Octopath Traveler: Session 19

I did a little work on the spreadsheet since I got access to a whopping one extra weapon in Wellspring now that Alfyn can use Inquire on everyone there, and then while pondering how best to add a sheet for his concoctions, I had to resist my inner DBA instinct to relate the hell out of the data (in a spreadsheet, running through a heavy and sluggish layer of JavaScript, mind you).  I think I'm going to bite the bullet and manually enter all the effects, even though I could do stuff like "Oh, Noxroot deals with poison!  Make the sheet automatically recognize that it cures poison on allies and inflicts it on enemies!  And by the way, it also deals fire damage to enemies!  And if you use it on a single enemy, the fire hits twice!".  Just reading that and thinking about how you would lay that out to all neatly and automatically figure itself out is a nightmare that anyone can realize regardless of technical level.  Remembering that the best way to complete a game is to actually play it, I put down the Google Sheet and picked up my Switch.

Where was I?  Oh yeah, Alfyn and Therion.  They're both in the party so they can both get experience, so let's jump straight into Alfyn's Chapter 3, shall we?

Alfyn arrives in Saintsbridge and witnesses another apothecary examine a wounded man and then refuse to treat him.  Alfyn doesn't understand why he refused treatment, and the response of "some people aren't worth saving" doesn't really help, because in Alfyn's mind, everyone is worth saving.  Alfyn tends to the man, whose name is Miguel, and finds out he's a thief during the process.  He promises Miguel that they'll raise a glass together at the local tavern once he recovers, but only if he agrees to stop the whole thievery thing.  Oh Alfyn, so naïve.

Checking out the local tavern himself, Alfyn notices a child passed out on the floor and a mother crying for help.  Alfyn tries to figure out why the kid's passed out, but the other apothecary shows up and does it better, and reveals his name to be Ogen.  Apparently it was the snow peas his mom no doubt had him eat.  Anyway, Alfyn goes back to check up on Miguel and ends up staying there the night.  Once he wakes up, Miguel's gone, and of course, immediately back to being up to no good.  Specifically, Miguel is now holding the kid from the tavern at knifepoint in an attempt to get money from his mother.  Upon seeing Alfyn, he grabs the kid and runs off into the nearby woods.

Alfyn follows, fight ensues.  Every time Miguel recovers from being broken, his weaknesses change, but the standard rhythm of breaking his guard and then unloading Divine skills and other high damage attacks did the job.  Alfyn tends to the kid, who got stabbed by Miguel, and takes him back to town.

As Alfyn is leaving town, he runs across Ogen, and they get to talking.  The stage of apothecary-ness that Alfyn is in is apparently a pretty common early apothecary thing, you know, the whole "I wanna help everyone regardless of anything" phase.  Ogen tells his back story, which explains how he progressed on from the naïve stage that Alfyn is in, to the more realistic "I choose who I treat" stage.  After some compliments about Alfyn's tonics, the two part ways.  Alfyn randomly decides to head to Orewell next.

Therion's Chapter 3 is in Wellspring.  Since I ended last session with Olberic's Chapter 3, which also took place there, I could've done Therion's first, but decided to get a change of scenery instead.

Therion speaks to the shadiest looking NPC he can find in hopes of finding the black market in Wellspring, and soon enough he's got his lead: go to the tavern and order something that isn't on the menu.  The real black market is in a nearby cave, and it's run by the tavern keeper.  There's a guarded building with some merchants in it in town, which I mistook for the black market since the merchants inside talk about it.  Anyway, now that he's found the black market, Therion needs a way in.  Given the choice between walking all the way back to town to hit up the tavern keeper again, or simply stealing a mask from an NPC five feet away from me, I chose the latter.

Therion is close to getting the emerald dragonstone when it gets stolen by some other thieves.  Therion chases after them and has a reunion with his old buddy, Darius.  They aren't on such good terms anymore, so guards had to be fought, and Darius had to be pursued.  Darius just out of his grasp, Therion ends up fighting his main guard, a guy by the name of Gareth.  Gareth has a couple minions who heal him a lot, and he keeps changing stances, which changes which of his weaknesses are available to be hit, but once his guard is broken it's all the same anyway, so a healthy beating from Draefendi's Rage and Aeber's Reckoning saw him defeated.

Darius is headed to Northreach, so Therion is naturally following him there.  Darius' group basically controls the town, and they now have both the emerald dragonstone and the gold dragonstone.  I really want to refer to them as the dragonballs, but there's only four of them.  Anyway, shit's gonna go down when Therion gets there, you know, whenever I actually do his Chapter 4.

For now, I'm in that "between chapters" state, and I have a plan.  Run around doing inquiry and thievery, level up Alfyn some more so I can do more inquiry (I'll impose a reasonable limit on it, probably the level 50 milestone since I just passed the level 45 one, although I have yet to encounter someone who requires higher than level 60 and it's tempting to go for that).  I also want to give those four extra shrines a try now that I have better equipment and so forth.  There are also various NPCs guarding various buildings that I haven't defeated yet due to their high star ratings, I'm probably more than strong enough now for either H'aanit or Olberic to beat them senseless in relatively short order.  There's a fair amount to be done, so hopefully I can get a decent portion of it done before delving into Chapter 4.