Keeleon was a bust. It's still locked up tight, and we don't have a handy blue Hulk to tear the doors off their hinges this time. Here we see Mara and Nara's former boss, being no use whatsoever. But don't judge him too harshly; no one else has done us any good either.
For example, Panon.
At least someone got a happy ending.
: All right, enough of this. We'll try and get some more out of Orin when he wakes up, but right now we need another angle.
: I've heard of a hard-to-reach kingdom called Stancia, in the far northern corners of the world. They're supposed to possess some of the power of the lost Zenithians.
: Hey, I've heard of them! They make this really powerful weapon called the Sword of Lethargy, and
: Good enough. Let's sail.
Brey had warned us that Stancia's home island was "geographically complex"...
...but that failed to convey the intensely bizarre reality.
: Seriously, what happened here? Shoals, mountains, hills, random forested islands...I don't even.
: Me neither, but I know who would. Brey?
STORY TIME WITH PROFESSOR BREY There's a reason for that!: The archipelago we're looking at used to be a single, fertile island. But as I said, Stancia is supposed to possess some of the power of the Zenithians. In ages past, they had more contact with the Zenithians than any other nation.
: That made them the first targets of the Ruler of Evil, during his rise. He conjured a series of earthquakes, and shattered Stancia into a cluster of tiny islands.
: They used up most of their Zenithian magic just surviving, but rumors say they have some left.
: Enough magic to crack open magical doors?
: I'unno, maybe.
: Worth a shot.
The upshot of the Ruler of Evil's dickery, from our perspective, is that we can only get to the castle by disembarking here and taking a ludicrously indirect overland route.
Which is problematic, because then this can happen.
Bomb Crags are bad news. Yeah, they start the battle asleep. Yeah, even when they do wake up they're going to hang around "assessing the situation" for several turns while we beat on them. They can afford to take such an absurdly lackadaisacal approach to combat because a) they have a huge number of hit points, and b) after a few turns, one of the Crags will Sacrifice itself for the good of the herd, dealing 80-100 damage to each attacker.
Have a look at those hit point totals in the status line on top of the screen. This fight is a race: either we kill off all four Crags, or we get gibbed in a single attack.
Taloon takes his sleeping enemies a little too lightly, and trips over his own two feet.
Characteristically, this leads to a critical hit for massive damage. Taloon's awesome even when he's fucking up, is the moral here.
Curiously, he's not as on-point when he's acting deliberately. I appreciate the free Lifeforce Nuts and all, but right now we need damage!
: Eh, I've died before, it's not that bad. Lifeforce Nuts are forever!
Taloon eventually stops handling the monsters' nuts, and we prevail:
...leading to this tasty level for Jessica. Getting a head start on the "goddess of destruction" thing, I see.
Other, less terrifying encounters follow. We're pretty underleveled for this area, but DW4 is mostly about attrition and resource management. If you go all out you can punch far above your weight, you just can't keep it up for long.
Lucky for us, we don't have to.
All credit to the people of Stancia, they've taken the "geographic abortion" theme and run with it, turning their town into a medieval Venice, full of picturesque waterways.
And we're going to explore them all, I promise,
just as soon as we find out what this shopkeeper sells at night.
One quick rub of the Lamp of Darkness, and...
Swords of Lethargy! They're powerful, and cast Sleep when used in battle, but only Jessica and Taloon can use them. Taloon claims to be too attached to his Sword of Malice to want to give it up, and Jessica has a better weapon coming. The party moves on.
This here is considerably more promising! Maybe we can headbutt those doors open, or, you know, something.
I forget, have we seen any snoring people yet? Because they all sound exactly like this.
Anyway: dawn breaks, and we approach the town once again...
...sure, why not? This gentleman kindly lends us a boat, and we take to the waterways of Stancia.
There are two other ships nosing about water. The first turns out to be an armor shop. The second...
: Excuse me, EXCUSE ME! We're having a rendezvous. Don't intrude!
Whoops, never mind.
DW4's religion is mostly pretty nebulous, but these people, at least, are explicit. They're praying to the lost Zenithians, sure they'll be protected. But how likely is that?
: It's really not. It represents a corruption - or adaptation, if you prefer - of the faith practiced in the rest of the world, which holds that the Zenithians merely
introduced humanity to God.
: Contrast that with the Elves, who were introduced to God and said, "No thank you"
: Which turned out to be a bad idea; the Ruler of Evil laid them low.
: Except that the Zenithians fell even faster...
Right, right, on another topic entirely, remember the king's contest? It's an odd one:
: I've got this.
Fair enough! With the Zenithian Helm at stake, the party hauls ass for the throne room, stopping only to check out the competition:
Hm. Maybe Mara does got this.
She can certainly clear
that bar...
...and as long as her joke makes even the tiniest smidgin of sense, we'll be good here too.
Ok, Mara, lay it on us:
: So a man walks into a monastary, right? And goes...
...later...: "Because Thursday is your day in the barrel!"
: ...
: ...and now he'll have to perform lots and lots of oral sex, every Thursday for the rest of his life.
: ...
: Don't like that one? That's fine, that's fine, I've got plenty more.
...later...: "Five gold pieces, same as in town."
: ...
...later...: "You think you've got it bad? I have to go back alone!"
: ...
...much later...: "That's where they held the auction."
: ...
...even later...: "The Aristocrats!"
: ...
The man's unflappable. He doesn't laugh, he doesn't even
smirk.
I don't think the jokes are the problem here. What exactly is he trying to accomplish?
His daughter has no clue.
His daughter's handmaid, likewise.
Eh, screw it. The party wanders the castle, looking for clues and/or a poorly guarded entrance to the Stancian treasure vault.
: There was a castle above the clouds, and the master of dragons lived there.
Instead, we find religion.
: And vaguely orthodox religion, even; "the master of dragons" is one of God's titles.
: To destroy the Ruler of Evil and other monsters
The problem of evil, a timeless question in
theodicy, is here analogized with dragons and monsters. This NPC presents an classic solution to the riddle of Epicurus: God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent, but not omniscient: he needs mortals to remind him to get up off His Holy Couch and solve everyone's problems.
That's enough of that. Stancia has not done a lot for our quest.
But don't let my bitching give you the impression that this was a total loss.
: Whoever obtains the Zenithian Armor, Helm, Shield, and Sword will be allowed into Zenithia.
: Only the Helm has been handed down in our royal family.
: Is there still a Zenithia to be admitted to?
: Maybe.
: You're Santeem's foremost scholar and that's all you've got?
: I'm Santeem's foremost scholar, and that's all I have.
: I heard, however, the Zenithian Shield was once at Burland Castle....
: Add it to the List!
: List updated, ma'am.
: Very good.
Aside: behold Swordsmaiden Barbie, here. Damn it, guys, you were doing so well with Alena...
Not helping. As punishment, the party helps itself to the contents of her jars:
Nice!
: Hey, wait a second. We
had four, and then we found one, and then we found
another one...
: Fire up the teleport spell!
Why, yes! Yes there is.
AW YEAH!!!
The Sword of Miracles is great. It heals Jessica with every attack, and as for damage potential, well:
Here's Jessica's attack with her Broad Sword (ha ha)...
...and here's the Sword of Miracles.
So, yeah, not a wasted trip by any means.
Next time: Keeleon for real, even if we have to drag Orin's butt out of bed and carry him to the castle gate.
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Topic: Let's Play Dragon Warrior 4! (Read 56431 times)