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Just wanted to say that I'm really enjoying this LP, man. Also, I was half-expecting the dragon to respawn FF1 style when you left.
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May 20, 2018 15:12
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Maybe Gwaelin can become our wisecracking sidekick, offering commentary while the hero desperately tries to fight without setting her down?
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May 20, 2018 17:24
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Pieuvre posted:Maybe Gwaelin can become our wisecracking sidekick, offering commentary while the hero desperately tries to fight without setting her down? I'm good with this, assuming the LPer hasn't turned her in already.
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May 20, 2018 19:07
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Yeah, I've been trying to have a an update or two prepared in advance so I could guarantee a fairly regular schedule, something I couldn't do so much with my SMT LPs since that required a lot of audience voting. But there's a lot of the series to go through yet, I'm sure dear Gwaelin will have an opinion or two to offer along the way!
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May 21, 2018 18:13
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Just like that, we take Princess Gwaelin home. I know I said we got our final sprite when we bought our first shield, but this is something else, right?    Not only do we have two characters clearly depicted in a 16x16 sprite from four directions, but they are placed in a way that allows them to have their own color palette! The limitations of NES graphics make it so any given 8x8 block of pixels on a sprite has to use the same set of four colors, one of which is often a transparency that lets the background show through. But this princess-carryin' sprite is cleverly drawn so the character's palettes don't bleed into each other. The only flaw is in the north-facing one, where there's no helping the princess' hair turning blue. I'm sure you've also noticed a less impressive piece of spritework.  That one is pure compromise. The NES has only two layers on which it can draw: a background layer, and a sprite layer on top. Due to how the game is coded, Dragon Warrior's dark dungeon levels only ever have the player character's sprite on the sprite layer. I presume it's because they didn't figure out a way to have sprites interact correctly with the light radius system; either sprites would show up clearly on top of a background tile that should be dark, or they couldn't be made to transition smoothly from a dark tile to a lit tile. Remember: you can't just put a black square on top of a sprite that's meant to be in darkness, because there's no layer on top of the sprite layer. So the solution to make the princess appear in a place where you can't draw a sprite is to make her part of the background layer. And it so happens that the background layer in these dungeons has an extremely limited palette, probably due to memory constraints. If you'll notice, the princess shares the same red and greys as the brick tiles and stone walls surrounding her, and she's not animated at all. As far as the display system is concerned, she's the same as a chest or a staircase. Alright, that'll be enough digression, let's get back to our princess-rescuin' antics. If you don't care about saving your game ever again, you can technically complete the entire rest of the game with Gwaelin in your arms. It doesn't change much though, and practically nobody seems to notice her presence. That said, if you get yourself killed while carrying her, she'll be taken back to the tunnel between Kol and Rimuldar, and you have to go get her again. The Green Dragon stays dead, though.  : So, six months, huh? : Indeed.: Did that dragon feed you?: Let's say I had to choke down a lot of charred goat meat.: Eesh.: I requested vegetables after the first week, and she started bringing in tomatoes by the cartload. I shudder to imagine where she got them from.: She? The dragon, you mean?: Yes. Somehow it felt like she hated being stuck in that tunnel almost as much as I did.: The Dragonlord made her guard you, did he? Do you think she would have let you go if he was out of the picture?: No, I'm certain she would have eaten me.: Right, dragon. I don't know what I was thinking.  : Alright, we're coming up on some serious bad terrain. Do you mind holding on to your hem? Better not get any of that crap on your clothes, it'll kill ya.: Art thou going be be fine?: Yeah, don't worry. I've recently discovered that I'm a powerful wizard for some reason. There's nothing this swamp can do to me that I can't fix.: I've read about this phenomenon! It must be the power of Erdrick's bloodline!: Well, I don't know about that. It would be nice if it was. : So. What are you going to do once this whole nonsense is over?: Going through the castle library in my youth, I found many tales of lands beyond the sea. I've always wanted to see them with my own eyes.: Ah, a traveler at heart then. There are worse ways to spend your time. : Before the Dragonlord appeared, my father was about to marry me to the son of the mayor of Cantlin. I will never travel.: Dang, right, that princess kinda crap. Do you at least like each other?: ...: Yikes, I get it. I could tell, your dad's a dick.: I- : Okay, hold that thought. : Right. Where were we?: My father being a dick. : Ooof, yeah. Bad scene. Wish there was something I could do.: That is not ne-: Heck, maybe I'll figure something out. I wouldn't mind setting you free a second time.: If thou defeats the Dragonlord, thou wilst have done far more than should ever be required of one person. I will be fine. : The arranged marriage thing, is it for money? Some kind of alliance?: It is for prestige. Cantlin is the largest city in my father's realm, after all.: Prestige, huh? : ...didst thou hear something?: Just harmless wildlife, no worries. Anyway, princess, how good is your acting?: What dost thou mean?: Your dad seems pretty convinced I'm the descendant of Erdrick. Do you think that'll be prestigious enough for him?: Perhaps!: If we can make him believe there's something going on between us long enough to get a ship built and sailing right out of here with you on it, it's beginning to look like a solution. Do you think he'd buy it?: Ooooh, he would love that whole "marrying thine savior" story! It would be child's play! : Alright then, we have a plan. Wanna go for a victory lap in Brecconary before you have to put your game face on?: Gladly! : You gotta admit the resemblance is uncanny, though. That's the guard who once told us that the quest to find the Princess had failed. He's still in terrible shape though, it would be bad form to rub our success in his face. Nobody else in town seems to react to the princess' visit.    : ...what? Screw you, buddy! : That's better. You're welcome.     : Now, Gwaelin, come to my side.  : Even when we two are parted by great distances, I shall be with thee. Farewell, ZedPower. : *wink* The save/continue dialog with the King continues as normal. If we speak with the Princess, we randomly get one of three responses.    Well, that's a classic right there. If we say no...   ...she immediately asks again. She keeps asking as long as we keep saying no. And if we say yes...  We get to hear the same jingle as when we rescued her in the first place. By the way, back in the tunnel, when she asks if we'll take her home, she serves you the same dish if you say no. Oh, and, of course you'll notice that Gwaelin gets her real sprite once she's out of the dungeon. That's much better.  That felt alright... but it didn't earn us much of anything in terms of reward. We're no closer to the end of this crisis than we were before. Hmm. ... Wait, what the...   ...what?  : !!!: My hope is with thee. From where thou art now, my castle lies... 0 to the north and... 0 to the west. I love thee, ZedPower.: Uh... The King's over your shoulder, isn't he? I love you too, sweetie.So that is our gameplay reward for rescuing Princess Gwaelin. We can now hear how much experience we need to level up from anywhere in the world, and also our exact position relative to Tantegel. Convenient and neat. Fair enough. Anyway. Detonating skull or not, it's back to grinding! Just gimme... multiple moments. ...  And that's level 15. 8 Strength, 9 Agility, 7 HP, 1 MP, and a spell.  REPEL exactly mimics the effect of Fairy Water, at the cost of 2 MP. Considering how often we need to shlep through Tantegel to save, this is a decent quality of life improvement. Also, notice the money we've got in the above images. We may have crashed Alefgard's economy by flooding the market with Goldman corpses. It's 3000 to level 16. I'm gonna take a chance and see if we can grind someplace with mostly monsters that give about 30 instead of about 25. Woo! ... Ooooh, we now do more damage to Knights than they're dealing to us. The plan is to hunt Metal Slimes until we almost run out of MP, the RETURN to Tantegel, rest up, and go back. If we don't manage to take out any Slimes, it's about 400-500 EXP per trip. ...  We take out exactly two Slimes. ... Level 16 rolls around. 4 Strength, 6 Agility, 5 HP, and...  ...21 MP!? Alright, we'll take it. So. Let's look at our map again. This is what we know of the southwestern region so far.  There are two bridges leading to the east. The northern one, closest to Hauksness, seems pretty rough going, what with all the hills and deserts. We ran into the Starwyvern past the southern bridge, but forests have fewer random encounters and we might be able to go further with our improved stats anyway. Alright then, south it is.  We've only had to fight Knights on the way there, so it's looking good so far.  Past the bridge are more Knights, Magiwyverns and Demon Knights, which are beatable at some cost, and more Starwyverns, so strong as to not be worth attempting to fight; we take a few blasts of flame to the face trying to run away. Those 21 MP from last level disappear in a flash.  Another bridge... Things are already hard enough, let's stay on our path for now.  Gah. We put him to sleep and run. We better be getting somewhere soon.   !!!  Huh, look at that wall. They might still be alright in there.  Video: Clay FighterGolem is tied for second highest Strength stat in the game, and he's highly resistant to all spells, but his Agility is lower than any of the dangerous critters' we've had to fight through to make it here. He's beatable without putting him to sleep with the Fairy Flute, but probably not at our level with our current gear. Alright then, let's check out this town.     : The last to have it was a fellow named Wynn. : Wait, what? You're real? Well, okay, don't worry, I won't! : I'm beginning to suspect the rumors of mighty weapons in Cantlin may have been embellished somewhat. That's small change by now.   : If you put it like that, I have to say I'm tempted to wait for the descendant of Erdrick to show up.: That is good. No one will say thou art afraid.: I've seen Hauksness on my way here though. I can't just sit here and do nothing.: Thou art truly brave.  Nothing in here. Huh.  : Not quite what I'm looking for. Sorry. Nothing of note at the item shop either.  : I... Uh... I appreciate the offer, but I got someone waiting for me back home. If you see the mayor's son, let him know, alright? No reason! : You and me both, lady. Hmm.  : Oh... Oh dang. Okay then. I'm as glad to have this information as I am terrified.  The large building in the center of town is a covered park, but of course you can't enter it if it means you'd be stepping on a water tile, so it may momentarily trick you.  : Huh! Well okay then, that's a lead. If I got my hands on that proof, it'd sure make my life both easier and more difficult.  : Aw heck. : You better have more than well wishes for me, old man. : May the light be thy strength!: Heard that one before, what else you got?: Thou may go and search. From Tantegel Castle travel 70 leagues to the south and 40 to the east.: Alright, that's oddly specific. I'll check it out.This would be the true gameplay use of Gwaelin's Love. You can technically work this out yourself by carefully counting steps as you travel all the way from Tantegel (or if you're familiar with the game and just outright remember where the spot is), but good grief just rescue the dang princess, will ya?  Another tiny empty building.  You can get Fairy Water from here without spending a key, but I can't imagine making it here before you're high enough level to know REPEL.  Hmm! We've heard that the Dragonlord's scales are hard as steel, so we're definitely going to have to track it down.  Not as crap an inventory as that other store's, but still no use to us.  So, Erdrick's armor is near a tree behind a shop in the east of Hauksness. We also definitely want that.  This is the last building here, so it better have something real good!  Eh, sure. Inflation is making our currency worthless anyway.  : Yyyyyyyyyyes! : Oooooh mama!These happen to be the best sword and shield money can buy. In addition, apparently Erdrick didn't carry a shield, because the Silver Shield is in fact also the best shield in the game.  It increases our Defense Power by an additional 10 points! That's massive. We're about 600 short for the Flame Sword though, so let's step outside for a bit and see if we can round up that much.   Hmm, it looks like whatever proof we might be looking for is in this large swamp to the south. We can't get to it directly from here, but that bridge we came across on the way here probably leads to that region. It'll be worth investigating on our way back.  Wizards are slightly weaker than Starwyverns, with high resistance to SLEEP and HURT, and 50% resistance to STOPSPELL. They have a 50% chance to cast HURTMORE on their turn, which is (of course) an upgraded version of HURT, dealing 30-45 damage. Fortunately, our Magic Armor also reduces that range by a third, so we only take 20-30 instead. It's definitely still worth trying a STOPSPELL. Aaaand a few Werewolves, Starwyverns and Wizards later...  The Flame Sword gives us an additional 8 Attack Power. It sounds fancy and magical but it's really just a stat upgrade, there are no special effects associated with it. And with that, large sums of money are now useless to us. I mean we'll buy Herbs and stuff because they're still useful but we're never going to be so poor that we can't make a couple hundred within 30 seconds and there's no longer anything more expensive than that. Alright then, let's hit the inn and see if we can reach the swamp.   Whoa! They sure turned into random encounters quick. They still hit hard enough that it's best to try to put them to sleep, though.    Le sigh.  Right... here!     : Wow. Either I really am the descendant of Erdrick and one of my ancestors tossed this thing in here, or the real descendant died in this swamp like a chump.
FrankZP fucked around with this message at 19:15 on May 21, 2018 |
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May 21, 2018 18:41
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Love the bit with Gwaelin at the beginning of the update. And yes, "But thou must." is some infamous bullshit. No means no, lady!
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May 21, 2018 18:57
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That Token is probably not particularly clean considering it was in a swamp and all. I hope the Flame Sword can cleanse it a bit because eww.
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May 21, 2018 19:12
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So this town surrounded by horrifyingly powerful monsters is guarded by thick walls, except for one narrow passage which was protected by the Golem. Y'all better stop that Dragonlord quickly.
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May 21, 2018 19:23
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I forgot about the Gwaelin's Love item! I guess we don't actually need to carry her around to have her as a snarky sidekick after all. Though hauling her around on a dangerous adventure would have been a great way to screw with her dad. And it almost sounds like she would have enjoyed it.
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May 21, 2018 20:00
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DGM_2 posted:I forgot about the Gwaelin's Love item! I guess we don't actually need to carry her around to have her as a snarky sidekick after all. And it makes stays at the inns a lot more interesting. Tantegel Inn doubly so, at least on the GBC version.
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May 21, 2018 20:20
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I rather like what you did with the princess here, shame she has literally no character in game. But hey, we'll take what we can get.
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May 22, 2018 02:49
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Kemix posted:I rather like what you did with the princess here, shame she has literally no character in game. But hey, we'll take what we can get. She's better than most other princesses from the time period, who didn't even show up until after you won. Besides, it's not like anyone else has any character in the game either.
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May 22, 2018 04:27
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ultrafilter posted:She's better than most other princesses from the time period, who didn't even show up until after you won. Besides, it's not like anyone else has any character in the game either. I disagree, you can really feel the sadness in the woman's voice when she informs you that no, she has no tomatoes. She has no tomatoes today.
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May 22, 2018 04:31
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Bregor posted:I disagree, you can really feel the sadness in the woman's voice when she informs you that no, she has no tomatoes. She has no tomatoes today. The Dragonlord has much to answer for.
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May 22, 2018 04:54
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It's always disappointed me we never got the SNES versions of the NES DQ games. The soundtrack of this game's Super Famicom version is breathtaking in terms of how huge a jump it is from the original version. The NES/Famicom version is clearly Sugiyama doing everything he possibly could with a very limited set of tools, but what he accomplishes with the Super Famicom/SNES is absolutely staggering. It's a real shame Sugiyama has such terrible politics. He's a remarkably talented musician.
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May 22, 2018 05:11
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Bregor posted:I disagree, you can really feel the sadness in the woman's voice when she informs you that no, she has no tomatoes. She has no tomatoes today. She's got string beans, and onions, Cabbageses, and scallions, And all sorts of fruit and say. She has an old fashioned ba-nah-nah, A Long Island po-tah-tah. But no, she has no tomatoes. She has no tomatoes today.
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May 22, 2018 05:36
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In the iOS version the second-tier magician enemy (Warlocks in the NES version) was called a "legerdeman" while the third tier (Wizard) was a "prestidigitator." Somebody on the script team was having fun. Also of some note is that Gwaelin's "but thou must!" is gone. If you say no she just sulks. (And if you say yes she simpers, as in her actual response is something like "oh, Hero... *simper*") Seyser Koze fucked around with this message at 08:54 on May 22, 2018 |
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May 22, 2018 08:52
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Seyser Koze posted:In the iOS version the second-tier magician enemy (Warlocks in the NES version) was called a "legerdeman" while the third tier (Wizard) was a "prestidigitator." Somebody on the script team was having fun.
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May 22, 2018 13:43
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The recent Dragon Quest localizations had a lot of fun with naming monsters and NPCs. (And in the case of Dragon Quest VIII 3DS, one weapon. But I'll mention that one when we get there.)
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May 22, 2018 14:18
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I wish all the newer versions didn't change the thous and thees, and Erdrick's name. Roto is a bad name, and the faux old-speak made me really nostalgic. 
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May 22, 2018 14:55
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Patter Song posted:It's a real shame Sugiyama has such terrible politics. Woof, you got that right. Just googled that and man. Was not expecting him to deny war crimes like the Rape of Nanking.
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May 22, 2018 14:57
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Flavius Belisarius posted:I wish all the newer versions didn't change the thous and thees, and Erdrick's name. Roto is a bad name, and the faux old-speak made me really nostalgic. actually the iOS version kept the thous and thees and Erdrick IIRC
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May 22, 2018 16:18
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:So this town surrounded by horrifyingly powerful monsters is guarded by thick walls, except for one narrow passage which was protected by the Golem. I... Uh... Ahhh, haha... Err. He... Um... He was coming right for us, I swear!
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May 23, 2018 04:44
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The tablet we found in the cave between Tantegel and Garinham mentioned that we'd need three items. Chances are, these are the Staff of Rain, the Stones of Sunlight, and Erdrick's Token. If that's the case, we're in business. It does raise something of a question. Erdrick built a rainbow bridge to the Isle of Dragons. Invoking rain and sunlight for this purpose makes perfect sense. Where does the token come in, though? Surely Erdrick did not have to prove he was related to himself, but the trinket was still necessary. What power does it hold? There must be more to this story than meets the eye. We have more urgent matters to settle at the moment, though. Maybe this should be the work of a scholar, in more peaceful times. Alright, what's left on our plate? -Delivering the three items to the magic temple south of Rimuldar, then assaulting Charlock. -Investigating Wynn's shop in Hauksness for Erdrick's armor. -Finding out where Erdrick's sword ended up. -Thoroughly exploring the rest of the Cantlin region. -Grinding up thousands upon thousands of experience points. Probably. It seems to be a theme. -Tracking down everyone who asked for proof of our ancestry and rubbing the token in their faces until they can read Erdrick's name in a mirror. Getting the armor first should make almost everything else easier, so back to Hauksness it is. Maybe we can sneak in and out without attracting too much attention. We won't be hiking there from Cantlin, though; things are going to be bad enough once we're inside the city, we don't want to have to fight through a gauntlet of dragons and demons on the way there. Instead, we RETURN to Tantegel first, and only have to wade through now-trivial monsters from that direction. We can one-shot Wolflords with our new blade! Dang but we've come a long way.   Okay then, let's keep our wits about ourselves. We're looking for a shop on the east side of town, but from the state of affairs here, it might not even be standing anymore.  Hmm, might be a shop, but this is definitely not the east side. Several Green Dragons, Starwyverns and Werewolves try to block our path, but we elude them so far.   A tree behind a shop. It better be the one, because it's the only one left.  An Axe Knight ambushes us as we reach the tree. These knaves are even stronger than Green Dragons and Starwyverns, and are highly resistant to SLEEP. They do have a 25% chance to cast SLEEP, but only have a 3/16 resistance to STOPSPELL, and we can't take the chance of having them wail on us in impunity for any length of time.   Okay, we're off to a good start. (Sorry about the doubled lines, I had to catch the window mid-scroll.)   : I. AM. MIGHTIER. THAN EVEN YOU! : HA!This Axe Knight is a guaranteed fight on this specific tile, one of the few boss-type encounters in the entire game.    Erdrick's Armor is only four points stronger than the Magic Armor (or Full Plate), but it comes with its own unique benefits. First off, not only does it reduce received spell damage by one third, it also reduces fire breath damage by the same amount. That's huge! In addition, it regenerates your HP by 1 every step (instead of every four steps), it makes you completely immune to enemy STOPSPELL casts, and it negates all damage from both swamp and trap tiles. It is incredibly good. Alright then. While we're sort of in the neighborhood, let's see if we can complete our exploration of the south-central region of Alefgard.      ...wait.  We've been here before.  Yeah, that's a big dumb loop around Cantlin. Once you've retrieved the Token from the swamp in the south, there's nothing else of interest.  That said, we've finally mapped out the entire realm of Alefgard, except for the Isle of Dragons. If we can't find someone who'll open up about Erdrick's sword after seeing the Token, we might have to do without. Speaking of which, it's time we start our grand "HOW DARE YOU QUESTION MY HERITAGE, YOU CRAVEN PEON" tour.    ...huh. Apparently nobody wants to believe that this trinket we dug out of a swamp indicates that we're related to an ancient hero. Well, they'll all come to rue the day that we save them from the Dragonlord and ensure they can live long and peaceful lives. Or... maybe they won't. Yeah they probably won't rue that day at all. Eh, fine. We do need to convince one recalcitrant man in particular though.    : HEY BUDDY. GUESS WHAT?   : Oh. Uh. Alright. Thanks man.: Thou hast no business here. Go away.: Okay, okay, sure. Light forbid we get to warm up to each other for even a second. Without further ceremony, we've inherited the legendary Rainbow Drop.   It does nothing here. Which... is fortunate. This isn't exactly the right spot.  This is. Video: The Rainbow BridgeThis isn't much of a rainbow, but it sure is a bridge!     Knights, Demon Knights, Werewolves, Starwyverns and Magiwyverns try to stop us, to no avail.  Even Charlock's poisonous moat parts before us. Here we are. Here we go.  Music: Dungeon (first floor) There are two staircases right off the bat, and a lot of now-harmless trap tiles. Let's try the right side first.  Locked doors. Of course. I don't know why I'm surprised.    This isn't a surprise though. This is the final dungeon, there will be darkness, and cartography. And monsters. We've met Green Dragons and Werewolves on the ground floor, and we can beat those at some expense to heal up afterward. For now, the limiting factor of any given run down here is our MP and Herb reserves. And the 10-17 HP we get from a single HEAL cast is beginning to feel inadequate. It certainly doesn't outpace the damage we typically take in a single round, and hasn't for a long time. The fact that we have no leads on Erdrick's sword is worrying, but maybe the forging and enchanting techniques of Cantlin's swordsmiths will have surpassed whatever was available in Erdrick's time. Not that this was the case for armor. Oof. Welp, there's no choice but to go forward and see where the Fates take us. Monsters on the first basement include Wizards, Axe Knights (!), and more Green Dragons, Starwyverns and Werewolves, all beatable but costly to fight. This cost will only diminish as we keep gaining levels, but even here those come slowly, and we have far to go. ... I have to call our initial foray after a narrow tussle with an Axe Knight putting us to sleep. We're down to 10 MP anyway, and I'd rather not have to walk all the way from Tantegel if it can be helped. We cast OUTSIDE and go rest in Rimuldar. This is what we know of Charlock so far:  A is the entrance from the eastern side of the ground floor, while the B and C staircases form a short, pointless loop. We'll definitely cover more ground on each subsequent trip as we eliminate known dead-ends and wastes of time, so this is actually pretty satisfying progress even if level-ups don't come quite as quickly as they perhaps should. Not having to worry too much about dying is also something of a stress relief. Worst case scenario, we end up in Tantegel, without half of our largely-useless money. Better hit Rimuldar if we can, though; it's much closer to walk. Alright, back to it. East side again.  Okay, that entire eastern section only has two branches that loop in on themselves. We're about out of gas, so I call the second run right there. Even our Herbs are low, so... uh... Right, no item shop in Rimuldar. Back to Tantegel it is. Herbs are an emergency resource, as they're still our only recourse to recover in one turn more than one turn's worth of enemy damage output. Alright, third trip.   This time, we try the west side.  Oh hey, we level off a Starwyvern pretty early on! We gain 8 Agility, 8 HP, and 5 MP. The lack of Strength increase is pretty bad, but it's more than compensated by our new spell!  We finally learn our own version of HEALMORE, which restores 85 to 100 HP at once, at the cost of 10 MP. This a lot more efficient per MP spent than the standard HEAL, and we never have to be in another situation where we scarf down three Herbs in a row just to keep a Dragon from finishing us off. We'll get our next level in 3000 more points. In other not-so-great news...   ...the western staircase (A) quickly leads to a dead-end. That's something of a problem. Let's get back up and see if we can find another staircase from the ground floor.   This must be the Dragonlord's throne. Is he just out for a stroll? There are no other visible exits from here. Hmm. ...  : Heheh. Ahhh, if only the Princess could see me now.: ...hmm!: Heyo.: ...eh?: It's me. Are you busy?: No... No... I was only... I am about to go to bed. Dost thou need something?: Oh, uh, no, nothing in particular. It's just... I'm pretty sure I'm sitting on the Dragonlord's throne and I thought that was surreal as heck.: What art thou doing on thither? Did he let you...?: Oh, no, no, he's not here. I just found his chair and thought of you.: ...: Yeah, that came out wrong, never mind. I apologize, I didn't mean to be a bother. I don't know what I was thinking.: No, don't worry, it's fine. I am certain thou art in a very stressful situation. Please feel free to reach out anytime.: You're too kind. Alright then, I'm surrounded by dragons and werewolves, I better get going. You have a good night, okay?: Fates willing. Take care!: ...: Well that was a bust. Anyway, what am I missing here? Hmm... : Wait a minute... : 'Tis also said that he entered the darkness from a hidden entrance in the room of the Dragonlord.Let's see...    Ah-ha! Let's keep going!  Just to the east is a staircase down leading to a small portion of the first basement that we can't seem to reach from here. Better keep an eye out below.   Finally a proper way to the second basement!  This small section in the east must lead to the area we're missing above; it must reach even deeper.  ...and what's this? A chest, and an up staircase? Presumably that's from that area on the first basement. Dang but this place doesn't make a lot of topographical sense.  Anyway, we nearly run out of juice a couple fights later, time to call it again. We're a third of the way to level 18 now, but with HEALMORE the next sortie will certainly be even more fruitful. ... ...we use up two thirds of our MP just making it to where we left off last time.  And we earn ourselves a new tier of monsters. Blue Dragons are slightly tougher than Axe Knights, with high SLEEP resistance and medium HURT resistance; they only have their 25% chance of fire breath instead of a SLEEP spell, but that means they don't waste turns trying to cast through a STOPSPELL. By this point though, fire breath hurts us a lot less than just getting our face gnawed on. And they drop a decent 60 EXP.  Whuh-oh, I forgot to save enough MP for OUTSIDE. Looks like Lorik's gonna make a mint off us this time.   Another new floor. Erdrick's Armor will only keep us alive so long, but there's also no reason to save Herbs; might as well go for broke, run from everything, and see how much more we can map out. Stairs up...   And back down. Eh, another loop.  That must be the right way further down. These floors are significantly smaller than the first basement, and I can't find it in myself to have a problem with that.  Okay, we're coming in from D. E is the only way back up from here, so it might lead to that chest.    Another straightforward path to a higher floor.  Yep, this is looking good.  This is definitely the first basement again. We still have our Herbs! If we can only make it a bit further...   If this is 10 gold, I'm gonna weep. An Axe Knight tries to stop us on top of the chest. Not today!   ... ...... !!! : Dragonlord, you absolute dumbass. Don't keep the one thing that can kill you in your house.
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May 23, 2018 04:45
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I guess it would make sense that the Dragonlord would keep a plot MacGuffin in his own pad. No heroes getting it that way. That's what he should have done with the armor instead of leaving it lying around in the middle of nowhere, because while common sense tells you nobody would rummage through the ruins of a town, JRPG logic tells you that's the perfect place to go. But maybe keeping the sword on his own person would be preferable to leaving it laying around. Some rear end in a top hat axe knight might get ideas.
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May 23, 2018 06:54
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One wonders why he didn't just chuck it into this world's equivalent of Mt. Doom.
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May 23, 2018 07:05
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The Evil Overlord List posted:The artifact which is the source of my power will not be kept on the Mountain of Despair beyond the River of Fire guarded by the Dragons of Eternity. It will be in my safe-deposit box. The same applies to the object which is my one weakness. 
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May 23, 2018 07:14
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Yeah, Dracolord isn't the brightest bulb in general, as evidenced by his failure to take a kingdom on the other side of a river, despite having clear numerical superiority and Tantagel being so broke that they can't even spare a stick to give their heroic last hope. Nevertheless, I don't think that keeping the sword of the legendary hero in his castle is a bad move.
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May 23, 2018 07:34
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I wonder if the Dragonlord was keeping it as a trophy of sorts. Maybe he pulls it out once in a while to laugh at Erdrick's memory Are you gonna post the music for the deeper levels? I wanna know -how- slow the music will get by the bottom if this keeps going.
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May 23, 2018 08:21
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Don't worry, Descendant of Erdrick, I too know the pain of a girlfriend not thinking my jokes are funny 
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May 23, 2018 10:25
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It makes sense that the same kind of person who would call themselves "Dragonlord" would love keeping rad poo poo at their house.
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May 23, 2018 14:10
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FELD1 posted:It makes sense that the same kind of person who would call themselves "Dragonlord" would love keeping rad poo poo at their house. Yeah OP, search the walls for klingon weapons and katanas.
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May 23, 2018 14:23
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Shitenshi posted:But maybe keeping the sword on his own person would be preferable to leaving it laying around. Some rear end in a top hat axe knight might get ideas. It's fine, they're AXE Knights. They wouldn't ever wield a sword. Now, if this was Erdrick's Axe, it could genuinely be an issue. Flavius Belisarius posted:Yeah OP, search the walls for klingon weapons and katanas. Even if you can't gauge which would be stronger, the best one will auto-equip!
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May 23, 2018 14:35
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Flavius Belisarius posted:Yeah OP, search the walls for klingon weapons and katanas. Oh hell, if we're going all Star Trek crossover here then search for phasers!
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May 23, 2018 14:50
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DGM_2 posted:Oh hell, if we're going all Star Trek crossover here then search for phasers! You're thinking of the Ultima series. Or Might & Magic.
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May 23, 2018 15:29
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I don't know where else to share this but: I progressed enough in DQ 3 to find out one of my favorite songs from DQ 8 is a straight refrence and it made me super happy  On topic, video game logic dictates the final dungeon has sweet loot in it so finding the best sword here isn't totally weird.
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May 23, 2018 16:06
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Shitenshi posted:I guess it would make sense that the Dragonlord would keep a plot MacGuffin in his own pad. No heroes getting it that way. That's what he should have done with the armor instead of leaving it lying around in the middle of nowhere, because while common sense tells you nobody would rummage through the ruins of a town, JRPG logic tells you that's the perfect place to go. Why not stick the cursed belt or something where the MacGuffin armor is? "Well, it's the only loot in the town, it must be something good!"
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May 23, 2018 16:55
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I'm so used to modern jrpgs that I was actually surprised at how powerful Erdrick's Armor was haha, I hope the sword stacks up just as well
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May 23, 2018 19:05
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Love the exchange there, ZedPower basically doing the DW1 equivalent of texting “u up” to Gwaelin. Also like how you’ve outlined how Sleep and Stopspell can really help during the entire game. When I was an idiot kid I just mashed attack all the time and used MP to heal after fights.
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May 23, 2018 19:54
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BrightWing posted:I don't know where else to share this but: I progressed enough in DQ 3 to find out one of my favorite songs from DQ 8 is a straight refrence and it made me super happy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7CHpZF6jl4 (DQ) / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTYR2O31qCM (DQ7)
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May 23, 2018 21:51
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