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 What a surprise, a free rest at an inn in a JRPG meant someone wasn't getting sleep.  Angelo's Past  Trode, unable to sleep, wanders outside and finds Angelo gazing at the stars.   "..." "Maybe it would help to get it off your chest, hm? Not that I want to force you, mind..."After a brief pause, Angelo begins to divulge.  "If only we didn't share common blod, I'm sure we'd get along fine."Angelo begins to have a ~flashback~ to when he first met Marcello...  And I was one of them... My parents were well-off, part of the aristocracy. But then they both died... All of a sudden I was left with no family and no money. The abbey was the only place I could go. Wee Angelo is so precious. It almost makes you forget he becomes a huge womanizer and cheating gambler.    The cold austerity of the Abbey gets to young Angelo, though, and he wanders blindly through it.  The people there seem to ignore him, until...  A certain young monk approaches him.   "Oh... You must be exhausted. Where are your things? Is that all you've got?"  "...You sound a lot like me. But there's no need to worry. Abbot Francisco and all of us will be your family from now on."   At that point, something in Marcello snapped.   "...Leave. I want you to leave. You... Leave and never come back. I don't ever want to see you again! ...So you're intent on ruining this life for me as well, are you?" As Marcello walks away, Francisco steps in from outside. Marcello was the golden boy of the abbey. He studied hard and had a bright future ahead of him. But when it came to me, his attitude wasn't so positive.  "It's so unlike Marcello to act like that. I just don't understand... Ah... I see..." "Well, they say time heals all wounds... Let's hope your living here will make everything all right. Now, come along with me. From today onwards, this will be your home. Why don't I introduce you to everyone?" About how I had a half-brother who was born from an affair between my father and one of the maids. And that was Marcello... If I hadn't been born, he'd have been next in line to my father. But when I was born, Marcello and his mother were thrown out of the house with nothing to their names. She died soon afterwards. He had no one. So he ended up at the abbey, hating me and my father for all those years.We return to the present, outside the chapel by the river...  "Still, c'est la vie..." "I'm the only one for Marcello to hate now. ...In a way, I can't say I blame him. And it was probably good that we lived together. At least it gave him someone to take it all out on. It certainly added a bit of spice to the humdrum life at Maella Abbey anyway." "Angelo, I'm so..." Angelo returns to the chapel.  Trode takes one long contemplative look at the sky before doing so.  The next morning, Angelo doesn't seem to show a bit of the night's melodrama to Eight, though he imagines much more elaborate melodrama at Ascantha.  Yangus however... uh... accidentally reveals he bats for the other team, if you know what I mean.  Ascanthan Wildlife! Slime Knights are knights on slimes.  Who are these tiny armored men, why do they ride on slimes, and why do they not like Jessica?  They can cast Heal but it isn't a big deal.  Wind Sickles, Yangus's second Scythe technique, is a single-target Woosh attack that deals somewhere around ten plus three times Yangus's level in damage. While not bad now, it kind of drops off. Still, it's free, it isn't limited by defense, and for now it's actually pretty decent damage. Still, I'll mostly stick to Steal Sickle to hopefully get free swag.  1/32 chance, this isn't a big deal. The only recipe in which they are used is a knife. And, bleh, knives.  Chimaeras are the things what the wings come from. These weird snake-ducks have been around since DQ1.  Wind Sickles in action. It's got a pretty large damage range in practice.  Chimaeras, if you can believe it, drop Chimaera Wings.  Fat bats are bats that are fat. Both of their item drops are impossbly valuable alchemy ingredients.  Since there's five of them, I opt for one of Jessica's status spells.  Snooze is pretty useful. It hits multiple targets and sleep is a pretty rough status in DQ8. Even on the turn they wake up, enemies still can't act. Still, it only hits a group, and as you can see from these bats being two groups, groups can be pretty arbitrary.  A boh is... a fat blue man in an orb? uh...  At this point, had we taken the offensive Jessica build, she'd be at +20 unarmed attack with Stone Throw as her only ability. Her next ability would come at level 16, Harvest Moon. Incidentally, this level, she learns her fourth and final class of damage spells, Bang.  Goddammit, another chest that's too sexy for my key.  Fresh Milk and Rennet Powder make cheese. Eventually, both will be purchasable. Every ingredient for cheese-making but two are in stores. One is salt, the other is poop. Dragon Quest.  I DIDN'T KNOW CHIMAERAS COULD DO THIS  OH GOD THE HORRIBLE BURNING DEATH  Jessica was hanging on by a hit point, when a sneaky bastard pecks her to death. And here I was starting to like her.  Stop with the victory poses your friend dead  Battles for the next bit involve leaving Jessica there and running for the hills, hoping her cadaver will be a suitable distraction.  This was not worth Jessica's life.  Kind of literally. Seeds of agility only sell for 13 gold.  Boes are... blue men with swords?  The only other notable quality is that their little hats pop off when you hit them. Wowzers!  And I suppose their 1/256 drop, this.   Jums are blue men with swords, but they point in the other direction.  Angelo learns a pretty handy spell at level 14. While half as potent as Buff, it hits the whole party.  He also gets his first bow technique. At 2 MP, it has a chance to inflict sleep. It has no multiplier and Jessica still has snooze. Meh.  Boh, boe, and jum have this as their common drop. Cheeses, man.  Bang hits all enemies, making it one of Jessica's more useful spells. High bang resistances aren't very common either.  It's not that strong, mind, but Jessica has a lot of MP to spare.  Restorative recipies get kind of deep. They aren't just for money, after all. Alchemy ain't about that.  Had we went fisticuffs, Eight would... be one level away from Thin Air and still using the Reinforced Boomerang. He'd have Defending Champion, though, which is one hell of a move.  In the distance is Ascantha, though the black banners seem rather foreboding.  The cows aren't very informative. They seem to narrate what I'm doing, actually.  "Come on, time to get a move on. We're supposed to be giving chase, after all."  "I'm all for a bit of peace and quiet now and then, but it's kind of disconcerting." Eight... just showed up in Trodain one day. No clues about who he is, where he came from, anything. "Hmm... Jessica lost her brother to Dhoulmagus, and Angelo hardly gets on well with his. When I think about it like that, I wonder if Medea and I playing happy families is a bit much for you all."Anyway, next time, Ascantha,  The kingdom where everyone is really sad.
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| ← # ? Feb 15, 2015 06:03 |
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