In our last installment, we heard that the Zenithian Shield might be in Burland Castle, where Ragnar's from. The Zenithian artifacts seem like handy things to have when you're on a quest to vanquish evil, so the party sets out for Burland.
Humbled by the events of a few updates ago, the party takes the slow, safe route: start at Santeem, then sail clockwise around the continent until you hit Burland. One side effect of that route:
You pass some familiar places. Let's stop in at Taloon's hometown, shall we?
When we last saw Tom's son - we never did learn his name - he was imprisoned in Bonmalmo for a crime so petty that no one cared when we broke him out. Seems he's turned his life around.
`
The game does force us to give Tov back before Chapter 5, but you'll be pleased to see that he's no longer confined to this toxic hellhole.
Instead, he's hanging around outside Taloon's old house. But the house is empty - who could be living there?
Of course.
It's only polite to stop in and visit Taloon's old boss.
If Yes:
: Keep it up! You have a cute wife.
This is his way of alluding to Neta's awesome powers, I think. If No:
: What? You're traveling the world in search of a legendary sword? Hmm....
He's just a small-town arms dealer - he can't help with this. Except maybe with that stuff behind the jailhouse door; we'll be back later.
Soon enough, Ragnar points out a familiar landmark.
Izmit village! But all has not gone well since Ragnar's departure.
: You should talk to the people before you stay at the inn.
As always, the party takes the well-meaning stranger's advice. But it's no use; all anyone will say is that there's a dream, it's strange, and they're having it over and over when they stay at the inn. Why the town's
residents are staying at the inn is not addressed.
There's only one thing a party of adventurers can do in a situation like this:
Jessica has fallen into a deep sleep....
Seems to have begun dreaming....
The scene opens with a young woman in a tower. A swordsman approaches...
He plays a strange melody - the same melody that comes out of the Flute of Uncovering! Stairs appear, and he enters. Soon:
!!
But it's just "Saro", not "Necrosaro" - perhaps it's not the same person? Or perhaps he hasn't yet
Oh
But he's already gone. Seems she's a prisoner here.
: On it.
: That's more the Ruler of Evil's territory, but fine.
Mood whiplash.
So that was creepy, but at the same time entirely unhelpful. Necrosaro was on the ass-kicking list already; if we're being honest, he's probably target #1. The Ruler of Evil may be, you know, evil, but he hasn't killed anyone's parents yet.
Maybe if we can find Rosa, we'll learn something more. But no one in the party has ever heard of place with a tower like that one - not even Ragnar and Taloon. And no one knows what kind of magic could produce dreams like that.
But on to more immediate concerns. Does Burland still have the Zenithian Shield?
: It seems that in my grandfather's time, the shield was given to the Queen of Gardenbur.
: Gardenbur is the Castle which rises from the heart of the eastern mountains.
: What were my grandfather's intentions? I wonder....
: Gardenbur Castle is surrounded by rocky mountains.
: There used to be a cave which led through the mountains.
: A volcanic eruption blocked the cave with lava.
: The magma staff might be able to melt a pathway through the mountains....
: You already have it? Good!
Of course not. But a solid clue that requires only quest items that we already have is almost as good.
Also:
Remember these beauties, from way back in chapter 1?
Mostly not that great, but more Seeds are always welcome.
Sadly, we know the answer to this. This means we can't recover the Golden Bracelet before Necrosaro gets his hands on it, if we ever could at all.
K.
: It's written that Master Dragon, fearing the evolved monster's incredible power, imprisoned him underground.
: Now the Ruler of Evil is about to resurrect.
: We must inform Master Dragon immediately!
We've encountered this approach to theodicy before: God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent, but not omniscient, so you have to let Him know when there's evil afoot.
: Perhaps we don't need to find him because he should know it by now if he's really a master.
This is the standard counter. If the Ruler of Evil can resurrect without your knowing about it, you're not really the Master anything.
One more stop:
Remember this woman, from way back in Chapter One, when we reunited her with her husband? She says they're living happily, but:
Alex is not in evidence. The key to a happy marriage?
Ok, enough of that. Time to find out who the Queen of Gardenbur gave the Zenithian Shield to, so we can go bug
them. Or maybe it'll be stolen, like with the Armor?
You can sail up the river that divides Burland from Izmit.
Follow it far enough, and you'll come to a lake in the deep mountains.
Travel south from there, around the mountains...
..and you'll come to a really obvious discontinuity.
Also, you'll be attacked by frightfully powerful monsters.
This is another of those abrupt difficulty spikes that NES RPGs loved so well. Beleths are just nasty bastards overall: tough and strong, with a fire spell that hits the whole party for big damage.
But we have Jessica, and in particular we have Jessica with the Sword of Miracles, so before long:
Just wave the staff at the encrusted lava...
...and it all melts away.
One thing to notice about that castle to the northeast: it's surrounded by hills and forests.
So we are accosted
twice in the ten steps from the ex-cave to the safety of the castle. Tyranosaurs and Archbison don't do anything special that I'm aware of, but the ubiquitous fucking Beleths more than make up for it.
Though, this was nice to see. Alena does this a lot; normally her damage output is below Ragnar and well below Jessica, but every once in a while...
Gardenbur.
But now that we've been here once, we can return with, well, Return, any time we feel like it. The party warps back to Endor to rest, and the following morning:
Gardenbur is a matriarchal society - in fact, it's dominated entirely by women. Here we see female guards.
Likewise, the armor shop caters to women.
: And they have Pink Adamantium!
This isn't a straight inversion, though; the traditionally female roles of "prophet" and "person hanging around" are still female-dominated.
In fact, this guy is the only man I can find in the whole castle.
: ...trapped in a castle full of warrior women...
It's getting pretty progressive in here, no?
No. This is still a Japanese game, made in the 90s
Well, whatever. Time for the semi-regular new location looting spree.
Ok, I lied; there's a second man in Gardenbur. And he's super helpful; most of the people we rob aren't considerate enough to point us toward the most valuable loot.
The man leaves, and we search the dresser:
Wait a second...
We've been had!
A guard leads us away...
Straight to prison.
: Time to resist arrest?
: Don't worry. King or queen, this is still a monarchy. Just wait a bit.
And mere moments later:
Just so we don't think we're getting special treatment or anything.
: ...no?
: ...yes?
: ...ok?
: See? Everything worked out fine.
: This is fine?
: Oh no, I'm trapped in a castle filled with gorgeous warrior women, whatever shall I do?
: Well, as long as you're having fu - wait, no. You're coming with us; you're the only one here who's ever solved a crime.
: I'll stay; there doesn't seem to be a weapon shop here and I want to pitch some franchising ideas.
You can select anyone as the hostage...
...except the Hero, reasonably enough.
All the men have Taloon's line, all the women have Alena's.
DQ4!
: You sure can't; you're in a prison guarded by women and the only men around are your fellow prisoners.
"Clothes", eh?
Meanwhile, in the negaverse, Jessica is struck by a bit of whimsy:
: ...you know what? Fuck it. Fine. Yes. I took time off from my quest to
save the world from the Ruler of Evil to rob an old woman of a trinket made from a material I was sneering at ten levels ago. Yep. That's just how it happened.
: ...
That's right; in Gardenbur, you are not allowed to plead guilty. More strangely still:
: Isn't that taking presumption of innocence a little far?
My theory: the queen figured out immediately that we weren't guilty, and took the opportunity to strong-arm the party into doing some free police work for her.
Meanwhile, back in reality, the party wanders around Gardenbur. Taloon needs time to make his sales pitch and the trail is already stone cold, so there's no rush.
The basement holds a special chest, guarded by a special door. Dragon Warrior 4 loves fancy-chest related fakeouts, but this is at least a cause for hope.
: The resurrection of the Ruler of Evil....the prophecy of the maturing Hero who shall defeat him...
: Master Dragon in Zenithia....
: And the baby born to a celestial nymph in Branca.....
: I'm beginning to understand the meaning of all these stories....
: You and me both.
Adventurers are filthy animals.
The official view of the Queen...
: She would have enjoyed a commoner's life if she hadn't been born into the royal family. I feel sorry for her.
...and the unofficial one. You can tell she's really a good monarch because she doesn't want the job.
No one ever says
why the Bronze Amulet is so dreadfully important. I like to think that its value is sentimental rather than practical; it's not a magic item or a focus for her divinations or anything, it's just a gift from her dead mother or something like that. But if so, why would anyone steal it? More on that in a bit.
: Do not betray my faith in you. Go now.
And so we shall!
In a minute!
The Gardenbur region turns out to be completely surrounded by mountains. If you don't have a ship or teleportation magic, this cave is literally the only non-Gardenbur location available.
Seems like a good starting point.
Metal Babbles are like Metal Slimes, only more so: stronger, tougher, meaner...
...and more prone to running away. They also give vastly more XP, but I doubt we'll ever see it.
This dungeon's theme is "lots of windy little passages".
Also, "treasure chests you can see but not get to". This would lead to a lot of doubling back, but most of the treasure isn't worth your time.
With one notable exception.
Uncharacteristically, the game designers cut us a break: the encounter rate here is unusually low, so even though the cave is far bigger than usual, we fight about the same number of monsters per dungeon as always. And the monster groups tend to be small, as seen here.
Don't think they're pushovers, though. The difficulty leap from earlier is still in full effect.
Down on the second level, there's more treasure worth having. I'm not sure it's even possible to buy these - certainly not yet.
It makes a lovely upgrade for Jessica - her defense is only 89 without it.
More wandering leads us to a well-appointed room, entirely at odds with the rest of the dungeon.
And a sleeping guy?
And a sleeping guy.
Our sleeping guy! Hot damn!
(And he's gripping the Bronze Amulet like a teddy bear - what's up with that? The Bronze Amulet is clearly precious to him, not just as a magical item, but for itself)
Jessica can't resist poking him, and so:
He walks more slowly than we do, so in fact:
We totally can catch him.
That's not necessarily to our advantage, though.
For the level you face him at, Bakor is probably the toughest boss in DW4.
I've ranted about this before, but we're about to do it again because
Godfuckingdamnit, Cristo,
what the hell? It's like this: Beat is the game's instant death spell. The game's AI values killing enemies very highly, so it loves the idea of a spell that can kill anything in one cast. But it doesn't understand things like "low success rate" or "boss immunity", so Cristo will spend all his time and MP casting a spell that will never achieve anything instead of shutting down Bakor's magical attacks with Stopspell, or his physical attacks with Increase, or otherwise winning the fight for us.
After Cristo dies, the whole thing goes downhill really quickly. Bakor can cast Increase too, raising his defense power enough that we can't scratch him. After that it's just a matter of time.
But our situation isn't hopeless. The party AI does learn from its experiences, so Cristo now knows that Beat won't work.
The next time we fight Bakor, Cristo will spend his time casting useful spells.
So we go back through the long winding dungeon with its maze of twisty passages (all different, in fairness). Bakor is still napping in his subterranean bedroom - I guess he figured we'd learn our lesson the first time.
But adventurers do not learn lessons. If they did, they'd be farmers or merchants or whatever.
Yeah, there we go. Switching to "Defensive" for a few rounds also helps. Not pictured: Cristo casting Stopspell on turn 1, removing Bakor's two best moves. In due time:
The chest contains an Agility Seed.
As usual after a boss fight, everyone levels.
We have to get Taloon out of jail, so summary execution is out, however fair and balanced it might be. But suddenly, a soldier of Gardenbur appears:
?
: So where were you when we fucking died?
: Hiding from the incredibly dangerous thief/murderer. Who do you think dragged you back to the House of Healing?
: ...
: Thank you.
Our rescuer drags the thief away. Back at the castle, the Queen of Gardenbur demonstrates that she is, hands down, the best monarch in the game:
Quite a nice trick, since we teleported, but let that pass.
Those jail-cell doors have been blocking us off all game. Now we can go (almost) anywhere, and steal (almost) anything. The future belongs to us!
And the Queen of Gardenbur isn't done:
So this whole thief-capturing thing was some kind of screwy Legendary Hero job interview? Nice.
And she still isn't done:
: I also heard monsters used to live south of here in Rosaville.
: You may find out something there. I suggest you visit Rosaville.
If Rosaville contains Rosa, as seems entirely plausible, we might finally get some hard facts about Necrosaro. It's a little convenient that the Queen happens to have heard about that exactly when we need it, but eh. We're heroes, contrivance is our friend, and these were the 90s.
Anyhoo, before we go interrogate Rosa we have to spring Taloon.
It's never made explicit, but I think we're talking to Taloon's local franchise partner.
Even so, it's still prison; you don't even get a bed.
It's not stealing; she gave it to us.
The Zenithian Shield is the best shield in the game. Forged by a lost civilization, it offers amazing protection and will cast Bounce (reflects all magic) when used as an item in battle.
It replaces Jessica's shiny new Dragon Shield, building her defense to epic levels. Our campaign to defeat the Ruler of Evil is officially underway.
Next time on Let's Play Dragon Warrior 4: Probably not Rosaville. It's incredibly important and all, but there's just all that loot out there, you know?
I can promise some Brey, though, if you're into that.
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Topic: Let's Play Dragon Warrior 4! (Read 56438 times)