MewGenics

[Firuthi Dragovic]

Expedition 58: Days 147-150
Just Like A Pill

Alright. Three females and two herms delivered on Day 147. Nermal for Dusty and Riemeow, Serenity for Marley and Donut, Lynx for Yuki and Rusina. Then there's Wallu for Sangwin and Linda, and Scrapper for Waldo and Coco Katsuragi. Kramer's a goner and Dusty, Doudou La Dodue, Choobays, and Pal got hurt. Stray female was Enyo.

I think at this point I'm done trying to get any more viable descendants from the age-32 Heracles. I've reserved the following cats for breeding: Kobe, Mara, Brimsley, Vinyl Scratch, Mothman, Pensive, Scrapper, Enyo, Wallu, Pastelito, Arnie, Doudou La Dodue, Voronin, and Sangwin. The rest of the cats go into the fight room, and I need a proper mate for Voronin or Sangwin later on. But at this point, I'm sending Heracles and Fratz to Frank, Kaisa and Jubby to Dr. Beanies... and Choobays, Brunetiere, Kapernaumov, Nahia, and Dusty went to Tracy. Tracy says she has another idol for me, I'll ask about it tomorrow.

It's time to do something about that altar. I've tapped Rusina as my Mage, Yuki as my Druid, Firulais as a Butcher... and Macbat is the unlucky Tank who's been saddled with wearing Guillotina's face. I figured I'd just do the unlock and not handle the domain itself, so I brought along those unidentified pills.

So... we haven't had to deal with difficulties yet and we're still a couple zones out from unlocking them in the first place, but it turns out the pills increase the adventure difficulty by a step. Increasing the difficulty results in more elite-class enemies (which you usually only see on the hard path of a zone), increased health on bosses, and better Food and Coin and item drops. It also makes events less likely to work in your favor (Macbat had to run from Death multiple times and also stepped on nails more than once in this adventure). However, there's also a thing called "Elite Buffs", where certain monsters in each battle will have extra modifiers - and anything spawned from them, including stuff like Rot Flies that are on your side, will gain the buffs. Here's the list I was able to find (I saw many of these on this run, but not all):

• Spiky: Gains the Thorns buff, returning damage to attackers. Bosses get a weaker buff.
• Reactive: Gains Kinetic Spikes, which is a bit like Thorns except it shoots projectiles when struck.
• Damaging: A simple damage increase.
• Tough: Gains some Brace, reducing damage taken. Bosses get a weaker buff.
• Shielded: Has a minimum amount of Shield each turn, blocking a set amount of damage. Reduces max health.
• Protected: Starts every round with a single-use Barrier (game calls it Holy Shield, whatever) that completely blocks one attack. Reduces max health.
• Speedy: Has more Speed, meaning more movement range and acting earlier.
• Flaming: Immune to fire and leaves a trail of fire. Bosses will also apply Burn to attackers.
• Creepy: Inflicts poison on its attacks and leaves a trail of creep.
• Lucky: Extra critical chance and dodge, and luck in general.
• Static: Deals electric damage at the end of its movement.
• Bouncy: Repels attackers and itself.
• Twin: Two of the unit at half health. There's some bosses that can't have this, but not all.
• Absorbent: Drains any unused mana from enemies and deals an equal amount of damage.
• Depressing: Reduces all stats of its enemies. Spawned monsters will get a lesser version that reduces stats of adjacent enemies instead.
• Hardy: Immune to all stunning effects.
• Sticky: Anything that contacts or attacks them gets tarred. Tar slows the victim down and turns into Burn if struck with a Fire attack.
• Evolving: Not available on bosses. Gains more Elite Buffs as the fight goes on.
• Plow: Not available on bosses. Can trample to deal damage, and moves towards attackers. (Functions identical to Boris' gimmick)
• Mega: Not available on bosses. Fewer turns per round, but much more health and damage.
• Mad: Not available on bosses. Gains Madness (treating everyone as enemy), gets extra turns, and gains stat bonuses and healing when it kills a unit.
• Mirror: Not available on bosses. Reflects all projectiles, but is damaged every time it does so.
• Resonant: Not available on bosses. Gains stat bonuses any time spells (read: any ability that is not the basic attack) are used.
• Undying: Not available on bosses. Revives to half health at end of round, and the corpse must be struck multiple times to destroy it.
• Healthy: Not available on bosses. Health regeneration and a bunch of unfilled maximum health.
• Sandy: Not available on bosses. Higher evasion, and starts a damaging sandstorm when it dies.
• Infested: Not available on bosses. Spawns a fly swarm when it dies.

I didn't encounter Creepy, Twin, Bouncy, or most of the non-boss ones on this path. Probably the roughest one was encountering the Sticky buff on Boris, given you need to be mobile in that fight. Though... that's only of the first three paths.

Once we got to the hole, Macbat put himself on the altar. He was dropped into some kind of pool, where he encountered some massive-looking, crown-wearing, fetus-like creature with a fleshy sphere for a butt. The creature proceeded to rip off Macbat's face and use his skull like a puppet. With that, the Throbbing Domain became fully accessible... but the asshole sealed the exit. After administering one last ibuprofen for Macbat's headache (he says he's gonna rest a while... he ain't coming back to the House), I have to confront the King with just 3 cats, on Hard.

Apologies for anyone squeamish about blood and gore, there is just literally no way to discuss the Throbbing Domain without mentioning it significantly and this is common amounts of blood for many of Edmund McMillen's works. If you're familiar with The Binding of Isaac, you've seen this amount of blood and gore at least once a run.

So what's in the Throbbing Domain besides the King? Well, it's a simple linear path of about 3 fights and an event or two. Among the monsters in the zone are the Meat Slimes, Throbbing Turrets, and Flesh Lads. Meat Slimes split into Clots when destroyed, and Clots can grow into Stem Cats that shed more Clots when damaged... yeah, don't let Clots fester! Throbbing Turrets attack with Bleed effects. Flesh Lads are easily the most dangerous thing down here - they gain more attacks each turn when damaged, and will always end their combos with an attack that inflicts Bruise. It got to the point where the stray Collarless I found down here, Darius, actually mattered despite being level 0.

The Throbbing King turned out to be easier than the Flesh Lads despite having the Absorbent buff on him. The way the fight works is that he will spend one turn slowing your cats and spawning smaller enemies, then at the end of the turn he will give one of four orders: Kneel, Go Away, Spread Out, or Roulette. All but a small portion of the arena gets attacked with tentacles at the end of the next turn. Kneel's safe spot is in front of the King, Go Away's spot is the arena edge, Spread Out requires your cats to be about 3 spaces apart at minimum, and Roulette's spots are completely random. I saw Spread Out and ended the first phase before Roulette went off. Once the sphere-sack he's sitting on bursts, he now rapid-fires beam attacks and Clots, and jumps away every time he's struck.

For this battle, the MVP was Yuki the Druid. The setup was Bloom, Serenade, and Encore. Bloom grants mana to allies, Serenade grants health regeneration, and Encore makes the Druid's Sing ability (their basic attack) refresh every time a music ability is used. With all of that, keeping everyone's health up was fairly easy. Rusina had Four+ and Light Up The Stage, so every time she was struck she was spewing more and more sparkles and having four spells with different costs made it easy to ensure ending all turns with 4 mana. Firulais provided direct DPS with that cleaver. Darius... was relegated to distraction for this battle.

One the King prolapsed his guts (I'm not kidding, that's his phase 2 death animation, I warned you all this place was gory) and died, the cats had one chance to loot the body. Firulais took the dare... and came out with a Bucket of Blood. Three hats also became available: a Mage Hat, a Mushroom Hat, and a Flesh Shroud. I will need to beat the King with more classes to unlock more hats. After delivering the pills to Dr. Beanies - who let me keep them - the team went off to Frank to tell him the whole story.

And I collapsed onto the bed, as it was past midnight when this fight ended. Whew!

There's obviously going to be some cooldown after that adventure. Day 148 had three new kittens delivered - female Matematichka for Pensive and Doudou La Dodue, female Bowtie for Kobe and Mara, and male Moxley for Brimsley and Enyo. Toninho and Marley got hurt, Clawdette is dead. Stray female is Rona. That idol I spoke of the day before turns out to be the Idol of Chastity - place it in a room and it increases the cats' Comfort, but they will not breed in that room. Very nice, this is one I'm going to want.

Day 149 had another three new kittens summoned - herm Treble from Mara and Mothman, female Stesha from Scrapper and Enyo, and male Viktor from Wallu and Vinyl Scratch. Teca, Riemeow, and Brandur all died in the fight ring, and another big batch of injuries - Waldo, Karebear, Pal, Rona, Roik, Echick, and Dean. Stray male was Nev, and I apparently forgot to clean up somewhere because Waldo got an Eating Disorder and Lynx has OCD now.

Day 150, Voronin and Sangwin spent a night close with no kitten, but there were four kittens made - male Lukie from Arnie and Doudou La Dodue, female Tita from Scrapper and Enyo, male Benedict from Kobe and Mara, and herm Borshchonck from Mothman and Pensive. Marley, Toninho, Smushi, and Rona were hurt, and Bowtie, Dean, Bobbie, and Echick all ended up dead. Stray male was Mookie.

Realizing the situation with Voronin and Sangwin, I've removed Sangwin from the room and put Mathematichka in with Voronin. I'm also noticing I'm very low on furniture space, so I'm going to need a 5th room - and soon. Time for some quick adventures.

And another attempt at a Moon mission I think.

 

[Firuthi Dragovic]

Expedition 59: Days 150 and 151
Ground Control to Major Tomcat

I decided to go for the Moon mission right away. My expedition team this time was Marley as a Thief, Donut as a Fighter, Smushi as a Mage, and Waldo as a Cleric. The Desert portion of the adventure wasn't very interesting this time, other than the fact that the boss was Gambit. You know, in all the time running this part, I have yet to see the Thief miniboss. Almost always the Necromancer these days.

The Crater did have some things I didn't go over before. First off, another miniboss, the Infested Pair! They don't have a lot of movement, but they will create Sprouts when damaged that will grant them extra turns. And the Sprouts possess cats if they end their turn near them. This can be managed if you have a cat or two dedicated to dealing with the sprouts and use big damage hits. There were also some blind cats whose heads had been replaced by rocks, and something called the Bramble Baby whose sole job is to make brambles and pull your cats into them. Oh, and a meteor shower.

I did get a couple interesting rewards here. For one, I finally took the Hard path in the Crater, and the first Hard path awards Small Meteors. These are weapons that replicate a random active ability from the Collarless skill pool (aside from the Path skills and a couple other exceptions). Given that includes skills like BBQ, which can place Strength-boosting meat, this is great. The other payoff was the return of an item I used way early on - the Mystical Blindfold. Absolutely amazing for mages and anyone who doesn't need physical attacks. Unfortunately, during one of the random events, Smushi picked up Cancer. What Cancer does in Mewgenics is reduce 3 stats after every battle and cause a random mutation. Smushi is so specialized in Intelligence and Charisma, though, that it won't affect us until Smushi's not important to success any more. I'll explain then.

With everyone surviving Crater Maker, it's onwards to the Moon! The Moon's gimmick is low gravity, which increases projectile ranges and knockback. Great news for Hunters and Thieves, not so much for Fighters. There's this pervasive slow guitar riff through the place too. Anyways, the opposition here. Most of it, as you'd expect, is aliens - blaster aliens with itchy trigger fingers that will fly away from anyone approaching them in melee, probe aliens that will charm any unit they backstab (yes, THAT kind of probing), and their saucers. Small saucers will shoot in an X shape, and the large saucers have an instant death laser and shielding. Aside from the aliens, there are Waggles that turn weak units (such as familiars) into copies of themselves, and asteroids that spew rocks and can only be hurt by chip damage.

Then there's the Abandoned Ones. A pair of corpses in astronaut suits with broken faceplates. They can leap after moving, and they don't mess around - straight to the injuries whenever they attack. Destroying them only stops the jump - their skull tears free and can inflict Burn and Fear, and the body can still injure. I've learned later that they can only deal the injuries related to Strength, Speed, or Intelligence... so this whole path is most friendly to Hunters and Thieves, since Dexterity isn't touched.

After grabbing a Large Meteor from the Hard path, which is a trinket that replicates a random Collarless passive, we get to the actual boss, the Man in the Moon. He just sits in the corner and uses repelling breath attacks, and has a metric ton of Brace. He's also got two hands that do the actual dirty work - if a cat moves in front of them, they will grab that cat. Attacking the hands will turn them away, while backstabbing them will cause them to charge (or let go of a grabbed cat). The fun part? If a charging hand hits the main body, he loses all of his Brace for a turn. There are other ways to get around all that Brace, of course - when offered the Nip ability at level 5 for the Fighter, you'd better believe that's what I did instead. Enough Bruise can overcome the Brace and allow for major damage. He summoned aliens at low health, but by then I'd inflicted so much Bruise that it didn't matter.

Incidentally, random attacks are useless against the Man in the Moon as both the hands and main body count as separate targets. Smushi had been depending on Homing Blasts, which shoots at random targets, so he was useless for this fight - but he'd carried my team this far so I don't feel bad. I also learned later that the Man in the Moon can eat cats that end movement in front of it, and there's a way to force the hands to strike it from there. I learned my mistake from Crater Maker, though, so I didn't dare.

Defeating the Man in the Moon unlocks Soul passives that can expand a cat's level-up options. After checking the obelisk up here, it also has the effect of making Dr. Beanies' lab go haywire - the roof collapses and the experiments started attacking. I brought the whole team to Butch afterwards, and he had another collar for me - the Psychic. Dr. Beanies was a bit less nice - he yelled at us a lot, told us to "leave and never come back"... and just as the first set of credits completed, he changed his mind and told us to find a device in the back of the Lab that can undo the screwups. So Act 3 - the final act so far - is unlocked.

Day 151 had three male deliveries - Freddy Jeff for Scrapper and Enyo, Biggy for Pensive and Mara, and Eliuccio for Wallu and Vinyl Scratch. Linda and Leya got hurt, Arnie's tail mutated for higher Intelligence, and stray female was Asna.

Tracy called me up about a frustrating incident today. Apparently, she was in the park playing with the frogs when a big meteor came down, with a bunch of smaller meteors. She also says she found the body of an alien who'd asphyxiated and a UFO with its glass plating shattered. Just then, I heard a noise at Baby Jack's place. I didn't get to see the perpetrator, but Baby Jack said a giant meteor-like turtle punched the walls of the shack and knocked over more furniture onto Nona! He wants me to go put the turtle, whom he calls Zaratana, into a sleeper hold. (OOC: Unlike some of my adaptations of the story of MewGenics, this one's much more accurate to the actual dialogue. I'm only missing his comparison of Zaratana's behavior to his father's.)

I need that reactor again like with Pyrophina. We're going to have to lure a Gamera expy this time.