PROTIP: Don't give your cat to the cat-eating mad-man. Let's Play Phantasy Star!

We're here! So, um, where exactly is here?



Welcome to the Guaron morgue, the place that we were warned about back in Skure! What fear! As soon as we turn our flashlight on, we're attacked by a zombie, and ya'll better get used to seeing that, as Zombies are the only enemy in this dungeon. Given the surplus of Magicians and Frostmen outside that we ran from on the way here, this is absolutely a good thing.



After taking a few more steps inside, we're greeted by this fellow. He doesn't seem super keen on us raiding the morgue, but he doesn't make any effort to stop us. Stealing from the Dezorian dead is probably a step up from attacking the living, at least. >_>



We take a right at the first fork and quickly come to a dead end. We step forward to take a closer look and...



Well crud. This pit drops us in the centre of a 4-way intersection. There's an obvious stairway to the right of where we landed, but investigating the other three passages turns up a right turn at the end of the hallway behind us:



Following this passage eventually leads us to this:



Yes, that's right: those stairs technically take us back up to the ground floor, but only to an isolated loop with nothing in it. No secret passage either. I guess we're taking the other set of stairs after all!



That's more like it. The other stairs back up to the first floor open into a larger area full of forks and dead ends which eventually connects back to where we fell. Take care not to fall into the same pit again!



We eventually come to this doorway. Let's see what's inside!



Another pit, and another T-intersection, this time with two obvious stairways back up to the first floor.



At least one of the dead ends down here has a Burger! Let's try one of the stairways back up:



I'm starting to sense a pattern here. Yes, that set of stairs took us to yet another isolated loop on the first floor. Let's head back down and try the other set.



We're able to reach the entrance area again from the other stairway, but a thorough exploration of the dungeon still leaves us coming up empty-handed, other than that one Burger. And we still haven't found our way to the other side of this trapped door! Is this entire dungeon just one big troll?

Well, not quite. Any guesses?

Ye olde grognard that I am I believe this is a Wizardry reference? (Wizardry was huge in Japan around this time).

I alluded to this earlier, but Myau's TRAP spell is able to disarm pit traps! Doing so is the only way to reach the other side of this door. Pretty sneaky, Phantasy Star!



On the other side of the door is a small room with a treasure chest. Will this dungeon's secret prize be worth the trouble?



Ow. One last troll before the big finish as an arrow fires out of the chest and strikes the party's whipping boy Odin for half of his HP.



Score! That's one piece of holy Laconian equipment down:



Check out the creepy skull helm.



And Odin is the whipping boy no longer, as this massive increase in Defense catapults him from the worst defender in the party to the best. He's obviously the correct choice for this armour, but even if he wasn't:



Alis doesn't need your dumb edge-lord armour anyway!



And we out! Not a bad haul for a pretty short dungeon. That said, between the tricksy end and the endless loops and the pit traps, this place has the potential to be very confusing. Young JBear got lost inside for quite a long time, and never successfully found the prize.

The only remaining overworld route that we haven't explored is the ice cave to the west of the large snowfield, so I guess we'll head that way next.



On the way, though, we run in to this Marauder. I genuinely thought that I'd already shown off all of the encounters that this area has to offer, but I guess I missed one!



The Marauder attacks by swinging his axe for moderate damage.



Except for when he's feeling like a jerk, in which case he breathes lighting on the whole party for ~30-40 damage per person.

Marauders are just as bullshit as everything else around here right now. AVOID.



Several panicked flights later (I ran into three Marauders in a row after encountering none on the way in) and we arrive at Yet Another Ice Cave. Onward!



Hope you didn't blink! Yes, this particular passage consists of only a couple of short hallways and stairs down and then back up. You'll hear no complaints from me!



We now find ourselves in another reasonably large open area. I'll cut to the highlights:



After a long walk to the northwest, we come across a ziggurut. This is the Corona tower that the locals spoke of, and I'm going to level with you: this place is probably too difficult for us, and there's nothing that we can accomplish in there right now anyway. We could go in there and bumble/flee our way to the top, liberally saving and loading and barely clinging to life long enough to run into a plot gate, but I'd just as soon not.



Giving the tower a pass and continuing to journey far to the southwest eventually brings us to, surprise, an ice cave. This isn't just any ice cave, though. No, this is our final destination for this update, so buckle in!

As soon as we enter the cave, before we even have a chance to turn on our light, this guy looms out of the darkness to provide some advice.



Sure enough, we immediately come to a fork. To the left!





To save everyone the trouble of counting: that was five successive pit traps. "Some Dezorians like to tell lies" indeed. Honestly, this feels like a real missed opportunity, in that the dialogue should have been: "At the fork in the road, go to the left, yes, indeed."



Around the corner from where we landed, we find a treasure chest. Maybe that Dezorian wasn't so bad after all!



...

Fuck this planet.

So is there anything else down here?



Signs point to no.



So there's exactly one way out of this hole, and you're looking at it. Good thing Noah had MP to spare!



Round 2!



I have never wanted to murder a Dezorian more (and loot his precious mesetas), but the game is having none of it, so our bloodlust will have to go unsated.



Taking a right at the fork instead looks identical at first, but instead of a doorway we find some stairs leading down.



And then more stairs leading down... lots and lots of stairs leading down. For anyone keeping track at home, this now puts us at the same depth that the pit trap dropped us, although clearly we won't be staying at that depth for long, given that we're standing in front of stairs leading back up and haven't seen any forks since the entrance.



The trip back up looks pretty similar to the trip down, with lots of short hallways terminating in stairs, taking us up and up...



There's a wide variety of enemies in here, and oddly, they seem to get less difficult as we dive. We run into these Batalions here on about B3 or so as we're climbing back up, which means that, yes, we're running from pretty much every encounter on the floors above this one.



Myau gains a level after killing them, and learns EXIT. I guess it's good to have some redundancy, especially if the reason that we want to EXIT is because Noah has eaten floor, which is not an unheard of scenario.



Here's some examples of the kinds of encounters that we're fleeing from on the higher floors as we climb. We ran into both of these encounters on B1.

We climb back to the entrance floor and finally reach another fork. In fact, this floor is full of forks, and all of a sudden we seem to be in a proper dungeon again!



So of course the floor that we're going to have to spend a lot of time getting lost on is the one with the most difficult encounters. We can talk our way past this dragon, but Noah's MP is quickly dwindling. Suddenly those Spheres available for purchase in the Skure shop don't seem like such a bad idea after all!



Oh hardy-har game. So close, and yet so far.

(To be clear, this Magic Hat is useless to us, since it's not powerful enough to communicate with the Dragons and there's nothing else in this dungeon worth talking to.)



Here's a fun Phantasy Star PROTIP: if you've just walked down a long hallway to a chest or dead-end, backing up instead of turning around means fewer chances for encounters (since each pivot has a chance to trigger an enemy encounter) and that if you RUN from combat, you actually gain a space instead of losing one as you flee. Careful not to get lost, though, as sometimes you can RUN back around a corner, and if it's a fork then the game will decide arbitrarily for you, as seen here.



There are a couple of other chests on this floor, including one extremely rare sight: a chest in Phantasy Star that contains a useful non-unique piece of equipment.



Alis already has one of these, but we replace the Iron Shield that Odin has been wearing forever for a nice little bump to his already very high Defense.



Soon after, we find another set of stairs leading down, and not a moment too soon, as our HP & MP totals are quickly dwindling. We're going to have to start dipping into our precious emergency Burger supply at this rate!



Not that the encounters on B1 are much better.

(If we tried to actually stand and fight here, these things would absolutely murder us. For that matter, we'd be hard-pressed to take out a single Mammoth at this point.)



This section of B1 isn't as complex as the last floor, but it does offer a couple of possible detours.



That Mammoth pack and this pair of Scorpiuses might be the biggest disparity I've ever seen between two encounters on the same floor of a dungeon. Noah can one-shot these guys with his physical attack. More of these, please!



The dead end that we fought them in was empty, but this other dead end has a chest!



I'm kind of over this dungeon. Can we be done now?

Honestly, at this point there's a good argument to be made for using TRAP on every fixed dungeon chest that we find. Compared to the cost of healing from trap damage, we'd probably come out ahead.



The next couple of floors are more of those short branch-less hallways, and now that we've dived deeper again, the enemy encounters are much less terrifying.



We eventually make our way back down to B5 for a 3rd time, we has only a 3-tile hallway and this locked door. Behind the locked door we find...



KA-CHING!



That's one high-tech looking shield!



The Laconian Shield can be equipped by either Alis or Odin, but Odin already got his new toy for this update, so this one goes to our leading lady, who uses it to firmly retake her place as the party's best tank. No one can see Odin crying inside his new skull helm.



And with that, we waste no time in getting out of here. There's no way that we'd survive the trip back outside, or the trek back to town afterwards, so it's a good thing that we don't need to do either!

We Fly back to town, heal our wounds, sell some old equipment, and...



So close.

Alright, I think that's a good place to call this update. So folks, we've got a decision to make! Choosing to head to Dezoris first was definitely the more challenging option, but so far we've been able to struggle forward and make some good progress (mostly through liberal use of the RUN command), collecting two pieces of our bad-ass endgame equipment set. That said, we've just about hit a wall. I could easily grind out these last 400 MST and buy that silly digging machine to literally knock down a couple of those walls, but the enemies only get tougher from here, and, more notably, we're missing a macguffin from Motavia that we'll need if we want to accomplish much more on Dezoris anyway!

So, with that in mind, what say you, Talking Time? If we opt to pass on the Ice Digger for now, that does free up our funds to buy some very nice combat upgrades instead. We could afford to buy out the entire Skure armory with this much coinage, however, some prudence might be advised, since I promise that Motavia has a couple of new expensive toys waiting for us as well that we might regret passing on. Also, the pricey Laser Shield for Noah back on Palma is still on the table as well! Let me know if you have any shopping advice!

OH, and one last thing before I go, which I almost forgot. Here's your map of Dezoris, from the manual:



Not a whole lot of useful info there, but it certainly gives players some idea of what they're in for. Lots of ice caves, as it turns out! At least it makes it clear that there's another town out there to look for.

(Also, I thought that those caves looked like mouths as a kid, and I still think that now.)

Things that we know:

• Some cats, if they eat a certain type of nut, become huge and can fly.
• Magical locks require magic to open, or something called the Miracle Key.
• Laconia is the hardest, strongest metal, and Lassic fears its holy power. There exists a sword, shield (check), axe, and armor (check) made of it.
• Medusa, who resides in a tower in the Gothic mountains, has a mystic axe.
• Lassic lives above the sky.
• There exists a certain crystal that will block Lassic's evil magic.
• There is a dangerous hill named Baya Malay to the north of Scion bordered by an imposing ziggurut to the south.
• Laerma trees grow on the Altiplano plateau on the planet Dezoris, at the top of an ice mountain.
• A nut of Laerma needs special light to glow, and a Laconian pot to be stored in.
• The Casba Dragon is apparently in possession of a gem called "The Amber Eye".
• An eclipse occurs on Dezoris once every hundred years. A torch lit during an eclipse is called an 'eclipse torch' and is regarded as holy by the Dezorians.
• An Aeroprism allows one to see another world.

Outstanding roadblocks/mysteries:

• It's not possible to pass through Ant Lions on foot.
• There are places in the mountains of Dezoris where the ice is soft and impassable to those on foot.
• There's a mysterious locked door at the entrance to the ziggurat south of Baya Malay.
• There are places in the sky where even spaceships cannot go.
• "The sound of the soothing flute is a joy to both the ear and the heart."
• What's inside the Corona tower?
• Ice Diggers are expensive, ya'll!

Get the laser gun and hit the desert.

Here are my maps for these areas:



The caves are pretty simple.



Guaron, which I guess I mistook for Dezoris Cave at first despite looking like a prison on the map.



The teeny fifth cave and the actual Dezoris Cave.



And the minimal lower floors.

Motavia! Backtracking is for chumps.

So many flashes! What happened to the magic lamp?

Your suffering has been most delightful but this upgraded gear will surely make exploring the areas of Motavia we've not yet seen trivial.

I also vote Motavia. Get that laser gun. You deserve it.

Buy the ice digger. Dig up everything.

Now I ain't sayin' she's a gold digger
But she ain't...leaving with no ice digger

You have been to the cold and dry place so now you should go to the hot and dry place.

Pew pew! (I Agree.)

And save the rest of your cash - I want to see what the other toys are first.

Buy out the armoury. There's nothing as satisfying in RPGs that when numbers get bigger.

Another thing the two sides have in common besides hatred of Palmans: They're all bad spellers.

he's just predicting the secret ending to the phantasy star ii remake

It's wrong to buy a snowplow without having at least driven an SUV.

It's right to buy The Best Weapon In The Game.

Ironically I'd suggest buying such then getting started on the hunt for the best weapon in the game for fighting X out of Y remaining bosses to be found.

Also give Myau those mittens. You can't not buy kitten-mittens if you aren't some sort of monster.

Altiplano Plateau? Lol, redundant much? (Altiplano literally means "plateau" in Spanish)

Neat perspective there!

It's obvious, tho, innit? Look at 'im, ain't 'e a beaut?

----
As for the "weaker enemies in deeper levels" thing, it is coherent with the rest of the setting! - The enemies from the surface keep themselves on the higher levels, where presumably temperature is lower, whereas weaker, softer enemies prefer deeper, warmer temperatures. It's also consistent with the villages being built underground, safe not only from the cold but from the dangerous creatures above.

Hello there everyone, and welcome back to Let's Play Phantasy Star!

When last we joined our planet-hopping foursome, we explored the frigid wastes and many icy caverns of the ice planet Dezoris. The opposition proved fierce for our current strength, but we clawed our way forward through liberal use of diplomacy and running, and ultimately found two pieces of the holy Laconian gear that we've been told we'll need if we're to finally overthrow Lord Lassic and avenge Alis' brother's death. We also got lied to by a bunch of native Dezorians, but we killed quite a lot of them and looted their morgue, so let's call it even?



We pick things up right where we left off, as Alis and friends have spent the last week frozen in sticker shock, staring at this very expensive ice digger.

I've done my best to parse some votes out of everyone's posts, and judging by those results, the clear consensus was to give the ice digger a pass and then go die of thirst in a desert, so let's get started on that! It's a bit of a hike, so we'll fast-forward to Skure.



Many FLASHes and caves later, and here we are! Consensus was also clear on buying a laser gun, and I'm very happy to have it.



Less clear but still just edging out ahead was a pair of kitten mittens, so I pick those up as well. Noah looks wistfully at the Wand as we leave the Armory.



Fits like a glove! This brings Myau's Defense score to parity with Odin, because a pair of cat gloves is as effective as legendary armour.



On our way out of Skure, Odin is experimentally shooting everything in sight with his new toy when we stumble upon this:



I know it doesn't come across well, since they don't actually animate it at all, but this is another secret passage hiding in an arbitrary wall section. I forgot to show this off the last time we visited Skure.



This secret side passage only contains 500 MST, which is a couple of battles at this point, so it's easy to forget.

Speaking of forgetting things, I forgot one other very important thing, and it might well spell disaster for this Let's Play!

So... the Laser Gun. I described it last week as "staggeringly good", and don't get me wrong: it absolutely is. It is arguably the game's best weapon. However, it has a hidden downside, as that power comes at a terrible price. Every single time that it fires, it makes this noise for every single enemy target:


Soundcloud

I'm going to be listening to that sound every combat turn for the remainder of this LP. I hope you all appreciate the sacrifices that I make for you and for my art.



It's finally time to flee this frozen rock, but I'll never be able to outrun that sound.



Motavia looks much as we left it, which is to say: that sure is a lot of open desert and ant lions.



Just like on Palma and Dezoris, the Luveno lets us off directly outside a town. Let's go investigate!





Welcome to Uzo! (Am I the only one who can't see that name without thinking of this? Yes? Cool.) It's pretty small, and is shaped like a backwards 'C'. Let's start the same way we always do, by collecting the local gossip:

• "There is a town called Casba to the south of here."
• "There are dragons living in the Casba cave. These dragons have gems in their heads!"
• "If you use a vehicle called the Land Rover, the Ant Lion will not be able to harm you."
• "Have you heard about Mantles made of Frad fibers? They are light, but provide great protection."
• "Have you heard about the Soothing Flute? It's a secret, but I buried one at the outskirts of the town of Gothic on Palma. Don't tell anyone."

We have heard about the Soothing Flute, actually! I wonder what he'd say if we told him that our talking spider friend told us?

Anyway, there's a few good tidbits there, including a tantalizing solution to our Ant Lion problem, but the siren call of phat loot cannot be ignored.



So let's take a quick detour back to Gothic!



At the southwest corner of town sits a conspicuous looking tree at the end of a dead-end path. Search that square and sure enough...



Flute get! Note that talking to that gentleman in Uzo is a plot flag, so if you try to search here earlier, you won't find anything!



I'd tease future revelations about what precisely the Flute does, but I'd say this description is pretty clear! Just last update I mentioned when Myau learned EXIT that it was nice to have some redundancy, but now we'll never need to cast it again.



What happens if we use it right here in town, though? Well, two things. First of all...



It displays this cute little message! Secondly, it plays this warbly little ditty:


Soundcloud

That... sure it a noise. It's difficult to make out because it's playing over the background music (and because it's bad), but it's actually playing a slowed-down portion of the Palma overworld music!



The flute has one other undocumented feature, as mentioned by our spider friend.



That feature? A pack of lies. You can put every enemy in a battle to "sleep" like this a hundred times over, but they'll all still gladly tear you to shreds. Whatever the flute was supposed to do when used in battle, they never actually got around to implementing it!

Before we head back to Motavia, there's one last errand to run while we're here...



It's time. 1400 MST is no longer ludicrously expensive, and after blowing through six FLASHes at the start of this update to travel back to Skure, the convenience argument seems pretty compelling.

Now that we have a magic lamp, what better time to go visit a desert?

I had the foresight to poke my head into the church before leaving, so a quick Fly spell dumps us back in Uzo.



Let's see what's for sale before we head out of town.



Well hello there.



This seems like a step up from a Ceramic sword! (Also, I guess Lucas' lawyers never made it to Algol.)



No time for shopping now, though! We've got a desert to explore!

This desert is massive. Outside of the enclosed area around Paseo where we first visited Motavia, the entire planet is pretty much just one big desert, and now we're in it.



Wandering around in the desert is a great way to get lost, so let's use the one piece of information that we've been given and strike out directly to the south in search of the town of Casba.





As it turns out, there's quite a lot of "south"!



Let's hope we don't end up like these guys! We've already fought harder palette swaps of these on Dezoris, so these "SKULL-EN" ain't no sweat.

(Part of me really hopes that this was a place-holder name for "SKULL-ENGLISH" that never got updated.)



Eventually some mountains come into view, but still no sign of a town.



Proceeding into the mountains quickly brings us to a dead end, so I guess we're striking off east or west! The planet actually wraps, so there's no "wrong" answer here, but west is a much shorter walk, and the hint back in Uzo should have said that Casba was "south-west", not "south", as it is in fact almost directly south-west of Uzo. Pretend that we got lost wandering randomly for a while here if you want the authentic experience.



A short walk later and a cave comes into view to our west.



A quick inspection of the area immediately around the cave brings what is presumably the town of Casba into view, but I guess everyone neglected to mention that the town is surrounded by rock!



As you may recall, we were just told that here there be dragons, but with no other options in sight I guess this cave is where we're going. Let's rock this Casba!

Welcome to the Casba cave! Because we just shelled out for a Magic Lamp, this is of course the first pre-lit cave we've found in ages. You may recognize this as the same colours as the cave in which we found Noah, so he should feel right at home.



The cave begins with a long straight stretch, and we have a couple of friendly chats along the way.



Two-thirds of the way down that hallway, behind an arbitrary wall section that reasonable players would have no hope of finding, is this secret passage containing 500 MST.



After a couple of corners, we come to a set of stairs leading down. No dragons yet!



In fact, not only is there no sign of dragons, but the fights that we are do find are insultingly easy!



We quickly descend another staircase, and it's not until this 3rd sub-level that we find our first fork.



...which quickly leads to another fork, followed by a 4-way intersection. We're dungeon-ing now!



The encounters down here are a bit stiffer, but still only equivalent to the easiest of the Dezoris caves.



This floor mostly consists of short forks and dead-ends, and while most of the dead-ends are empty, we also find a couple of chests containing 100 MST each.



Hah, nice try; get fucked.

Down one final dead-end passage we find...



o hai. Meet the Blue Dragon, aka the Casba Dragon. This is the beginning.



Like most dragons, we can have a friendly telepathic chat with this one, which allows us to exit combat peacefully.



That said, this particular blue dragon has something that we want, and we're not going to be able to talk him into coughing it up, so we do a bit of healing and then immediately dive back in and initiate combat again.



Myau attempts to put up a WALL, but it's immediately stripped away. WALL and PROT are both useless against dragons!



After one round of combat, Noah is already half dead, because dragons are dicks. Wait, we still haven't seen one attack, have we?



It breathes fire, 'natch.



In particular, it continues to breathe fire at Noah, who isn't having a great time!



Things stabilize a bit in the next round though, after Myau tosses Noah a CURE and Noah stuffs some WIND down the dragon's throat.



In fact, it goes down without getting another chance to attack, and we pull this gem from its head. Maybe the instruction booklet can tell us what good that does us?



Nope! I can tell you that this is what we need to make more progress on Dezoris, though.



We make our way back to that first fork, and it turns out that there's a different set of stairs leading up just around the corner from where we came down. Onward!

After we take a single step onto this floor, we pivot to the right and inspect the wall, finding another impossibly well-hidden secret passage. In this chest we find...



...a frankly ridiculous sum of money. These dumb hidden chests are of no help to new players, but experienced Phantasy Star vets never need to grind for money.



The remainder of the Casba cave consists almost solely of long straight passages with a network of stairs that go up and down and up and down, to the point that a player could be forgiven for worrying that they've gotten lost.



Shortly before the end, we find one final secret passage, again hiding behind an arbitrary wall section that no player could ever hope to find in the course of normal play. In this one, however, we find...



Casba Dragon's brother! Yes, just like the other Motavian cave we spelunked ages ago, this one has a trap dragon waiting for greedy players. Unlike last time, though, we're quite a bit stronger. We could talk our way out of this, but we're again incentivized to try and solve the problem through violence.



This time the dragon mostly focuses its ire on Odin, and with less health than the other it's quickly on its last legs. It's all over but the crying.



That dick. I mean its crying, not mine!



Is Noah an even trade for a LIGHT SABER?



Mmmaybe...

Listen, don't judge. Let those of you who wouldn't trade a person's life for a real functioning light saber cast the first Muntuur stone.



Fortunately, the exit is just around the corner. But where are we exiting to?



Casba, of course!

Casba's pretty small, and let's start as always by interviewing everyone in sight:

• "Don't believe your own eyes in the depth of the dungeons."
• "Have you heard of vehicle called the Hovercraft?"
  • No: "It's a good thing to have. It moves across water."
  • Yes: "I bought it in Scion on Palma but it seemed broken so I abandoned it in Bortevo. It probably can still be used, though."
• "There are legends of a mystic shield in a village surrounded in mist it is the shield Perseus used in days to conquer magic beasts."
• "There is poison gas above the sea to the west. No one can go near there without some protection."
• "Fierce dragons live in the cave near here, and I'm scared of them."

I'm waaay ahead of you on that last one, lady. There's an above-average number of grammatical errors in this village, all of which I have lovingly preserved.

Anyway, we have a lead on a Hovercraft! I'd be interested in a hovercraft too if I lived in a village only accessible by lake or dragon cave, but I guess this guy went joyriding and then abandoned it. Note that he actually asks you if you've heard of it, and you need to answer "no" to hear what it is, but "yes" in a separate conversation if you want him to tell you where it is and trigger that plot flag. It's kind of a dick move!

Finally, note that the guy talking about "above the sea" actually means to the north of it.

With talking time out of the way, let's shop!



The first shop doesn't have anything new, but it presents a good opportunity to sell the sword that we just replaced. Fun fact: since it's just a quality of life item, you can sell the Flute for chump change. Probably don't do that?

The second shop, however...



! BUY BUY BUY!



Fuck you.

Alis exits the store and immediately tries to climb into her sweet new ride, but the game is having none of it.



So instead we Fly back to the church in Uzo (there's a church in Casba as well, but we don't ever have to set foot in that cave again this way), resurrect Noah, heal at the Hospital, then step outside and...






Soundcloud / FM Version

This is the same music that played during our space flights up to this point, but is the first time we've been able to give it enough time to exit that initial loop and reach the rest of the piece.



WHEEEE!

Note that the land rover makes a satisfying rumbling noise as we drive. It also allows us to cross Ant Lions, as advertised, and makes general land traversal much faster.



As it turns out, we can still be attacked by the occasional Ant Lion as we drive, but they're both literal and figurative speed bumps at this point.



Incidentally, the Light Saber has both a unique attack animation and sound effect (but no, not that sound effect).



Alright, folks, I think now that we've got some new wheels treads, this is a good time to call it an update. We've got some options. Shall we:

• Poke around Motavia with our new Land Rover?
• Head back to Palma and see what trouble we can get up to with a Hovercraft?
• Head back to Dezoris and bash our head against some more end-game enemies now that we have a vital plot item that we were missing?

Let me know! Alis is waiting doing loops in her new Land Rover!

Things that we know:

• Some cats, if they eat a certain type of nut, become huge and can fly.
• Magical locks require magic to open, or something called the Miracle Key.
• Laconia is the hardest, strongest metal, and Lassic fears its holy power. There exists a sword, shield (check), axe, and armor (check) made of it.
• A mystic shield used by Perseus to conquer magic beasts can be found in a village surrounded by mists.
• Mantles made of Frad fibers are light, but provide great protection.
• Medusa, who resides in a tower in the Gothic mountains, has a mystic axe.
• Lassic lives above the sky.
• There exists a certain crystal that will block Lassic's evil magic.
• There is a dangerous hill named Baya Malay to the north of Scion bordered by an imposing ziggurut to the south.
• Laerma trees grow on the Altiplano plateau on the planet Dezoris, at the top of an ice mountain.
• A nut of Laerma needs special light to glow, and a Laconian pot to be stored in.
• An eclipse occurs on Dezoris once every hundred years. A torch lit during an eclipse is called an 'eclipse torch' and is regarded as holy by the Dezorians.
• An Aeroprism allows one to see another world.
• There's a Hovercraft that's been abandoned in Bortevo on Palma.

Outstanding roadblocks/mysteries:

• There is poison gas north of the Motavian sea that requires some kind of protection.
• There are places in the mountains of Dezoris where the ice is soft and impassable to those on foot.
• There's a mysterious locked door at the entrance to the ziggurat south of Baya Malay.
• There are places in the sky where even spaceships cannot go.
• What's inside the Corona tower?
• Ice Diggers are expensive, ya'll!

Oh, and before I go, here's our final planet map:



Paseo should be pretty obvious with the walled enclosures and conveyor belt, and that's Uzo, where we are now, just south-east of it past the Ant Lions. We're pretty close!

Wait, you can fly between PLANETS? What the fuck did you need to go through all that hassle to get that spaceship for?! You should demand your time & money back to that fraud of a professor.

Maybe they're the skeletons of long rotten but still undead glitter-by-day vampires? ;p
Guy looks quite fabulous and glittery in that green tone to me!

You can explore Motavia, since you'e already here, and enjoy your new toy while at it! In fact, I'd vote to do those three things exactly in that order.

There's only one right answer here


I also want to say that I deeply appreciate how one guy tells you how to get a hovercraft so you never have to do that dungeon again

Is that a giant sarlacc monster on the right? Go kill it.

I think the antlions are effectively unbeatable.

You can defeat one by walking into it but it just reappears and continues to block you.

It's been awhile since I played though.

This is the thread I feel the most burning need to unravel, but without a Laconian pot, I feel like we're still just shy of the missing link in the chain. If you find a Laconian pot while doing anything else, please drop everything and go super-size a cat.

Is Laconian Pot legal on Motavia?

Yeah, at this point they're pretty easy to actually KO, but the game will still put you back on the space you were before you stepped on the mound after the battle so you can't make progress without the vehicle.

Don't we... *have* a Laconian pot? We got it from the cat-eating madman, right?