Let's play Lords of Xulima

He's so perceptive, he doesn't even need to watch out.

Presumably, they're telling everyone to "watch out [for this trap I noticed]," but it is a little odd when you put it that way.

PREVIOUSLY ON LET'S PLAY LORDS OF XULIMA: KILLED WITCH

AND NOW



Welcome back to scenic Vilak! Our party has happened upon a demon named Xabraluz, which the game notes is "very difficult."



Yep, that's Xabraluz, all right. (The elephant-minded among you may remember that name dropped back in the Hall of Heroes. If you don't, no big loss.) Let's go make friends!



Huh... well, then. That actually worked.



Xabraluz is the chatty type, but he's worth talking to.



Yummy!



This is an excellent idea.



Dear Golot, it actually was an excellent idea!



Yes, give me more blod.



Aw, spoilsport!



Now, I don't remember quite how the lineage pans out, but the impious princes are apparently descentents of Kariham. They're not all dead, so this dialog option won't work just yet, although we could certainly wrest the horn from his dead hands (or die trying, anyway).



How do you convince someone that something doesn't exist? This is a question that has stumped atheists for centuries, and we're not equipped to answer it just yet. We'll have to come back to Xabraluz once it's actually true.

Not pictured: the party crawls over to a treasure-bearing skeleton at the bottom right of Xabraluz's chamber, triggering dialog with Xabraluz every few steps. Good thing that wasn't tedious!



Level 34 is a big one for Edward, who maxes both Requiem and Mercantilism. Requiem is extremely costly at this point, taking well over half of Edward's current PP, so we'll be pumping Energy from here on out and hopefully putting skill points into Meditation. Mercantilism at max rank means we buy and sell for the same price, so the merchants basically run a rental service at this point. Very handy, even if 90% of our gold goes to the trainers.



In the southwest corner of Vilak, we find something we've never seen before: Cursed Hounds as a map encounter. What could this portend?



"Arraz Gul's Lair."
I get the strangest feeling I've heard that name before.



Yes, there's no question in my mind. This is is the home of one of the great evils that torments Xulima.
What tipped you off? Was it the gigantic pile of skulls or the pervasive and haunting "AROO" echoing through the caves?
Can't quite put my finger on it. But like I said, there's no question about it.



This isn't the first time we've seen the blue version of the hounds -- we ran into one in the arena a while back, and given that we killed it mano-a-pawo, you could reasonably expect that these hounds aren't all that threatening. And while you'd be right, the sheer volume of dogs here (and the promise of more bigger dogs should we continue) would suggest that discretion is the better part of not becoming a chew toy.

Oh hey! The third skeleton from the bottom has a little loose change on him. Er. Maybe her? It's hard to tell.
Look at the hips. See? This one over here was a woman, and these two--
There's no part of this situation that doesn't make me uncomfortable.
Fellas, I'm gonna square with you. As much as I hate turning our backs on one of the great evils that torments Xulima, I don't think we have it in us to take it on at this time. We jumped the gun on the witch a bit and still came out fine, but the best we could hope for in this case is a very costly victory. We need to come back later.
This is the most sensible thing anyone has said since we got here.



Rosa, dear.
Yeah?
Remind me when you're going to learn Remove Curse.
In, like, a level or two. You can hold it until we get there. Don't be a whiner.



Near the lair of Arraz Gul, we find this dead guy. This is almost certainly a quest objective, but I don't know whose. Devonia, if I had to guess.



It's a little pricey, but--
Wimps. Don't be so pathetic.



How good is Requiem? Well, it's -- it's pretty good. Edward, I'm trying to play you up here, but you have to do a little better if you're going to impress our viewing audience.



Oh, right. Here we go. Vilowia and aforementioned corpse were Devonia quests. (Also: "Dan Yel"?)



The rest of the Devonia quests:

• Find the probably-dead guy
• Kill the chief thief
• Collect the valuable loot (Dabruz and Kabruz horns, which restore large amounts of HP and PP)
• Collect the other valuable loot (Tanaxas horns and Valarinzo horns, at least one of which is a stat booster)

Yeah, uh... we might not bother with those loot quests. The rewards are decent (4000/5500 experience and 8000/11,000 gold, respectively), but the items are very good.



JBear had convinced me to switch to the claymore, but now that an equal-quality katana is available, we part ways. Hello, +50% bleed!



And while we're catching up on stuff we missed in Devonia, here's a little bit of Valvet backstory. Valvet is the father of demons. Does he lift a finger to keep them from running roughshod over Xulima? No. No, he does not.



Back in Vilak, a chest gives us this very nice ring.

Q. Did you savescum to get that ring instead of a piece of vendor trash?
A. No. Maybe. Shut up.

Continuing to steal the show today, Edward is one level from learning the song of ~victory~

This sweet little package bundles up the songs of Courage (bonus attack modifier; Edward knows this song, and it's pretty inconsequential), Rage (extra Strength, so extra damage), Spirit (extra evasion, stacks with Cecil's Aura of Protection), and Haste (yes). It costs 60 now, and it'll cost 120 at level 5, so it does not come cheap, but you better believe this is going to open up every boss fight between now and the end of the game.

So, hey, do you think we should actually get something done today? Or are we all good with just wandering around? I mean, I'm good with whatever. Just checking.
One of the quests we picked up in Devonia mentioned the chief thief, is my belief. It'd be a relief to unseat the chief thief.
Stop doing that.



The thieves are holed up in the Cave of Beasts, which we used to access Castle Devonia a few updates ago. We ignored this group back then because they were still a bit menacing at the time.



Edward is still not making Requiem look very good. IT'S GOOD. TRUST ME.



Um... Golot.
Yul.
I feel a sneeze coming on. Ah... ah...



Norgolkan!
Bless you!



See? It liked my answer.

Norgol Kan is the name of the prince of thieves. This is clued somewhere. I forget where. We haven't found it yet, meaning the clue is hidden somewhere a little out of our depth. This fight will go well.



You can hardly tell, but the bottom center thief wears black as opposed to the blue robes of the thieves next to him. It's easy to walk into this fight without realizing this is the boss.



Bandit's Leader is happy to clear up any misconceptions right away. He's significantly faster than his fellows, and he lacks their "steal" attack. It's all shuriken, all the time, and his shuriken hurt like nothing else. As with any enemy thief, they hit three targets.



The good news in this fight is that the Bandit's Leader is not immune to statuses. He does have heavy status resistance, but if you can stack a little bit of residual damage, then all that's left is to survive. Easier said than done, especially when your characters have twice as much bleed as you can cure in a single round, but once the leader is down, the rest of the battle is very easy.



We get a hefty experience bonus and Rydia's weight in shuriken. (The other items are junk they stole from us during the battle.)



I then forget that we're in the middle of a thieves' den and walk straight into a trap. Fortunately, at least Gaulen and Rydia were still healthy, or I'd be redoing that battle right now.

Pulling on the antlers reveals a secret room to the south, which is full of, like, money or something. Whatever it was, it was nothing against the satisfaction of a job well done.



That satisfaction, right there. Just one level away.

NEXT TIME ON LET'S PLAY LORDS OF XULIMA: REMATCH

OLOXPS COUNT: 16 (mushrooms, locks and traps, cereal plants, encounter clearing, herald of Golot, bard songs, Golot's blessing, mausoleum keys, the arena, minions before bosses, riddle imps, Odendro drops, DLC, well of souls, Cursed Hounds, treasure chests)

UNSOLVED MYSTERIES:

• The arena in Sorrentia has ever more monsters to kill.
• Cunavarn's quests still want us to find the dead person.
• Velaskar's quests still want us to collect the loot, find the dead person, and collect the other loot.
• Rasmura's quests still want us to eliminate the hounds and get the priceless loot.
• Devonia's quests still want us to find the probably-dead person, kill the chief thief, collect the valuable loot, and collect the other valuable loot.
• Xabraluz wants a death certificate or maybe a genealogy report.

Or written on a note found on a corpse right outside. *cough*

I had a problem with this one too though, since I found that corpse long before I found the stone head, so it was only when I was rummaging through my map message logs some time later that it clicked.

It is instantly killing half of the enemy party. That seems pretty good to me.

I don't blame you but I thought you were trying to avoid OLOXPS.

A) I never said that
B) Chest-scumming is actually pretty good return on your time investment
C) Did I not just finish telling you to shut up about it, come on

PREVIOUSLY ON LET'S PLAY LORDS OF XULIMA: KILLED THIEF

AND NOW



Let's start today's episode with a momentous occasion: Edward has learned his capstone ability.

He's not the first one to reach the end of his skill list. Rydia unlocked the last summon at level 6, then she gained access to her final skill at level 20. Gaulen beat her to the punch when he unlocked Envenomed Strike at level 10. Edge can top that: the signature Thief ability Quick Strike is unlocked at level 5, and his final skill is Learning, which every character gets at level 8. Finally, Cecil gets his last unique ability at level 4. On the far end of skill acquisition, the Cleric and Mage learn their final spells at level 50, and Paladin and Arcane Soldier crib from those classes' respective skill lists until level 49.

Now, those numbers aren't necessarily indicative of anything. Rydia will be starved for skill points for the rest of the game, and Edward and Edge will be swimming in them (although Edward will spend a total of 21 to max Song of Victory). Cecil isn't hurting for skill points like Rydia, but he has plenty he'd like to spend them on.

For classes with nothing else to do, there are the generalist skills that every class gets. That list includes Learning, which you really want to prioritize, and everyone has recently maxed it. It also has Armors (+4 armor weight), Bodybuilding (+2 HP), Meditation (+1 PP), Immunity (+1 to all resists), and Fast Reflexes (+1 to evasion). The costs of those skills vary by class; for example, Rosa and Rydia spend a single point per Meditation rank, while Gaulen and Edge need three points per rank. (Barbarian doesn't learn Meditation, since the class never uses PP.)

Because Edward had a very long time with nothing to spend his skill points on, he's dabbled in Immunity and Fast Reflexes, which might have been a waste, but who knows? Edward, Rydia, and Rosa have all spent some points on Meditation, reflecting how limited their PP pool haha feels at the time. Gaulen, Cecil, and Edge have started pumping Armors, and as they find they don't have anything else to do, they'll probably branch out into Immunity and Fast Reflexes themselves.



Back to our adventure: a couple updates ago, our intrepid crew found a north exit from Vilak that led to a witch's house. Today, they're taking the other north exit from Vilak.



Hold on. Check the map. Is this..?
Yeah. I think we've found the back entrance to Ovengel's castle.
Oh... hooray



Before long, we run into a familiar face. You'll recall that we had no hope of winning last time. What's changed?



Mass Divine Armor will make a significant difference in the party's survivability. Unlike Edward and Cecil's buffs, this one hits the entire party and not just adjacent allies.



The Ruby Wyvern still has a whole lotta HP to chew through, it's still faster than any of us, and it still attacks to hit an entire row -- front or back, meaning Rydia and Edward have a rough time of things here. We want to stack wounds, bleeding, and poison as quickly as possible.



Given the Wyvern's multitarget attacks, Mass Heal is very valuable in this fight. Rosa chugs potions to keep her PP up.



Oh, and the Song of Victory gets put through the paces, too. Our status lines are filled up, since each aspect of the Song of Victory gets its own icon.



The Ruby Wyvern is immune to fire, which really cuts down on Veliacan's usefulness here, but it's stun-vulnerable. The stun doesn't last very long, but even a one- or two-second stun is a welcome respite from the Wyvern's attacks. Even with our increased levels, it's still just a bit faster than our party.



That's not enough to keep us from winning. We come out in good shape, and we get another stat booster. This is in contention for the best one in the game. Sadly, this might be the only Ruby Wyvern in the game.



Ovengel gets a free shot at us as we approach the dimensional portal. (Jerk.)



The experience you get for dimensional portals and altars increases for each one you find. This is the last portal in the game, so we get a hefty bonus out of it.



Since Ovengel just toasted our party, it's a good time to stop by Velegarn again. This time, we strike gold. Pumping Cecil's Armor skill is about to pay off in a big way. This piece is twice as heavy and twice as protective as what he's currently wearing.

"But it's slightly over his weight limit!" you might say. Good catch. However, it'll also boost his Strength by four points, which also increases his weight limit by four. At this late stage of the game, it could be argued that resistances are more valuable than a straight stat boost, but A) organic resistance is not really the most important one, and B) those are some sizable stat boosts. This constitutes a significant increase to Cecil's survivability.

At this point, I notice that Rosa is right on the cusp of a level up. See the green arc above her current level -- when it's full, you're eligible to gain a level, although it's not automatic. (That's good: you can stall spending your level-up until you have enough skill points.) So we head over to Velaskar and beat up a Sand Worm, and...



Ta-da!

Okay, Gaulen. Hold still.



Huh. I don't feel that different.

JBear: If you don't have anything to say, please go away. I'm very uncomfortable with you standing near me.


What gives? Well, Remove Curse is a two-rank spell. At rank one, Rosa can dispel minor curses. We'll have to wait until her next level to rid the boys of their nastier afflictions.

Incidentally, after bearing up under our diseases for half the game, I think we've suffered exactly two since learning Cure Disease. You could call its usefulness into question, but not Remove Curse: we'll grapple with demons and Cursed Hounds for most of the rest of the game, most of whom can curse on hit.

Ovengel still scares me a bit, so we're breaking out the big guns. Just Taliet this time, but that's all we really need. I just want to narrow the speed gap.

There's a good chance that I'm already able to get these blessings permanently. I should look into that.



I can get a much more impressive Requiem screenshot when we face weaker groups like this. See? Requiem!

I'm helping!



We return to Ovengel's castle, this time in one piece. It's payback time!



The dialogue changes a little now that we've killed all the other princes, although now that I take a better look, there was a serious bug in the older dialogue. Now we will learn why they call him Ovengel, the Tormentor...

We've seen the rest of this conversation, but if you want to refresh your memory, here you go.



Okay. Right off the bat, there are a few differences between this battle and the last one. First of all, we get the first turn. Second, he's no longer outspeeding us three to one.



Third, we can survive a couple hits from Ovengel. It's still a little touch-and-go, but we aren't facing an instant party wipe.



One of Ovengel's tricks that you have to survive long enough to see: he can dispel your party. That's painful in a buff-centric party like ours. We press on.



Ultimately, Ovengel is a problem solved by shuriken, as with so many other problems.



Ovengel leaves us with a nice chunk of experience plus the fourth key. You might expect Golot's key to come last (to the extent that this game enforces any sort of order on us), but no, it's right in the middle of the pack.



Ovengel was a worthy opponent. We're lucky he couldn't Zap Cannon us in the actual battle.



And so we bring to a close one of the major chapters of the game.



While we've collected four of the eight keys, we're well past the game's halfway mark.



Oh no! Gaulen has been afflicted with ellipsitis.....! JBear probably brought it here from the Vandal Hearts LP.



We're not done for today just yet. The game conveniently points us to our next destination, which is very nearby indeed.



Batman, the Herald of Raznet learns Dream Bite as he hits rank 15. It's dreamy~



How close is the Temple of Golot? Well, the castle is top and center in the minmap, and we're at the red dot. The only thing keeping us from discovering the Temple earlier was Ovengel's Zap Cannon.

Golot, the architect-god, has themed his temple around architecture. We get to solve some column puzzles.



We sure do.

Golot was responsible for the construction of all eight of the temples. Maybe if he'd constructed a ninth, we wouldn't be here right now.



"And over there are the most amazing buttresses ever built, and if you look carefully, you'll notice that they're held in place by the best nails ever built. This is the most amazing sign ever built."



Yes, torches do not work in here. The entire temple is also a designated non-smoking area.



"They are the best lights ever built."



As with the other temples, there are random encounters with the undead. This is the sole map encounter in this temple. It also has one of the biggest aggro circles in the game. This is a pretty tough fight for a map encounter, owing to the three necromancers who will clog up the field with summons. As an additional kicker, Requiem doesn't work on the undead. Final Fantasy V lied to you.



The two stone lions ask us some questions about the columns. This one wants to know how much Light Power is in the temple. See the previous signs for some relevant hints.



And this one wants to know if a small intestine could really span the length of the globe. (The answer is no. It's about seven meters long. You were lied to.)



Here's a larger version of the minimap so you can play along at home. The game doesn't come out and say it, but in both puzzles, the smallest unit is 1. So take that and multiply it accordingly. First correct answer gets five Xulima-bucks (not legal tender).



Once you figure that out, you can chat up this temple's Yul-herald.



He tells us nothing we don't already know, although Gaulen raises an interesting question: what's in it for the Titans? The herald doesn't give us a straight answer. Maybe the Titans will.



The herald does bring up a somewhat subtle point: the heralds are increasing in power because when we defeat one, it transfers its power to the next one. This is a really convenient way to put difficulty progression in a non-linear game. I don't mean that derisively; it's honestly pretty clever, and it works within the lore of the game. Not to spoil anything, but the eighth herald is the final boss of the game.



Since you're here, you're guaranteed to have killed Ovengel. The game is nonlinear up to a point, but to get the last four keys, you need to clear the first four temples. You can't find the Titans otherwise.



So, given that Ovengel is a bottleneck to this fight, you might reasonably expect that this should be a tougher battle. Immediately, the herald's challenge is diluted by the fact that he wastes turns summoning chaff like the skeleton you can barely see behind him and the more obvious one to his left. However, he does hit hard, causing mild stunning and moderate bleeding to three front-row targets.



On the other hand -- say it with me now -- shuriken. Lots of 'em.



And here's why the plot bottlenecks at this point: the Eye of Taliet is indeed "the artifact needed to find the Titans."



When I touched it, I was shocked by an electrical discharge so strong that I quickly lost my sense of reality. My mind seemed to spin while it began to rise towards the heavens.

OH HEY GAULEN

Golot?

YEP
I WAS JUST WARMING UP SOME PIZZA BAGELS
WANT ONE?

Um... no thanks.

SUIT YOURSELF
SO
HOW'S IT GOING?

We defeated the impious princes and reclaimed their keys. We've recovered the Eye of Taliet, and my companions are cleansing your temple as we speak. Now, we must recover the keys from the Titans.

OH YEAH?
THAT'S ROUGH, BUDDY

Do you have anything that will help us confront the Titans, o great Golot?

NOW THAT YOU MENTION IT
YOU CAN HAVE THIS

Hey, Gaulen, you did that thing again.
I bring great news. Golot has granted us his gift!
Really? I take back anything bad I may or may not have said about him. Let's see it.
"Titans and You: A Primer." Golot gave you a pamphlet?
I, um. It's probably a pretty good pamphlet. Don't knock it before you read it.

First Nifonte, who walks across the ocean...
Next in power is Xilionte, over the encrusted ice...
The third is Kronante, under the sun and stone...
And finally Velioronte, over the lake of fire.

It has really nice illustrations.
Oh, yep. This really gives us the edge we need. Nice going, Golot. I'll just throw this at them and papercut them to death.
Stranger things have happened.



"The most hidden?" Aren't the Titans, you know, titanic?
Yes, but they're really good at hiding.



And we close the second major chapter of the game, having claimed all of the divine artifacts. (I'm not entirely sure how we know that.)



Gaulen raises another interesting question: what was the deal with all of that, Golot? Did you just design the towers as deathtraps for your own amusement? Alas, "it is difficult to know for certain the intentions of the Gods......."



And so, with many questions unanswered, we finish up our business in the temple.



Wait. Gaulen. Hold up a tick.
Yes?
"If only he could see me?" You mean Golot's not getting any of this?
Nnnno?
Worst. God. Ever.

NEXT TIME ON LET'S PLAY LORDS OF XULIMA: BATTLEFIGHT SHOWDOWN

OLOXPS COUNT: 16 (mushrooms, locks and traps, cereal plants, encounter clearing, herald of Golot, bard songs, Golot's blessing, mausoleum keys, the arena, minions before bosses, riddle imps, Odendro drops, DLC, well of souls, Cursed Hounds, treasure chests)

UNSOLVED MYSTERIES:

• The arena in Sorrentia has ever more monsters to kill.
• Cunavarn's quests still want us to find the dead person.
• Velaskar's quests still want us to collect the loot, find the dead person, and collect the other loot.
• Rasmura's quests still want us to eliminate the hounds and get the priceless loot.
• Devonia's quests still want us to find the probably-dead person, collect the valuable loot, and collect the other valuable loot.
• Xabraluz wants a death certificate or maybe a genealogy report.
• The Titans await: first Nifonte, who walks across the ocean; next in power is Xilionte, over the encrusted ice; the third is Kronante, under the sun and stone; and finally Velioronte, over the lake of fire.

Are you just speculating that the LP might not encounter any more, or wondering if there are any more Ruby Wyvern encounters to be had? Because I can confirm that you can get the Ruby Wyvern as a "random" encounter. I'm sure I fought at least one more on that same ridge, since that was one of the few areas that I cleaned out completely, precisely because I wanted to collect a few stat-boosting eggs.

Only putting this information in the cutscene was a real dick move. I didn't remember it all, and I wasn't able to find it in any of the in-game journals/summaries, so I had to go find a YouTube LP in order to see this again and write it down. This is doubly important information since, not only does this tell you where to find the 4 Titans, but it also ranks them in terms of increasing power (read: difficulty).

No, I just didn't remember any others. I certainly didn't encounter any in this game.


Yeah. Finding the Titans is not so hard -- with possible exception of Nifonte, just go where you haven't needed to go so far -- but the power ranking is a bigger deal.

I happened to find Nifonte first without looking for him, and Velioronte is likely to be last unless you go out of your way to make the game more painful for yourself (I mean, I'm kind of doing this throughout the LP, but I take exception where demons are concerned (whoops spoilers) and I assume that most players will go where the difficulty pushes them). The two that are left aren't exactly interchangeable, difficulty-wise, but if you can defeat one, you should be able to defeat the other -- it's not like there's much opportunity for growth between the two fights.

Well, as I'm sure you'll detail later, they do provide a bit of a growth ramp-up mechanism between Titan fights to sort of artificially incline the slope of the difficulty curve despite them all coming fairly close in terms of game time, and that boost certainly ain't nothin', so I think that even just doing those two out of order would be rough.

What's that? You want me to do reverse Titan order? Coming right up.

(Kidding. Or am I?) yeah... probably

kill tiamat first

save kary for last

EDIT: sorry, i misremembered the quote

PREVIOUSLY ON LET'S PLAY LORDS OF XULIMA: KILLED PRINCE

AND NOW



Purifying Golot's temple gave Rosa the XP she needed to hit 37. For the low, low cost of all the skill points she gained this level, she can bump Remove Curse to rank 2, increasing its cost to 125 and granting us the power to get rid of major curses. This is a godsend (probably literally, but it's very unclear how exactly clerics work in this universe). Incidentally, Rosa has 219 max PP at the moment. She can cast it exactly once before needing a refill, but this isn't the kind of spell you need in an emergency, so that's fine.



Rydia also gains a level, and it's ho-hum enough, but I want to point out that the Herald of Nalaet gets rank 6 Regeneration at this level. Regeneration is a five-rank spell. Is this a desperate attempt to increase the shelf life of a spell the herald hardly ever casts (and for good reason)?



Cursed Hounds assault us before we have the chance to heal. That doesn't make this dangerous by any stretch of the imagination, even though we're now running into Ancient Cursed Hounds in the wild.



So... I don't put a lot of stock in armor in this game to begin with, but here's another reason you want to go with two-handed weapons. I'll grant that it's not an entirely fair comparison: Midrinium is a step above Crostamium, but they're close enough to realize that the long sword is not even competing with the katana. The heavier weapon costs 15 combat skill and takes 10% longer to swing, but unless this is a character who isn't investing in the stats or skills required to equip the heavier weapon, the choice is clear-cut. It's hard enough to find a good shield anyway.



More news on the equipment front: Gaulen gets one of his few-and-far-between equipment upgrades. This is a nice increase in both damage and wounds.



Gaulen also swaps out his armor for this. Like last time, it's too heavy for him to wear until you factor in the Strength bonus on the enchantment. If this all looks suspiciously familiar, it's because Gaulen got Cecil's hand-me-down, and this is identical to what Cecil replaced it with.



Hero is the second-best stat enchantment in the game. King is the best. I forget who got this necklace, but we're starting to replace out our +XP gear finally.



Now that Gaulen's kitted out, it's time to revisit the arena in Sorrentia. The PP-sucking -bruz family of demons are much less of a pain in a one-on-one battle, since they aren't directly threatening on their own and they waste a lot of turns sucking PP that you don't have. This one dropped a horn (restores 120 HP and 60 PP), which is an item for a quest we'll never complete.



The Ancient Ogre was a miniboss of sorts back when we discovered Rasmura. It's easy to stack wounds on it by now.



And with a lot of fights omitted for the sake of brevity, we've run out of opponents. Can you guess who our final adversary will be? (Never mind the apparent contradiction here.)



Yeah, it's the big guy himself. Gaulen's going to heal first, thanks.



Romegor has a few tricks up his sleeve, with one of the most diverse spell sets in the game. He likes to cast Divine Armor, though the single-target version of this spell is much weaker than Mass Divine Armor, and so this is tantamount to wasting a turn as far as I'm concerned. His melee attacks inflict wounds and can be electric- or ice-branded, causing a brief stun or freeze, respectively.



He can also cast spells to remove poison and cure wounds, although that doesn't mean you shouldn't bother with those statuses. (He probably knows Mend Bleeding, too, but it never came up here for reasons that should be obvious if you've been following the LP closely.) Gaulen can't take Romegor in a straight fight, but Romegor isn't exactly smart about his spellcasting. The trick to winning this fight as Gaulen is to use Venomous Strike when he's not poisoned and attack normally when he is. This means we don't get to stack the poison damage, but it also means Romegor is wasting a lot of his turns removing the status. We also stack wounds in the process, which are best for the debuff they confer, but not bad even when they just work out to a turn spent removing them. Like any enemy that knows Cure Wounds, though, Romegor is smarter about that status, and he won't remove them until they reach a critical mass of about 15.



Even with this strategy, the fight is a coin toss. I lost this battle and one that looked very similar at the end.



Okay, guys, I want you to start singing "We Are the Champions" or "Chariots of Fire" or something.
I'm not going to do that.



It's always good to have a backup job lined up in case the adventuring gig doesn't pay out.



The Builder Scepter is of no use on its own, so it will seem like a very disappointing prize if you haven't figured out how to use the altars yet. I alluded to its true purpose back when we first found the arena. This is the item you sacrifice to Golot to obtain his permanent blessing, which is an experience bonus for the entire party.

We obtain it at an unfortunately late point in the game, which is why Golot's blessing got an OLOXPS so long ago, but at this point, we've stacked so many XP bonuses that Golot's blessing isn't that big of a deal anyway.



Which is not to say that we won't be cashing it in immediately. The altar is located to the west of Sorrentia, in the area where we found and fought the very first witch. As with the portals, each successive altar you find gives more experience. 1280 would have been massive back then.

For maximum SERIOUS BUSINESS, I hear you really want a Barbarian, rumored to be the only class capable of clearing the arena around level 30. I don't know any details, since I haven't personally used a Barbarian outside of this one time a few weeks ago that I started up a new file filled with true doom murderheads to see if the game was any easier if your team was made out of meat. I didn't get far enough to be sure, but I think the answer is "mostly yes."

While I'm on this tangent, what's the best team composition? I think if I wanted a serious attempt at a hardcore run, I'd take a party of Gaulen, Cleric, Thief, Barbarian, and Soldier. That's only five: the last one is gonna be Barbarian or Mage. I think Arcane Soldier could fit that slot, too, except that I've only heard bad things about it.

Gaulen is necessary, of course, but he's also pretty decent just on the strength of Venomous Strike. He works as a front row or back row character, but for this party, you probably want him in front with Axes. There's not a lot of variety in Gaulen builds, although note that this comp gives the utility skills to the Thief, letting Gaulen concentrate on the Explorer skills.

Cleric is all but necessary. If you're playing with the "I Hate Food" mod, you could probably squeak by without one, which would make for an interesting game. This one would go in the back row, mimicking Rosa's build aside from her heavy Constitution investment, which should mostly go into Energy.

Thief isn't necessary, but it's too good to pass up. This one would be a back row character, and its skill points would mostly go into Shuriken, Perception, Lockpicking, and Trap Disarming, tossing spare points into Mercantilism. Since this build neglects normal attacks, the Thief would act as more of a Shuriken Mage (trademark pending) in combat.

Barbarian is a real one-track character: it never learns any combat abilities, and it never gains PP. Where every other class in the game gets 7.5 points each level divided into HP and PP, the Barbarian just gets 9 HP per level. That's pretty good! The Barbarian also has two unique skills: Rage increases critical hits, and Steadiness provides stun resistance (and total immunity at max rank). The only question with a Barbarian is which weapon to use, and I think I'd go with Axes even though it overlaps with Gaulen. Almost nothing resists wounds.

Soldier is just a really solid class. This one would go with Maces and learn Stunning Strike to get full use out of them. Since the Thief has bleeding covered with shuriken, this gives us full basic status coverage.

The final character slot, then, could either go all-in with Barbarian or opt for more coverage. Arcane Soldier is best for status coverage, granting access to burning and freezing. Mage can confer any status in the book, but it generally pays more for less effect in exchange for damage and perfect accuracy. Mage is probably the correct answer here, ultimately, but it's hard to resist the draw of a nearly-all-physical team.

Anyway, tangent done. Let's get back to the game.

Sacrificing the Scepter also yields a nice chunk of experience. Golot's permanent blessing will give us more than this in the long run.



In this area we didn't bother exploring many game-hours ago is one of the last riddle imps in the game. Since we're far enough along that it's an option, why not give the fight a try?



I mentioned this guy when we fought its cousin, the Cursed Earth Guardian. While the Earth Guardian is nominally weak to the flame status, it has enough fire resistance that Veliacan can't actually inflict the status (mages do what Veliacan't), and it's immune to poison and bleeding. So this is every bit the slog that the Cursed Earth Guardian was, and there's no real risk of death here.



It is at least decently rewarding, giving us much better experience rewards than simply answering the riddle as well as a variety of resistance-boosting herbs and spices.

Anyway, our business is done. What's Romegor up to now that we've put him into an early retirement?



Ahh, that Romegor is a real stand-up guy, isn't he? I hope we see him again soon.
I think this whole "champion" business has gone to Gaulen's head.
Yeah, a bit.

NEXT TIME ON LET'S PLAY LORDS OF XULIMA: MEN OF THE SEA

OLOXPS COUNT: 16 (mushrooms, locks and traps, cereal plants, encounter clearing, herald of Golot, bard songs, Golot's blessing, mausoleum keys, the arena, minions before bosses, riddle imps, Odendro drops, DLC, well of souls, Cursed Hounds, treasure chests)

UNSOLVED MYSTERIES:

• Cunavarn's quests still want us to find the dead person.
• Velaskar's quests still want us to collect the loot, find the dead person, and collect the other loot.
• Rasmura's quests still want us to eliminate the hounds and get the priceless loot.
• Devonia's quests still want us to find the probably-dead person, kill the chief thief, collect the valuable loot, and collect the other valuable loot.
• Xabraluz wants a death certificate or maybe a genealogy report.
• The Titans await: first Nifonte, who walks across the ocean; next in power is Xilionte, over the encrusted ice; the third is Kronante, under the sun and stone; and finally Velioronte, over the lake of fire.

Once you had to challenge Romegor I was honestly expecting the arena to be some kind of curse scenario. That it would turn out Romegor was bound to the arena until someone appeared who could defeat him and now he was free, possibly with Gaulen having to take his place. I think I'm kind of disappointed!

That would have been interesting, but instead, he gives Gaulen a job offer, Gaulen turns it down, and life goes on. It's like if Rocky 2 ended with Rocky retiring, and in Rocky 3, Clubber Lang challenges Rocky but Rocky is like, nah, go fight Apollo. And then Clubber Lang is all, no, Rocky, you're the champion, and Rocky says yes, that's technically true, but he decided to let Apollo keep the whole champion job. Apollo says yeah, that's right, come at me bro, but Clubber's not on board with that, because he wants to fight the guy who beat Apollo, not Apollo, you know? And Rocky just says nope, sorry.

It's really unsatisfying, but Mickey survives, so it's kind of a mixed bag.

PREVIOUSLY ON LET'S PLAY LORDS OF XULIMA: KILLED ARENA

AND NOW



All that's left between us and the end of the game are four Titans and the temples whose keys they guard. We could bum-rush the whole lot of them, but this is one of those situations where the bucket is sitting there in the End of Time: the option is available to us, but this is clearly not the time to take it. And so we find ourselves in the ruins of Devonia again, killing demons for fun and profit.

Except that killing demons isn't really that fun or profitable. But kill them we must.



Oh hey, it's the clue to the Chief Thief! On its own, this seems like a really bad clue -- after all, the note doesn't mention who or what "NORGOL" and "KAN" are -- but the key here is that the quest to find the Prince of Thieves mentions one of those names. Connect the dots, and you've solved the puzzle.

I looked up the answer, of course.



Screenshots can't do this area justice, so let me explain: this area is thick with both encounters and points of interest. Each encounter is several minutes long, because demons. There's no single factor that makes me dread fighting demons: if they just had a lot of health, they would be no worse than Odendros; if they just sucked your PP, you could at least go all out on them and end battles quickly; if they just cursed you, then recovering from the battles would be a pain, but at least the battles would be breezy. Demons do all of these things, and depending on the formation, they often do them all in the same battle.

What I'm saying is that Mungen should by all rights be dead. This is not a man who deserves to be alive right now.



End up like you? Do you really see me turning into a fat, old, lonely nerd?
Edge, be nice. He's had a rough day.
Also: yes, I can totally see that.



I'm not sure we've properly introduced the final breed of demon. The Tanaxas is a spellcaster with far too much health. It is very good at finding someone else with far too much health to hide behind. Fortunately, its defenses are rather low, so you can pepper it with shuriken and let it bleed to death while it drops meteors on your face.



It also has a stat-boosting item drop, like several other demons. Like those demons, this is not a guaranteed drop. You can encounter as many as four demons in a single battle who have the potential to drop stat boosters.

Optimal Lords of Xulima play sucks.



The writing is pretty faded. "Swans"? "SNES"?
It says "SWENS WAS HERE." Are we going to take advice from graffiti?
Yes. It is the adventurer's way.



Dogs.



By chance, here's a flash of lightning. Also: too many demons, too much health. The ruins are a slog.



There are several pillars scattered around the ruins, and they're the main attraction, because each of them has directions to one of the outer islands. These directions are randomized: you can't just look up the solutions. You can fight your way to them and reload, but there's not much incentive to do that, even if your party gets here in as rough a shape as this one.



Through very careful positioning, we're able to open this chest without triggering the battle with these towering walls of meat. For our trouble, we get the best staff the game is likely to give us. I might actually put this on Rydia: the stat requirements are pretty minimal, and it's a huge upgrade to her single-digit stick.

"You fought those guys anyway, right? Since experience is strictly limited in this game?"

Get. Out.



This is the last pedestal in southern Devonia. There's probably one or two more up north, but we'll call it good for now. The only path left to us up there has that one terrifying encounter that is probably more difficult than one or two of the Titans.



Back in town, we find a marginal upgrade for Gaulen's axe. And by "marginal," I mean this is as good an axe as you can hope to get without cheating. BoneBreaking is the best axe enchantment, and Crostamium is the best naturally-occurring item quality (to the best of my knowledge). There's one quality level above Crostamium, and there's one guaranteed item at that level, but it's unenchanted. If there's another source of highest-quality items in the game (or if they can be generated in chests), then I don't know about it.



The Eye of Taliet (a freaky-looking thing) offers to ferry us to Nifonte, the first Titan. It's a nice offer, but we have other places to go first. Let's go SWENS.

This is the second island we've found. They're all very small, but they're all worthwhile. This one has a Ruby Wyvern and a group of meatdemons.



Killing the Ruby Wyvern dead snags us a shiny, shiny egg as well as a level up for Rosa and Rydia. Rosa is a level away from learning Mass Regeneration, also known as "game over, you win."

RELATED: Somehow, I've been completely overlooking Divine Healing, which is the next level up from Greater Heal. At its lowest level, it's about twice as effective as Greater Heal for just a bit more PP. Rosa is going to be wanting for skill points from now until the end of the game. (That Rydia is still taking all of the skill point bonuses doesn't help matters.)



The Wyvern was guarding a whole buttload of herbs and mushrooms. Several buttloads, even. It depends on the butt.



The meatheads were keeping this mausoleum company. I don't have the key, but that never stopped me before. In we go!



I already hate this place.

In case you've forgotten, those are the lightning dispensers that Ovengel was so fond of. Every few steps, they will kill you in four directions.



Because that was not enough fun, this mausoleum is littered with floor traps, too. That means piling your electric resistance onto one guy still won't let you waltz through this place (although it's worth pointing out that the floor traps are never aligned with the joy buzzers). Save your game every few steps.



To get to the end of this mausoleum, you have to push the switch in the bottom left and return to the top right. You can see the basic outline in this minimap.



Our opponent du jour is this one-of-a-kind Nightmare. "Balanced," the game tells us, "and part of this complete breakfast," but I distinctly remember JBear grousing about this guy when he came through this area. Our party is not in very good shape right now, and we can't rest so near to the Nightmare (presumably because it would give us bad dreams). What do???



We rest right in front of an electricity depot. This makes sense, because Lords of Xulima. (I'm certainly not complaining.)



Anyway: the Nightmare. What makes this guy nightmarish? Well, this screenshot was taken on our party's very first turn, and it's illustrative. You'll notice that the Nightmare acted before us, meaning he's fast; he dealt a lot of damage, meaning he deals a lot of damage; he hit multiple guys (normally three, but Edge pulled through in the clutch here); he inflicted way too much bleeding, and he's going to do it again every six seconds.



Divine Healing is a godsend (Lord-of-Xulima-send), since Greater Heal does not keep pace and Mass Heal is too expensive. Mass Divine Armor would have been nice if we could spare the turn to cast it. We're also going through a lot of Tiraptor Eggs to cure bleeding, since even with Rosa and the Herald on healing duty, we need Gaulen and Cecil to self-medicate, or else things will get out of control.



All that said... we sure have come a long way, huh? This isn't the same party that struggled with damage so long ago. Gaulen and Edge hit like trucks, Cecil is almost as strong and much harder to kill, Rosa and Rydia provide valuable utility, and even Edward is doing his best, the lovable scamp.



The battle boils down to surviving until the DOTs kill the Nightmare, and our party pulls this off with aplomb. JBear had me all worried for nothing!



We have discovered the tomb of Queen Yandere, or something like that. Let's "pay our respects."



This is very good. Also, partially obscured: 17,000 gold. That's basically 75% of a training session!



Edward hits level 40, which means that he's about as good as he's ever going to be. Note also that Song of Victory is a very expensive spell on Edward's relatively tight PP budget.

NEXT TIME ON LET'S PLAY LORDS OF XULIMA: ARCHIPELAGO ADVENTURES

OLOXPS COUNT: 17 (mushrooms, locks and traps, cereal plants, encounter clearing, herald of Golot, bard songs, Golot's blessing, mausoleum keys, the arena, minions before bosses, riddle imps, Odendro drops, DLC, well of souls, Cursed Hounds, treasure chests, demon drops)

UNSOLVED MYSTERIES:

• Cunavarn's quests still want us to find the dead person.
• Velaskar's quests still want us to collect the loot, find the dead person, and collect the other loot.
• Rasmura's quests still want us to eliminate the hounds and get the priceless loot.
• Devonia's quests still want us to collect the valuable loot, and collect the other valuable loot.
• Xabraluz wants a death certificate or maybe a genealogy report.
• The Titans await: first Nifonte, who walks across the ocean; next in power is Xilionte, over the encrusted ice; the third is Kronante, under the sun and stone; and finally Velioronte, over the lake of fire.

I can confirm that you can get those items from other sources. I don't recall if I found it in a chest or if it was a drop, but I can confirm that they're eligible for generation, as I had a very big frown when the game gave me a tier-20 weapon that was identical to the aforementioned guaranteed item that I already had. I ended up vendoring the duplicate, and I never saw another item of that quality.

In my defense, I think I landed there a fair bit earlier than you, as the first thing that I did upon arriving in Devonia was go demon-hunting, and then I used those pillars to go sailing. I know that I hadn't killed the last prince or explored Vilak at all, at least. Anyway, I threw myself against the Nightmare (who the game was still calling "Balanced", admittedly) several times and eventually had to give up and leave him for later, which is not a decision I made lightly, since it meant that I'd have to navigate all of that lightning again later.

PREVIOUSLY ON LET'S PLAY LORDS OF XULIMA: KILLED NIGHTMARE

AND NOW



Yo ho and all that. We've reached our third island, which has the usual bounty of mushrooms and also this troublesome fellow. (Difficulty: Problematic)



I ran straight into the guy before realizing that we were not anywhere near the shape we needed to be in to win this thing. That is why it is now night.

So. The Golden Wyvern has a lot of health.



This necessitates a lot of healing. We break out the biggest guns for this battle. (Magic Potion V exists, but we've never seen any.) See, I actually do use consumables for the fights that matter.



Not that the Golden Wyvern really matters: this is an optional fight, though it's a difficult one. Fortunately, the Wyvern's only notable resistance from where we're sitting is its fire immunity. We can pile on the statuses all day long. I even broke out a Brittle Armor scroll to lower its defense by a not-particularly-impressive 9 points, which is that second-to-last icon. I'm pretty sure I never cast that spell in the run where I actually had a Mage, but it's not as bad as it sounds, since the effect is permanent and might even stack.

Incidentally, that line on the status bar? The one that cuts through all the status icons? I don't know what the deal is, but that's how it looks in-game.



This is what a Golden Wyvern looks like with 37 wounds. By this point, it really wasn't dealing much damage at all. Rosa spent her last few turns restoring PP with Divine Prayer instead of potion-guzzling, and the Golden Y-Burn died an ignominious death.



It was guarding a few skeletons (with subpar loot) and many eggs, one of which was its own egg. Whose were the other eggs? I don't know. Maybe the Wyvern was babysitting. All I know is that they were delicious.



The Egg of the Golden Wyvern was destined for greater things, though. This is one of the eight items we can sacrifice for a permanent blessing. Probably Raznet's, although I can't be sure since (spoilers) we won't make that visit today.

The flavor text indicates that we've just killed the most powerful and deadly beast in the world. Insofar as the game is concerned, that's probably accurate: we'll fight more powerful foes before we're done, but none of them will be beasts.



Here's the key to the mausoleum we visited last time. Onto the sale pile it goes.



Our fourth island is home to a Talking Chest. This is something of a landmark moment, as we'll see soon.



No, not because of this, although I have to note that the game is awfully fond of insulting the player (or maybe just Gaulen).



Yes, because of this. This chest will allow us to choose one kind of weapon, and we'll receive the highest-quality version of that weapon (albeit unenchanted). I've made a few allusions to this. You might remember that we fought the Ulnalum Guardian so long ago, whom we could only defeat once we had the Hammer of Kersket. Ulnalum is the strongest material, and this is our one guarantee at getting such an item.

From where I'm sitting, there are two real options for this:



An Ulnalum Katana gives 33% more damage and bleeding than the Midrinium Katana. It's ridiculous, and they're all about this good. Ultimately, I decided against this, but only because Edge is already so effective with shuriken, and the katana is wasted when he's tossing those around. I ended up making the same choice in this run as I did in my last.



I take it all back. This is a 50% increase in both damage and wounds before you factor in the BoneBreaking enchantment. If Gaulen had a Midrinium BoneBreaking Battle Axe, then this would be a more difficult choice. The increase in wounds is minor because of the enchantment, but the increase in damage is too big to pass up.

A weapon this good needs something powerful to swing it at. Let's break it in.



That'll work.

Nifonte is the first Titan most players will encounter, even if they didn't pay close attention to Golot's instructions, and the presentation is top-notch. This island has an unearthly quality to it, and Nifonte himself is the largest living thing we've seen (even if it pales in comparison to what we'd been led to expect).



Gaulen makes a good point. Shouldn't the children of the Lords of Xulima be on our side? (Again, the flavor text strongly suggests that Titans on your screen are larger than they may appear.)



TITAN: I serve no one but Nalaet.
GAULEN: But why are you a servant of Yul?

I don't know if the Titan is lying or if this is just poorly written.



The Titan's stature really fails to live up to the flavor text. Please use your imagination.



With an impressive battleground, a bit more health than the Golden Wyvern and an extensive spellbook, Nifonte is an imposing foe, even if he's a little short for a--

You know what. I don't really mean to harp on this. So he's a tiny Titan. That's okay. There's room in this world for little giants.



Oh, hey! So it was just a trick of perspective. Far be it from me to seek to counsel a demigod, but if I were in his place, I think I'd be playing up my size instead of trying to make myself look smaller.

The grab attack is the only single-target offense in Nifonte's arsenal (not to mention a rarity for bosses in general). It deals heavy damage, stuns, and wounds. Nifonte can also do an icy pirouette to deal mild damage and freeze the team, and he's got, like, lightning attacks or something. All in all, much less offensive presence than the Wyvern until we wounded the Wyvern into irrelevance.



Oddly, Nifonte is not stun-immune. This suggests some degenerate strategies for this fight, none of which our team is equipped to employ. Nifonte has no recourse against stunning (after all, there's only so much you can do while you're paralyzed), but he will cast Cure Wounds if you get his wound count too high. The Golden Wyvern is probably our last major foe to fall for so simple a trick.

Of course, a turn spent casting Cure Wounds is a turn not spent dealing damage.



We get entirely too much experience and Nifonte's Soul.

Hold on. Nifonte's Soul? But Yul is the Guardian of Souls.
That couldn't be a coincidence, could it?
Nifonte is a bit too dead to answer that. We'll ask the next Titan.

Despite what the instructions might suggest, merely possessing the Soul isn't good enough. We have to use it from the menu to get its benefit. But first...



Nalaet's temple is in Hamaleth, which you might remember as the region I told you not to remember. You can go back to not remembering it now.



"The Great Titan of the ocean attacked us when I mentioned his mother."
Maybe you should let me do the talking next time.



I'm not really going to make haste. I have business with an egg to take care of first.



You can sell Nifonte's Soul for what I imagine is a pretty tidy sum (read: probably 80% of a training session), but using it gives 3 points to all attributes to all party members, and that's not bad either.



Let's end our day by visiting the long-neglected food vendor, who has been waiting all this time to congratulate us on killing the second-to-last prince. Madam, I can't even remember the guy's name anymore, but we'll take your food.

NEXT TIME ON LET'S PLAY LORDS OF XULIMA: YOU FEEL BLESSED

OLOXPS COUNT: 17 (mushrooms, locks and traps, cereal plants, encounter clearing, herald of Golot, bard songs, Golot's blessing, mausoleum keys, the arena, minions before bosses, riddle imps, Odendro drops, DLC, well of souls, Cursed Hounds, treasure chests, demon drops)

UNSOLVED MYSTERIES:

• Cunavarn's quests still want us to find the dead person.
• Velaskar's quests still want us to collect the loot, find the dead person, and collect the other loot.
• Rasmura's quests still want us to eliminate the hounds and get the priceless loot.
• Devonia's quests still want us to collect the valuable loot, and collect the other valuable loot.
• Xabraluz wants a death certificate or maybe a genealogy report.
• The Titans await: next in power is Xilionte, over the encrusted ice; the third is Kronante, under the sun and stone; and finally Velioronte, over the lake of fire.

I was so bummed to have to vendor one of these. I spent ages agonizing over what to ask the chest for before ultimately deciding on that same axe, and then the game gave me a second one an hour later.

I don't think he means "no other" literally, but rather the idiom to indicate someone famous or important, although admittedly that's usually "none other". I think it's more like "I've never heard of you, and I serve The Lady of the Ocean."

Even if you grant that he's claiming to serve the one, the only, The Nalaet, doesn't that still fly in the face of Gaulen's claim? Nalaet and Yul don't exactly see eye-to-eye.

And -- not to spoil anything, but Gaulen has a much stronger claim here. It's not clear how Nifonte is possibly serving Nalaet. It'd be nice if the gods weren't completely incommunicado; you'd imagine he keeps his mom on speed dial, and they could clear the whole mess up. But even with the situation as it stands -- well, let's come back to this argument once we discover the Titans' motivation.

PREVIOUSLY ON LET'S PLAY LORDS OF XULIMA: KILLED TITAN

AND NOW



At rank 27, the Herald of Valvet picks up Inferno, the top-tier fire spell in the game. It hits all enemies for what is destined to always be fairly unimpressive damage -- you might recall in my Divine Summoner infodump that I mentioned that its Inferno caps out at rank 3 of 5 -- but more importantly, it imparts a decently strong burn onto all targets. It also has the added distinction of using about half of the herald's PP, meaning two casts and I don't have to worry about it wasting turns on why is Sparks still in its skillset anyway.



Time to cash in the Egg of the Golden Wyvern.



Five blessings. Raznet gives us a nice +5 Defense and Evasion. We spent most of the game ignoring those stats.



Next up: Xabraluz. Now that we've offed the princes, we can claim our prize. It's a little odd that Xabraluz shows up as a map encounter, but it does let us get a difficulty assessment. "Difficult" is generally well within the range of our capabilities, though we may have to burn through some resources.



This dialogue hasn't changed. We could have made this claim before.



This is new, though. Apparently, knowing Kariham's family tree is proof enough. I don't really get it.



Two of the endpoints are obvious: Kariham is the oldest, and the princes are the last in the line. If you've paid any attention at all, you should remember that Artherion is father to the four. That leaves three out of order. You can get it by trial and error at that point... can't you? As it turns out, Kariham - ??? - ??? - ??? - Artherion - Princes is not the right answer.



Should you decide that the puzzle is too much for you, you can certainly attempt to fight Xabraluz. Good luck with that. Xabraluz is the strongest enemy in the game, surpassing the Titans and Yul's final herald.

Xabraluz does nothing but cast the strongest spells in the game. In this case, he went first and cast Meteor Swarm V, which deals 135-225 damage to three targets and inflicts up to 5 wounds. He'll get six turns before Cecil gets one. This fight is Difficult, indeed.



So what's the deal with this puzzle, anyway? Well, the trick is in Gaulen's wording: they are descended through Kariham in the following lineage, in ascending order. That's reverse chronological order, which is not at all clear from the phrasing. The answer is Princes - Artherion - Uvatha - Thondraw - Mergante - Kariham.

But say you want to do it without guesswork. How in the world are you supposed to know the ordering of Uvatha, Thondraw, and Mergante?

The answer is, from what I gather, in the mausoleums. Investigate the tombs themselves (by right-clicking), and you'll get a bit of lore that clears this up. Supposedly. I don't know.

That's a real obscure place to put a hint, but I can look past it since paying attention to the story narrows it down to one of six possibilities. The egregious problem with this puzzle is not that; it's figuring out that you're supposed to go princes to Kariham instead of the more sensible chronological order.



With that out of the way, we get the coveted Helix Fossil.



Xabraluz's last line here will be really funny in just a bit.



Anyway, this is about the time where you'd expect me to tell you that killing Xabraluz is the way to go and that optimal Lords of Xulima play sucks, right?

Well, here's the hilarious part: killing Xabraluz gets you the horn, but it's already drained. Instead of +1 HP, +1 PP, and a skill point, you get 12,000 experience. If that gets you another level, then it's unquestionably better, but since Xabraluz is the strongest opponent in the game by a good margin, the only way it'll possibly matter is if you're going for a high score.

So, yeah, optimal Lords of Xulima play sucks. It really does.



You might have guessed that the Horn of Xabraluz is a blessing item, and if you've really been paying attention, you've probably guessed it's Valvet's. The next problem is getting to Valvet's altar. This unfortunately requires us to fight demons more powerful than anything we've had to face so far.



These jerks took down Cecil. This is a really tough fight: the second-tier spellcasting demon Valarinzo is hiding behind the second-tier meat demon, and if you manage to take out the meat demon first, the mage demon will just duck behind a different meat demon. You either take down all of the meat demons first, or you find a way to attack the mage demon (who, by the way, also has a pretty ridiculous amount of health) from the back.

For us, it's going to have to be option A. Edge can toss shuriken at the guy until they're both blue in the face, but the Bragoloz is also a significant threat, and if we don't get bleeding on it early, then it'll get to live way too long.



The Valarinzo's drop is one of the game's better stat boosters: +1 Energy and +1 Speed is great for anyone who needs PP.



At rank 20, the Herald of Raznet unlocks Toxic Bite, which is Poisonous Bite but more poisonous. Er, venomous. It inflicts more poison.

At this point, Batman is a valuable summon in his own right. Veliacan is still our strongest summon, but anything immune to fire wants this guy. Even against normal foes, summoning both is often a good idea unless we need the healing from the Herald of Nalaet.



There's the altar. The pack of demons guarding it looks like a bad time, and Requiem is ineffective against the higher-tier demons.



But it wasn't nearly as bad as that last group. This is the final altar. Yul just has statues.



In exchange for the Horn of Xabraluz (so much for friendship), we get Valvet's blessing.



+5 Strength works out to an extra 3.5 damage for everyone. Six blessings.

Further west, we find this attractive-looking destination. We'll be back later.



Even further, we find a Learning book. This is vendor trash, because everyone has maxed Learning, but I'm amused by the idea of a book that teaches you Learning.



Moving along. Now that we have the key, we can enter Nalaet's temple. (No one knows how to swim, I guess.)



This temple is not as corrupt as the others.
Don't lower your guard.



There's no way the healing fountain is still in working order.



Wow. This temple really has resisted Yul's corruption.



The pool does indeed heal you as you walk through it, but it's so slow that you're better off just resting. It is a no-encounter zone, though, which is nice.



This is really strange. We had to slay a Titan to get into this temple, and now this?
Yeah, I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop here. Stay sharp.



This is not the most difficult iteration of the "rotate the statues" puzzle. Just turn them all to face the center of the temple.



This is just unsettling.
What, do you expect a strict difficulty progression? That's not very realistic.
In my experience, yes, it is.



They have this same sign posted at the DMV, and if you believe what it says, I have a bridge to sell you.

Aha, see? Things are starting to pick up.
No, they're not. This is just the midboss, the one we have to beat to open the magic barrier blocking the way to the sanctum. This is not a midboss-quality fight.



Ooookay, now things are starting to pick up.
A single area-appropriate encounter does not a dungeon make. We can probably expect stronger groups from here.



After going back and beating the midboss, I raid this from the chest it guarded. It's the highest-defense item we'll see in this game barring an otherwise-identical enchanted item or an Ulnalum Plate Armor. It also weighs a ton.



Because Nifonte was a bottleneck to get into this temple, the dialogue is able to reference it specifically.



That said, the only plot revelation from this discussion is that Gaulen will die a watery death. That does not -- spoiler alert -- happen within this game, but it suggests that Gaulen will not be the main character in Lords of Xulima 2.



Anyway, Yul Herald #5. What's to say? Like #4, this guy's a summoner, and while it's still a reprieve, he seems to throw out only the occasional summon, and his regular attacks are noticeably stronger than his predecessors'.



Otherwise, it's Just Another Boss. I'd say it's a little tougher than Nifonte, but I'd also say that's not saying much.



27,000 experience is saying quite a bit, though. (Remember: Xabraluz gives 12,000.)



It would have been an amazing plot twist if Gaulen tripped and drowned in the pool on the way out of the temple.



The XP train keeps on rolling.



Aside from the experience, clearing these temples gives us nothing. It's just a plot requirement at this point. Remind me to do the remaining temples out of order just for kicks.



In a stroke of good luck, Gaulen maxes his Knowledge of Terrains. The ability is unlocked at level 3, and even though it costs a single skill point per rank, it's not worthwhile in the early game. It's about to become very important, though, and going from 13% to 10% is a significant bonus, because that's how numbers work.



In other news, Mass Regeneration. It starts out good (if somewhat unremarkable), giving 20 HP/turn to the entire party at a cost of 60 PP. When we max it out, it'll give 60 HP/turn for 120 PP, and it'll last almost twice as long as at rank 1. How long is that? Well, for reference, all of Rydia's heralds start out at 40 seconds, and the only way to increase that is with Herald's Destiny, which brings them to 2 minutes, 25 seconds at rank 20. For another point of reference, Edward's songs all max out at 1 minute. It's not the longest-lasting buff in the game (Cecil's Aura of Protection is basically forever at 5 minutes, 50 seconds), but it's really long, and 60 HP/turn is crazy.

Mass Regeneration wins the game at later levels.



If you've paid attention to the minimap, you'll notice that there's an obvious room missing. It took me an embarrassingly long time to find the switch for this door, which is located just to our left on the floorboards of that little piece of wall. Notice the dark spot that isn't there next to the other two statues?



For our troubles, we get two more skill books (junk, in our case) and the final statue. Rotating the final statue into place gives us a modest experience bonus and a message directing us to the center of the pool.



There, we find a fountain that looks like the one depicted in the box that's covering it. And it has...



A special treasure. You know the drill at this point, right?



Yep, it's Nalaet's blessing item.



An extra 5 points of Agility. Not earthshattering, but it'll do.

Seven blessings. Just Taliet left. We saved the best for last.

NEXT TIME ON LET'S PLAY LORDS OF XULIMA: TALIET'S BLESSING

OLOXPS COUNT: 18 (mushrooms, locks and traps, cereal plants, encounter clearing, herald of Golot, bard songs, Golot's blessing, mausoleum keys, the arena, minions before bosses, riddle imps, Odendro drops, DLC, well of souls, Cursed Hounds, treasure chests, demon drops, Xabraluz)

UNSOLVED MYSTERIES:

• Cunavarn's quests still want us to find the dead person.
• Velaskar's quests still want us to collect the loot, find the dead person, and collect the other loot.
• Rasmura's quests still want us to eliminate the hounds and get the priceless loot.
• Devonia's quests still want us to collect the valuable loot, and collect the other valuable loot.
• The Titans await: next in power is Xilionte, over the encrusted ice; the third is Kronante, under the sun and stone; and finally Velioronte, over the lake of fire.