CHAPTER 46
This is a story of a man who had far too much free time on his hands.
A man who spent almost a full year playing a video game, taking screenshots, posting them online, and making immature jokes about them.
This story is not very interesting at all.
So instead, we're going to tell you the story HE was telling.
(Just in case you forgot what game it was.)
So if you missed the info, I accidentally saved over the newest file with an older one - long story short, I lost all my hardcore-training benefits, as well as the Dragon's Den benefits. So it's like that whole last chapter never happened. I guess it makes sense, then, to begin where we left off in Kefka's Tower last time.
Oh damn, more pressure panels. Heh, I remember when I thought those 3 we passed were too many. This is nothing.
Now we need to get the rest of the party in, and to do that we need a different kind of pressure on their panels.
Those massive weights apparently press down the buttons more than a group does... or something.
In the end it turns out that dropping the thing on the button opens the staircase to traffic from one side, allowing Store's team access to the central area. Woohoo!
Unfortunately, passing through that area also locked Bitch's team on the other side. Looks like there's no turning back now, though, and we need Loli's team in too, so Store's gonna be stuck on the right.
I guess Loli's team - generally weaker than the other two - will have to deal with whatever is at the top of this ominous staircase.
Lolisquad is on their way to fight a giant evil robot. Whee.
It has a bunch of piddly attacks like rocketspamming and maybe a laser or three. Not all that threatening.
It's pretty weak against lightning, so that's always a good option...
...though before the fight I also swapped out Molulu's Charm with the Dragon Horn, so Danser jumps 2-4 times each attack, dealing a few thousand per hit.
After a few rounds of attack, the robot switches it up a bit.
It becomes far weaker and I'm pretty sure it only did that for the purposes of tentacle... umm, coddling... the sole female member of the group.
It dies almost immediately after.
It leaves a save point behind (which I use to heal everybody) but wow, that was a seriously pointless boss.
Bitch: "Gee, I sure would like to go through that door down there. Too bad there's no way to get there unless Loli's group helps me out."
Elsewhere, Team Loli is preoccupied. Fighting one of the 3 gods of magic tends to take up a lot of attention.
Demon is, according to Libra, vulnerable to poison. It's unfortunate then that Bio is such a crappy spell.
Physical attacks, however, are fine. GIGA DRILL BREAKER!!
Demon is overall pretty boring. I screenshotted this because I thought it was Demon's only unique attack, and then I saw a random encounter use the same move...
It's not even that special, really. That's right: Demon has NO special abilities whatsoever, or at least none that he used against me. The only thing that makes this fight any more difficult than a random encounter - other than the high HP totals, of course - is that Demon absorbs one or two elements, and the single element it's weak against is useless anyway.
Lucky for us, we have Eunuch's Debilitator tool, which assigns a random weakness to the target.
...It's pretty hit-or-miss.
Didn't really matter, though, as it died anyway before we could try again.
That seemed a little easy for one of the Gods of Magic that tore the world apart...
Beyond the statue's remains is a door with a hole inside, and in the hole is a pressure plate. It doesn't seem to do anything, but I'm sure it will when the other ones are activated!
"I wonder if I can just jump this railing...?"
Looks like there's a button I, umm, forgot about.
Loli rushes back and steps on it, allowing the two other teams to move onward. Then she has to walk all the way back to the button she found.
Damn kids and their ADD these days! She sees ONE staircase and tries to ascend to glory.
"Freedom!"
Another statue. Oh well, the last one was easy, right?
Bitch: "Fiend, prepare to meet your maker!"
Fiend: "Northern Cross."
...
SHIT.
Explanation time: Northern Cross is an attack that can inflict the Freeze status, which prevents a character from doing anything until somebody else hits them with fire elemental damage. Northern Cross targets everyone... but normally misses at least one person. I was just really, really unlucky in the opening turn, which allowed him to beat on me as much as he wanted for a few minutes.
Then we all burst into motion. From top to bottom, we use Trance Firaga, Grand Delta, Fixed Dice and Phantom Rush.
This works quite well, and other than a few Cure spells we don't deviate from that strategy.
Hey, did we win?
Guys, I don't think we won.
"Fiend is now immune to water damage."
He also has Reflect. DAMMIT! We'll have to do something other than Trance Firaga. Like, I dunno, Ultima Weapon attacks.
After this he seemed to start using Southern Cross (pure ice damage, no freezing) pretty liberally too, meaning Cure was a lot more common in the second half.
A turn or so later, he locks on to Sarda but I don't really know what he was trying to do.
Whatever it was, it didn't work, I must say.
Goodbye God of Magic...
...hello button!
"Well, I guess we're fighting another statue. If any of you act surprised I'll be super-pissed."
Cocke: "A-a statue? Wh-"
Store: "NO."
At the risk of sounding really stupid... DAAAAAAYUM. I like that statue's choice in wardrobe. Or, umm, the sculptor's style. Or something.
Too bad we have to break it.
Goddess has a few weak magic attacks, and some kind of sleeping attack, but here's the main thing that makes this fight hard:
She used Overture on Cocke, which means that Cocke will now step in and take any physical damage meant for Goddess.
...
...Well, okay, I guess it doesn't make the fight THAT hard.
Seems like Silly's dog makes him immune to sleep or something, too.
Silly: "Wait, I have an idea! If Cocke is entranced by this hot chick..."
Store: "Hey!"
Silly: "Maybe a HOTTER chick will distract him!"
Goddess: "NOOOOO! I'm meeeeellllttttiiiingggg....."
(Turns out Lakshmi's a pretty useless summon, actually. I didn't know beforehand as I had never really used summons.)
Well, that explains why they were all such total pushovers.
All the buttons are ready.
Last minute equipment checks? Bathroom breaks? Too late.
WE'RE ON OUR WAY TO THE ENDGAME, BABY.