Part 43: Getting the Crowns Back
In which we battle the archdemons again.
Previously on this LP, we entered the world of darkness only to be stripped of all our hard-earned crowns. Looks like this game is trolling us! Now we should, I think, get all the crowns back before we fight the Dark Lord. I don't think we stand a chance against him with an all-Freelancer party. To boot, this LP's got to be as complete as possible, so in this update we'll be getting
all of our crowns back. To do that, as lightbane-kun said, we have to fight the bosses -- the archdemons -- again. This time I'll only provide a brief battle description for each archdemon, since we know them all, and their weaknesses, already.
Okay, so here we go.
The
Star Chamber is a 9-floor dungeon, with the 2nd and 3rd floors being the main and biggest ones. They are spiral-like and zigzaggish. It's a nice dungeon overall, I even got lost in it myself and I think I didn't manage to find all the treasure chests scattered around the place. I even missed Lucifer initially and had to wander around a bit and go back to the previous level to find him.
But anyway. Our brave freelancer party descends to B1:
To the north is a small room with a chest containing a Phoenix Down:
We've got quite many of those already though, so it isn't of particular use.
The most common enemy in here is Red Jelly:
With our super duper upgraded weapons, we kill them no probs:
Back at the previous intersection we head east:
Looks like a boss battle is incoming!
We step on the teleporter glyph...
...and find ourselves on a dark barren plain, with Asmodeus waiting for us.
Boss #1: Asmodeus
Shall we approach the scary demon thingie?
The pleasure's all ours.
We're good, yeah.
With that, Asmodeus attacks!
Asmodeus, the demon of lust, is the one we fought at the Sand Castle after he had taken the place of King Guera and tried to kill Krinjh and Ariadne:
As I believe I already mentioned, everyone's goal in this game seems to be world domination.
No wonder given that they all are either demons or possessed by demons.
But back to the battle at hand. Asmodeus' main trick is spamming status ailments. His special ability, Sidewinder, inflicts a lot of random ailments at once. And given that he uses it at least twice per turn, things tend to get nasty. Here's an example:
Just one Sidewinder, and Codexer is asleep, SMA is confused and asleep, and BRO is confused, silenced and debuffed. Another problem is, since Codexer has fallen asleep, he can't cast Lux to boost our HP and attributes.
Asmodeus' another ability is a group debuff called Moonlight Curse:
And his random attacks also tend to inflict different status ailments.
Being Freelancers, we don't have many abilities at our disposal. Volly wields the ultimate black magic spell, Desolator, so we put it to use:
With its help, we slay the demon's snake heads one by one. Another goal is to silence the foe. Lux + Silence + Desolator = pure win.
At one point the bastard petrifies our Codexer...
...but eventually our attacks bring the archdemon down:
Codexer's still petrified, and so he doesn't get any exp:
Volly, SMA and BRO level up.
Volly -> level 44: HP +5, STR +1, SPT +1.
SMA -> level 43: HP +4, STR +1, SPT +1, INT +1.
BRO -> level 44: HP +5, STR +1, SPT +1, INT +1.
Then everything goes next-gen, and a message appears:
We've got a few crowns back!
It's Wayfarer, White Mage, and Black Mage.
We use a Remedy to de-petrify Codexer...
...and then turn Volly into a Black Mage, Codexer into a White Mage, and SMA and BRO into Black Mages, too. The Magic Mights should make the next boss battles significantly easier.
To the east of the original intersection is another Glyph of Boss Battle:
As you can see from the screenshot, Codexer has leveled up along the way, making it to level 44: HP +5, SPT +2.
And the next boss is...
...hell yeah, it's Belphegor the demonic kittie!
#2: Belphegor
Let's approach him, yay!
Sure thing.
As you may remember, earlier we prevented Arbaroc from becoming possessed by Belphegor.
We'll see about that.
Like earlier,
Belphegor is accompanied by three cubes that cast different Fire spells, and we have to first destroy the cubes before we can begin dealing damage to Belphie himself. With our gear, which allows us not to take any significant damage from enemy magic, and our three Black Mages using Magic Might, the battle becomes a real cakewalk:
All the three cubes are destroyed in one turn.
Belphegor soon follows them:
Good.
We reclaim several more crowns:
It's Bandit, Bard, Merchant, and Salve-maker. But our current party is mighty fine, so we won't be equipping any of the newly-recovered crowns at the moment.
Exploring B1 further, we come across a treasure chest containing a
Ribbon:
This is extremely cool and extremely useful, actually, so we equip it on Codexer. Now both Codexer (Ribbon) and Volly (Shield of Light) are immune to status ailments.
In the northernmost room of B1, another boss area awaits:
#3: Leviathan
This is our old pal Leviathan, the one we defeated after having awakened the sacred fishie Cetus.
Yup, exactly.
Scary!
No matter how powerful Leviathan is supposed to be, three Magic Mights in a row put him to eternal (?) rest:
Piece of cake. :D
Volly, SMA and BRO level up.
Volly -> level 45: HP +4, SPT +1, INT +2.
SMA -> level 44: HP +5, STR +1, INT +2.
BRO -> level 45: HP +5.
More crowns coming our way!
Elementalist, Ranger, Fighter, Scholar. Nice. With our gear, though, and taking into account that the archdemons haven't really grown stronger since we last fought them -- this game is obviously balanced around
not beating the bonus towers -- we don't even need an Elementalist in our party. For now, at least.
So onwards to the next boss we go!
Codexer levels up along the way -> level 45: HP +6, STR +1, INT +1.
We also discover a treasure chest that turns out to be a Mimic:
Or rather, a Death Trap:
But it's very easy to bring down.
Hmm, this sword looks nice, especially if it belongs to the quickly upgradeable type. But this is the endgame already, so who cares?
We descend to B3:
And stumble upon another boss area:
#4: Beelzebub
Beelzebub is the one who inflicted a terrible plague on Urbeth and the one we slayed on top the Tower to the Sky where he threatened the Urbeth priests a.k.a. merchant lords.
Indeed.
Dispatched to Hades, you say? I doubt that.
Beelzebub starts spamming Fira and Firaga, but they don't do any real harm to us. He poisons BRO...
...but it doesn't matter as well. We easily destroy him, anyway.
It seems that the order in which you fight the archdemons doesn't matter: you always obtain the next four crowns.
This time it's Party Host, Hero, Spell Fencer, and Monk. Movin' on!
And the next boss is...
...Satan, yay!
#5: Satan
Big and scary one!
We turn SMA into a Hero. We're going to need a melee damage-dealer.
Satan took the guise of King Horne, Volly's royal father, in his attempt to get hold of Horne's legendary black magic. Needless to say, we were the ones who put an end to his wicked plans.
Oh really?
Wanna bet?
Satan is tougher than Belphegor, Leviathan and Beelzebub. Not only does he spam Arcane Force...
...but he also has two stances, Sword God and Demon Lord. While he is in the Sword God phase, spells and abilities -- even Magic Might and Wrath -- do no harm to him, and regular melee attacks is the only way to go:
(Yup, he's vulnerable to Light.)
And the Demon Lord stance makes him immune to physical attacks:
His regular attacks deal ca. 20 damage to us:
But of course we're much more powerful than he is:
Volly and SMA level up.
Volly -> level 46: HP +4, INT +1.
SMA -> level 45: HP +5, SPT +1.
Everything goes next-gen -- and four more crowns are back!
Dancer, Paladin, Alchemist, and Shaman. Just two archdemons left to slay, yay!
As we crawl through the Star Chamber, BRO levels up:
He's level 46 now: HP +5, SPT +2, INT +1.
And the next boss is...
#6: Lucifer
...Lucifer!
Yep,
Lucifer was the one who took control of the hero Rolan's emo heart.
Oh, so that's what it was all about.
This battle is a cakewalk, too. The only (minor) problem is that, being what he is, Lucifer is healed by Light, and so SMA's Light Sword is more of a hindrance in this fight:
Lucifer paralyzes us with Thundara, but that doesn't help him much in the end...
Kewl.
Codexer gains a level -> level 46: HP +5, SPT +1.
It's Dark Fencer, Seamstress, Beastmaster, and Musician.
Guess who's left for us to fight? Yup, that's right.
#7: Mammon
The loli Mammon, yay.
It was
Mammon who cast a Winter's Grasp spell on Invidia and made Master Chief yearn for world domination. Her only trick is to boost her physical and magic defense so that she becomes nigh invulnerable. That's why we mustn't allow her cast Shell or Protect. In other words, we must silence her:
After that, it's Magic Might + Wrath time!
Mammon can still use her Blizzard Dance ability even when silenced...
...but it isn't exactly powerful.
First we must deal with her monstrous arms...
...and then with Mammon herself:
All the archdemons are slain!
Volly and SMA level up.
Volly -> level 47: HP +5, SPT +2.
SMA -> level 46: HP +7, STR +1, SPT +1, INT +2.
BRO too, if a bit later.
BRO -> level 47: HP +5, STR +1, SPT +1, INT +2.
And all the crowns are ours again!
Next stop: the Dark Lord's lair.