Part 7: We have liftoff
Having succumbed to the horrors of Maharbe, I took up the dark priest class hoping that the unholy arts would prove a great boon to our progress. Unfortunately, I was mistaken.
Having succumbed to the horrors of Maharbe, I took up the dark priest class hoping that the unholy arts would prove a great boon to our progress. Unfortunately, I was mistaken.
I ended up beating my head against the wall with 5 consecutive attempts, none of which could even get past the mines. The choice between taking up necromancy and dash kills any perks the dark priest may bring, turning you either into a lethargic waste of skin that has to slog his way through the dungeons to find a skeleton to protect himself, or forego your best skill to become an inferior version of the merc.
But here are some highlights of the fiasco, and some extra lore.
Please tell me we won. Please tell me..
You lost to a girl lol
Well, she won fair and square so I guess we'll humbly accept defeat?
We become bugman
We burn down the fiends who threw us down the well.
Nice.
I dont remember what I picked exactly. May have been Gro, for variety's sake.
Small reveals to the nature of LeGarde here, I presume
Then ShareX decides to go haywire
We do learn dash though, but no necromancy. I went to the wiki. Lo and behold, we had to stab our sister to learn necromancy.
I wont be going over these runs in any great detail. We've seen everything here, for the most part, and I'm quite sick of doing the same run over and over.
Unfortunately the priest class proved far too vulnerable to unfavourable RNG.
I found a scroll of the dark mage, which I later learned could only be used at the ritual circles. I figured that Mastery over insects allowed to yeet enemies with swarms of locusts, or some other such cool spell. But no, apparently its for talking to bugs, or something.
Anyhow, we do the usual. Talk to ghouls, cut off arms of the guards, etc. Surprised there's no treasure chest in this room this time around.
We find and read Anathomia, which regales us with the various status effects in the game. Handy.
Hoping we'll never have to experience that last one.
And we also find a book of poetry, written by Chambara, who became one of the new in Maharbe. The tormented one.
I attacked the buttefly guy in the courtyard, but didnt go through with killing him. He's one of the few guys here who doesn't want me dead.
But having found an explosive vial, the 2 dogs in the next room put my run to an end.
Back to character creation we go. This time we pick necromancy.
Obviously we avoided being thrown down the well.
But this dash-less run, christ..
We're so slow that every enemy catches us without breaking sweat. It's awful.
We dont need the purifying token for the hexen room door. Our countermagic works right out of the box.
But then we bump into the elite guard in the next room, and our sclerotic pace is not conducive to an escape. Ends with us crawling around in a cell as the elite runs back and forth and plays popamole with our skull.
Then there was run 3, which ended when the yellow mage blew both of our arms off when I lost my resolve at the sight of the crow appearing to the north.
I did talk to the mage for a bit though, just to see what he'd say.
Gro goroth then?
I did kill him, and I did escape the crow, but the next corridor had a phantom knight appear and destroy me anyways.
In another run I saved the merc, hoping that going the other way towards the elevator would not lead to his betrayal. But no, he disappears once again.
I don't remember what it was that killed me here. But something ended the run in the village. Maybe one of the blue guys.
Another run was once again ended with an early spawn of the elite guard in the opening dungeons. By that point I was so fed up with the game that I said 'fuck it' let's move on, and so I went back to try the Barbarian.
Turned out it was the game's easy mode.
Bow and arrows
Cannibalism!
America
Dont touch anything, and gtfo. I don't know if there's potential for a positive outcome in this choice, but I do know this can screw over your whole run before it's even started.
We dont bother collecting resources.
Devour and dash are nice. One removes the nuisance that is the hunger mechanic, whilst the dash lets us whiz around the levels. Couple all that with a class that is physically strongest, and in many an encounter luck will favour you.
Once again, I wont be spending too much time going over things we've seen. I find a cursed mace in a crate and save the girl.
We find 3 explosive vials early on in the game, letting us explore the caved in tunnels.
We find the scroll of the long sword, which slashes both legs at the same time and can expose a guard's head on the first turn, if you have several party members.
But I think it needs a sword. Mace doesn't work for me.
The guards get obliterated by the barbarian.
We give her the knife.
But having collapsed down a floor level, and been infected, I'm forced to saw off one of the girl's arms to get rid of the infection.
In the mines, we square off against a new enemy - the mother of all those flying little golems.
Cawing as she lands, her design proves misleading. I half expected the run to end right here, but the barbarian's attacks against her torso literally ended her in one turn.
And she .. flies off? I thought the wings were gone.
But no matter, because once we traverse the walkway she reappears for round 2 and rushes us.
Another 1 attack = 1 victory from the barbarian. A blow from the cursed mace to the torso blows her head clean off, somehow. Woooo.
I'm starting to like Raziel and his unwavering commitment to cleaning up these dungeons with such efficient brutality.
We kick down a door in the mines to discover a new area - an underground pool of water with something shiny right by the water. Too many dead here for me to fall for that trick. We'll come back here at some point.
In the mines themselves we encounter more phantom knights. Not sure if the cursed mace will work against them. So we dodge him and run onwards.
And there's a new scene in the village, where Casca is getting beaten up.
You're scared raziel? Of this thing? Come on..
With the trash out of the way, we talk.
Groyped?
Groyped
So you came here and started killing them when they were performing their rites? You go the darwin award you deserved.
Who are you?
Which god do you serve?
Now, for the important question, do you wish to travel together?
Ok, cool. We do a clean sweep over the village, which attacks us on sight since they don't like Darce. We get a ritual spear from one the blues, which I give to Casca. She seems quite handy with it.
We take the detour to collect the mysterious cube near that dying orangutan face, and then proceed to look for the rope.
We do encounter this thing in the mines:
But I'm not falling for that either. I remember the words about the structure being flimsy, and ready to cave in at any moment.
After a little bit of travelling, we're on level 7. The path ahead will bring us back to level 3 - the prison cells, where we can save the game. This is what we did when playing as Casca. But I'm not going to waste the time. We're a party of 3 (well, 2.5 really) - strong armoured, strongly armed. Who dares, wins.
And in the next room we find a book of enlightenment which allows us to save the game right here lol
With the power of an .rpgsave file on our side, we proceed without fear.
The girl undergoes a disturbing experience here at the ritual circle
Is something wrong?
Don't worry..
Between us and Legarde stand two enemies with whom we've already made acquaintance. First up is the Night Lurcher, the dirty little turd.
I obliterate the bastard in 2 turns, or maybe even just the one. Ritual spear + Cursed Mace combo works like a charm.
We steal his lurch money.
And last but not least - this thing. The elite guard. We've encountered him many times before, and i dont recall ever besting him in battle. Survival alone was an achievement. But he stands between us and our goal. We cannot run away.
We lose an arm. We bleed. We have our HP reduced to 1 point, but in the end the enemy collapses to the floor, missing both arms and his head.
I chew on what little herbs I have left, passing around ale and opium to the party to regather their marbles. Time for the moment of truth.
He's alive.
Let him live for now.
Very interesting piece of lore.
Great..
Yes. For now at least.
And with that, we're a party of four. We give legarde D'arce's sword and what crappy gear we could spare.
I decide to head straight to Maharbe, but unfortunately I did NOT pick up the magic cube in the village. The game has an annoying tendency to require a lot of button presses to get through the world interactions. So I probably picked the wrong option without paying much attention.
Retracing our steps, we make our way back to the stairwell that will take us to level 3.
The guard tries to a stop us. By now this enemy is a joke.
And Le'Garde stares at the doorway to Maharbe behind us.
We need to get out of here.
Back in the cells, we flip two coins at the bed. Phew, our progress has once again been saved.
Till next time.
But here are some highlights of the fiasco, and some extra lore.
Please tell me we won. Please tell me..
You lost to a girl lol
Well, she won fair and square so I guess we'll humbly accept defeat?
We become bugman
We burn down the fiends who threw us down the well.
Nice.
I dont remember what I picked exactly. May have been Gro, for variety's sake.
Small reveals to the nature of LeGarde here, I presume
Then ShareX decides to go haywire
We do learn dash though, but no necromancy. I went to the wiki. Lo and behold, we had to stab our sister to learn necromancy.
I wont be going over these runs in any great detail. We've seen everything here, for the most part, and I'm quite sick of doing the same run over and over.
Unfortunately the priest class proved far too vulnerable to unfavourable RNG.
I found a scroll of the dark mage, which I later learned could only be used at the ritual circles. I figured that Mastery over insects allowed to yeet enemies with swarms of locusts, or some other such cool spell. But no, apparently its for talking to bugs, or something.
Anyhow, we do the usual. Talk to ghouls, cut off arms of the guards, etc. Surprised there's no treasure chest in this room this time around.
We find and read Anathomia, which regales us with the various status effects in the game. Handy.
Hoping we'll never have to experience that last one.
And we also find a book of poetry, written by Chambara, who became one of the new in Maharbe. The tormented one.
I attacked the buttefly guy in the courtyard, but didnt go through with killing him. He's one of the few guys here who doesn't want me dead.
But having found an explosive vial, the 2 dogs in the next room put my run to an end.
Back to character creation we go. This time we pick necromancy.
Obviously we avoided being thrown down the well.
But this dash-less run, christ..
We're so slow that every enemy catches us without breaking sweat. It's awful.
We dont need the purifying token for the hexen room door. Our countermagic works right out of the box.
But then we bump into the elite guard in the next room, and our sclerotic pace is not conducive to an escape. Ends with us crawling around in a cell as the elite runs back and forth and plays popamole with our skull.
Then there was run 3, which ended when the yellow mage blew both of our arms off when I lost my resolve at the sight of the crow appearing to the north.
I did talk to the mage for a bit though, just to see what he'd say.
Gro goroth then?
I did kill him, and I did escape the crow, but the next corridor had a phantom knight appear and destroy me anyways.
In another run I saved the merc, hoping that going the other way towards the elevator would not lead to his betrayal. But no, he disappears once again.
I don't remember what it was that killed me here. But something ended the run in the village. Maybe one of the blue guys.
Another run was once again ended with an early spawn of the elite guard in the opening dungeons. By that point I was so fed up with the game that I said 'fuck it' let's move on, and so I went back to try the Barbarian.
Turned out it was the game's easy mode.
Bow and arrows
Cannibalism!
America
Dont touch anything, and gtfo. I don't know if there's potential for a positive outcome in this choice, but I do know this can screw over your whole run before it's even started.
We dont bother collecting resources.
Devour and dash are nice. One removes the nuisance that is the hunger mechanic, whilst the dash lets us whiz around the levels. Couple all that with a class that is physically strongest, and in many an encounter luck will favour you.
Once again, I wont be spending too much time going over things we've seen. I find a cursed mace in a crate and save the girl.
We find 3 explosive vials early on in the game, letting us explore the caved in tunnels.
We find the scroll of the long sword, which slashes both legs at the same time and can expose a guard's head on the first turn, if you have several party members.
But I think it needs a sword. Mace doesn't work for me.
The guards get obliterated by the barbarian.
We give her the knife.
But having collapsed down a floor level, and been infected, I'm forced to saw off one of the girl's arms to get rid of the infection.
In the mines, we square off against a new enemy - the mother of all those flying little golems.
Cawing as she lands, her design proves misleading. I half expected the run to end right here, but the barbarian's attacks against her torso literally ended her in one turn.
And she .. flies off? I thought the wings were gone.
But no matter, because once we traverse the walkway she reappears for round 2 and rushes us.
Another 1 attack = 1 victory from the barbarian. A blow from the cursed mace to the torso blows her head clean off, somehow. Woooo.
I'm starting to like Raziel and his unwavering commitment to cleaning up these dungeons with such efficient brutality.
We kick down a door in the mines to discover a new area - an underground pool of water with something shiny right by the water. Too many dead here for me to fall for that trick. We'll come back here at some point.
In the mines themselves we encounter more phantom knights. Not sure if the cursed mace will work against them. So we dodge him and run onwards.
And there's a new scene in the village, where Casca is getting beaten up.
You're scared raziel? Of this thing? Come on..
With the trash out of the way, we talk.
Groyped?
Groyped
So you came here and started killing them when they were performing their rites? You go the darwin award you deserved.
Who are you?
Which god do you serve?
Now, for the important question, do you wish to travel together?
Ok, cool. We do a clean sweep over the village, which attacks us on sight since they don't like Darce. We get a ritual spear from one the blues, which I give to Casca. She seems quite handy with it.
We take the detour to collect the mysterious cube near that dying orangutan face, and then proceed to look for the rope.
We do encounter this thing in the mines:
But I'm not falling for that either. I remember the words about the structure being flimsy, and ready to cave in at any moment.
After a little bit of travelling, we're on level 7. The path ahead will bring us back to level 3 - the prison cells, where we can save the game. This is what we did when playing as Casca. But I'm not going to waste the time. We're a party of 3 (well, 2.5 really) - strong armoured, strongly armed. Who dares, wins.
And in the next room we find a book of enlightenment which allows us to save the game right here lol
With the power of an .rpgsave file on our side, we proceed without fear.
The girl undergoes a disturbing experience here at the ritual circle
Is something wrong?
Don't worry..
Between us and Legarde stand two enemies with whom we've already made acquaintance. First up is the Night Lurcher, the dirty little turd.
I obliterate the bastard in 2 turns, or maybe even just the one. Ritual spear + Cursed Mace combo works like a charm.
We steal his lurch money.
And last but not least - this thing. The elite guard. We've encountered him many times before, and i dont recall ever besting him in battle. Survival alone was an achievement. But he stands between us and our goal. We cannot run away.
We lose an arm. We bleed. We have our HP reduced to 1 point, but in the end the enemy collapses to the floor, missing both arms and his head.
I chew on what little herbs I have left, passing around ale and opium to the party to regather their marbles. Time for the moment of truth.
He's alive.
Let him live for now.
Very interesting piece of lore.
Great..
Yes. For now at least.
And with that, we're a party of four. We give legarde D'arce's sword and what crappy gear we could spare.
I decide to head straight to Maharbe, but unfortunately I did NOT pick up the magic cube in the village. The game has an annoying tendency to require a lot of button presses to get through the world interactions. So I probably picked the wrong option without paying much attention.
Retracing our steps, we make our way back to the stairwell that will take us to level 3.
The guard tries to a stop us. By now this enemy is a joke.
And Le'Garde stares at the doorway to Maharbe behind us.
We need to get out of here.
Back in the cells, we flip two coins at the bed. Phew, our progress has once again been saved.
Till next time.
