Part 36: Satan: Wrath
In which we take care of sheep, a parrot is revealed for what he is, Act II ends -- and the Schwarzwelt thingie appears!
Previously on this LP, we returned to Horne, our hometown, only to discover it was apparently King Horne, Volly's royal father, who -- aiming at no less than world domination -- led the whole world astray. In our attempt to find out what was behind the king's odd behaviour, we paid a visit to the Witch of the North -- who turned out to be a subject of Spelvia -- and, with the help of Rolan, made her release King Horne from the contract that would later make him exchange his new-born baby Volly for the witch's services. As you may remember, it was the breaking of that contract that led originally to the curse of stone being placed on Horne -- which means that Horne should be free from the curse from now on. So far so good. But as long as the wicked king harbours his wicked designs, our business here is not done; and that's what we need the Lamp of Truth we found in the basement of the witch's mansion for, to reveal the truth behind the king's scheming!
But first we have to make our way out of the basement. Volly and Codexer level up along the way:
Volly -> level 33: HP +3, STR +1, SPT +1, INT +2.
Codexer -> level 33: HP +4, STR +1, SPT +1.
We change BRO back into a Black Mage, by the way, to be able to quicker dispatch the random enemy mobs we encounter.
We exit the Witch's Mansion and summon the dragon to fly back to Horne.
Let's change our party set-up a bit by making Codexer a Salve-maker instead of a White Mage:
That will allow him to spam Potions and, most imortantly, Remedies to lift the party's status ailments, as well as to use Poison Pill to deal ca. 150 points of damage to the foe, which isn't much but still might come in handy when hammering away at a boss.
We deposit some useless shit at the storage office -- such as a whole lot of totally useless Tempest Spikes the enemies inside the Witch's Mansion dropped as well as the Curse Ring -- and withdraw an Ether and a Hi-Ether, just in case it's going to be vital to replenish our AP before or during the next boss battle. We also withdraw an extremely potent X-Potion:
It provides a "great big" HP boost, meaning if Codexer the Salve-maker spams it during the battle, that should be more than enough for our healing needs. We also withdraw the Mythril Hammer +1, in case we find SMA the Bard useless and decide to replace her with SMA the Hero.
Okay, we're all set. It's time to go back to the Magic Laboratory beneath the Horne Castle to deal with the wicked King Horne!
We enter the castle and then the door leading down to the magic lab.
Then we make it to the intersection with the path leading north to where King Horne last was:
Quite predictably, the king has sealed the doors -- but what's that?
The image of a sheep, hmmm. I smell a puzzle ahead.
We go east and descend to B2:
And then to B3:
This is where the dungeon proper starts. The Magic Lab dungeon is pretty well-designed, with forking paths and dead ends and hidden treasure and whatnot. It's probably the second best dungeon after the Quicksand Castle, inferior only because it doesn't feature any environmental puzzles with alternative solutions, like the one we had to solve to get to a hidden treasure chest in the Quicksand Castle.
As we explore B3, we notice many siderooms around...
...but it looks like they are only accessible from other floors. We locate two downward sets of stairs on B3, one in the centre and one to the south. First we descend the central one:
This is a small room with a treasure chest:
Star Earring increases your Magic Attack by 10%. We already have the Soul of Thamasa equipped on our Black Mages, however, so meh.
Having slain a group consiting of a Lizardhawk, a Ghoul and a Buffohelm, BRO levels up:
BRO -> level 33: HP +4, STR +1, SPT +1, INT +1.
Back on B3, we descend the southern stairs.
We are again on B4, but in another area. Right to the north is the small room with the treasure chest we've just opened.
B4 also has its share of siderooms and dead ends:
The only stairs we can access from here are the one to the north:
They lead down to B5, which is the largest floor of them all, again with siderooms only accessible from elsewhere.
Among the enemies we encounter down here is my personal favourite, Arch Demon:
He was a mid-boss earlier, but now he's just a regular enemy.
In the centre of B5 is a giant sheep statue:
:D
Yeah, to open the doors leading to King Horne's laboratory we must solve the sheep puzzle. The "oldschoolness" of this puzzle consists in the fact that in order to solve it you should have memorized or written down the correct way of handling sheep that you can only get from the plaque near Horne's windmill:
Down here in the Magic Lab there are no more quest helpers, so in case you haven't written the correct order down, you must go all the way back to the windmill. Console kiddies must have loved that.
At first I thought I should correctly "treat" this one big sheep, but since there was no way to do it I figured the puzzle must be somewhere else in the dungeon. It was indeed so -- but more on that later. For now, we should thoroughly explore the whole of this dungeon.
On B5, there are four sets of stairs apart from the entrance one, one in each of the four corner corridors: NW, NE, SW and SE. First we take the NW one.
We find ourselves in one of the B4 siderooms, which is an L-shaped corridor with another set of stairs leading up to a B3 sideroom:
This room is also a corridor, with yet another set of stairs:
We are on B2 now, in a U-shaped room. Phew, it's been a long climb -- from B5 to B2. Hardcore!
So why have we come here, you ask? Well, there's a treasure chest here, so it hasn't been for nothing:
Unfortunately, there's just a Darkness Staff inside, and we've already got one. Meh.
We climb all the way back down to B5 and then make our way to the NE stairs. SMA levels up along the way:
SMA -> level 33: HP +4, STR +1, SPT +1, INT +1.
Our whole party is level 33 now.
The layout of this dungeon looks totally symmetrical: the NE stairs lead to B4, and we again find ourselves in an L-shaped room.
Having ascended to B3, we have to climb through a short linear corridor:
And finally we are on B2, in a U-shaped room with a treasure chest:
Oh my, another already familiar item. And here I was expecting some unique treasure.
Oh-kay, now we must climb back to B5 again.
Back below in the large sheep room, we take the SE stairs:
The layout of this dungeon is indeed symmetrical -- we find ourselves in another L-shaped corridor.
Having slain a group of two Ghouls and a Lizardhawk, Codexer levels up:
Codexer -> level 34: HP +5, STR +1, INT +2.
We ascend the stairs to B3:
This time, however, the pattern has changed. This isn't a linear corridor; rather, this is an E-shaped room, with another set of stairs in the middle and a treasure chest in the south of it:
No unique treasure here as well. :/
Volly levels up, by the way. Volly -> level 34: HP +4, SPT +1.
We climb the stairs to B2.
The previous room broke the pattern, but this one restores it -- it's a U-shaped room again. This time, however, there is no treasure chest here, but rather one more set of stairs:
It leads to B1:
Oh-kay, so this is the puzzle room, yay!
The room is rather large, so puzzle-solving is complicated by the random encounters. There are four sheep statues here, each in its own corridor, all connected by one long corridor to the south.
Sheep #1:
Sheep #2:
Sheep #3:
Sheep #4:
This puzzle is hardly solvable by random approach, since the sheep must be approached in a very strict order as stated on the windmill plaque.
"First, pat the sheep's nose" -- meaning we must first approach the forward-looking sheep, which is Sheep #2:
"Second, stroke the right flank" -- then we must take care of the sheep that faces to the right, which is Sheep #4:
"Third, stroke the left flank" -- now we should approach the left-facing sheep, Sheep #1:
(BRO levels up as we fight our way to solve this puzzle: BRO -> level 34: HP+4.)
"Last, tug the tail..." -- and so the last sheep we must handle is Sheep #3, the one facing backwards:
All that done, a cutscene ensues!
We are shown the sheep doors leading to the lab, everything goes next-gen...
...and the path is clear!
This was one funny puzzle.
Now we must make our way back to the starting area of the dungeon -- this time taking the western route leading to the SW stairs on B5. We find a Darkaga Tome along the way:
Meh.
SMA levels up -> level 34: HP +5, SPT +1.
And so we enter the already familiar corridor leading to the magic laboratory:
The Faithful Fox shares a hint about the upcoming boss battle:
Yup, folks, we're going to be battling Satan himself. Does that mean this is the final boss?...
But anyway. To survive the next battle -- so that Undead Phoenix would not be too disappoint
-- we probably need an Elementalist. And I think, or rather hope, we'll be able to do it without a Bard. So we change SMA into a Hero and equip her with the Mythril Hammer +1...
...and BRO, into an Elementalist:
Mysterio and Lux are the two defensive/buffing spells we'll really need. Silence may also come in handy. As you may have noticed, I haven't at all been using any other buffs/debuffs of which there are several in this game, so maybe I should try doing just that in the future.
We save our game and enter the magic lab.
There's King Horne here, all on his own.
Ouch, so angry!
We are given the option to use our newly-found Lamp of Truth:
Yup, why not.
Everything goes next-gen and King Horne starts vanishing into thin air...
...and a fearful demon appears in his place!
Scary!
The demon immediately attacks!
That's Satan himself, yay!
And so the battle begins.
Satan is pretty quick, and so he gets to act first. He attacks poor Volly in melee:
Twice:
Phew, that was close.
From the looks of it, it seems that his attacks are enhanced with Dark -- meaning BRO's Mysterio should greatly reduce the damage.
Let's see how it goes.
Codexer the Salve-maker uses Dispensary:
And SMA casts Lux:
Our max HP is slightly increased, which should help.
Satan attacks BRO in melee, but he's an Elementalist, duh:
Nice.
Then the archdemon attacks our Codexer:
But Mysterio + Armor of Light + Shield of Light make for a p. good defense.
Thanks to Lux we recover some HP at the end of the turn:
So yeah, turn 1 ends -- meaning that Satan can attack
four times per turn. Without Mysterio we would be dead for sure.
While Satan's regular attacks hardly even scratch Codexer and BRO, they do deal some damage to SMA:
But this damage is also greatly reduced by Mysterio.
Codexer can now start spamming X-Potions:
Good.
Volly uses Magic Might:
The screenshot doesn't show the amount of damage the Magic Might dealt -- guess why? Because there was no damage.
The same goes for BRO's Elemental:
No damage again.
It looks like Satan is immune to magic, at least in this phase. The main damage dealer in our party is Black Mage, so yeah, you catch the drift. Good thing we've got SMA the Hero.
Satan has a kewl special attack,
Arcane Force:
Good thing it misses a lot.
Since we can't use magic for now, we order Codexer to use Poison Pill:
Not much, but better than nothing.
SMA uses Finale, Hero's most powerful class-specific ability, which makes every party member attack Satan melee-style:
SMA's own attack is naturally the most powerful of the four -- it hits for 145 points of damage.
After a few turns, Satan enters into his second phase, the
Demon lord stance:
He is now immune to physical attacks yet can take magic damage. Which is only good as far as our party is concerned. Also, whereas in the first phase Satan attacked us in melee, now he starts using magic as well -- first against SMA:
And then against Volly:
Mysterio lets us resist it, too.
Satan can also cast Darkaga, targeting our whole party:
Codexer keeps using Poison Pill and boosting, and Volly can finally use Magic Might:
Good!
Satan responds by hitting Volly hard -- twice:
But not as hard as when she didn't have Mysterio to protect her.
We can silence Satan, by the way:
Silence is an extremely powerful status ailment in this game; so far it has worked against most of the bosses.
After a couple of turns, Satan switches back to the first phase, the
Sword god stance:
That means we have to persevere for several turns before we can use Magic Might again.
Meanwhile Satan's Arcane Force has become more frequent:
He even sometimes uses it
four times per turn now.
I shudder to think what would've happened without BRO's Mysterio to protect us.
Satan is vulnerable to Light, by the way:
Had we known that in advance, we would've equipped SMA with a Light-element weapon. Oh well.
Finally Satan enters the Demon lord stance:
And Volly can use Magic Might again:
Victory, yay! Well, that was (relatively) quick.
We obtain 777 experience points. (Why not 666 for that matter?)
Volly, Codexer and BRO level up:
Volly -> level 35: HP +4, STR +1, INT +2.
Codexer -> level 35: HP +7, SPT +1.
BRO -> level 35: HP +5, STR +1, SPT +1, INT +1.
Satan is totally butthurt:
Everything goes next-gen and the Crystal predictably appears:
Crystal: You have staunched the flood of darkness. The wrongs of the past are healed, the world is reunited to its true form.
The demons' dark world, you say?
Black Cat would approve! As would the SMT series.
"Forbidden might"? What could that be?
Dark Fencer, yay!
But what about King Horne?...
...
...But wait!
A birdie appears!
That's Codexer's parrot, Ankhel!
What's that?
And the parrot turns into ... King Horne.
So yeah, Codexer's parrot has been the true King Horne all along, and the one who we thought to be King Horne was in fact ... Satan in disguise.
And if there's one lesson we can learn from this case, as well as from that of Master Chief of Invidia, it's that whenever someone is dreaming about world domination, chances are, they are possessed by an archdemon.
The legendary dark magic?
Awww.
Yeah, don't mess with the timeline, Volly.
Little Volly, yay!
A reward? Sounds nice. We'll be sure to!
And so the king leaves.
Yeah, you totally shoud have.
We
you, o pretty princess!
It's time to go get our reward, I think.
The soldiers in the castle are rejoicing:
They thank us for saving their sorry butts:
The king is in the queen's chambers:
But let's talk to other NPCs first.
Mr. Minister thanks us too:
Yup, we're the one and only.
O RLY?
Moralfags, moralfags never change.
...says Volly's sister Carino.
Okay, let's head for the queen's chambers now.
Well, that's good news.
Is there something to celebrate?
King Horne: ...but I know in my heart that you will use it for good. Here, it is yours, as a token of my gratitude.
That's nice!
SUDDENLY
A CUTSCENE ENSUES
SOMETHING DARK AND MENACING RISES OUT OF THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA
OH MY WHAT COULD THAT BE
THIS MUST BE THE DEMONS' DARK WORLD THE CRYSTAL MENTIONED!!
It's just like that ... Schwarzwelt thingie Black Cat was talking about in her Strange Journey LP, yay! (Too bad Kuroneko-sensei has gone on another vacation; I think she'd love this little SMT-like twist.) Demon Lord, here we come! Which also means that Act II has come to its end.
Next time: we won't be heading into the Schwarzwelt right now; we'll be crawling through at least one optional tower instead, given that the majority of this LP's readers voted for that -- mostly for sadistic reasons, of course.
Meanwhile, I wonder if you can guess just who or what the Demon Lord is, dear readers. Without consulting the internet hivemind, of course. Here's a hint: