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Demon Knights are a sin against human decency and humanity in general - that is all.
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First level of the day... Max MP shot up by a decent margin, but I'm not so sure about the rest of my stats - maybe I shouldn't try that thing I was thinking of doing right away.
Depending on how this affects my total damage output, I may be able to handle EXP grinding out in that desert now.
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Search the spot and you'll find the most important thing anyone could've ever thrown away in a swamp.
This is proof that our protagonist is of the line of Erdrick... somehow. I dunno - seems like anyone could just come down here and find it if they were crazy enough. I don't think the old versions of DQ3 ever explain how it ends up down here either... maybe something the audio drama or the Emblem of Roto manga touches upon?
Anyway, Erdrick's Token (the Emblem of Loto/Roto) is ours now - it's the last key we need to get into Charlock Castle.
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anyway
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We gotta go just south of Cantlin - there's a huge mass of poison swamplands there, but Erdrick's Armor makes walking around in the area painless. If you recall, an old man in Cantlin told us to go 70 leagues south and 40 leagues east of the castle... judging by what Princess Gwaelin is telling us, this seems to be the spot!
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We gotta go just south of-- OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-- aaannd it's gone.
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fuck
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JUSTICE. THANK FUCK - took three tries to kill the technical third boss of the game, but it's done. Search the area the boss was standing on to find Erdrick's Armor. We officially have the best armor in the entire game.
Heals 1HP per step (as opposed to Magic Armor's 1HP every 4 steps), nulls the damage of Hurt and Hurtmore (more than Magic Armor did), AND it has a built-in Stepguard effect (so damaging floors are no longer a problem).
This is a fantastic note to end the session on - we'll get more use out of our goodies tomorrow.
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Let's pick this back up while the coffee's good. I was still feeling pretty good about that Axe Knight kill from yesterday, so I did a bit of EXP grinding and gained two levels (plus Hurtmore).
The Axe Knight in Hauksness is, as far as I'm aware, the only boss in the game that you can re-fight on command - the scripted encounter trigger never leaves that one spot in town, so you can just go back there and farm him for EXP as much as you'd like (provided you've got measures in place to not die after two or three fights).
Sadly, Level 19 is when EXP grinding out the field starts to get a bit more long in the tooth (unless a certain shiny metal goo comes along), so that's basically our cue to try and make more progress from here.
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HERE I AM, AXE KNIGHT, YOU BIG FUCKING NERD.
WHERE'S MY GODDAMN ULTIMATE ARMOR.
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Here we go again!
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It's official - we've got all the best equipment money can buy. If this doesn't put us in a good enough spot to kill that Axe Knight once and for all, then the only thing left is more EXP grinding.
Win or lose, I have to wrap this up soon.
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As luck would have it, that StarWyvern was just enough of an EXP boost to get us to Level 17, and the Healmore spell that comes with it. The only magic left is Hurtmore - once we learn that, all future levels will be purely stat gains.
Since I'm already close to being able to afford the next sword, I'll stay out here and do some gold grinding - normally that wouldn't be necessary, but the way this run's been going... yeah.
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Oops, accidentally skipped a snapshot - remember how Gwaelin's Love tells us how far we are from the castle? That's important, and this is why, though if you already know where this coordinate point is, then you really don't need Gwaelin's Love or this old guy's clue to find it.
Given where this actually leads us, we probably don't want to go there with our current armor.
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Even on the enemies farther south, the Silver Shield is working... though, I think I've found one enemy that just straight-up outclasses my defense at the moment.
This is StarWyvern, an evolution of the Wyvern, alternative to the MagiWyvern - rather than developing magic powers, this version leans into the more dragonian aspects of being a Wyvern... and, as such, it has a fiery breath attack, which we're not quite equipped to handle, but it IS survivable even in our current state.
This guy was one of the things that almost killed me on the road to Cantlin - a bit startled to see him spawn out here. Didn't think his hunting range was that far.
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The Silver Shield's already doing wonders in battles against the usual EXP grinding fare in these parts... maybe it'll hold up against the Knights, Demon Knights, and MagiWyverns that lurk farther south? Either way, we're close to the next level, and that's definitely gonna help.
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If that one Green Dragon in the Eastern Swamp Cave was the first boss of Dragon Warrior, then our next contestant is the second boss - this is the Golem, an advanced form of Goldman, and officially the only one of his type in the whole game (you will encounter no other Golems but this one). He can pack a nasty punch, but he has a very notable weakness: The Fairy Flute acts like a guaranteed Sleep spell with 0 MP cost.
The Golems and all their variants are some of my absolute favorites among Toriyama's monster designs - the meticulously hand-carved brick-and-mortar motif makes them look even more manmade than what you'd usually see out of classical golems and other stone monsters. They're like walking fortresses... it makes sense that Goldman is the weakest variant since gold is a soft metal, but make no mistake - this Golem is rock-solid.
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So, now that we're in Cantlin proper (and made sure to have a Magic Key on hand), we can spend damn near all of our money on the best shield in the game (Erdrick's Shield isn't in this for some reason, so what we've got here is pretty much the closest thing).
Defense is important, though we're definitely gonna want the second best sword at some point.
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I made it... barely. Ran from everything on the way over here (except MagiWyverns - they behave the way I expected Axe Knight to behave when I cast a good Stopspell, so they're easy pickings).
I actually had a Green Dragon attack me right as I stepped off the bridge... managed to run from that (I've been REALLY lucky with fleeing - that doesn't usually go so well).
There's only one more enemy to deal with... one we CAN'T run from, but we don't need to.
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So, Hauksness is officially a no-go zone... at least not until I can do something to work around Axe Knight's damage, because right now it's looking like I'm not beating him outside of dumb luck.
While there is a significant degree of overlap in enemy types, the road to Cantlin is really all I have left as far as going anywhere new goes... and I can at least have a chance at running from everything, except for a certain boss fight, and I've got just the thing to handle that.
Among the monsters leading up to my destination, we have MagiWyvern. This improved Wyvern variant can cast Sleep... until you put a Stopspell on it. Compared to everything else around here, its physical attacks are surprisingly not that awful.
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WHY IS THIS WORKING.
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I landed a Stopspell - that should've cut out the most dangerous part of the fight...
...never before have I seen an enemy actually realize that its spells were blocked and just go all-out with physical attacks. I might have to be at Level 20 what with how much damage this son of a bitch can shell out in one hit - it was doing more damage than I could offset with Heal.
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In the immortal word of the very mortal Russian Glass player in Illusion of Gaia:
"BANZAAAAAAAI!"
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Yeeahh... it's looking like I'm probably not quite set for a shot at Hauksness or Cantlin yet, so I've got more EXP grinding to do. I DO know that Level 17 grants the Healmore spell, so that might help, especially since this run favors Agility and Max MP for long-term stat growth.
In the meantime, let's take a moment to appreciate our fair Princess (the sequel more or less depends on it... unless we make a certain terrible choice later on down the road).
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I JUST said I wasn't prepared for this... and yet... it's right there.
FailureBiWinning, Keeper of Incredibly Irritating Parrot Grass
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