Having made our way to the town of Melmond, we were shocked to find a ruin. A vampire was draining all of their Earthpower? The High Lord’s Council is nowhere to be seen? Even Thomas Covenant has gone missing? Well, I guess maybe a few Warriors of Light could get the job done…
As is often the case, even with the hints the townscritters give, I’m never quite sure where to go. I spent awhile sailing around the area, looking for a sage at a southern tip or anywhere to dock before I eventually had the bright idea to just walk down to the area, from Melmond.
Yeah, that did it. I found the Shrine of Earth. It smelt foul. Evil. Stuff like that.
We worked our way eventually to the third floor, and met the Vampire. Yay! Let’s have a conversation about how difficult it is for mortals to kill the undying! We’ve been Dia’ing to show you!
Turns out that we were right and he was wrong. He dropped a Star Ruby, which was nice of him. As the tattered shreds of his being sank resentfully into the ground, we headed through the far door to what we thought was a treasure room.
It was only a stone slab, too heavy to lift. We couldn’t do much with it. Without much else of a plan or anywhere else to go, we went back to Melmond. They were grateful for the vampire kill, but… the land was still dying. There was something else. Well yeah, we know. It’s that slab.
One of the sages in town reminded us that we hadn’t yet talked to their wise hermit dude, so we walked around a little more until we came to a cave with a stone elemental in it.
Turns out he just wanted a Star Ruby. How… convenient. With him fed, he moved aside and we could travel through the other exit, and the way was clear to visit the wise hermit sage to the south.
I thought I could make him happy, but he just got Sadda and Sadda…. when he told us that we’d given up too soon, there was another evil, deeper.
YES WE KNOW THERE IS A SLAB THANK YOU.
Sadda gave us an Earth Staff and asked us to return to the cave and, you know, do the job right this time. Bastage.
The Earth Staff split the slab to reveal a set of stairs, going down.
After being sure to use all our magic and consumables getting down to the final room, we confronted the Lich in his lair. He was pretty frickin’ happy about being a pile of bones at the bottom of a hole in the ground, but we thought we should do something about that anyway. The people of Mythical Manmonth may not be the friendliest folk, but they don’t deserve to have the life in their soil leached away.
The smart move would have been for the White Mage to become hasted and cast Diaga a lot, but all of those spells had been used on the way down. Second would be for the Black Mage to cast a lot of Firaga, but… he died. Even though Drew’s punches didn’t hurt the Lich much, they hurt it enough, and the Red Mage could work on keeping him up while tossing Phoenix Downs everywhere they’d stick.
That was enough (eventually). The lich was dead!
The Earth Crystal is saved! The game is one fourth done!
Next is… I’m not quite sure. I sailed back to Corneria and asked the Dancer there what to do next. She is supposed to set you on the right path, but she had nothing to say.
I’m sure we’ll think of something with a little more exploration, though.
Hey look, I recorded some of the run…!
Punderful.
Though I’m sad you missed the opportunity for “they don’t deserve to have the life in their soil LICHED away.”
Maybe it sounded better in my head. I’ll work on it, and get back to you.
Where were you when I needed you most!!!! Darn it, I have to up my pun game.
New Theme Celebration Dance Party!
Unz! unz! unz! unz!
lol… this is actually that one someone suggested yesterday — GeneratePress, the free version. The paid version costs $$$$$$$60$$$$$$$ a year so that wasn’t happening. But it’s pleasant enough. I guess.