Having proceeded up beyond the snowline and into the cold of a mountain top to take on Lily at the the Free Pal Alliance Tower, we turned out eyes to the next task assigned.

For us the next objective was to defeat Axel in the Bothers of the Eternal Pyre Tower, which was atop another mountain, west from our base rather than north.  But we could see it from the cold heights around the Free Pal Alliance Tower.

Somewhere up there is our next destination

First stop though was to go back to base and resupply and to put fainted pals in the palbox for healing, then take a break.  When we reconvened we took a look at the map and realized we had quite a ways to go, with the Eternal Pyre Tower being a good 5km from our base.

Still, we had some fast travel points that could get us closer, so we plotted a vague route forward… most of it in undiscovered map areas… and set out.

We’ll just go… that away… or something

There were some boss pal options along the way and some new pals to catch as we went.  We first made it to the Sealed Realm of the Esoteric where Lunaris resides.

Discovering the Esoteric

We managed to dispatch Lunaris, but did not get a successful catch in.

We moved on a bit further and came upon Broncherry in the wild, another big boss pal.

Broncherry under attack

With Broncherry we had a bit more luck.  He was low enough level that the fight was not in doubt, but Lysol got off an opportune pal ball and caught him at the end of the fight.

After that, and a little further down the road… we seem to hit these at about 300 meter intervals across the landscape for a bit… we ran into Sweepa and all his little Swees.

Sweepa, the King of Floof

Sweepa wasn’t really a challenge… and we had caught some Swees and Sweepas on our venture up the last mountain, but you might as well knock out any boss you come across.  So it was time to stick it to him.

It turns out you can make a saddle for Sweepa and ride him, but he is apparently in contention for the slowest mount on Pal Island award.

After that we hit a fast travel point, then started moving upward into a new terrain area leading to the base of the mountain.  Here we started running into a new theme: Hot.

The pals out in the wild all seemed to be fire types and as the sun climbed in the sky the temp gauge on the UI rose as well until we hit areas in the terrain where we were taking damage just standing out and exposed and out Pals were not faring well.

Fighting fire with grass types… not recommended

When one of us went down to heat, we went back to the fast travel point to regroup.  We were all still togged up with cold resist gear and pals that would keep us warm.  It was time for a rethink on our plan.  We fast traveled back to base and found the recipes for heat resisting armor and loaded up on pals with a cooling area effect and generally got ourselves ready to face the heat.

And that mostly worked.  Our new pals were more effective against the local pals, though the locals were also around level 30 and up, so just being cool wasn’t an “I win” button.

After testing that out a bit we decided we could dance with the local pals later, we wanted to get to the tower.  But the tower was up a mountain, as pictured earlier in the post, without any obvious road or path up.  So we set ourselves to climbing up the southeast face of the peak.

The climbing went okay… not easy, but you can climb up sheer cliffs if you have enough stamina to get to the top.  But as we neared the top… just 200 or so meters from the tower and the fast travel point… we hit a stretch beyond our ability to get up.

The sheer face of the mountain

We could get part way up, then would run out of stamina and fall back down… I am looking up from having fallen past the rest of the crew.  Now would have been a good time to have a flying, floating, or other wise levitating pal in our group.  But we had come loaded with ice pals, and nobody included a flier on the list.

And nobody was keep to go back down the mountain and across the plane of fire to get to the fast travel point.

We had climbed too far to turn around

So we sat there looking for a way up and debating strategies when I realized that I had spent a valuable special learning point to get the recipe for the grappling gun and had built one that I had been toting around in my inventory since about the second week started playing.

I equipped that and gave it a shot.

It would not get me all the way up the cliff face from the highest ledge we had found, but it yoinked me about half way up, and that was enough for my stamina to get me to the top by climbing.  I was up!  I ran and grabbed the fast travel point, walked around the tower, and felt a moment’s relief at having made it up.

Only Potshot and Lysol were still down the cliff face.  Me being up at the top did not help the overall situation where two thirds of the party were stuck trying to climb a sheer rock face.  What was I going to do, throw them the grappling gun?  I don’t think Palworld works like that.

I went exploring around the tower looking for an easier way up.  I was quite convinced by that point that we had done the usual routine and arrived at the most difficult route to our destination.  However, while I expected to find a well lit and easily climbed path or staircase or ladder, none was apparent.  That doesn’t mean we were not still on the most difficult path, but an easier one didn’t immediately stand out.  It was turtles all the way down.

Meanwhile, as I fiddled about at the summit, Potshot and Lysol, though experimentation and persistence, found a tiny ledge that would act as a resting point for stamina recovery just far enough up the face of the rock to give them a fighting chance to reach the summit.

They managed it and also went straight for the fast travel point.

Having secured that and, thus, never needing to do that climb again, we went to the Eternal Pyre Tower.  We managed to join the instance as a group, following the rule of “only the person who sees all the names on their dialog can press the confirm button” and met Axel and his pal.

Axel and Orserk

Having come loaded to fight fire, facing a might pal who was all about the electrical attacks left us wanting on the damage front.  Our attacks were not wholly effective and, between times when one of us had to be revived, we only managed to chip away a little more than 15% of Orserk’s health.  Then the ten minute timer ran out and we all died.

We all fall down

We revived back at base where we discussed our plan.  Orserk was high enough level that it seemed pretty clear that the three of us had little chance of taking it down.  So there was a proposal that we call it a day.  Hotter heads in the group… mostly me… with experience in Pokemon said that the cure for an electric pal must be to brink on the rock/ground pals.

While I had to admit we had little chance of an outright win, I wanted to show that the right party would at least improve our performance.  So we swapped out our pals for a fresh set.  There was no need for cooling any further.  Rearmed, we headed back to the Eternal Pyre Tower and gave it another shot.

And we lost again, as was expected, having run out the ten minute timer.

The end of the fight before we all fall down

But look at how many hit points we chipped away that time!  We about doubled our effectiveness.  So we highlighted our huge performance improvement on our self-appraisals and skipped over the actual results, then called it a day.

We clearly need a bit more work… in the form of some more levels and maybe some better pals… before we head back to Axel and Orserk.  So we’ll probably head for another blank spot on the map next to see what we can find.

Meanwhile, the whole team should probably have a grappling gun handy.