---

Did a bit more random dungeoning to get Belchosneech and Master Shake up to speed, and picked up some new monster classes in the process.





Mimics, like Slimes, have pretty low stats all-around; their only saving grace is their very high Defense. As their desciptor implies, you can have one of your party members wield them to give themselves a major defensive boost in a pinch (a tactic employed by particularly annoying enemies).



Lady Zombies, which are very similar to plain Zombies, but their best proficiency is Special Physicals rather than plain Physicals.



Putties! They're great with Time/Space skills, decent with Plant skills and have mostly average stats. As the plot so far implies, they're also adept at stealing.



Putty Mages. Very weak physically, but they have very high INT and RES, high proficiencies with Elemental magic, and are decent with Plant and Space/Time.


----

Anyway, on with the plot.



"He's been raiding my stuff!"



Putty pulls his disappearing act again.



Well, now we're in a jam.

---



About five minutes ago, in fact.



Ivoire's medicare system apparently leaves a lot to be desired.



More nihilism for you.



Another quandry to solve.



Three birds with one stone!



To the boat!



Nope. Bye!



That's quite a commute.



Faded, eh?



Yep, this'll come up again later.



Or... sending it through time and space or whatever.



"Just make sure he doesn't disappear your house or something."



Ho-HO!



I did that once.



Yeah, he tried to hork our island.



Guess she doesn't remember him.

---



He's gone "creepy uncle" on us.



I must admit, it was pretty fun.



Where is all this "evil" talk coming from, anyway?



Sarcasm ahoy.



Ah crap, not him again.



"That and his grating, screechy voice drove them all away."



I hope so.



---



I just said I never actually joined, man.



Wait, what?



I really hope this wasn't intended as a Pokemon reference.



Well, they did seem to be doing pretty well on their own.

---



Pretty average map here; just a handful of Fenrirs and two Dragons with some minor bonus-giving Protections.



Poetic justice.



Kind of ironic, this whole situation.



Whole bunch of monsters this time, some getting bonuses from other monsters that stand between you and them. So if you want those, you'll have to run past the ones blocking your path, or make sure you do only enough damage to leave them barely alive so you can attack the ones receiving the Protection.



The enemies are more numerous and a bit tougher here, but they once again are receiving plenty of bonus Experience and Mana protections. There are also a few Protections you can use to your advantage, like the Strengthen +20% being proadcast between two objects on the board.



The way he says this line is so pitiful you can't help but chuckle.



Ah Canary, you hilarious hypocrite.

---



The three major enemies here are a Fenrir, a Hell Corgi and a Dragon, each getting some seriously hefty protections from one another and from the Ghosts nearby them. The fact that it's also a fairly large, convoluted map can end up stretching your forces too thin if you're not careful. The best plan here is to pick the three groups off one at a time, preferably starting with the Fenrir and ending with the Dragon (which you should save your strongest Phantoms for).

---



"This map's layout is really annoying, I can't take much more!"



I don't think I'd approach a monster I just pummeled senseless.



With protection like this, who needs endangerment?



Wow.



We were just interested in the one island, actually.



Another case closed.



Hey, this guy's not so bad after all.



Nobody saw that coming!



Still has a bit of creepiness to him though.

---

Back on the Isle of Healing Waters:



A plan is hatched!



Off to a good start.



---

Next time: Chapter 11, where much is rehashed.

---

- Spoony Spoonicus <- 1:12:39 am, friday, may 9th, 2008 pdt