The people have spoken, and they have spoken in favor of Healie. To that I can only say
thank you Lord God. It's possible to finish the chapter without him, but...well, let's just say I'd have plenty of chances to show off the defeat sequence.
Anyhow, on with the show.
: You're a lot nicer than the last guy who came down here.
: Last guy?
: Yeah. He just laughed and called me "Biggdiqs". And licked my head.
: Let's not ever talk about that again.
: But what did it mean?
: That I need to toughen my hiring standards.
: What?
: Er, nothing. You see Healie, it's like this: you resemble - in fact, your entire species resembles - the human penis.
: ...oh.
: Anyway, if there's nothing else...
: Would you show me?
: Absolutely not.
: Aw, c'mon, I've never seen one before!
: You're going to have to take my word for it.
: My species just has these dangly tentacle things...
: It's honestly not all that different.
Perversions and fetishes aside, Healie's a handy guy to have around. We can't rename him, alas, and he's only got one spell, but it's a good one and he has plenty of MP for it.
The "?" under 'Level' means that Healie is an Uncontrolled Character: we can't give him items or control him in battle, and he'll only be in the party for a little while. The DW4 AI is pretty complicated and interesting, with the ability to learn from its mistakes, but Healie doesn't really show off those subtleties to best advantage; his entire battle plan is "heal someone if they're hurt, otherwise flail ineffectually with your tentacles/sex organs". Which is all we'll need from him, really.
Some backtracking takes us to the exit, helpfully identified by the child-seducing well voice.
Said exit requires us to jump into a featureless void.
But it all works out in the end. Not shown: a Strength Seed hidden in one of those jars.
We make a brief stop in Izmit to catch a nap and buy up the rest of the good equipment. Despite what we heard earlier, Healie can enter town freely and no one reacts to his presence. The captain of the guard makes a reassuring chaperone, I'll admit.
Next stop: that weird unreachable tower that's full of monsters (I assume) and child kidnappers. Just in case, we head back to Burland to report our progress to the king, so that if we meet an ignominious end the new captain of the guard will have something more than "the children aren't where we left them" to go on.
Along the way we run into this poor guy again. I know I made fun of him before, but I'm starting to feel for him - he's been down there for weeks.
But back at the castle:
: Anyway...rescue the children at once.
: I am counting on your good work, Ragnar.
With that taken care of, there are no more preparations to make. We've got the best equipment money can buy (with one excusable exception that we'll fix momentarily), our 3 free inventory slots are full of medical herbs, and we have a little floating heal buddy.
Time to go be heroes.
Five seconds in, we're treated to a scene of proto-debauchery. The witch creature and her(?) victim escape down the stairs, so we quickly follow...
...into the third and final dungeon of the chapter.
This place's theme is "monsters that will ruin your shit even if you bought all the best armor". Everything in here can reduce your defense power, put you to sleep, or buff itself in various ways.
These jerks, for example, can double each others' defense power. They don't hit all that hard and so aren't dangerous on their own, but if they show up with Healers you can be in for a long fight.
Healie "Hale" Biggdiqs, race traitor. Also pictured: Healie dealing his maximum damage.
Further into the tower, we meet another one of Burland's finest:
: The monsters in this tower are very tough!
: I should have let Biggd - er, Healie whom I met in the well join me.
: I envy you.
In case you didn't obsessively explore every inch of the well, here's an explanation of why everything in this tower can kick your ass.
Case in point. Ducksbills cast Sap, which reduces your defense. Ozwargs don't have any crazy status-affecting spells, but their Icebolt is very damaging no matter
how good your armor is.
Not all doors need keys. This door may be huge and fancy, but the Door command opens it with no trouble. On the other side, we find...some minor treasure. A medical herb IIRC? Something crappy. And oh yes, this guy:
These are the nastiest monsters in the tower. Their attacks have a chance to put you to sleep*, and they travel in packs. Their attacks are weak, but with a little luck they can peck you to death one hit point at a time.
*So why do
giant roosters put people to sleep? I have no idea.
These guys may look freakish, but compared to everything else in this hell-pit they're nice and relaxing. They can cast SpeedUp (guess what that does!), but they're wimpy and die in one hit.
As we progress, we face progressively stronger monster packs. This group can buff its defense, put me to sleep, and instantly heal any damage I'm lucky enough to inflict.
A short distance away, we find the solution to that sort of problem. The name would make any gamer suspicious, but this isn't a cursed blade that forces us to turn on our faithful Healer companion in a nightmare of blood and oozing purple fluid...
...it's just really awesome. The Sword of Malice is enormously better than any weapon you can buy in Izmit, and can shoot fireballs in the unlikely event that you don't want to just attack with it.
A lot of murder and most of Healie's MP later, we reach the ground floor exit.
You can go outside, but...yeah. Actually this is a bit handy; if you need to back out and heal you can use the Flying Shoes again and jump off the
top of the tower. If you do, you'll land on the other side of water.
Through another doorway, we find the last of guards, sprawled on the ground unconscious. Uh oh.
: Somewhere in this world, the Ruler of Evil is about to resurrect.
: Also, according to a prophecy, the Hero who shall defeat him is now growing up.
: The evil ones intend to destroy the Hero while he or she is growing and still weak.
: Ragnar, save all the children.
Let's take a step back and think about this for a sec. Team Evil hears that a chosen Hero is going to grow up and kick their asses, five or ten years down the line. Their response to this is to
kill all children, everywhere, just in case. On the one hand, you've got to respect their ambition and thoroughness.
On the other hand, let's kill these fuckers.
As we approach, we're accosted by one of the kidnapped children.
He has enough sense to not charge past us into the monster-filled tower. Further investigation reveals another imprisoned child...
...and a giant, snobbish eyeball monster.
Time to throw down?
Time to throw down.
Meet our end bosses: Saro's Shadow and his pet Giant Eyeball. Saro's Shadow hits hard and throws fireballs, while the Giant Eyeball can scream (making your guys cower and skip their turns), or go berserk and start attacking twice per round with a high critical chance.
Our team is not as prepossessing. Healie was almost out of MP when we got here (pictured above: enough MP for one Heal spell), and Ragnar only has two medical herbs. Operation Kill These Fuckers is off to a rough start.
We start by focusing on the Giant Eyeball; it doesn't have much HP, and its scream attack can make Healie skip a turn at a bad moment. But as soon as Ragnar hits it, it flips out and starts dealing incredible damage. Healie burns his one heal one Ragnar, then parries while the Shadow and the Eyeball both try to tear him apart.
Healie's heroism was decisive; an extra turn of attacks was just enough to bring the Eye down.
But his valor did not save him from the Shadow's fireballs.
Vengeance.
(Not shown: me burning through every healing herb in my inventory and coming two turns away from total defeat. Healie's sacrifice really did decide the battle).
: All mankind will eventually be offered up to the Ruler of Evil.
: I'll see you in the Evil World...Gasp!
The children come up with a completely insane, and completely correct, escape plan.
The most useful Burlandese soldier was also the only one to die.
In his honor, we pass on our comrade's findings.
: This suddenly seems really unwise.
But of course it's fine.
Back in Izmit: joyful reunions.
The entire town has this, or some variant, to say. They just cannot get over how awesome we are/how nice it is to not be imprisoned in a monster-filled tower.
Although, it is pretty suspect that we only had two children to rescue. If "children" were being kidnapped, and we interrupted one abduction...yeah, my freshly honed detective's instincts say that this doesn't add up. Conjecture: there were other kids who we weren't in time to save
But nobody wants to ruin the party by talking about it. And apparently none of those kids were the legendary Hero, anyway.
More happy news: someone freed bread-thief Alex. Good for them, but remember this when we're searching the ends of the earth for the Final Key in chapter 5.
He may not have a sense of direction, but at least his heart's in the right place.
No matter how you answer, he just says "I was only kidding. You're so naive"
We've taken our victory lap. Time to report in:
: I'm proud of having a soldier like you!
: I will give you a reward. Name anything you want.
Gold and jewels? Half the kingdom. No, Ragnar has greater aspirations:
: You intend to find and protect the Hero who is still a child...
: I see...You'll have my full support!
: Ragnar, this is a farewell gift from me. Take it!
And then he just hands us two free levels.
Bye Ragnar! See you in chapter 5! Try not to get kidnapped by giant lions!
Next time, on Let's Play Dragon Warrior 4:
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