Die, Human-affinity practise dummy!Basically, using a weapon repeatedly on a particular type of foe will increase its effectiveness against it. It's not particularly important right now though. Unlocking the Chamomile Sigil door in the Smokebarrel Stair takes Ashley through to a new room:
Ashley sees a fallen knight, close to death.
Knight: Ur...I... I b-beg of ye... Sss... stop the... p-pain...
In the next few rooms there are an assortment of undead to overcome. Still easy fights, and one of them drops a Rapier. Shortly we come to an ominous set of double doors...Ashley: ...Is this, too, part of your game, Sydney?
As Ashley steps into the next room he hears a terrible metallic scraping sound. A Dullahan moves into view – a living set of armour controlled by The Dark.
Again, this fight isn't difficult in terms of how much damage you take and how much health the Dullahan has, but it is the first where you have to think about your attack strategy. The Dullahan is basically just a collection of armour plates, so that edged sword Ashley has been using is just going to bounce off it. Time to switch to that Rapier. Also, this is a good time to use that Debile Grimoire and learn the Degenerate spell, which helps a lot here.
The Dullahan's main weak spot is its abdomen (and indeed that will be all you can damage at all if you don't use Degenerate). After a bit of thrashing the Dullahan is sent away, leaving the wheel of fortune. Scored 2 Magic Points off it this time. Not particularly great, but what the hey. More important is the loot the Dullahan drops: An Elixir of Queens (random +HP), Elixir of Mages (random +MP), and a Grimoire Lux (A light attack spell). We've also recovered the 'Rending Gale' Break Art from memory. Break Arts are just special attacks that use MP. To be honest I've barely ever used them.
Gulping down the Elixirs bags us 4HP and 2MP. Not bad at all. What's more, there's a chest on one of the ledges here that contains a Rusty Nail polearm and a Braveheart gem. The Braveheart increases hit chance by 20%. The only weapon Ashley has with a gem slot so far is the Rusty Nail, but I'm not bothring with that yet, so we'll keep it in storage for now.
And that's the end of the Wine Cellar! Onwards into The Catacombs...
Elixir of Queens doth tasteth good.The next bunch of rooms don't hold anything particularly surprising or interesting. Some new monsters enter the fray. Hellhounds, Skeletons and Slimes mainly. Hellhounds have got a pretty nasty fire breath attack that hits you in multiple places. There's also a save point, storage container and a couple of very handy 'traps' – a heal panel and a cure panel. A door sneakily hidden door on high takes Ashley to a room with a single skeleton romping around, and there's a chest on a ledge that requires more crate shuffling. At this point the puzzles are still rudimentary so it's not worth explaining them in detail. 'Phat loot' in the chest – a Pink Squirrel mace, Cross Guard grip, leather Cuirass and Long Boots, and a Locus gem, which adds 15 to Undead class. Nice! Still not putting it in the Rusty Nail, though.
Beating up a Hellhound and Zombie in here gets Ashley another Battle Ability. I went with Dulling Impact, which adds Silence to an attack. To be honest I found most the Battle Abilities fairly useless throughout, but silence comes in handy. I've always been more of a type to just concentrate all my stats towards hitting things really hard. There's a door which is jammed shut with rusted hinges, forcing Ashley into a particular room...
Boo.
Beating up a Hellhound and Zombie in here gets Ashley another Battle Ability. I went with Dulling Impact, which adds Silence to an attack. To be honest I found most the Battle Abilities fairly useless throughout, but silence comes in handy. I've always been more of a type to just concentrate all my stats towards hitting things really hard. There's a door which is jammed shut with rusted hinges, forcing Ashley into a particular room...
Boo.Annoying enemy in here: a Ghost that teleports around and cast quick magic at you before moving away. But wait? Didn't I just learn the Silence Battle Ability? Best thing is to just stand in a central spot and wait for the Ghost to materialize nearby, run up and bash it with Dulling Impact, then swing away with an edged weapon (it's impervious to blunt weapons). It doesn't have much health but it's annoying to fight because of its speed, and you only have a minute to beat it. Having said that, I actually don't know what happens if you run out of time.
Anyway, the Ghost kindly drops an Elixir Of Kings, which gives +2 Strength, and there's a chest containing a bronze Shandy Gaff greatsword bronze Knuckles and an Elixir Of Queens (only +1HP this time, bah). After dispatching the ghost a tremor shakes the chamber... the door opposite the way Ashley came in is shut tight, so there's nothing to do but head back.
Ashley: Not again!
Another big tremor loosens the previously rusted-shut door. Ashley goes through.
Couple of Zombie Knights, and Ashley recovers another Battle Ability. There's a high ledge to the left with an exit, needs more cube stacking. Here we're introduced to the reinforced 'Push Crate'; one that – as its name suggests – can only be pushed forward. Push Crate pushed up to the wall, standard crate stacked on top, and there's enough height to climb up. Another new cube to play with – a indestructible lump of rock that you can roll forwards. This allows access to a chest containing a silver (ooh) Soul Kiss dagger, a bronze Targe shield, another bronze Knuckles, leather Bear Mask, and a Haeralis gem (15 Human class). The Undead hate silver, dontcha know, and the Soul Kiss comes preloaded with 20 points in Undead and 15 in Phantom classes. It's not the size, it's how you use it, etc.
Next up is the first crate puzzle you actually have to think about a bit, and there are a couple of ways to do it. You basically have to get two crates over the dividing shelf and under the exit door to reach it. I rolled the cube 1 so that it was directly above cube 4, then used 4 as a step-up to roll 1 across the shelf and off the other side next to 5. With 1 and 5 together you can lift 2 and 3 up and onto the shelf, and then carry them to the far wall.
A couple of zombies in the next area give a chance to test out that Soul Kiss. It's consistently hitting for 50s on the first hit (crits around 150) and 25s on subsequent chains. Short work. Save point also, and a Lily Sigil-locked door to the East, but two other exits. One of which leads to our first workshop!
WORKSHOP: 'WORK OF ART' (Wood, Leather, Bronze)
First thing to do is repair all the equipment (Damage Points). As everything gets used its DP value drops, rendering the item less useful (a weapon with a DP of 0 is basically useless in combat). Aside from the Soul Kiss I don't yet have anything to write home about. What I will do though is disassemble the Soul Kiss and replace the Spiral Hilt hilt with the Cross Guard. This has a gem slot I can put the Locus into, which gives Ashley a dagger with a whopping 38 Undead class bonus (an extra 3 were gained along the way by using it against Undead enemies).
Whenever you build a weapon you can rename it. The dagger is now known as Mr. Stabby. It's actually a good but fairly boring idea - until you settle on a group of weapons that are worth upgrading and taking along for a long haul, to name everything after the enemy types they are effective against. Makes weapon selection a little less tiresome in the heat of combat.
As far as combining materials goes, there's not really anything that can be done here. Bronze is as high as I can work in this shop, and no amount of mixing wood, leather and bronze is going to make anything better than bronze. So with that, I'm done here. I'll trash everything that's not useful any longer to save inventory space, and move on.
Lizardman Vs Riot. Round One. Fight!
Anyway, the Ghost kindly drops an Elixir Of Kings, which gives +2 Strength, and there's a chest containing a bronze Shandy Gaff greatsword bronze Knuckles and an Elixir Of Queens (only +1HP this time, bah). After dispatching the ghost a tremor shakes the chamber... the door opposite the way Ashley came in is shut tight, so there's nothing to do but head back.
Ashley: Not again!
Another big tremor loosens the previously rusted-shut door. Ashley goes through.
Couple of Zombie Knights, and Ashley recovers another Battle Ability. There's a high ledge to the left with an exit, needs more cube stacking. Here we're introduced to the reinforced 'Push Crate'; one that – as its name suggests – can only be pushed forward. Push Crate pushed up to the wall, standard crate stacked on top, and there's enough height to climb up. Another new cube to play with – a indestructible lump of rock that you can roll forwards. This allows access to a chest containing a silver (ooh) Soul Kiss dagger, a bronze Targe shield, another bronze Knuckles, leather Bear Mask, and a Haeralis gem (15 Human class). The Undead hate silver, dontcha know, and the Soul Kiss comes preloaded with 20 points in Undead and 15 in Phantom classes. It's not the size, it's how you use it, etc.
Next up is the first crate puzzle you actually have to think about a bit, and there are a couple of ways to do it. You basically have to get two crates over the dividing shelf and under the exit door to reach it. I rolled the cube 1 so that it was directly above cube 4, then used 4 as a step-up to roll 1 across the shelf and off the other side next to 5. With 1 and 5 together you can lift 2 and 3 up and onto the shelf, and then carry them to the far wall.
A couple of zombies in the next area give a chance to test out that Soul Kiss. It's consistently hitting for 50s on the first hit (crits around 150) and 25s on subsequent chains. Short work. Save point also, and a Lily Sigil-locked door to the East, but two other exits. One of which leads to our first workshop!WORKSHOP: 'WORK OF ART' (Wood, Leather, Bronze)
First thing to do is repair all the equipment (Damage Points). As everything gets used its DP value drops, rendering the item less useful (a weapon with a DP of 0 is basically useless in combat). Aside from the Soul Kiss I don't yet have anything to write home about. What I will do though is disassemble the Soul Kiss and replace the Spiral Hilt hilt with the Cross Guard. This has a gem slot I can put the Locus into, which gives Ashley a dagger with a whopping 38 Undead class bonus (an extra 3 were gained along the way by using it against Undead enemies).
Whenever you build a weapon you can rename it. The dagger is now known as Mr. Stabby. It's actually a good but fairly boring idea - until you settle on a group of weapons that are worth upgrading and taking along for a long haul, to name everything after the enemy types they are effective against. Makes weapon selection a little less tiresome in the heat of combat.
As far as combining materials goes, there's not really anything that can be done here. Bronze is as high as I can work in this shop, and no amount of mixing wood, leather and bronze is going to make anything better than bronze. So with that, I'm done here. I'll trash everything that's not useful any longer to save inventory space, and move on.
Lizardman Vs Riot. Round One. Fight! These scaly buggers are weak against piercing weapons, but they move quickly and wield polearms, so the dagger isn't much use. Time to break out that Rusty Nail. The Lizardmen between them drop a bronze Glaive, iron Spear, leather Cuirass, iron Knuckles, Grimoire Antidote, an Elixir Of Queens (+2HP) and the Lily Sigil Ashley needs. Back to that door...
Sydney: ...Do not attempt escape, and no harm will come to you.
Callo: What evil are you working here?
Sydney: Just a little drawing, my dear. What think you, Hardin?
Hardin: ... are Riskbreakers all this powerful?
Sydney: I think not. Our Ashley is a vessel, you see... he has merely partaken of the power around him. It is as I have forseen.
Hardin: ... What next, then?
Sydney: What next? Let him give chase a while.
Hardin: This is madness, Sydney!! The Blades will hold this town soon, and we dare not face their undivided forces! We've no time to play cat and mouse!
Sydney: Relax, my good Hardin. Remember, it is all part of my plan.
Sydney: Be calm, Hardin. It is of no account.
Sydney turns to Callo.
Sydney: You impress me, Inquisitor... more concerned about our doings than your own fate?
Callo: What villainy are you planning, Sydney?
Sydney: Why, I'm preparing a feast for your friend.
Sydney: ...Do not attempt escape, and no harm will come to you.Callo: What evil are you working here?
Sydney: Just a little drawing, my dear. What think you, Hardin?
Hardin: ... are Riskbreakers all this powerful?Sydney: I think not. Our Ashley is a vessel, you see... he has merely partaken of the power around him. It is as I have forseen.
Hardin: ... What next, then?
Sydney: What next? Let him give chase a while.
Hardin: This is madness, Sydney!! The Blades will hold this town soon, and we dare not face their undivided forces! We've no time to play cat and mouse!
Sydney: Relax, my good Hardin. Remember, it is all part of my plan.
Sydney: Be calm, Hardin. It is of no account.Sydney turns to Callo.
Sydney: You impress me, Inquisitor... more concerned about our doings than your own fate?
Callo: What villainy are you planning, Sydney?
Sydney: Why, I'm preparing a feast for your friend.
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