Okay, I’ve been deliberately avoiding this and playing everything else I can. Even, in a weird case of meta, actual MMO RPG’s to avoid playing this fake/offline MMO RPG. I swear to god I will finish this series.
Okay, third time to head to Cruel Vindictive Scars and let’s see if we can’t make it stick this time! It took a Phase and a Cubia to stop us the last two times so I only dread what’s coming. I took BlackRose and Wiseman as usual, and we hit the field, headed straight to the dungeon, and basically followed the left wall. This takes us back to the lowest level and Lios advises that we’re ready to try this one more time! It’s Phase 7 this time, Tarvos the Avenger! He’s pretty typical: crazy HP, no weaknesses, and toggles back and forth between physical and magical immunity. Fun stuff. It’s not the difficulty, it’s just how damn long it takes. After 10 minutes, he actually caught me off-guard after DataDraining Kite and wiped my party in the 3 seconds it would’ve taken them to heal me. Ugh! DOT HACK!! Round two was successful though, despite taking forever. I think I’m gonna start carrying buff items with me to bosses.
He thinks he’s so bad-ass with his martyr shtick…
We got back to the Lia Fail just in time for all of the residents to leave, and found a slew of new locations through email and the board. Alright, let’s clock ’em. First we’re heading back to Lamba Server and (hopefully) quickly taking down the Lv.70 Pulsating Sea of Cloud Whale area. We’re supposed to be looking to solve the mystery of the Floating Creature (which has caps for some reason) but the story reasons don’t matter anymore. We’re way over-leveled for it, so we just rush through the dungeon and head straight to the bottom level… which is a boss. Unexpected, but we’re over-leveled. Black Death falls with little problem; he’s immune to magic, so Wiseman stays on First Aid, and BlackRose and Kite unload on this guy. It’s not long before he’s toast, and he unlocks a bunch of images to the desktop. That’s taken care of, so now it’s back to Omega Server.
I don’t even know why I”m in this dungeon, fighting this boss…
We swapped BlackRose for Marlo and headed to his invited area, Collapsed Traveler’s Fort. It’s a level match but we skipped the field and headed into the dungeon proper. Inside, the enemies gave us some trouble but we managed to get a level up and claim the prize at the bottom, a bunch of super-items Marlo had been hiding away. Mine now!
Back to Sigma Server where we dropped off Marlo and grabbed Rachel for her mission, Nameless Pseudo Sea of Sand. It’s a Lv.80, so we should pick up some good exp and bump up another level. I hate having to re-outfit these characters that I never use, though. Ugh! DOT HACK!! We have to go rescue some guy on the lowest level of the dungeon but I genuinely don’t feel like mucking around. We head straight to the depths, tag the dude, and after a ‘hilarious misunderstanding’, receive 5000 GP and get warped back to Fort Ouph.
Why not Wiseman? He’s right there!
Finally, it’s back to Omega Server and the old party is back again. We’re heading to Obedient Someone’s Knights to see if Subaru (from the .hack//SIGN anime) will show herself, and maybe get something out of the deal? We get some okay exp because we’re at par for level again, and it looks like there’s treasure all over the place but we’re ignoring it. We troll through the top two levels, squeak through a couple battles, and meet up with Crim, who is also from .hack//SIGN… I think. He hands over a weapon for a Long Arm, which will be useful if I have to use one in the future. But it’s back to Lia Fail since all the side-questy stuff is done! Now for the real missions… except that I’m missing some virus cores. Ugh! DOT HACK!!
SabreGamer 