More progress! The battle system is basically complete, it has physical attacks, magic spells, and a type advantage system:
https://workshop.reploid.cafe/images/magic_types_battle.mp4
The defender's type advantage is determined by the equipment and spells they are carrying, and this affects the player too. If you equip a lot of FIRE spells, you'll have an easy time with ICE type enemies (enemies who, themselves, have equipped ICE spells or frost-aligned equipment) but you'll be weaker to AQUA in return. These water-ice slimes won't exist in the final game, but their spell assortment demonstrates the concept well. The player can easily lose this fight by managing their spells poorly, even with such a large health pool.
The player, and enemies, can hold one weapon with an optional type alignment, one armor with base defense and optional type alignment, and three spells, which always have a type alignment and have varying power from 1-3 (technically 255, practically 3). At the highest attunement, one *absorbs* damage, which is the only way to heal during battle.
Your weapon always attacks a single target, and refills your energy by 1. Magic always hits the entire field, but costs energy according to its base power.
2273 bytes! Worryingly large at this point, as there's just the one enemy coded. I need to squeeze in room for a proper encounter table, additional enemy sprites, and the dungeon-exploring scaffolding that will actually contain these battles. This may require some dirty tricks after all...