Magic Cave
-Vamps (bats) are weak to physical and gremlins (rats?) are weak to magic.
-There’s a bat following us around that I can’t interact with. A black bat with glowing red eyes. I don’t trust her for a second.
Swarmed.
-More of these “Sealed by a mysterious force” boxes. Grrrr! They’re everywhere. I have to imagine we’ll go through the world again once we get access to those, like a World of Ruin thing.
-A dead soldier in here wrote a final note in blood, that the Juggler in Magus’s Castle raises his guard when attacked. This might mean that I should stick with magic attacks, or that I have to stagger out his attacks if he raises his guard temporarily.
-The Magic Cave popped me out on the continent to the east, next to a big, Ultimecia-esque castle.
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Magus’s Lair
-Spooky music as we approach. Very impressive castle, with bats flitting about, the moonlight providing a halo around a giant stone dragon at the top.
40% chance that the dragon comes alive.
-A bat is still following me. Is it Magus in disguise?
-Lack of music in the castle is freaking me out a bit.
-Two people in normal clothing are walking in one of the rooms. One says “Ha, ha” and the other says nothing. There’s a treasure chest here. My freak out levels are rising.
-A lot of people. Lurching about slowly. Including kids.
HELL NO I DON’T WANNA PLAY. I’ve seen “The Shining.” I know where this is going.
-Arrived at a throne with a sword above it. Took some treasure. Nothing happening. Going to head to the other wing of the castle.
-Gotta say once again how much stronger the tension is currently than if I were fighting random encounters. SO MUCH BETTER.
-Four kids hovering around a treasure chest.
-A dude who looks like the king or chancellor or someone wanders around the next room.
-HE CALLED MARLE PRINCESS NADIA?? How does he know she’s princess Nadia, from 400 years in the future??
-And Leene is here, talking to Frog. And Crono’s freaking mom.
Magus either time-warped and brain-sucked a bunch of people, or these are creatures like the FFV Siren who could read your mind and present people from your life to lure you into a sense of relaxation.
I’m not fucking relaxed. Another empty throne at the end of that wing.
-Save point back in the main corridor.
-Strike that. False save point. It summons some music and horrifying laughter and Ozzie appears.
-Magus is busy, but Ozzie says we have to deal with him, the swordsman Slash, and the magician Flea. Maybe the bat is Flea.
-First we have to defeat the 100 beasts in the castle. Now it’s fight time. That was some AWESOME build-up!
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Magus’s Lair – Right Wing
-Now all the people we encountered the first time around turn into monsters. The “King,” who first told Marle to go back to the castle, now says “Go back to the castle… as road kill, my dear!” Stuff like that.
-Fine. Creepy and good. But what turns the dial to 11 is that there’s no combat music. Just that eerie string, the pained laughter, and an echo effect on every sound effect.
-a lot of the monster packs are spread out and weak to magic. That means that the Ice Water tech between Marle and Frog is my bread and butter. Sorcerers are healed up by magic, so I start with Ice Water destroying the non-Sorcerers before finishing off Sorcerers with physical attacks.
-Before every fight, the tailing bat leaves. After the fight, it returns to us.
-Mini-boss. Frog guesses he’s Flea, but the targeting display says “Flea?” so I guess not.
Killed him. He stole all of Crono’s mana first though. The jerk.
-AHA! The real Flea shows herself.
She was the bat.
wait. Wait wait wait.
Is Chrono Trigger actively and overtly playing with gender norms? Genderfluid/genderqueer lieutenant? And he’s just powerful and badass and awesome, and not there intended for the player to laugh at? Is this real life?
HELL YES TEAM FLEA TEAM FLEA ALL THE WAY!!!
Do I have to kill him? Can I just recruit him to join us instead?
-NOW it’s boss time, boss music and all. He turns the room into a carpet floating in space.
-Ice Sword does pretty good damage.
-Flea has the COOLEST spell effects in the game. Dances and wind and hypno hearts and all kinds of awesome shit.
Lots of status-effects on my party, including confuse and poison and some other stuff. But we keep healing with Aura Whirl, keep whacking away with X-Strike and Ice Sword, and survive.
Please don’t be dead.
-Hard to say if he’s gone for good, but certainly looks that way. He calls out to Magus with his dying breath and leaves a Magic Tab behind.
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Magus’s Lair – Left Wing
-Very interesting. An omnicrone is directing a bunch of skeletons to dance: “For tonight, our leader is to be born!” Dafuq does that mean?
-We’re the sacrifice, whatever it is.
-Yikes. The skeletons that I thought were dancing are actually fighting each other, killing and impaling each other over and over, begging the Omnicrone for mercy. The trash fights are infinitely creepier when it’s unwilling undead servants, not just “Mwa-ha-ha, foolish human, taste my blade!” minions.
-The skeletons are definitely here against their will. Something is happening that I’m flagrantly missing. The sacrifice, the birth of the leader. Perhaps this is all for the summoning of Lavos, but I don’t think they’d consider Lavos their “leader.”
Maybe Magus is only here in a minor incarnation, and this ritual is to bring him into being completely.
-Slash, the final swordsman is at the end of the hall.
Clear history with Glenn, having lost to him and Cyrus before.
-Ice Sword hurts, but X-Strike does even more. Haste on Frog and Crono, X-Strike. Not too tough.
WHY DO I SAY THINGS LIKE THAT. Every time I do, it ends up being just the first phase. That whole time, the Swordsman was without his sword.
He grabs it from the wall, and now it’s go time.
-He lives up to his namesake, using a line-of-fire Slash attack. Moderate damage, but hasted X-Strike still does the trick. Victory!
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Magus’s Lair – Middle Wing
-The place where Ozzie first appeared ports us into a new wing.
-This appears to be an eternal gauntlet. Maybe designed to get us to 100 kills.
-Ozzie at the end of the hall.
LOLOL AND HE RUNS FOR COVER AFTER HEARING THAT HE’S ON HIS OWN
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Magus’s Lair – Ozzie’s Funhouse
-The next room down, Ozzie is operating a bunch of guillotines on conveyor belts.
Ozzie playing some Mario Maker.
He sweats as we get closer.
-Ooh, got “Doom Finger!” Looks like a Robo weapon.
-Ozzie is clearly a Donkey Kong fan.
The next room is straight from an arcade game, dodging rolly things that roll down.
-Next room, he drops a trap door.
WTF IS THIS PLACE? WE HAVE TO FIGHT SAVE POINTS?
-FUUUUCK NOOO DAMMIT GRRRR
-The room was FULL of treasure. I went to a nearby savepoint first, and it WARPED ME OUT OF THE ROOM WHYYYYY
-Phew. He sprung another trapdoor on us shortly after and we collected the treasure. Nothing great. More evil save points to fight.
-I see what’s going on. Each time we go down there, there are four “save points.” Two are fights, one is a warp point, and one is an actual save point. Three trips into this dungeon.
-Whoops. I’m such a doofus. Didn’t notice until just now that I had a new accessory in my inventory, the Hero’s Medal, that increases the crit rate of Masamune. Enjoy, Frog!
-Next room is another Donkey Kong stage, except enemies block out path. The warned-about Jugglers and Outlaws. Outlaws retaliate after getting hit, so I use Crono’s big Spincut attack to one-shot it preventing counterattack. The Juggler swaps its vulnerability each time its hit, so I have to alternate between physical and magic.
The fake-Flea was a Juggler.
-This jerkface Ozzie keeps fleeing! Grrrrr. Up and up we go.
-Finally. Nowhere to run. Boss time.
-Before we fight, Ozzie says two things of interest:
1)No attack will break his barrier. There are levers around the room, so maybe I hit those and a thing falls on him.
2)Magus is calling for reinforcements and summoning Lavos. Maybe that really is what the sacrifice is about, and maybe Lavos is not just a beast, but rather a god/leader.
-I was right! I hit the levers and they do stuff. The first two open trap doors.
-Hee! The fourth pulley opens a trap door beneath Ozzie. Easy little gimmick, though I wonder what would have happened if I had attacked the barrier. I’m not convinced Ozzie is really dead, but the fight’s over for now.
-Save point.
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Next time: probably tracking down Magus himself.
#TeamFlea
