Here's the healer, which is nice because I just spent a lot of MP gathering sprite frames.
I expect we'll be seeing this screen again. I wonder if Surfacing will work today.
The next screen is just like this, but with four rocks instead of two. Hmm.
I sure hope this young man isn't up to no good.
Kools:
"We have to get to Knack and the others as soon as possible, but I can't get there in time...
I've heard you can use the same tricks as Limestone Caves to get through."
Oh. Carry on.
Kools:
"There are two types of quicksand: fast and slow.
With the faster kind, if you use 'Quick Pace,' you can fight back against it.
You can learn Quick Pace through Rogue*."
So, uh...I'm wondering if I should have called my current Thief class a Cat Burglar or something. The class she's referring to is a completely different one that I don't have and don't know anything about. Naming classes is hard when I don't want to steal a name that would have been better for a later class I haven't heard of yet. Hmm.
Guess what! Surfacing does nothing!
I bounce over to my Cat Burglar Thief and grab the item. It's Delicious Water. Water and consumables: two things the skill system bungles, tasting great together.
A purple swan and a funky corsola. The corsola spits sets of three homing...rocks? bubbles? at me. The swan chills out when it's on the water, but gets on land and charges me if I'm too close.
I actually can enter the water--but only from that one spot where the edge tiles are different. Surfacing is not required to do this.
I make my way over to the two-rock room. The game actually makes you start over, teleporting you back to the ledge, if you beat all enemies in the wrong order. I don't think it did that in Limestone Caves.
Ranged weapons are so fucking strong in this game. I've built up the skill points, so I grab License21. I'm sticking this shit on every single class I play from now on.
Then I clear the three and four rock rooms. This gives me a shortcut back to where the healer was.
The north door there is open too now. I make way way through it, and then remember to take a screenshot and poke my head back for just a second.
I think this quicksand is supposed to be a trap, but it's really easy to get back onto land by moving diagonally.
The joke is still on me, though, it's a consumable.
I also head left for a second and grab the giftbox on that other screen from before, with the corsolas. It's also a consumable.
Killing things is super easy and I've got C rank in Archer, so I switch to Cat Burglar for a while to try to figure out how the fuck to sort these names out. I give myself License21, obviously.
There is no south exit on this screen, even though there looks like there is. Oh well.
The east exit brings me to the left side of that much earlier screen, where my Kools fellow traveler talked about quicksand. The giftbox contains curry, which is a useful thing that I would definitely eat if I found it in a moldy cave.
Hmm.
I can't reach that switch from here, but I can go around. And that opens the east door.
It's odd, I think that being a thief or otherwise having a speed class was mandatory here? I don't care enough to change classes and check if that was slow or fast quicksand, but it definitely FELT like the fast kind. I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't A-ranked Ronin to get here.
The gift contains tonkatsu. The warp...
...takes us to stairs.
The stairs go here.
Oh god, it's a multiscreen conveyor maze.
I don't know what this button is, but I pressed it!
Oh, it opened the route to these stairs.
Incidentally, those dung beetles are really, really irritating on quicksand.
I go through here, dispatching some corsola I didn't take a screenshot of.
Same with the torch and dung beetle here.
This giftbox contains a dagger. Better than a consumable, but man, I already have the best weapon.
I take this path, going against the quicksand. I'm not sure it's actually possible to dodge those torches' fireballs here. Oh well.
This brings me to those stairs I opened the path to.
This gift contains a Brooch. It seems to prevent the Slow-Footed condition.
The warp opens a path back to the starting room with the healer.
The lower left path is an immediate warp that leads me here. Hitting the switch creates another switch on the right. I don't think I can do anything about this place without multiplayer.
Here's the north path. I fight the corsolas in case it creates a switch, but it doesn't. The same thing is true in the next room, except with torches instead of corsolas.
This screen, however, seems to have a trap. That in the bottom left is visible, but not accessible until I beat up those clouds. But there's another warp on the screen that is accessible. (It disappeared when I beat them, this screenshot was taken after I came back to the screen.)
Bob: "Looks like the whole town's in a panic.
I think it's time to let that monster out. We'll make them panic even more."
Knack: "...... ......"
That teleporting Kools from before warps in.
Bob: "What's wrong?"
Kools: "I'm sorry! The monsters from the Pyramid have been cleared out!"
Bob: "What the hell? Then let this one loose, fast! We'll whip these townies and pampered local Kools into a frenzy whatever it takes!"
Here I am!
Bob: "Who's this?"
>"It's her!
She's the one who fought through the Pyramid!"
Bob: "Those monsters against a kid like this...
As expected of a Kools trooper.
Huh? You...
I've seen you somewhere before...
...Of course I'd have seen you, if you're a Kools member."
Ugh stop trying to recognize me, I'm a shapechanger!
Bob: "All right! Let's let this monster out! He can deal with this little scoundrel first, and then run wild in the city!"
Bob teleports out.
Knack: "......"
Knack teleports out. The minion runs off to the north.
Yeah, you better run.
Spoiler
Edited by Ether, 15 August 2021 - 12:46 PM.
