Update 3: Elafiphobia, Not Cervidaephobia

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So, Ray.
Hagrmngrph?
...Please finish chewin' your food first, lass.
Hachmaghnjrnh!
For the love'a the morning star, you sure you're alright? Every time you've been given food, you just massacre it.
Hooo ah that's good. Aye, I'm alright, bruv.
Just a side effect'a bein' stuck on the streets since you got to Tharsis?
Nahhhhhhh. I ain't NECESSARILY gotta nosh to live, but cor blimey is this summa the best!
...Were it not for those stick-thin limbs you've got, I'd call poppycock on that. You're clearly a different breed, though.
...
Took you that long, did it?! Ha-haaaa! Ray's got it, baby! Makes a great human bird, she does, don't she.
Well, truth be told, I...
(sparkle sparkle sparkle)
...Aye, I only just realized there was something odd.
Well, Marlin, me china, it's true! I'm built a touch different, I am. I can, uh...
Brass tacks of the matter's I skipped all my biology lectures, but in a pinch I eat grass. My lot's got better metabble-ism for moss and vines and whatnot, plus if I'm Hank Marvin I'll dig myself a hole and lie in the dirt and it's better than nothing.
You sound like a herbivore.
We've got hunters too, but it's, ah... low-priority? Cuz, uh...
You alright?
Science ain't rock, man! Nitty-gritty is I like human food! Waylon's the boffin here, ain't he? Ask him!
Ahaha. Maybe I will. Got food there to finish first, though, you do.
Homf!



Hey, that's how you do it. Nice piloting, Merula.
It's... I won't lie, it's kind of nerve-wracking, piloting something that has the entire guild inside it. Some of whom are even sleeping, too.
You'll get used to it.
Can I ask why you wanted to train me?
Gotta make sure six people, including yours truly, know how to steer this thing.
...Ahh, I see. If six people can take pilot duties, then no matter who gets chosen to go exploring on a given day—
There'll still be at least one person left who can get this thing to safety. Glad you caught on.
Mhm, thanks. We have...how many pilots, now?
Obviously, me, for one. For two, Marlin, he already took the ship back to Tharsis when we were in the Lush Woodlands. For three... I guess Harper just guessed how to do it when she was going after that pooka.
You can't say she did a bad job, at least.
Hence why she's the third pilot. That leaves you as the fourth.
Well, I'm glad that I can be trusted, I suppose. Who are you thinking of for the final two?
Naijou's a no-brainer, I think. Guy's completely unflappable, he'll keep a clear head when he's steering this thing. Waylon, too.
Not Eine?
Kid's got enough to do as-is.
...Too much to do, maybe?
Eh, we had him handle a lot the first few days, but things're calming down.
Still, he is just a teenager. I feel bad even having him handle our paperwork.
...'Tween you and me, I think having something important to do is good for him. He's the type that gets upset if he doesn't feel like he's pulling his weight.
Mm.
Good thing you're looking out for him, though. Anyways, I'm going to gather up the other four, and we'll head to the Small Orchard.
Best of luck.



Ah, this maze is pleasantly quiet.
'Side from the river noises.
The sound of a calm river is an important part of a pleasant quiet, in my opinion.


Hoy!
Ah, explorers. We don't get your kind out in this orchard that much. You got business here?
The soldier's cheerful manner is apparent even through the armor that masks his features.
We are here to get some training before we descend to the second floor of the Lush Woodlands.
Ahhhhhhh. You're listening to Whirlwind. Pretty much any time we do get explorers, it's 'cause of him.
In Mister Whirlwind's defense—
Eh? Defense? Wasn't gonna say anything bad about the guy. Just that the others don't listen to him much as they should. Anyways, if you're here for training, the monsters aren't that much different from the first part of the woodlands. 'Sides that, we've got fawns hopping about and chewing on the plants, but they're not much of a threat.
How come you're out here, then?
Recon. Bunch of soldiers've gone missing out here, and the guild's clueless.
Riiiiight, Teach did mention that he trains the soldiers.
Oh, you're that lodger that the guildmaster told us all about.
Hey, I'm famous!
Told us to tell you to stop calling him "Teach" if we ever ran into you.
Nope, not gonna stop.
...Okay then. Well, I'll get out of your way. Good luck.



That frog's tongue is almost as long as it itself is.
Careful. Frog tongues are really sticky. That's how they eat flies.
I choose to not think about what a tongue that large and, apparently, sticky could do to us.

Forest Frog
Level: 7HP: 112STR: 11TEC: 12VIT: 9AGI: 10LUC: 14DS: 40
EXP Given: 223
Damage Vulnerabilities:
100% 100% 100%
100% 150% 100%
Disable Vulnerabilities:
100% 50% 100% 100% 100% 75%
125% 100% 100%
75% 75% 100%
  • Sticky Tongue: Deals medium stab damage to one party member. If the attack does not miss, attempts to bind the target's legs, with a high chance.
  • Jump: Deals heavy bash damage to one party member. Inaccurate.
  • Sticky Tongue: Deals 120% melee STR-based stab damage to one party member. If the attack does not miss, attempts to bind the target's legs, with a 70% base chance. Has a speed modifier of ±0, and a base accuracy of 99%.
  • Jump: Deals 180% melee STR-based bash damage to one party member. Has a speed modifier of ±0, and a base accuracy of 65%.
  • When Forest Frogs are in the back row, they will only use Sticky Tongue.
  • When Forest Frogs are in the front row, they will only use Jump.
  • If any party member has their legs bound, Forest Frogs will specifically target them with Jump.
  • If the Forest Frog is in the front row:
    • If any player character has their legs bound:
      • Use Jump, targeting player characters whose legs are bound.
    • If the above did not occur:
      • Use Jump.
  • If the Forest Frog is in the back row:
    • Use Sticky Tongue.
Drops:
  • Frog Cheek Meat: 80% chance. Sells for 6 en.
    • Strap Shoes (4 DEF, +1 VIT): Made from 2 Frog Cheek Meats. Costs 110 en.
    • Rabbit Amulet (+5 AGI): Made from 1 Rickrack Tongue (Jig Lizard Drop 2) and 1 Frog Cheek Meat. Costs 300 en.
  • Frog Fluid: Obtained by killing the enemy with bash damage. 100% chance. Sells for 10 en.
    • Leg Guard (+80% Leg Bind Resist): Made from 3 Frog Fluids. Costs 500 en.
Generally speaking, amphibians are in something of a vulnerable ecological niche. This is not the case of Tharsis's frogs. They are large and heavy, and can wet themselves in a pinch to ensure their skin doesn't dry out—a useful tactic that also serves to make them more unpleasant to be hit by. It gums up the hair something fierce, their fluid does.
Forest frogs are an introduction to evasion-cancelling disables. The first few times you fight them, they'll be in the front row, and they'll just spam Jump. A theoretical player is likely to take note of Jump missing more often than other skills, or normal enemy attacks. Then, later, this player encounters forest frogs that start in the back row, and get to use Sticky Tongue to bind the legs of a party member. After that, that party member gets hit with Jump, and it hits! Every time! At that point, the player would, likely, suspect that something is up.

With that bit of design talk out of the way, forest frogs shouldn't worry you too much. They're the introduction to enemies with inaccurate attacks, but also methods of disabling your evasion, they're not going to hit you too hard.

Oh, also, behold: our first conditional drop! Frog fluid—the drop with the gold icon—is the first of many enemy drops that require us to kill an enemy either in a specific way, or under specific conditions, in order to receive the drop. EO4's conditional drop requirements aren't too mean, though they do still encourage either having a wide variety of classes that you can take into the labyrinth, or utilizing some of the game's more esoteric methods of access to damage types or disables.

Also note that gold drops from enemies are not always conditionals! A handful of enemies drop a specific rare gathering material as their uncommon drop, while a larger handful of enemies have drops with gold icons that are just exceedingly rare, with 10% or 20% chances.
and FUCK those ones

Oh! Impressive, Shelly.
Huh, what? What'd I do?
You managed to attack more swiftly than the golden rat!
...Another special enemy?
Yep, that one's got that mean look in its eyes, too.
Rare breed enemies just have their action speed multiplied by 10. They'll still get outsped by priority, that just fundamentally places the skill user in a completely different tier of turn order.

"Wait, what if a rare breed enemy uses a skill that has priority?" That cannot happen in EO4. Exactly two bosses have attacks that have priority, and bosses cannot be rare breeds.

Oh, and note the new gauge at the right of the screen. That is the burst gauge.
Oh, I never actually realized that.

Get away from my bag, rodent!


That was a pretty nonchalant dodge.
You see how long that thing takes to push its fat self into the air with those tiny legs? I could've gone back to Tharsis in the time it took. And back!


It's kinda pathetic, in a way. Makes my life easier, at least.






Oh, yes, Ace, do you have any recommendations for what special techniques we should make use of?
Come again?
What was the term the guildmaster used... Oh, burst skills!
Why're you asking me? Teach never taught me about that stuff before I joined up with you guys.
Let's use the one that tells us how to run away quickly, and the one that makes two swords out of the burst.
Offense, and an emergency lifeline. Good choices, Lady Harper.
I forgot to assign burst skills until I actually saw the gauge in battle. Whoops.

Anyway, burst skills are just like normal skills. They don't have any special unique mechanics, beyond the fact that they cost burst to use, instead of TP. Ignore the "TP Cost" on the screenshot, I don't know why it says that. Burst skills activate at the start of the turn—they have super priority, basically. Burst skills that deal damage, additionally, cannot miss.

Full Retreat immediately ends the current battle, and returns you to either the last stairs you used, or the geomagnetic pole you used to enter the maze, whichever is applicable. I don't expect battles to get rough enough this early on for me to need to use Full Retreat, but the best backup (plan) is the one you have but never need.

Guard Order reduces all damage taken by the party by 40% for one turn. It falls under the diminishing returns category of Active Defense, All Elements. It's not a buff, so you don't need to worry about buff slots. Honestly, it costs a bit too much burst for what it does, and we'll have completely reliable defensive burst skills before long. If you're facing an early boss or FOE, though, it couldn't hurt to put this on, instead of Full Retreat.

Double Slash deals two instances of 135% ranged STR-based cut damage to one enemy. Since burst skills can't miss, this is basically 270% damage, guaranteed. Double Slash is cheap, it's fast, and importantly, it's a lot of damage for these early parts of the game. If Merula were to use Double Slash on a target that is afflicted with an ailment, she would deal 540% damage, which is utterly ridiculous for the Novice skill tier portion of the game.
You need to use Double Slash a lot so that you can unlock Volcano.

There's a door here. I do not know why there is a door here, to be frank.


Let's demonstrate the use of a burst skill.

After a character selects a burst skill, they'll get to select an action for their normal turn. Additionally, the character's info box will turn orange, to let you know that they have a burst skill selected.

Nophica's tits! Did you all see those godsdamned swords made of light?!
Yup.
Ah, I see! When we exert effort in combat, we leave behind trace amounts of spent runes. What the guildmaster has taught us is how to coalesce this inert energy into techniques we could not possibly perform with our own physical energy. Oh, this is exciting, I had no idea that there were ongoing efforts into the study of rune utilization out west!
I'm doubtful the guildmaster has any knowledge of the science—are runic studies a form of science?—behind burst techniques. Still, I am amazed that our cooperative efforts in battle generated energy could do that. Fascinating.
Man, that's what Teach was holding back from me?! I'm gonna give him such a cussing next time I see him...



Look, over there, one of the fawns that the soldier mentioned.
I would hazard a guess that it is moving towards that patch of flora, to eat.
I've got an idea.


...I know it's a monster, but this feels rather cruel.
It may feel bad, but this fawn will eventually grow into a full deer, one which will inevitably harm other explorers. It's best that we take care of the problem now.


It's kill or be killed, and this thing hasn't learned that yet.



If you walk into an FOE while it's looking directly away from you, you will get a preemptive attack.

Preemptive attacks give your party one free turn where the enemy will not get an action. During this time, if choose to escape from the battle, escape will be guaranteed, unless the battle is inescapable—which basically only happens for boss fights.

The opposite of a preemptive attack is a blindside, where the enemies get a free turn without your party being able to take any actions. Blindsides are really nasty, as you might surmise. Thankfully, due to a bug introduced in EO4 as a result of modifications to the preemptive attack formula, blindsides are rarer than in other EO games.

Furyfawn
Level: 8HP: 248STR: 12TEC: 13VIT: 9AGI: 13LUC: 11DS: 35
EXP Given: 336
Damage Vulnerabilities:
125% 125% 125%
125% 100% 125%
Disable Vulnerabilities:
50% 50% 50% 50% 50% 50%
10% 10% 100%
100% 100% 100%
  • Stomp: Deals medium bash damage to one party member. Fast.
  • Stomp: Deals 170% melee STR-based bash damage to one party member. Has a speed modifier of +5, and a base accuracy of 99%.
  • Furyfawns prefer using normal attacks over Stomp.
  • 30% chance to use Stomp.
  • 70% chance to attack.
Drops:
  • Fawn Hide: 80% chance. Sells for 44 en.
    • Chemise (20 DEF): Made from 1 Fawn Hide and 1 Thin Wing (Woodfly Drop 2). Costs 220 en.
  • Fawn Hoof: 60% chance. Sells for 57 en.
    • Crushing Club (38 ATK): Made from 1 Fawn Hoof and 1 Granite (Mine: Lush Woodlands B3F). Costs 440 en.
An enterprising hunter might think a young fawn would be easy prey.

Don't.
Furyfawns are very easy to kill, by design. Not only do they have very low HP and VIT, but they take an extra 25% damage from every element—except for ice, for some reason.

That's never not going to feel cool!
That's because it's cool, and nothing can change my mind on that.


So, here's a fun trick my mom taught me. Eine, go hit the fawn.
Me?


I don't appear to have significantly injured it.
Well, yeah, but look!


I...appear to have caused some kind of minor explosion?
Sorta. See, if you make the right mixture of explosive chemicals, and coat a sword in it, you can just absolutely cover a monster in the stuff, and the next time someone hits it, boom! Rapiers work too, just gotta coat the tip in it instead of the edges.
Fascinating! The resonance's power appears to be proportional to the initial force of Shelly's strike...
I'm sure there's a lot more to it than what I understand. All I need to know, though, is that this stuff's powerful.
Who's your mom?
Tell you after it's dead.
ohhhh LINKS ohhh yeah baby oh YEAH that's some GOOD SHIT RIGHT THERE

Poor thing.





One less big monster other explorers'll have to worry about.
Who's your mom?
Right, you asked that. I dunno if she was that active near Armoroad, but you ever heard of Bloody Valentine?



The scourge of the western seas?!
—!
Yep. Aeaea born-and-raised, if you were curious. Went way far west to actually do her thing, though.
...I suddenly understand where your commitment to only plundering well-to-do merchants and their ships comes from.
I did sorta borrow that from her, eheh.
Is— Is it true that your mother plundered the Twelve Venerable Sisters Monastery on her own?! After having been taken in by the monsatery after a priest found her grievously injured on a nearby coast?!
You're missing some important details—
No, I'm not! I know everything about that tale!
...Oh, gods, they've written stories about Mom already, huh? I guess the monastery's a pretty easy thing to write about. Alright, hit me, what details do you think you know about Mom and the monastery?
I've no doubt that the story I read was embellished in some respects, but is it true that Lady Valentine—
She'd slap you if she heard you call her that. You can just call her Valentine.
...I will do my best to remember that. Anyway, is it true that Valentine plundered the monastery because the archbishop was planning on handing her to local authorities?!

L-Lady Shelly?
Oh, for the gods' sake, Mom, you egotist... Okay, look, we can talk about this more later, but whatever you read in that book, Eine? It's probably true. Sounds like Mom gave details to whoever wrote it. Aaaaaahhhh, I hope she didn't embarass herself...


Received shea fruit x2 and dragon's blood x2.
Wonderous news, friends: I managed to obtain some dragon's blood!
That should take care of Wynne's request, then. Thank you, Xiaohu.



This formation can also serve as an introduction to evasion-cancelling disables. If that woodfly manages to inflict blind on someone, then they're left wide open to the frogs using Jump on them without the possibility of missing.


That did not happen, though.

I forgot to use Harper and Xiaohu's skill points until the rest of the party reaches level 7 as well.


It's tingly.
That would be because this ring is imbued with electric power. I wonder who could've forged this...
The lightning ring is our first bit of equipment that grants whoever equips it access to a specific skill. In the lightning ring's case, it gives the equipper the ability to use a rank 1 Lightning Rune in battle. I really should've put this on Eine, he has enough TEC to deal far more than chip damage with it.


Can you whack this frog until it stops moving, Xiaohu?
I...can certainly try!


Wah!


That took longer than I would have liked.



We got the frog juice, though. Thank you, Xiaohu.
I'm happy to help!


Yay, everyone's level 7 now.

Another rank of Vanguard for Shelly.

I should be fine to leave Taunt at rank 2 for a bit. In the meanwhile, I'll be doing something most people never bother with: attempting to make use of fortress attack skills! I'll need to get Ace outfitted with a mace again.

Now that Harper has at least one rank in the skills she needs to be useful, I have her grab the first rank of her class skill. The sniper class skill allows bow skills to deal critical hits, something normally reserved for normal attacks. In addition, the class skill also increases the amount of damage that Harper's critical hits deal. The first rank increases critical hit damage from 150% to 170%.

Eine grabs the first rank of Line Heal, in case a really serious emergency happens. I don't think he needs Steady Hands quite yet.

And then I forgot to invest Xiaohu's skill point. Oops.

The hell's a blacksmithing hammer doing all the way out here?
Your guess is as good as mine. Wynne did say these are expensive, though, so... Hey, free expensive thing.
I wonder why no-one has bothered to claim it before us. The container we found the ring in earlier at least seemed to have, at one point, held many other rings.
I guess people just don't go into this room much?
There was a similar hammer back near the first furyfawn, but I neglected to grab it, as I didn't mark it on my map. I'll remember to go back and get it in a future update.

Oh, look, another fawn.


Ah, there we go, that's the correct choice.

At least we killed it before it realized what was happening...



The monster is not yet within view, but its hatred and malice toward you is palpable already! You can check your map to find and challenge this new enemy, or attempt to avoid it entirely.
Whatever's making that noise, it sounds sad, and pissed off.
I suspect we may have angered the monster that birthed the fawns we killed.
...Ragelopes. The deer.
Huh. Back in Armoroad, we called them "furyhorns," on account of the fact that they're horned things that sent people into a fury.
I don't think this is the best place to discuss the names we give to monsters right now.
Whoops, right.


Received shea fruit x3.
It's moving fast. We need to get the plants and...
Harper?
...O-Over there.
As you follow the path, you happen upon tremendous pools of blood at the corner and wince to yourself. Lying in the bloody pools are the sad corpses of the city's soldiers!
Deugh.
I... I think I'm going to be ill...
And not merely one or two... Their bodies are scattered at odd intervals, each one's face twisted in fear. They must have panicked... There are large, hoof-shaped dents in their armor. You do not doubt that these mark the fatal blows.
So that's where those missing soldiers were...
Gonna guess that's the work of a furyhorn.


We should go.
Was just about to suggest that.
No complaints here...



That hammer was warm. What does it do?
Ah, man, I begged my boss ta buy one'a these, but she just wouldn't listen. See, when you whack a weapon with this thing, it takes some'a da frikshun from when you hit a monster with it, and makes a little boom!
Oh, sort of like what I do.
Except you cover entire weapons in explosive solutions to accomplish that. From how Wynne tells it, the effect of augmenting a weapon with this hammer is far less damaging, but also far less likely to cause a weapon to shatter.
So dat's why ya buy a buncha swords n' rapiers all at once, huh?
Ding ding ding.
Kinda makes me sad to see so many good weapons get blown apart in da line'a duty... But hey, ya buy in bulk, so I can't be too sad.
Fire forges, on weapons, add an additional 7% fire damage to that weapon's attacks.

Well, that's the very simple version of it. When you perform a normal attack with a weapon that has elemental forges, or if you use a skill that inherits the equipped weapon's damage type (such as Sonic Raid), internally, the game runs the damage formula again, only this time, it multiplies the result by however strong your current elemental forge effect is. If you had, say, three fire forges on one weapon, 21% of the result of the second damage formula run would be dealt as fire damage to the target.

These forges were somewhat popular in EO3, due to the prevalence of the skill Warrior Might in EO3's metagame. I'll summarize things and say that Warrior Might was capable of dealing extremely high damage, and it inherited the equipped weapon's damage type. Elemental forges were, thus, far and away the best way to increase Warrior Might's damage even further, since each forge effectively added an extra 10% to Warrior Might's total damage.

Sadly, even though Warrior Might is not in EO4, and no skills that inherit the equipped weapon's damage type are even close to the power it could reach, the elemental forges still ate a nerf in EO4 anyways—the power per forge was reduced to 7%, from the aforementioned 10%.

Ah, ya brought me da dragon's bloods! Okay, lemme see what else da mats in this box can make first...
Berund Atelier has the following new items in stock:


Thanks bunches for gettin' me da dragon's blood. Ya can buy oils for ya weapons now.
What do these oils do?
Just dump the bottle all over ya weapon, and it'll make monsters feel like dey got hit by both the weapon, and some kinda magic. Well, uh, sometimes. Most'a the weird stuff ya guys do don't play nice with da oil.
Still, I'm sure we'll find some use for it.
Dat'd make me happy! Anyways, ya can get ya reward at da bar.
Oils are the only source of imbues in EO4. They're single-target items that give the target a buff that turns their equipped weapon's damage type into composite physical and elemental. Like my note above with fire forges, they also apply to skills that inherit the equipped weapon's damage type, such as Sonic Raid. Unlike fire forges, the oils do not add what's basically an extra attack—they just change the weapon's damage type temporarily.

While you can use the oils purely for damage purposes, their main use, I find, is letting you get conditional drops that require killing with a specific elemental damage type, without having access to any proper skills that deal that type of damage.

Poison gasses attempt to inflict poison on all enemies, with a 40% base chance. The poison deals 51 to 60 damage.

I try to be positive when it comes to gasses, but poison gasses are the one exception. 51 to 60 damage isn't awful for random encounters now, but it's useless against FOEs and bosses, and starts falling off for even random encounters...

checks notes

After we leave the Lush Woodlands. Oh, and poison gasses' low damage also makes them completely useless for the one "kill with poison damage" conditional drop in EO4, as the enemy that has that drop has 5208 HP.


We've completed Lady Wynne's request, Lady Kirtida.
So I've heard, yes. She left this sword as your reward. She...also advised that you be careful when handling it.


Yes, I can certainly smell why. That is an undeniably, and literally, toxic odor.



The poison blade has 28 ATK, and three poison forges on it. Poison weapon forges are slightly special, since they also have to have a poison damage formula, in addition to a base infliction chance.

If you're coming from EO3, don't worry, poison forges actually do deal damage, this time. Sort of. Instances of poison inflicted by weapons with poison forges have a base damage of half the weapon's ATK. Instances of poison inflicted by the poison blade we just received would deal between 15 and 24 damage.

Since endgame weapons cap out below 200 ATK, the most poison damage you'll see from poison forges is 103, if you added poison forges to the highest-ATK weapon in the game. Not terribly impressive...


Oh, new bar patrons showed up when I wasn't looking.

Aged baboon hunter:
...I'll be over here. Away from that man.
I'm curious why—
Hey, it's you kids again!
Okay, now I get why!
You're the ones that're taking care of that damn monkey near the box, right?!
Sir, please, lower your voice! We can hear you. To answer your question, yes.
But I'm just talking normally! Anyway, glad someone's got backbone! But backbone won't do anything for you if you charge angry baboons head-on, like an amateur!
Yes, we're well aware, we had an...unfortunate run-in with a baboon before.
We've been kicking the asses of every one we've met after the first, though.
Now THAT is what I like to see! You don't know how many dumb kids just attack without thinking about defense. Real pros don't neglect their defense! The best offense is a good defense!
Newly returned fortress:
...
...
...
...
Well?
What, did you need something from us?
Aren't you the guild that accepted that request asking for culantro? Don't you want to know where you can find it? The hidden room on the first floor of the Lush Woodlands where you can get culantro?
No, we already know where to look.
...Oh. Okay. You don't need a reminder?
We could use one.
Ah, okay! Well, all you have to do is let yourself get chased by that bear on the west side. You'll figure it out.
Thank you.




That advice was completely useless and cryptic.
They still seemed happy to tell us it, at least. Making people happy feels nice.
'Fore we wrap up for the day, anyone wanna go bash that monkey's brains in, and get some culantro?
I certainly am!
Let's wrap up our unfinished business before the other five take their turn exploring, yes.



When you look ahead, you see the monster's back, as if jealously guarding something! You have no doubt. This is the target. You mentally review whether you are prepared to do battle with the monster...
You're gonna regret the day you started messing with this box, ape.


Let's go!



It's a normal battle against an angry baboon. Nothing special going on here.




A turn 1 victory is a far cry from how the first encounter with an angry baboon went.


Hopefully, other monsters will see what happened to that baboon, and leave this communal lifeline alone.
Any damage to the box?
...No, it's okay. Someone left a note in here, though.
Words can't express how glad I was to find the Ariadne thread, so I left a gift to show my thanks! Take it!


My word! Whoever left this here must've been very grateful for our gift; this is an exceptionally rare energizing tonic.
An amrita?
Amrita.
Ah, yes, I should've expected you two would have prior knowledge.
Once the game decides to resolve the box event, a few things can happen.

If you left leaves in the box, all you'll get is someone carving "Do not toy with people's lives!" on the side of the box. Which, yeah, you'd deserve that.

If you left an item in the box, be it an Ariadne thread or Nectar (both have the same outcomes), the game then does some RNG. There's a 25% chance that all you'll get is some unknown explorer thanking you for saving their life.

However, if you avoid that chance, then you have a chance to be given one of three items: a medica II, an amrita, or a theriaca A. Each has an equal chance of being given.

Medica IIs restore 100 HP to one person. Certainly not bad to have early, but a bit overkill, in my opinion.

Theriaca As remove all binds from one party member. The boss of the Lush Woodlands can inflict arm binds, and those can be really dangerous for physical damage dealers, so having a consumable that can cure them makes for a good backup plan. You also won't be able to farm them until we're done with the 1st Land, so.

For my money, though, amritas are the real prize from the event. Amritas are consumables that restore TP, which makes them incredibly important, especially if you're running a defensive party. Unfortunately, the EO team saw fit, starting from EO4, to both nerf the effects of amritas, and to make them a pain in the ass to farm for. We'll cross that specific bridge when we come to it, I guess, but...ugh. I guess that does make receiving free amritas from a quest or event just feel that much nicer.

That was fast.

Arm binds shut down a lot of early enemies hard, so allocating more skill points to it is a pretty easy decision.

Both of Xiaohu's accumulated skill points go into Runic Gleam, which is almost maxed out.

Ah, the request is completed, and all it took was moderate discomfort.
Received culantro x3.
Once you accept Dalla's quest, you can start gathering culantro from this point. In fact, until you turn the quest in, you're guaranteed to get nothing but culantro from this point. If you really feel up for some tedium, you can just keep farming culantro, selling it, sleeping, and then farming more. It does sell for noticeably more money than other materials, though it does not actually make anything.

We killed the box baboon.
Ah, wonderful. Word of your accomplishment has already spread among some of the novice explorers; they're speaking quite highly of your guild.
Ah, well, I don't know if it's necessarily worthy of such praise—
That note we found in the box said that the thread we left in it saved some group's life. I think the praise is fine.
A fair point.
Here is your reward, then.


Another hammer. This one's...made of gold?
No, sadly.
Damn.
Only the handle is made of gold. The head is simply painted.
Half-damn.
We should give this to Wynne and see what it does.
Damn.






Still trying to max out Vanguard on Shelly.

Holy Smite is the skill I'm interested in, so Ace puts another point in Bolt STrike.

I thought about this for a while, and decided to have Eine put another skill point into Healing. Reaching the rank 5 breakpoint for it will probably be important.

Judging by the scent emanating from your pack, I assume you've also gathered the culantro for Dalla?
Mhm. Here you go.
Thank you. I have to wonder what dish she will use this for... Well, I suppose the only way to know for sure is to sample it myself. In any case, your reward.


Well, that'll save us a bunch of money.






Dag, but is dat thing sparkly. It's gotta be da luck hammer. Nice find, dat one's real expensive.
Damn.
Give somethin' a few whacks with this thing, and it'll bring ya tons'a riches! Maybe. No guarantees, doe.
The luck hammer lets us apply LUC forges to weapons, which will be very important for Ray.
♪ No music ♪


Mmmmmmmman, I'm beat. Past few days have been a lot.
I assume we would all appreciate a rest period?
Mhm.
I have much to record in my journal, and then ponder!
Yeah, not gonna lie and pretend I'm not tired. I'll let Merula know to get the others ready for their first forays tomorrow.









Later that night...

...
...
Waiting for something to cook is not particularly exciting.
Mm-mm. Do you have any magic that could make things cook faster?
Do you mean a fire-elemental incantation?
No, that'd just burn it. Can you make the oven and everything in it go faster?
I'm not sure what you mean.
Like, for every second that happens to us, make ten seconds happen to the oven and the goose.
Oh, a localized temporal distortion.
Sure.
Unfortunately, incantations that can affect time are beyond my ken. I'm sure there's a way to affect time with runes, but as of now, I can only manipulate the first three dimensions.
Time is weird.
Agreed.
It's like there's a bunch of different mes, all sitting in the same spot, but then there's other mes that are getting up from this chair, and then there's other mes that are walking towards the oven, and then the other mes in front of the oven are getting the other geese that are cooked.
I...do not perceive time in that way, but I suppose it would make sense.

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