Let's Play Monmusu Quest: Paradox [part 2] - 40: Gold Volcano

Beginning

<- Previous: Magical Girl Ceremony

We’re almost done with Grangold.  One of the tasks we do have to do before proceeding (the tartarus region to the west is blocked off until we do) is contract with the last remaining Elemental spirit – Salamander.  She can be found in the volcano back by the gate we passed through to get into west Grangold.

This section is going to be short, because there isn’t much to it.

It's here, in case you haven't already guessed

Like the bottom floor of the Orichalcum mines, most of the volcano floor is covered in lava.  As we’re in a fantasy world, walking on it is not immediately lethal.  It hurts, but won’t burn us to a crisp.  It’s still irritating, but thankfully the map is pretty small and easy to explore.

Also irritating are the wandering monsters.  The demon lamia, demon scylla and lava girl from the Orichalcum mines can also be found here.  They are joined by basilisk girl and dragon girl, who both appeared in the same location in the original series.

I have no H-scenes

You don't want to see my H-scene

A hungry blob party is not so useful here as lava girl is immune to digestion.  You’ll also want to bring a lot of gold needles as the basilisks will be turning a lot of your party members to stone during your trip through the volcano.

The dragon girl design is very odd as the girl part is the dragon’s tongue.  She’s a vore monster, so her Bad End scene is her tongue body fucking Luka’s brains out until he’s docile enough to be swallowed.  As a biological strategy it... sort of makes sense.

Dragon girl likes giving lots of tongue

It’s not a long run to Salamander.  By this point, with the world and multiple universes in the balance, you’d think we could skip the whole “prove to me your power” nonsense.

Unfortunately, Salamander and Undine don’t like each other.  And I mean, they really don’t like each other.  Their animosity is beyond the playful dunking on Slyph the other spirits used to engage in with the original series.  It triggers a fight where it didn’t look like there was going to be one.

Goddammit Undine, can't you take your grudges elsewhere

Thankfully, Salamander is nowhere near as hard as Undine.  I’d switched to the imp party to get around lava girl’s resistances and Salamander, as part dragonkin, is vulnerable to pleasure attacks.  A lucky hit early on had her horny and in a trance, and the imps pretty much obliterated her with various pleasure attacks before she recovered.

I suspect that “fight” would not have looked like a fight to outsiders.

Uh oh.  We’ve barely cleaned up Salamander when Granberia puts in an appearance.  A double-header boss fight, again?

Thankfully not.

Granberia seems really conflicted.  Alice points out that the other knights have already deserted.  Even Granberia knows Alice’s mother is not acting like Alice’s mother.  She’s not going to join us just yet, but it looks like she’s hanging up her sword for now.

This scene is a little weird coming after the events of the magical girl ceremony.  Enough that I wonder if I might have done things out of sequence again.  Salamander’s position in the monster library with respect to Cassandra and the Succubus Witch also makes me think recruiting Salamander, then going to the great poison swamp for the magical girl ceremony is the “correct” order.

Granberia popping up and then effectively doing nothing also makes me wonder if this encounter plays out differently on the Ilias route.  I’ve heard people say the two paths start to diverge a lot more at this point and I wouldn't be surprised if the angel-lovers get an additional fight here. 

And that’s that for the Gold Volcano.  I did warn you it was going to be short.  I guess that’s the danger of repeating content from the original series – some segments are going to seem underwhelming.

There is one more thing that can be done here (and at Undine’s Fountain).  The catfish mermaid Gigi has a quest line where she visits various sites of great elemental power.  Take her to the spots where both Undine and Salamander were standing and she’ll learn some new skills.

Here...

...and here.  Does anyone even use the old catfish?

We’re now pretty much done with Grangold.  It’s time to head out west to that Tartarus location.

-> Next: Nightmare Wilderness