(Written 30 August 2006)

Well, we’re in what I’m guessing is the final dungeon, but I’m pretty lost. There are passages that go this way and that, and stairs that go up and down. I went up two levels and now I seem to be going back down two levels. Two minus two equals zero in my book, and that’s what it feels like I’ve accomplished since getting in this dungeon. Where am I? Where am I going? To top this off, there are constant encounters everywhere. Can’t go more than a couple of steps without another wave of annoying beasties jumping us. I think I’ve killed about a billion of some of these things.

Status: Lost

(Written 28 August 2006)

The preliminary cave went on and on and on. My goodness, this thing was huge. There were levels with good fairies and nasty fairies, levels with people turned into zombies by an evil train, and levels with clueless dwarves who had lost all their stuff. And yes, you read that right: there was a level with an evil train that turned villagers into zombies. Now that’s something you don’t run into every day. It was as if the level designers did acid and got to work. I thought I would never get out.

But finally, we conquered the final boss of the preliminary cave on level 40 and received…a cheap sword? What? Tricky Final Fantasy, playing jokes on us! After we killed the final boss we got a cheap sword, sure enough, but when you transport off the level, you arrive at another level with a treasure chest. This treasure chest had the Ultima Sword, which is nearly twice as powerful as Excalibur. Woot! Time to head off to the final battle!

Actually, though, for a 40-level dungeon, it was quite fun. There were a variety of levels, none of the levels was painfully big, and the combat wasn’t so prevalent as to get in the way of exploring. All in all, fun.

Status: Killing Stuff with a Purpose!

Photo by AviatorDave.

(Written 24 August 2006)

The four crystals are mine! After 41 hours of digital adventuring, I have come into possession of the last crystal. As a bonus, I found some adamantite in the airborne castle, gave that to a drawf, and he made me Excalibur, an uber sword of the highest nature. My knight and thief are now a vicious one-two punch, and my level-75 party is primed for what I’m assuming is a forthcoming final battle.

Anyway, I took the four crystals to the guys dancing in the woods, and they proceeded to babble on an on about a lot of confusing stuff. Somewhere in there they let me know about something very big and bad that is 2000 years old, which I’m guessing I need to kill. They didn’t actually do anything, as far as I can tell, which makes me wonder why they wouldn’t tell me all that stuff before I got the four crystals. So the big question here is: What use are they to anyone? The big answer, folks, which is fairly obvious now that I think of it, is this: If you spend your whole life dancing in a circle in the woods with a bunch of other men, you’re likely to be little use to anyone. So there, don’t choose that as a career option.

I digress…

As I expected, when I got the fourth crystal, the guardian in front of the water cave decided to skip town, which opens up this last preliminary cave for exploring. I decided to explore that cave before I try to go after the final boss, who apparently lives in a castle very near to where our adventure started. D’oh! Tricky guy, that final boss! Anyway, I’m now on level 8 of the cave, which I’m guessing may be 20+ levels large, if it’s like the previous one of these things. Once I’m done here, I think I can head off for the final encounter.

Getting close to the end!

Status: Killing Stuff with a Purpose!

(written 22 August 2006)

More progress. I went to the town of the unknown language, and things moved along well. They gave me a chime to get into the tower in the desert, and that’s where I am now. I’m just about to go up into the air, I think, using a warp cube, which I got from a robot in a waterfall. I might have forgotten to tell you that part about the robot in the waterfall, but trust me, it’s all true. Somewhere ahead lies the fourth crystal! Onward!

Status: Killing Stuff with a Purpose!

(written 20 August 2006)

Well, with no forethought whatsoever, I decided to go for the whirlpool dungeon, and what an adventure it was. The place goes on for ever and ever and ever. 20 levels of mayhem and madness. Actiually, sometimes the game seems to count by twos going down, so it may have only been a dozen or so levels, but we all know how much Japanese people stuggle with basic math, so I’ll forgive them this little error. At level four or something like that I kicked Gilgamesh’s butt, and that unlocked a door to let me go down even farther. About level 12, I had to kill dragons for a dragon lord called Dark Bahamut in order to go farther. At level 20, after constant fighting for 19 levels, I finally reached the bottom. By this time, I was running low on healing potions, and I was faced with a choice of two boss fights. I randomly picked one, and whoops, problem. Omega, some sort of robot demi-god, took us to the farm in about ten rounds. He has this laser-thingie that just ripped us up, and our swords don’t do much damage to him at all.

Humm, reload, and let’s try the other boss. Ouch. This one’s a fat ass dragon of the meanest sort. I don’t think we even lasted five rounds.

Reload, try again against the dragon. Once again, he chews us up and spits us out like White Castle burgers.

Humm. I’m stuck. Up to now, I haven’t run into a fight that I couldn’t handle fairly easily. This set of bosses is proving to be a tough match, though. I look over some of the remaining potions we’ve got, figure out a new strategy with spells and responsibilities, and take another shot at Omega robot.

This would turn out to be a 60-round epic battle that lasted over 50 minutes. Numerous times he took out our knight, but each time we were able to get the knight back into the battle. Finally, with our knight down, potions out, and everyone low on HP, our black magic wizard fried up Omega with a thunderbolt and took the beast down! Woot. Great fight, and we gain a “murakame” sword, a kick-ass sword well worth the effort. With that, we zip back up to the surface. I burned up all our extra special potions here, so we’ll have to leave that dragon for some other day.