Secret of Mana - Part 55: Palace of Darkness
Written on Wednesday, March 28th, 2018
Posted on Wednesday, June 13th, 2018
3 min read
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
Pidge is now level 5 in her Sword skills so far...
Into the cave we go...
Our first monster we encounter inside the cave is a floating goblin head, or a Fierce Head!
We're now in the Dark Palace proper, where we go face-to-face with a Dark Knight!
He casts a Wall spell on himself!
The monochrome look here's fitting for a Palace of Darkness.
Another Dark Knight above us, and I have Max cast a Fireball, with disastrous results!
I should've known, the Wall spell's basically another name for a Reflect spell!
I proceed to the west tunnel, where a duo of Dark Ninjas await!
Now how to light these braziers...or maybe they can't be lit.
East tunnel next!
Forward into another tunnel ahead, into a cavern, and we get cornered by Embermen!
The Embermen also know some spells too, huh?
I clear out the stalagmites and proceed, where a north and south passage are...
I go south first, taking us to the perch of the previous room.
Now to the west tunnel, where I press a switchpad, revealing a stalagmite, or a whipping post!
I head back and go south, leading us to the second floor of the entrance hall...
Pressing the switchpad here opens the central portcullis in the ground floor!
I go downstairs and east...
...taking us into a separate wing of the entrance!
Crossing a thin bridge, I see more enemies and a chest...
This palace is more intricate than the Fire Palace...
We're now in the west wing of the palace...
I switch to Max and equip him with Excalibur, fending off the Dark Knights here...
Now to the caverns, where I take care of more Embermen and use Pidge to leap over and press the switchpad here.
Another tunnel opens!
Curious I see what's in the west tunnel ahead...
...it's an enemy den!
I make our way back to the east wing and cross into the tunnel...
On the way I learn a few things about a Fierce Head...they can shrink people with their laser beams and spawn Grave Bats!
The east tunnel's also a dead end!
Into the center tunnel we go!
These Embermen are definitely in the Slime species of enemies!
Ahead, I press a switchpad revealing a set of blue flames! It's an invisible bridge!
I cross over to the pair of Dark Knights on the large platform of land, and press another switchpad...
More enemies later, I press the last switchpad in the eastern part of this area.
Into the tunnel we go...
...and past this room...
...Into a dark room, where someone called Shade decides to give us a "little test!"
The test that the Shade dishes out to us is a huge Lime Slime, or a giant phantom blob that looks like it has a mini-galaxy all over it!
There's so much going on at once...
In the middle of analyzing this monster, he throws an Evil Gate spell at Hero!
It seems that this Lime Slime hates fire magic!
With this new knowledge, I press on the attack by imbuing Pidge with fire magic!
The Lime Slime's drops can freeze people too!
What is this boss? He also burns one of my party members!
Now the Lime Slime performs a Dark Force spell!
The boss also combines that spell with and Evil Gate!
After a long struggle, the fireworks appear, and the Lime Slime, or the phantom blob, is gone!
We get transported to the Mana Seed chamber, and win a Javelin's Orb!
The floating phantom eye before the Mana Seed's dais is the guardian of this palace, Shade! Another Elemental, yes!
Shade: "Few have defeated my dark servants...take my powers as your reward!"
Now we can cast dark magic!!!
I slowly climb up to the dais to get the Mana Seed's power...
Now where's Sage Joch?
The music that plays after we gain Shade's powers starts out ominous yet grows more hopeful.
I check out Shade's new magic!
For Max, he has Evil Gate, Dark Force, and Dispel Magic. Pidge, unfortunately, does not have Shade's magic for some reason. V'z thrffvat ybtvpnyyl urer gung fur zvtug trg yvtug zntvp, be Yhzvan'f zntvp, fbba.
One last look at the Mana Seed chamber here...
Returning to the village, I head to Watts and upgrade the Fork of Hope into...
...an Imp's Fork!
What a long, action-packed session!