Update 6

Update 6: The First Dragon

I am the chair of the Miross council, and Grif...

I hear only a few of you are up to snuff.

Hey! You want me to show you what I can do?

I would be more than happy to show you exactly what I did to a bear.

Please don't cause a scene here of all places.

Now, now. Every cloud has a silver lining. Let us join forces. We'll be grateful to have the hand-picked squad of the Tiger of Kazan.

Hmph. They aren't knights, you know. They're mercenaries.

In this world, money can purchase many things. Knights and mercenaries both protect the Queen.

Ahem. The reason you summoned us here?

...Let me explain things. In Rorakka Forest, northwest of Miross, monsters spawn. Because of the threat they pose, we have sent knights. But with little success

According to Pleroma, some signs of Dragon physiology are present. That explains how our knights were defeated. Additionally, peculiar flower growth has been observed in the area. Apparently, they can affect the nervous system. Wildlife has gone rabid, and humans are weakened and even pass out...

Volg! Don't drone on and on to our guests! They're skilled Hunters, they know what to do. Cut to the chase and tell them what we need beaten!

Fine, fine. Talk to Nowari if you need further details. The main thing is that we need these Dragons or whatever defeated.

Northwest in Rorakka, our scouts are at the gate. Meet them first.

Lend us your strength. We would be very grateful.

If we try to head in this room...

Oops. Sorry.

Now at this point, you should head to Rorakka Forest. However...

If we head back to Kazan and head to Doris' room, we'll get a very easily missable conversation since we don't have much of a reason to do this.

No, I saw your eyes. I knew it was the truth as soon as you said it. My friend Menas here is still skeptical, but that's the way he is.

I'm glad you trust me. Frankly, I'm surprised that you do. I had no intention of reaching out that day, until I saw you.

It's very lucky that you did. Thanks to that, we can respond quickly. We're dealing with an unprecedented crisis.

Aren't you afraid? This is a hopeless battle.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't. But when you give up, that's the end. As long as my sword-arm works... no. I'll fight as long as I'm breathing!

You really do remind me of my beloved.

I wonder what's going on in there.

Let's go see for ourselves. Hey Doris, who are you-

...Talking to?

Odd. I didn't see anyone leave.

Given that you all heard him talking to someone else as well, I guess I'm not going crazy yet.

Exiting then reentering the room fills up the room with people again. Spooky. Anyways, enough diversions. Time to finally get on with the main plot.

By updating my equipment first. You should have a ton of money by this point, so just take this time to outfit your party at Miross.

Okay, now let's head into Rorakka Forest, for real this time.

That's us! Don't wear out the name.

What exactly is happening here?

I am a scholar from Pleroma, Nowari. Have you noticed how this forest looks? The flowers blanketing it - the Bloom is what I call it.

This was localized as Dragonsbane in the 4th game. From my understanding, the Japanese term for this wasn't really a word, so they had to make up something else. I'll just refer to this as the Bloom as to be consistent with the fan translation, since we'll be seeing that term a lot.

This plant is entirely alien to our planet. It's a new branch of life. These unknown lifeforms, the Dragons and the Bloom... We of Pleroma need you to investigate these dangerous encroachments.

They're on the special joint mission for Hunters from Miross and Kazan.

Yes sir!

The knight moves out of the way, leaving us free to go on.

The others should have reported back by now, but I've heard nothing. Use extreme caution.

And here are the last of the random encounters in the prologue.

Bigpig
Level: 9
LIFE: 40
ATK: 45
DEF: 20
INT: 10
SPD: 16
Attack Type: Blunt
Size: Large
Exp: 35
Gold: 9
Item Drops:
-Normal: Beast Fang - 30% Drop Rate. 2 needed to unlock the Dagger. (Dagger, +14 ATK, +2 SPD.)
--Tough tusk with lots of uses.
-Rare: Piggy Meat - Don't kill with elemental damage. 15% Drop Rate.
--Boar meat. For carnivores. Increases ATK for the day.
Damage Multipliers:
Slash: 100% Blunt: 100% Thrust: 100%
Fire: 100% Ice: 100% Lightning: 100%

Skills:

Rush: Randomly attacks the party with Thrust damage 3 times, dealing 80% melee ATK-based damage per hit. Has a speed modifier of 80%.

Bigpigs are kind of annoying. They're fairly tanky, and hit decently hard.

Hornet
Level: 8
LIFE: 35
ATK: 41
DEF: 12
INT: 11
SPD: 18
Attack Type: Thrust
Size: Small
Exp: 33
Gold: 8
Item Drops:
-Normal: Insect Stinger - 30% Drop Rate.
--Stinger of a Hornet.
-Rare: N/A
Damage Multipliers:
Slash: 100% Blunt: 100% Thrust: 100%
Fire: 100% Ice: 100% Lightning: 100%

Skills:

Poison Needle: Deals 120% melee ATK-based Thrust damage to one party member, and has a 30% chance of inflicting Poison. Has a Poison power of 25% (Deals 8 Poison damage.) Has a speed modifier of 90%.

Hornets are also kind of annoying. The Poison damage isn't much, but considering what gets introduced in this dungeon, it's very annoying to deal with.

Anyone up for roasted piggy?

I would be if you didn't overcook it.

All in all, the random encounters here aren't too bad.

So this is a fairly simple dungeon, it's just one area. Oh wait but first...

I want you to take a close look at our party member's life pools.

I'm not sure why, but those flowers unsettle me.

Same here. And they're everywhere too.

We're probably gonna have to walk through them at some point.

How bad could it be? They're just flowers.

Those red tiles on the map are the Bloom. You can actually walk through the Bloom.

OW!

After 2 steps, a Bloom tile will disappear.

Notice how Nila lost HP. Okay, so here's one of the central mechanics of the game, the Bloom. When you walk through the Bloom, your party takes 2% of their max HP as damage. For each Bloom tile. Now the numbers may seem a bit off here. That's because I'm playing with the USA patch applied, which lowers the Bloom damage by 60% (So the party takes 0.8% of their max HP as damage, which is far more manageable.)

Some of you are probably wondering why I'm wimping out and not playing the game on the base difficulty. I mean that's probably a good question. After all, the Bloom does add to some tension to dungeons, meaning that your party could be at low health and in danger of being attacked and finished off by random encounters. On paper, anyway. In practice, all it really does is annoy you, and forces you to take more healing items along, and/or a Knight, who has a skill that can reduce Bloom damage, and forces you to heal up every few steps.

The other problem with this is that the difficulty drops off a cliff after the Raging Beast. That was pretty much the last time the game puts up any actual resistance. If the random encounters were intended to be balanced with Bloom damage in mind, it doesn't really work. The random encounters are so weak that you're not likely to be under any threat. To the point where your entire party could be at 1 HP, and they wouldn't be in any danger. The end result is that the Bloom does nothing except force you to go into the menu more often and doesn't make an easy game all that more difficult. It shouldn't come as a surprise that the later games ended up dropping this mechanic entirely. (Except for VFD, which brought it back for one section as a callback to this game.)

Oh and for the record, the Bloom regrows when you leave the area. So you can't just clear out the area then leave to heal up.

Welcome to 7th Dragon.

A nice piece of equipment, except I already bought this back in Miross. Oops. Anyways, that's the only treasure in this dungeon.

Urp. My stummy hurts...

Oh great. Poison is a pretty annoying ailment. For one thing, it never goes away during the battle.

It also lasts outside of the battle. Fortunately at this point, it'll wear off naturally after walking around a bit. Of course you have to take the Bloom into consideration if it's active in the area you're in.

There's a healing spring here. Unfortunately, these can't cure status effects. Walking around a bit, outside of items and skills, is the only way to dispel them.

Yeah, we found out the hard way too. Hey, are they gonna be alright?

I... don't know. I-I guess if they get medical attention soon? There's only so much I can do.

A healing spring is nearby. I'm sure they'll be fine.

If you intend to proceed, summon all your courage!

Starting from this point onward, the game will warn you if there's an upcoming boss fight so you can prepare properly.

Oh, and if the party walks through Bloom in a cutscene, they won't take any damage from it, or clear out the Bloom.

So this is our enemy... I've never seen anything like it before!

Hmm, I thought these were only mere fairy tales. I see I was wrong.

Fairy tale or not, it won't be a match for Odyssey!

Video: The First Dragon

The First Dragon
Level: 8
LIFE: 560
ATK: 46
DEF: 22
INT: 18
SPD: 18
Attack Type: Blunt
Size: N/A
Exp: 345
Gold: 12
Item Drops: N/A
Damage Multipliers:
Slash: 100% Blunt: 100% Thrust: 100%
Fire: 100% Ice: 100% Lightning: 100%
Ailment Susceptibility:
Death: 20% Masked Pain: 100% Skill Seal: 25%
Fear: 25% Curse: 50% Bleed: 25%
Poison: 25% Sleep: 25% Confuse: 25%
Paralysis: 50% Blind: 10% Stun: 100%

Skills:

Sonic Boom: Deals 85% ranged ATK-based Slash damage to the entire party. Has a speed modifier of 80%.
Sandstorm: 50% chance of inflicting Blind on the entire party. Has a speed modifier of 80%.

That's certainly an apt description. So yeah, ran into a dragon at last. The First Dragon is actually kind of a step down from the Raging Beast. Really, the fight is more annoying than hard. It doesn't hit as hard as the Raging Beast, and can sometimes end up wasting its turn entirely if Sandstorm whiffs.

Gonna have Stella open up with Defense down.

Come over here, I promise this will hurt you.

Edward is gonna try to inflict Poison on The First Dragon, since that's one of my better damage options at this point.

I'm all fired up!

Nila will just be Nila and nuke things.

And Dia will power up the entire party.

Have a little heat wave!

Hold still you stupid little-

GAH!

Of all the attacks to open with, it chose that one.

Huh!? What!? What's going on! I can't see a thing!

This is inconvenient.

...Uh huh, whatever.

Blind reduces the target's accuracy by a severe amount (I have no idea how much it reduces it by), but also makes it so that the targets can't evade any attacks.

Sight is not needed for my taaaask. ♪

SCALE CHOP-

Huh!?

Off to a great start.

Hard Words should help this battle go by more smoothly.

Okay, Nila's spell hit at least.

Yeah, it really doesn't hit all that hard.

If that's all you can muster, I wonder just how insignificant those attacks will become after this.

Gotcha! I got it, right?

Nnnnope.

Fiddlesticks!

...At this point, why not?

Dia has nothing left to do, so she's just gonna throw out regular attacks for the rest of the battle.

Oh, sorry. I think you just came down with a bad case of cyanide.

And that should make things go by quicker.

Bah.

...Was that supposed to do anything?

Even if it used Sonic Boom, it would barely do anything to this party.

Ha! I knew I would get you eventually!

And that is pretty potent Poison damage.

Time for me to bring out my ultimate attack!

Now Stella can spam EX boosted Power Crashes, especially since she regained her sight.

Edward will just Cure people since his job is done.

BIG FALLING AXE!

Oh wow, that is a good amount of damage.

...My, this dragon is quite pathetic, isn't it?

Hang on, let me just stitch that up.

Now this is just silly.

This fight is pretty much over.

Ashes to ashes.

Yeah, not really a tough fight. If it spams Sandstorm, you might be in for an annoying time, but it can't really damage you.

Incidentally, that little counter in the bottom right corner decreased by 1 after that fight.

The Bloom disappears, and everyone heads into the forest..

We're fine. But once we killed that Dragon, all those flowers disappeared.

So the Dragon is the source. I don't mean to say I can fully explain the Bloom and the Dragons. But at least we know that slaying the Dragons can eradicate the Bloom. Thanks to you, that is... I am heartily grateful. However, as you might expect, the Dragon you fought was formidable.

Pfft. Formidable. Yes, let's go with that.

It looks like everyone is barely standing.

I think those flowers are getting to us. I'm getting kind of sleepy.

It's critical you return to Kazan and recover from your fatigue. I will report to the Miross Council myself. Let's leave at once.

We are automatically transported back to Kazan.

Folks are going to be swapping stories about your group.

Oh yes, we have some things to tell you.

Fade to black.

Neither easily resolved... We've got a problem.

The Miross matter has been dealt with. But this problem seems deeper than I previously believed.

...Agreed. But today was a victory, no mistake. We'll worry tomorrow. And try again. Odyssey came through. Tired from battle, but you're still standing, eh? It's been a rough day. Be sure to rest well for the times to come.

I'll have Erin arrange for a doctor. You should be seen before you rest. Here's your reward as well. You certainly earned it.

This counts as turning in the mission. It's done automatically for us here. Anyways, let's see what the town has to say about our accomplishment before we check in for an appointment.

Between the Dragons and everything else, it's 10 years of hard labor, no parole! Hmmm... But you guys look beat too. I can't rest till you do!

But you look haggard. Maybe it'd be best if you took a break?

So you're saying that you'd rather be out there in our place, hmmm?

...Well, I suppose it beats being on the front lines. But can you hurry it up?

These late nights have my head in the clouds... ...zzz...national...

I was worried he was going to sneak after you. Honestly, that look of his! So I'm especially happy to see you come back safe.

But this still isn't a picnic area. Finish up and get out of here.

Well, I hope you have a good day too. _Jerk.

Support skills are absolutely indispensible for tough foes. Offensive skills? Defensive skills? You have to use tactics.

I hope that sometime in my travels across the world, I get to see you again.

Same here!

You're not allowed to leave town after beating the First Dragon, so if you left those quests unfinished, they're gone for good.

If there are any that are lovely shades of pink or blue, call me in!

It's just a favor! Nothing weird, I promise!

...We'll think about it. _{Just back away slowly.}

At least... as long as my hip stays quiet...

No good reason for it, but... Well, maybe I shouldn't worry about it for now.

I would be grateful from the bottom of my heart.

When you're asleep, you can't act until you've woken up. To make things worse, you can't dodge and you take extra damage. At least getting hurt will get you back up. But it's a rude awakening!

...Are you trying to tell us something?

Now I really want to take a nap.

Shopkeepers need certain materials to upgrade their stock of equipment! I wanted to try it myself, but I can't even find the stuff I don't want in here.

Some rude people have taken to calling me a "gossipy dowager"! Have you ever heard such a thing? I mean, really!

Man, it's a big relief having you on the job.

Can you imagine it? You'd be saving so much money on lodging, too!

Even with that reward money, I still don't think we can afford this place.

Well, I've got enough to drink for now, so I'm fine! Gahaha!

Neither, we just need some rest...

But the things I've heard... I like Kazan! So if I can help you all by keeping my stall open, I'll stand proud with you!

Is Kazan all right? This country has no order of knights to protect it. Perhaps I should hurry home. Aizhen, at least, will always be safe.

And that's all the town has to say. Let's go see Erin now.

Video: Invasion

The President himself chose your guild without doubt or hesitation. The doctor is on his way. Just hold on a minute or two for him.

Fade to black.

From a blow to the head? Or some kind of poison?

I can't say for sure. I've never seen it before.

The screen shakes as the music halts, and a loud crashing sound is heard.

What in the world was that?!

Erin goes outside to investigate.

This... this is... What's going on?!

Not even the President could handle a situation like this! I'm outta here!

The two men flee.

H-huh!? What's going on!?

I don't think we have much of a choice here!

Our band of dragonslayers finally showed their faces! It's time to fight back!

The screen shakes, and roaring is heard.

What is it?

More dragons!

Th-there's so many of them...!

What's going on? Is it... The power of the Bloom?

Ye gods, they've overrun the town!

Odyssey, this is bad. What do we do?

How are we supposed to know!? We only killed one of those blasted things!

Keep it together!

Menas! We must begin an orderly retreat now! Escaping is a lot better than defeat!

Yes, sir! Organize everyone who can still stand in the plaza! We must get the injured to Miross, somehow!

Right!

The party leaves to help the city evacuate. But...

I'm... staying here. It might buy them some time.

Absolutely not! You think I'm deserting you?

Listen, Menas. Someday, we will defeat the Dragons. And when that happens, Odyssey will be waving the banner high. But today, you and I know that the battle is lost. Leave now, Menas!

...