough, the Vampire Lord doesn't resist it either, so he takes some damage.



He's got high evasion, but not as high as a ninja. So, provided you can hit him, there's good damage to be had.



One attack for three damage? Don't make me-





What.



WHAT?



WHAT!?!?



FJKASDJTGAJSDKJTSDJKJKJKEJKAEJKTJKKJ!!!!!!



That doesn't look like two levels' worth of experience to me!





- I guess fighting the Undead Lord physically has its limits. But it sucks that I didn't even get to use Garcia's weapon... Man, nothing could be more pathetic. Oh yeah, forgot to thank ya. The name's Wolfe. I owe you one.

- Let me thank you as well. Thanks to you, Eugene will be saved. They say that if you kill the contracted demon, the contract is nulled. Now Eugene has no choice but to stop his plans. He might hate me for it now, but... But one day he will understand what we did.

Behind her a small whirlwind formed and swept away the ashes of the Lord of the Undead.

- You humans are such interesting creatures...

The ashes moved about like they had their own will. And one-by-one they bunched together, forming a human shape.

The Lord of the Undead stood there like nothing happened.





- We, living for nearly eternity, cannot understand your actions. You fear death extraordinarily, yet you court death for such trivial reasons. How irrational...



- Let me give you a piece of advice: Essentially, it is impossible for you to defeat us. Just as darkness returns despite the morning sun fending it away... We are an eternal existence. But 'tis a sad thing; that God can never love us. We were given eternity, but in place of that, we are forbidden to live above. When we show ourselves in the overworld, we do not appear in this form here, but rather as an uninvited guest, wandering as a detestable beast or as a phantom.

The Lord of the Undead smiled. His voice sounded hollow, as if it came from far away.

- Have you noticed? In this world, you are the uninvited guests. Ahh, yes, it's too bad. The contract with Sir Eugene Guestam is still in effect. His soul shall be under the King of Darkness forever...

- What the hell was he talking about? Before that...... Why doesn't he die?

Grace's face was pale with shock.

- ...They are immortal... And.. we are... not of this world...

- What's that supposed to mean? So are all the other monsters secretly coming back to life like that guy? But then, what about all the monsters we've defeated until now? If that bull is true, the world's in deep shit.

Grace was murmuring faintly...

- Eugene... I... wasn't able to save you......

- Don't sweat it. There's got to be a way. Plus there isn't any proof that what he said is true. But it doesn't look like I can handle the lower floors by myself. Let's go find some other adventurers back in town.

Garcia's quest has been completed. Go to the Tavern to get your reward.



In the same room as all of this, we get a new vellum. I believe this creates the Nirvana magic stone, whose effects we saw in the Golem Flesh last update.

Anyway, back to town.

- All of you are back safe and sound!

Garcia walked towards you with a friendly smile.



- Well, there're times like that!

Garcia laughed loudly.

- Wolfe was really depressed after he came back. He said that he Lord of the Undead whooped his ass. He's always been by himself, so he had the confidence to take on anyone. But it's good medicine for him. Now he won't do anything rash. Oh, yeah! Here's your reward.

You got a Neck Breaker.

You got 38000 Exp!

(Still not two levels' worth! )

- You know, he said something weird... He said that all the monsters come back to life. That's nonsense. If that's true, then the world's in deep shit! Don't you think so? I believe that one day, this town will regain its beauty. See you later!



Pretty good reward, I guess. With the Material Shop quest remaining, we've only got one new job waiting for us down the line!



Also, I might have found Orphe a new toy.



Another level up for Sagoon!

See you next update!

Videos:

Garcia's Second Quest - http://blip.tv/michael-h/let-s-play...d-quest-5349202

Shortcut - http://blip.tv/michael-h/let-s-play...hortcut-5349218

New AAs:

Deploy - http://blip.tv/michael-h/let-s-play...-deploy-5349229

End Lash - http://blip.tv/michael-h/let-s-play...nd-lash-5349240

Assisted Spell - http://blip.tv/michael-h/let-s-play...nd-lash-5349240