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We'll be traveling from the Frostlands to the Woodlands today.
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The Frostlands in the Chapter 1 area is rather linear, a few branching paths to treasure that are generally short, but mostly linear.
It's also one of two areas where you can't directly access the Chapter 2/3 areas from the region, as to reach the higher-level Frostland areas you have to go through the C2/3 Woodland areas. The other such region is the Coastlands, which require a detour through the Highlands to reach those later regions.
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North is where we came from, leading to Atlasdam, but it's a very short path and nothing of note...
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...besides this Cait I ran into.
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A Medium Soulstone is more than enough to kill it.
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The EXP is ridiculous. Cyrus gains four levels, Primrose and Olberic five, and Ophilia eight.
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I actually reset after that because I want to at least try to preserve some of the difficulty.
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At any rate, the western path is the one we want to reach the Woodlands.
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Fun fact, many of the enemies in the ice region are weak to fire. Go figure!
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Here's the second half of the Frostlands.
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It's more of the same. Still pretty, though.
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Pretty much snow variants of enemies we've seen before.
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Ophilia hits her second skill, and I opt for Heal More over Reflective Veil because there's a chance I may need it more than the latter for the rest of Chapter 1.
Not that I'll really need either but, hey, gotta pick something!
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Here's the side dungeon for the Frostlands, and where a frost giant apparently resides. Don't think we'll tackle that one yet...
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S'warkii is the Chapter 1 town of the Woodlands and where we'll find H'aanit.
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And a nice, graceful transition from a snowing wastleand to a thick forest.
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Bolderfall is the Clifflands region where we'll find Therion eventually.
Woodlands has some general paths with some wide clearings like this region here.
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That Giant Boar is trouble.
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It hits likes a dang truck.
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It also has a huge amount of HP for a random encounter.
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The EXP and JP are decent for a Chapter 1 area, though.
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I go ahead and explore the rest of the Woodlands because why not?
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Victors Hollow is the Chapter 2/3 town, and one we've heard about a few times already. It's where we'll do Olberic's Chapter 2 eventually.
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There's a large loop in the center of this area, which is kinda neat.
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Ratfolk are common here, and the higher-tier archers can send a character to sleep with an arrow.
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I actually reach 500JP with Cyrus, so I can get one of the two-hit spells. I really have no preference, so I end up going for Lightning. I might save Fire for last because one of the remaining characters has a reliable two-hit Fire technique that's easier to do than their Ice/Lightning ones.
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More importantly, this unlocks a passive that gives Cyrus a hefty 50 point ElemAtk boost. That will certainly come in handy later on...
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The Woodlands side-dungeon. Still gonna wait to unlock everyone before I start doing these.
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The other exits for this place that I have no intention to enter yet.
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Here's the path to S'warkii, and the first hints of civilization.
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I run into another Cait and go out of my way to not kill it. It's not easy, as I get a surprise round and it wastes a turn using Grooming to heal another enemy, but eventually it runs away.
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Next time, H'aanit's story.