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xyzzysqrlWelcome back. Last time, Princess Ashe decided what she needed most was POWER OVERWHELMING, so she could destroy everything and get her country back. Magical Nuclear Weapons aren't awesome enough for Ashe. Accordingly, she decided to go after the Sword of Kings.
The Sword of Kings is a mighty weapon which can destroy Nethicite, and she's looking for it in the Stilshrine of Miriam. We had saved just outside the front door.
(I remember trying to farm a Sword of Kings from Starman Supers back in Earthbound. Man, if I had a 100%-certain location for one, I would go try to get it too.)
One of the dudes standing watch outside explains that the Sword of Kings was never to be used for spilling blood. I'm sure that'll be foremost on Ashe's mind. "Could you try not to bleed? I'm not supposed to draw blood with this thing. Just hemmorage internally, okay?"
Just inside the Stilshrine is a little pedestal, that invites the "Relic-Holder, Treaty-Seeker" to touch it. I do. Some zombies spawn, but nothing else happens. Hm. I equip the Dawn Shard to Ashe, then have HER touch it. The party is promptly teleported elsewhere. I feel like I solved that one nicely. Down in the depths of the shrine, the enemies are living stone guardians. Clearly the Dynast-King knew how to design a proper dungeon. It is here I really start worrying about "Sap", that HP-bleed effect. I have next to nothing that can cure it and it doesn't seem to just go away.
There's a surprising variety of nasty traps lined up in the Stilshrine. My personal favorite is the Evil Save Crystal which looks like you can save the game at it until it comes to life and attacks you. A classic from Chrono Trigger, back again today. Deeper in, we learn from some writing on a giant stone sword (this tomb is completely lousy with "giant stone X"es and the sword motif is getting a workout too) that there are THREE GUARDIANS in the tomb that must be aligned before we get in.
It eventually comes out that this refers to some stone statues we have to rotate around until they all point towards the "blade" at the center of the dungeon. So, yay triangulation.
Deeper in we find a boss, a metal dragon, and I did kind of a dumb but awesome thing. Y'see, in the boss room I got a message about "magnetic fields" causing the party's metal equipment to "grow heavy". SILLY ME, I assumed we were working under Magnetic Cave rules. The Magnetic Cave was a dungeon back in Final Fantasy 4 where you had to de-equip ALL your metal gear (METAL GEAR?!) in order to be able to do ANYTHING. Naturally, when I got the "magnetic fields" message, I swapped equipment and party members off to minimize metal, and Ashe has this space on her license board that increases her unarmed damage, and...
Long story short, Ashe basically just bare-knuckle boxed an ancient guardian dragon to death during her QUEST FOR MORE POWER.
(Okay, Penelo's magic and Vaan's bow helped too.)
With that boss beaten we can rotate the last statue. "Your wisdom is proven." the message comes, "Now test your might." ... Hello? Were you WATCHING me rock that dragon's world? I guess not. We enter a room which is completely iced over and an Esper rises to challenge the group.
This is Mateus, The Corrupt, and he is a nasty, fishlike piece of work who has captured a goddess of Ice and is using her as a living shield. (The Ivalice world is JUST FULL of WONDERFUL TOUCHES that make you want to smack somebody.) In any event, he's defeated eventually (goodness, but he hit hard) and now the Power of A Fishman With A Hostage Goddess can be put to work for me.
Now, this is where I would usually have a "Who gets this?" vote, except almost nobody would benefit from it except for Fran. So... Fran gets the power of Ice, joining Basch and his Lightning and Balthier and his Fire. We're almost at the level of a half-respectable sentai team, with just three more elements!
Yeah, three. There's always a Ranger #6.
Beyond Mateus is the Sword of Kings, floating suspended among a series of magical gizmos. Ashe thrusts the Dawn Shard at them and it sucks the magic from the protections, leaving the sword to come floating to her on a column of light. Arm thrust upward, Ashe takes the Sword of Kings.
And very nearly drops it straight through the floor. Damn thing's HEAVY.
"You should try it out on the Dawn Shard!" Vaan suggests. Oh yes, let's just start chopping nethicite in half. That's a brilli--
"That's not a bad idea." Balthier agrees, surprising me. "It's no use to us, after all."
Ashe considers the idea for a moment, then shrugs and puts the Dawn Shard on the floor in front of her. I kind of can't believe they're going to go through with this. Doesn't something bad happen when this stuff breaks? It seems like it would. "The stone bleeds Mist. It has been roused. It FEARS the sword." Fran contributes. Ashe seems pleased by the idea briefly, then gasps as she sees another vision of Rasler. Rasler shakes his head.
See, I KNEW this was a bad idea. Ashe brings the sword down and declares that it's the "Nethicite Destroyer". She doesn't need to test it. The rest of the party throw up their hands and walk out. Whatever, Ashe.
On the way out, she stops to ask Vaan if he saw ... anything. "Not a thing!" Vaan replies. Oh GOOD, her delusions are becoming more personal. What an excellent sign. Outside, we're not three feet from the Stilshrine before Imperial airships pass overhead. Son of a b... I AM NOT GOING TO PRISON AGAIN, YOU BASTARDS!
They don't stop for the party. They keep going. Fran follows line of sight to see where they came from, and notices a huge plume of smoke on the horizon. Smoke coming from Mt. Bur-Omisace. Well. Crap.
Looks like we'd better get back there, then!
On the way, I check the stats on the Sword of Kings. No elemental damage, lousy attack, and it weighs a ton so it swings super-slow. Y'know, I don't think I'm equipping this on anyone at all. What a letdown. It's like this thing was designed to break rocks instead of stab people. That's not what Ashe needs. She needs MORE POWER.
Next time: Could seeking power relentlessly possibly have a price of some kind? ... Hell no, we're playing an RPG! Let's do more hunts and level up more!
The Sword of Kings is a mighty weapon which can destroy Nethicite, and she's looking for it in the Stilshrine of Miriam. We had saved just outside the front door.
(I remember trying to farm a Sword of Kings from Starman Supers back in Earthbound. Man, if I had a 100%-certain location for one, I would go try to get it too.)
One of the dudes standing watch outside explains that the Sword of Kings was never to be used for spilling blood. I'm sure that'll be foremost on Ashe's mind. "Could you try not to bleed? I'm not supposed to draw blood with this thing. Just hemmorage internally, okay?"
Just inside the Stilshrine is a little pedestal, that invites the "Relic-Holder, Treaty-Seeker" to touch it. I do. Some zombies spawn, but nothing else happens. Hm. I equip the Dawn Shard to Ashe, then have HER touch it. The party is promptly teleported elsewhere. I feel like I solved that one nicely. Down in the depths of the shrine, the enemies are living stone guardians. Clearly the Dynast-King knew how to design a proper dungeon. It is here I really start worrying about "Sap", that HP-bleed effect. I have next to nothing that can cure it and it doesn't seem to just go away.
There's a surprising variety of nasty traps lined up in the Stilshrine. My personal favorite is the Evil Save Crystal which looks like you can save the game at it until it comes to life and attacks you. A classic from Chrono Trigger, back again today. Deeper in, we learn from some writing on a giant stone sword (this tomb is completely lousy with "giant stone X"es and the sword motif is getting a workout too) that there are THREE GUARDIANS in the tomb that must be aligned before we get in.
It eventually comes out that this refers to some stone statues we have to rotate around until they all point towards the "blade" at the center of the dungeon. So, yay triangulation.
Deeper in we find a boss, a metal dragon, and I did kind of a dumb but awesome thing. Y'see, in the boss room I got a message about "magnetic fields" causing the party's metal equipment to "grow heavy". SILLY ME, I assumed we were working under Magnetic Cave rules. The Magnetic Cave was a dungeon back in Final Fantasy 4 where you had to de-equip ALL your metal gear (METAL GEAR?!) in order to be able to do ANYTHING. Naturally, when I got the "magnetic fields" message, I swapped equipment and party members off to minimize metal, and Ashe has this space on her license board that increases her unarmed damage, and...
Long story short, Ashe basically just bare-knuckle boxed an ancient guardian dragon to death during her QUEST FOR MORE POWER.
(Okay, Penelo's magic and Vaan's bow helped too.)
With that boss beaten we can rotate the last statue. "Your wisdom is proven." the message comes, "Now test your might." ... Hello? Were you WATCHING me rock that dragon's world? I guess not. We enter a room which is completely iced over and an Esper rises to challenge the group.
This is Mateus, The Corrupt, and he is a nasty, fishlike piece of work who has captured a goddess of Ice and is using her as a living shield. (The Ivalice world is JUST FULL of WONDERFUL TOUCHES that make you want to smack somebody.) In any event, he's defeated eventually (goodness, but he hit hard) and now the Power of A Fishman With A Hostage Goddess can be put to work for me.
Now, this is where I would usually have a "Who gets this?" vote, except almost nobody would benefit from it except for Fran. So... Fran gets the power of Ice, joining Basch and his Lightning and Balthier and his Fire. We're almost at the level of a half-respectable sentai team, with just three more elements!
Yeah, three. There's always a Ranger #6.
Beyond Mateus is the Sword of Kings, floating suspended among a series of magical gizmos. Ashe thrusts the Dawn Shard at them and it sucks the magic from the protections, leaving the sword to come floating to her on a column of light. Arm thrust upward, Ashe takes the Sword of Kings.
And very nearly drops it straight through the floor. Damn thing's HEAVY.
"You should try it out on the Dawn Shard!" Vaan suggests. Oh yes, let's just start chopping nethicite in half. That's a brilli--
"That's not a bad idea." Balthier agrees, surprising me. "It's no use to us, after all."
Ashe considers the idea for a moment, then shrugs and puts the Dawn Shard on the floor in front of her. I kind of can't believe they're going to go through with this. Doesn't something bad happen when this stuff breaks? It seems like it would. "The stone bleeds Mist. It has been roused. It FEARS the sword." Fran contributes. Ashe seems pleased by the idea briefly, then gasps as she sees another vision of Rasler. Rasler shakes his head.
See, I KNEW this was a bad idea. Ashe brings the sword down and declares that it's the "Nethicite Destroyer". She doesn't need to test it. The rest of the party throw up their hands and walk out. Whatever, Ashe.
On the way out, she stops to ask Vaan if he saw ... anything. "Not a thing!" Vaan replies. Oh GOOD, her delusions are becoming more personal. What an excellent sign. Outside, we're not three feet from the Stilshrine before Imperial airships pass overhead. Son of a b... I AM NOT GOING TO PRISON AGAIN, YOU BASTARDS!
They don't stop for the party. They keep going. Fran follows line of sight to see where they came from, and notices a huge plume of smoke on the horizon. Smoke coming from Mt. Bur-Omisace. Well. Crap.
Looks like we'd better get back there, then!
On the way, I check the stats on the Sword of Kings. No elemental damage, lousy attack, and it weighs a ton so it swings super-slow. Y'know, I don't think I'm equipping this on anyone at all. What a letdown. It's like this thing was designed to break rocks instead of stab people. That's not what Ashe needs. She needs MORE POWER.
Next time: Could seeking power relentlessly possibly have a price of some kind? ... Hell no, we're playing an RPG! Let's do more hunts and level up more!
no subject
Date: 2012-12-18 04:52 pm (UTC)