Earthlock - Part 18 - Not Mushroom to Move
7And FINALLY we are moving out of the desert. Sure, it's called Scrollroad Desert on the map and the HUD, but this is about as much a desert as a water bear is a bear. No, Scrollroad Desert is a cave, or perhaps a maze of paths within a cave. Some mysterious rituals had occurred in here due to a cult having been set up here, but that no longer matters. Instead, Scrollroad Desert is the native habitat of the Mushrina, a species of what I presume are carnivorous fungi. The individual ones aren't much of a threat, but when they're in quantity, they take full advantage of the fact that the Poison status can stack in this game, and before you know it, your whole party's HP is on the verge of running out because a quarter of their HP gets depleted each turn.
The cultists have also left their bodies shambling about within this cave, which is our introduction to Undead enemies. For the most part, you can treat them like normal enemies, as they're vulnerable to attacks as normal, albeit they're kind of resilient. Undead enemies, however, take damage from things that would normally heal. That makes Gnart an essential team member to fight these guys due to his Regen skill, which will take off a chunk of an Undead enemy's HP and, due to the way it heals between turns for a few more turns, will continue to deplete Undead HP for quite a while. (Remember this, because it's going to come up later on. Not sure what part number though, as I haven't edited my footage that far yet.) They come in Undead Cultists and Undead Drifters. Not sure what the difference between them is, but I think Cultists specialize in magic--I mean amri--and Drifters specialize in physical attacks.
We have a team of experienced fighters here, a group that's taken out the scourge of the desert and a notorious pirate captain, but the Mushrina and the cultists collectively make Scrollroad a very dangerous region to travel through, and along the way, we see an Owl Tide NPC who requests the team escorts him through to the end. Don't worry, this is not an escort mission. He'll disappear and will be a non-factor until we reach the exit. He's really just here to provide exposition for what's going on here, and he'll provide a hint at the end too.
Another point of interest is a man named Wiggle. He was the head of a project with a lot of backers. The problem is that, whatever he was working on, it went awry, and all of his backers perished in the process. They now roam the land as spirits, Silent Partners, seen and interactible only with a pair of goggles that let you see spirits. This manifest in-game as a Talent Card, and gameplay-wise, these spirits appear only when you play as that character. I equipped it onto Gnart due to a combination of him being the fastest runner and because his healing spells make it easier to fight the spirits. We'll start seeing them in Part 20.
And if you notice that a game funded via Kickstarter has a group of enemies called "backers" or "partners," well, you catch on quick. Unless you read this description before the video began, upon which I gave it away for you.
We also run into a giant Mushrina. I don't think this team is ready yet, honestly. I fought as hard as I could, but between it summoning regular Mushrina and the Poison destroying my team, I had them retreatand just continue the story as normal. I'll return here later.
And at the end of this video, we catch up to the Ninja! Her name is Aderyn, she is up to no good, she REALLY wants whatever that thing is that lets Amon control amri, and she is the boss of this dungeon. Yeah, it was actually pretty short. The fight will begin in the next video.