*: Welp, good thing Nicolas here is optional, because he's a bit of an rear end in a top hat. He doesn't have the cruel tricks other Fiends have had so far, but he hits hard, he's equipped to shrug off the debuffs we've used to neuter the others, and his buff-removal skill does a bunch of damage. That last missed Stun Needle prevented me from healing Zed so there was a clear point of failure, but I feel that I don't really have a party all that suited to dealing with him either. We'll get back to him later. And besides, it's not like I really want to attempt the Second Kalpa right away.



So let's pretend none of this happened, shall we?

*: Lots of red damage goop here, but Badb Catha's Liftoma protects us completely.







Ah, so that's how you get here.

*: There are more empty and occupied cells around here, but the Manikins generally repeat the lamentations of their brethren.

We reach an intersection with another mirage wall on one side and a ladder on the other, and a hole in the floor/ceiling on the side.



Hmm! I choose the hole first.



It takes us to the third floor, in front of a closed shutter. There's an open corridor behind us though; one path leads to the ladder we could have taken, and the other...

*: We get to the mirage wall on this floor, and use it for the first time. This will allow us to take the ladder back to the new area of the third floor and go over that barricade.



...no, wait, that's the first hole we went through, so we can't get back there like this. Hmm! Maybe from the third floor itself, then.



Ah yes, there we are. Let's see if this gets us anywhere.



Hmm. I think I missed activating that box on our first time in here. I return to the fourth floor, leave the mirage, and drop down again.



Yup, I did miss it. After a bit more fiddling, it allows us to reach a ladder in the mirage that takes us to a new part of the second floor. This is about the time where Kikuri-Hime's healing juice runs low, so I tag her in to let her Mana Drain her reserves back up.

*: We open up a path to the rest of the fourth floor, giving us easy access to a mirage wall should we need it, and keep exploring.



So this takes us to the fifth floor for the first time. I could go to the mirage right away but I want to recon the place beforehand.

FrankZP fucked around with this message at 13:27 on Dec 8, 2015

   *Pixie ---> High Pixie -+-> Uzume -+-> Unicorn -+-> Kikuri-Hime
                  Angel ---/          |    Blob -X-+
Choronzon -+-> Isora -+-> Nekomata ---/  Taraka ---/
  Lilim ---/          |
            Sudama ---/

  Kodama -+-> Apsaras -+-> Nozuchi ---> Gui Xian
Hua Po -X-+            |
 Pixie ---/            | 
       Will o' Wisp ---/

 Shikigami -+-> Bicorn -+-> Incubus
 Mou-Ryo ---/           |
   Zhen -+-> Forneus ---/
Angel ---/

Momunofu ---> Arahabaki

Badb Catha -@-> Troll
  Eligor ---/

         Koppa -+-> Sarutahiko
Chatterskull ---/

Badb Catha -+-> Succubus
  Eligor ---/

Dis ---> Valkyrie

Mizuchi

Nekomata ---> Senri

FrankZP fucked around with this message at 00:08 on Dec 12, 2015

*: I take the shortcut down again, and get well knocked about on my way. Wheeee!



Aaaand we're back here. The place has certainly not been improved by our absence.

*: This is a tiny room with one hole in the floor. So much for getting out the way we came in.





I'm trying to imagine what this place smells like, and nothing pleasant comes to mind. Thick dust, moldy paper, a whiff of rotten meat, that sort of thing.

*: This is already even more of a maze. There are so many doors and branches that I'm not taking, not to mention ladders and holes. Dang. We're also mostly encountering various blob o' goop monsters so far, as well as Will o' Wisps, Mou-Ryo and Phantoms. Most are chumps by now, but the latter's electric spells are no joke. Force damage is effective against them, but at this rate, I wonder if Principality and Senri are going to run out of juice before they even level up once.





Ah, this is the other side of that locked door. So this one's a shortcut then. Or, will be someday.



Dang, it's 7/8 waning. I don't want to have to come back here though, so I have Gui Xian pop Estoma and we run out the clock. Normally this would be an opportunity to get into fights, but seeing as I don't know how to leave this place yet, I have to ration my resources.



Okay, not too shabby.

We leap down to B2, and there's another locked door behind us right away. I need to remember those.

*: Haven't seen these dudes in a while. The Shikigami can use Tarukaja, so it's best not to take the fight lightly.





Ah, that's the way back up to a location maybe halfway through the first maze level. I'm going to continue exploring it and attempt to clear it out before trying my luck with the third basement. Knowing Dr. Dark is around is making me feel a lot more confident about being thorough.

*: We'll have the opportunity to make use of this fellow sooner or later I'm sure.



Oooh, that was down the northwestern pit. We came in at 7/8 waxing, so it was no trouble at all.

*: Ah, we've seen these guys a lot in Ikebukuro, but this is our first actual battle against them. They're tough customers, but any fight that doesn't have a Phantom in it is a good fight.



Oooh, I knew I overlooked something.

*: Ah, so these are the souls of the rival cultists that clashed in Yoyogi Park before the Conception, both Hikawa's people and his opponents.



Now that's all of the accessible B1. Time to drop down the southwestern pit, and then take a good look at those invisible walls.

*: This is all of B2 we can reach as well. There's asymmetry here too, but I can't find a way to remedy to it from here. So, two holes to jump into. Let's start with the western one.





Oh wow. Oh wow oh dang.

Oh balls.

The automap's absolutely no help here. I think I'm straight up going to have to do this old-school. Which in some circumstances would mean "graph paper", but MSPaint is still pretty old-school, right? Man. At least the floor has a tile pattern.

A Chest near where we dropped has a Soma in it, which restores an ally's HP and MP to maximum.



*: Somewhere along the way we master Wadatsumi. We're still neutral, but we've accumulated enough points to bring us to the next tier of titles, so we're an Expert now.





It's slow going, but we make it to a door in the middle of the southern wall. However, all the walls we've encountered so far have been entirely visible.



Unfortunately, this is a dead end, with only a glimpse of some other section through the wall. There's a ladder down in there, dang. Back to mapping we go.

Fortunately, the path to the western door is straighforward enough.







*: Another Burial Chamber, this time dedicated to Kaiwan and Ose. There's also a ladder up!

*: Ah, another type of one-way door then. Well, we weren't done checking out B3 from the western hole, so back down we go.



Huh, so that's it, there was nothing more than a couple dead-ends, and still no trace of a wall I could not see. I'm beginning to wonder if I've been sold a bill of goods. The rest of this floor must be only accessible through the eastern pit on B2, so that's where we go.





And here's the northern door.



There are two locked doors behind, one of which is marked "Burial Chamber", and a ladder up.



So that's a one-way door again. Back down the eastern pit we go, there's one more door down there, and it's gotta be the right one.





We finally reach the eastern door and complete our map. Total invisible walls: zero. Welp!

*: Oh wow, that lighter part of the wall is shimmering. I absolutely didn't notice it at first, but now that I know it's there, it's hard to miss. Man I wonder if I missed one of those in another section...



And there's our way to B4.



This looks a lot like the very first room, before we jumped in the hole.



Ah-ha! That's how you open those grey doors. I remember one on the first Kalpa, and it'll open the shortcut on B1 here, but for now I'd rather just find a way out, so I make my way back to the northern door on B3.

Unlocking the Burial Chamber reveals Mizuchi's tombstone, as well as a monument with no inscription. No graves for the living!

The other door on this level has a Cube with another Deathstone. That's... nice. But I expected some manner of exit. Hmmmmm. I must have missed a shimmering wall somewhere. Time to pull out the fine tooth comb again.



Oh wait, I remember there was a door in that southeastern room. Whew!

Valkyrie levels up and leans Soul Hunt, a unique recruitment skill that works best when Valkyrie herself is using it on a male target.

*: The invisible wall takes us to a small empty room, and what I assume is a one-way door towards the way back up to the maze. I return through the wall instead and take the ladder down.



I think this might be it.

*: I'm going to spare you a few moments of me being poo poo-awful this time. I make it out with 24 Macca, and...



Yeah.

Let's move on, shall we?

*: The way further in is blocked, as expected. We take the tunnel back up to the second Kalpa, then, uh. Hmm. I still don't know how to return to the terminal. Man. At least we can use the Moon Key to unlock that shortcut on B1 and maybe see if anything changed.



Oh I'm a dunce, this ladder was here all along, it's practically the first thing I saw when we got here at the start. Good Lord if this was a video LP, I'd have so many angry youtube commenters by now. FISRT!! YUO FRGOT TEH LADDAR ALSO UR VOICE IS DUMB!!1 ASLO PRBLY DUMB FAEC. UPLAOD FASTAR!!1



Yup, this is the first room. It's smooth sailing from here.



Glorious! Back to Asakusa, then. That's a pleasant enough end to this part of our journey, isn't it?

FrankZP fucked around with this message at 04:48 on Mar 31, 2016

*: This is the vault in the First Kalpa. There are three Cubes in here. One has a Deathstone, one has an Attack Mirror, and the last one...



Inventory screen says "A visor that allows its wearer to witness events of the past".

*: If that's not our cue to revisit a Burial Chamber...



This is Forneus' tombstone. Zed ingests Miasma, and our party consists of Mizuchi, Troll, and Gui Xian.

*: Well then. I... didn't quite remember what was down here. In fact I'm pretty sure I've never even remembered to come back down here, ever. Welp!



Good Lord this feels like cheating. But it's not!

*: The west gate here leads outside, but I want to check out the eastern side first.









And we're outside again. However, there's only one other place accessible from here.

*: If I never have to do this again, it'll be too soon.



Geis is a well-rounded Magatama. Nullifying Expel without enduring any weaknesses in return can come in handy; the first skill it would teach us is Diarama.

On our way further inside, we run into Sudama, Shikome, Nue, and Pisaca. The place is not as safe as I'd have hoped.

*: A staircase and an exit take us to this area of the overworld, which only has a Cube with a Magic Mirror in it. Back in we go, to a fork with a dead end and another way out.



That hill in the center must be Mifunashiro, but we'd need to go through one of the two buildings across the bridges to get there. Hmmmm... Let's say north.



Whooops.

*: There's a small terminal here, probably as a convenience.



Apart from Valkyrie's Agilao, we haven't had any fire damage in a while. But the one we try to chat up takes some HP and a Bead, then leaves.





These rooms contain an Attract Pipe (single-use Riberama), 3000 Macca (wow!), and...

*: I call it "atmosphere", but there's actually a short melody kicking in after a bit and now I wish it was on the soundtrack because it's amazing. It really lets you know this is a sacred place. Whatever power resides here is not to be trifled with.











And here's a large terminal.

FrankZP fucked around with this message at 20:51 on Dec 22, 2015

*: There are hallways west and north from here. It looks like the blood smears are mostly on the northern path, but it's hard to discern a directionality and there are pools and stains at either end. Still, north it is.



There's more corridor north but the blood seems to lead to this door. We run into Shikome, Orthrus and Nue; considering the latter two like to spam Fire Breath and Ice Breath, this would be a bad time to ingest Murakumo.

*: We warp to Ginza. We've been to this secondary entrance before, getting back there should be a cinch. I drop by Nyx's Lounge in case there's something new going on, but there isn't. We get outside, head east to the highway north of Harumi Warehouse, and go around crossing Rainbow Bridge towards Tokyo Tower again.





This dome doesn't have the spinning drums of the Nightmare System, and it hasn't been messed up by the Mantra either.



From the entrance, we can access a small empty room, and this express elevator to B15. It must be going to those other doors near the true core that we saw but couldn't reach from the main building.



Someone forgot to pay the power bill.



So it's more Nihilo-type dungeon but in the dark.



We do know the core lies to the east, though. So we go the opposite way! What if there's loot?

...first Cube contains Medicine. Second Cube contains a trap that poisons our entire active party. No one knows Posumudi anymore, but we've accumulated 29 Dis-Poisons, so it's no biggie.



Aaaand here's a good reason to have a Succubus in the squad.

Next up... A Tetraja Rock, an explosion trap that cuts our HPs in half, and a Bead.



This door in the south is still lit up!

A fight earns Sarutahiko another level thanks to his Watchful skill. He learns Counter and maxes out his slots, but I want to level him up one more time so he can learn and pass down Focus.



The power comes in sporadically in this hall, and it looks like water droplets are falling from the ceiling.



As I suspected.







There's an incredibly long corridor to the north here, but the encounter gauge is blue and we run into no further opposition.







There's a convenient large Terminal here, and the ground floor exit.



Oooh, this is new. We are now in the "top" section of the Vortex World.



Ah-ha! That's the Lucky Find paying off! Lessee...



Not bad!



That's the Obelisk alright. The nearby Cube holds three Life Stones.





We could head for the center right away, but I want to see how far I can explore beforehand. We run into Badb Catha, Principalities and Powers around here. They're easy to underestimate; one of them kills off Naga with Hamaon. Kikuri-Hime is again of inestimable value.

*: This little gravestone is the only enterable building in this entire region, besides the Nihilo entrance and the Obelisk.



Or, well. For some values of "enterable", anyway. There's nothing for us here. Back to the big cigar!

*: We go all the way around the room, and apart from a Dis-Mute in a corner, there isn't much to it left other than a lift platform in the north wall.





This place looks serene enough, but I'm getting some pretty rough memories coming back...

This is 15F. From the center here, we can go south, west and east, visibly to more lifts. I'm not sure where to go first so, let's say, east. We run into groups of Eligors, along with Karasu and Dis; the Eligor themselves can be tricky as they'll use Dragon Eye when they're alone.

The lift east takes us to 18F, which has nothing but a Mystical Chest with a Jade inside.



It looks like some device might bridge that gap and allow access west from here though. But that's all we can do here for now, so we go back down, then west.



Yikes. Man I'm glad Zed still has Shock, but it's unfortunate that the allies I want to train for now are mostly ice-based. Still, Principality has Zanma and Mazanma, and Naga has Zio.



Ah, so that's the other side of 18F. There wouldn't be a point in bridging this gap, then. Alright, back down, then to the south lift.

*: We take the lift, up to 24F.



We can go up or down from here, but my instinct tells me to clear the place out from the bottom up.

*: Apparently, altering the flow of time comes with a sweet drum beat.

Atmosphere: Time Sphere

So, here's the deal. Touching the sphere resets the Kagutsuchi phase to New. Stepping on a block advances the K phase by the number of square symbols on the block. And the gate opens only when the number of squares on its face matches the phase number. Here, there are four squares on the block, so we want to walk on the 3 block then the 1 block before we can cross. Of course this one is quite simple to make sure we get the mechanism, but it gets a bit trickier. Not Puzzle Boy tricky, fortunately.





The atmosphere returns to normal as we leave the immediate area, granting us access to a Cube with two Chakra Drops and a lift to 40F.

*: Oooh, small terminal. Again, it's a long way back if we want to leave, but having the option is nice. Naga and Principality are about out of juice, but we have plenty of back-up, so we drop a save and keep going. There are four Life Stones, a Sacred Water, and... some other forgettable treasure.







And another lift, up to 50F.



We offially can't see the bottom floor anymore.





Going east from here takes us to a strange glowy red floor, which is another type of lift. It lowers us one level below to a small room with a single Bead.

Principality has run out of MP, so we tag in Succubus. Naga is running low, but using his Trade skill allows us to cut some costly battles short, as a Berith or Arahabaki who gives us a Maragi Rock in exchange for a Life Stone and change doesn't get to take a turn and use Dragon Eye.

*: A Great Chakra is a one-shot item that entirely restores the party's MP. Someone's trying to get on our good side!



...aw hell. Two Baphomet. One Evil Gaze, one Maragion.

That's all it takes.

Good thing there are those terminals!

Boy I'm not out of the woods yet. I had Nirvana ingested because I want its next skill, and I didn't pay attention to its weakness to Death. We'll be on Anathema for a while then, but its next skill won't come until several levels later, so I hope I can remember to switch back.

...

Aight, we're back again.

*: She gives us the schpiel about demon personalities during conversation.



Oh joy.

The 8 gate leads to the lift, so I'll try the 4 gate first.



Three, four, two, one, two, to half waning. Alright. What's our prize?



Oh, dick move. There's no way you can come here at any other time than half-waning, so that's a cycle and a half of waiting. It's a good thing Naga has inherited Estoma, but that'll be the only time he can cast it on this run unless I spend MP items on him.



Ah, alright then. Good.

Back to the time puzzle, lessee. One, three, four, to full K. Easy.



This earns us the next lift, as well as a small terminal... and a way back to the lift down? Huh, I didn't notice this passage before, I guess it would have been a shortcut. Oh well!











Ah, I remember this. There are five lifts at the bottom, and they each follow one of the pillars upwards, and switch between pillars through a horizontal path every time they encounter one. It's easy enough to see where each will take you, and clearly the next lift is one of the central destinations, but I take the second one from the right to the eastern platform to see if there's any loot.





A chest here, and a lone spirit on the other side.



There's another spirit across the room from the puzzle entirely, but I'm not sure how to get there. While we wait for full K, Naga runs out of juice casting Zio on an Eligor, so we tag in Troll.



Oooh, nice. That one restores an ally's HP and MP to full.

It turns out the lift blocks already on this side are one-way trips to the other end of the room that I didn't know how to reach, so that's one mystery cleared up.

*: This makes him our highest-level ally so far. And evolution restores all HP and MP, so this is 171 big ones to play around with right away. Huzzah!

Aaaand that's when I remember that we have an open ally slot. Hmm. Welp, maybe I'll pick up a Berith or something. We'll see.





We're finally ready for the next floor. If we have to leave and heal up, at least I can take comfort in how most of the exploration will be done and it'll be much quicker to make our way back.





So, 77F. A lift to the east near the entrance takes us to a terminal...



...and a Cathedral? Huh. Well, fusion is one way to replenish MP, I suppose.

*: Normally I'd bench a new demon of the same level as our protagonist since they take so much exp to level up compared to our weaker allies, but, well, I'm making an exception here because let's just say I want this Maragidyne as soon as possible!

Aight, we save and get a move on.





Let's go the the 4 block first. Two, one, four, one, four, to half waning. This earns us 8000 Macca and a block lift to a small dead end.

*: The 8 block is next. Two, one, two, three, to full. For our trouble, we get... another block puzzle.





Left three, right three, left three, right three, to half waning. Aaaaand a dead end with a Mystical Chest again. That's it, I use a Chakra Drop on Naga and get my Estoma on.



Ah, good. Back to the puzzle. Three, one, three, one. We can access the next lift from here, but there's also a small lift block that would take us back to the Terminal and Cathedral in case we need to make a quick exit.



Floor 90. How much higher can this tower go?

*: There are two Life Stones behind this guy, and I realize we have 99 of them. Yikes, I might as well use them for healing for a bit, maybe get back down to 70 or so. That ought to power some Divine Shots.







By which of course I mean "some god-damned shinkuu hadokens".



This floor is much smaller than the others. We must be getting close to the top.

*: Holy crap. Nocturne, I love you. We get topped off for a couple thousand. Amazing! All along I was thinking, this can't last, I'm gonna have to go back and heal up before the boss, it'll take forever. But nope! Glorious. I get Naga and Principality back in, they got some experience to earn.



I was wrong about the floor being smaller; we were actually in a small room entirely contained within a regular-sized floor.

*: Yup, there are stairs up here, but I'm pretty sure that nearby lift goes all the way to the basement.





...or just to floor 85. Welp, we're here, and we're hoopy froods who know where our fountain is, we can check it out.



Of course.



Two, three, two, one, to full K. This takes us to a Mystical Chest that we can barely reach just before the phase changes again, for a Chakra Pot. And then, one, two, one, two, one, two, three, to half waning. This earns us another lift...



...to the second basement. Ah-ha!



Yup, this is right below the entrance. Let's see that treasure!

One Medicine, a mute trap... Have I been sold another bill of goods?



!!!



Oh this is amazing! I forgot this even existed! This item essentially casts Analyze, for free, and never runs out. drat, had I remembered this, I would have discarded Analyze instead of Heat Wave. But it's no biggie, we'd have replaced it sooner or later anyway.



It looks like there's another lift somewhere that goes even lower than this basement, but I can't seem to reach it from here. Alright then, back up we go. We recruit an Onkot on the way to the Fountain, and head back to those stairs we passed.



So much for wishing for no triple-digit floor numbers.

Zed levels up and, well, learns Void Mind from Murakumo, replacing Analyze. It'll do for now.



This entire floor here is one big lift. We must be close.



There's another lift up there. Wow.



Another small terminal. That's the fifth save point in the Obelisk so far.

*: I use a couple Chakra Drops on Long, just to be safe.



This is definitely near the top; we could see those large openings in the walls from the outside.

We're getting a "strong power" warning from the lift right in front of us, so we go all the way around to another block hidden behind the central pillar. Principality earns itself a level, learning its last skill, Heat Wave, and turning Mana Bonus into Mana Gain.





Floor 135 appears to be a large mazelike chamber, with a Chest at each corner. Dang but we're gonna spend some time here. At least we can use Estoma with wild abandon.

Oh, wait, there are only two Chests, and also a lift down I didn't spot at first. And to think I was almost done with this place!

So, Balm of Rising and Bead Chain. Down we go.



Holy crap, more passageways down here. We can't seem to reach those, though.



We can only get to this door here in the back.



Yikes. Even Dante wouldn't survive that one. Time to head back up and finish this!



Zed ingests Geis, and we summon Kushinada, Sarutahiko, and Onkot.

*: Zed levels up and learns Diarama, replacing... Eh, nah, we're good for heals, never mind.

Individually, the Moirae Sisters weren't too dangerous; Clotho's offense is unimpressive, Lachesis can do no real harm unless you let her build up a buff gap, and Atropos' magic damage is fairly high but nigh trivial to heal through. They also have no resistances beyond the typical Death/Expel/ailments boss immunities (though they also have no weaknesses). All together though, they're actually a balanced party with good synergy, stronger than the sum of its parts.

Your main goals are to survive Atropos' damage output, and cause damage faster than Clotho can heal it, and both of those goals are extraordinarily difficult to accomplish if you let Lachesis run roughshod with buffs and debuffs. Sarutahiko still has Dekaja, but we don't have a Dekunda effect at this time; any debuffs would have stuck, so I had to take out Lachesis first, even though conventional wisdom would have it that you prioritize the healer. Once she's gone, the trio synergy falls apart and the remaining two are no longer much more threatening than they were on their own.

A good precaution to take for this battle is to only summon allies who have no elemental weaknesses, because if Atropos earns her sisters an extra turn, that always means Clotho gets a second cast, and that can extend the fight a fair deal. Resistances to Charm and Expel are also handy, but if your damage output is consistent, Clotho will usually choose to heal her sisters instead of spending much time trying to directly harm you.





Djed is a caster Magatama, which is appropriate, seeing as it protects from Mute (and Curse effects in general, though not from the Magatama's special Curse ailment). It teaches all -kaja spells, including Dekaja when mastered.



I check the floor around the pillar in case there's something else hidden back there, but this pillar of light is the only remaining feature of this room.

FrankZP fucked around with this message at 13:14 on Mar 31, 2016