Part 81: Zephyr

Chapter 80 - Zephyr




Now that the winds finally blow in our favor, it's time for us to explore the world a bit with Cloud.



The first thing we have to do is go back to Mideel. The whole place is in ruins.



You'll be sucked into a reactor and drained dry. Your soul will become automobile fuel. It's a Lovecraftian nightmare.





Saying things aren't going great at Mideel would be a massive understatement.



Whatever you do, sis, don't invest in real estate.









Remember her? It's the crazy chick who was buying off everything in the town.



Normally this would be prohibitively expensive, but thanks to the [All] Materia Fund, we're still pretty much rich, so yeah, gimme those.



Well, Doc. You sure look really glad to see me.



And I think that's it for now. Let's get out of this hellhole. We need to relax, but Gold Saucer was closed. Let's check it again.



Hell yeah.



No naysayers.





Alright, the place is open again. Awesome.



I believe there's something that must be done.



Costa Del Sol.



Sure, we have a gigantic airship, but last I checked we're still homeless vagrants.



I mean, yeah, we're very wealthy bums. But still bums. No more.



We need a place to chill, and this is the only place good enough.



Did I just say not to invest in real estate because the world is ending? Screw that noise. We're spending.







We even have a basement-dweller of our own.



He claims to be the manager, but I'm pretty sure he's been farming mounts on World of Warcraft all day.



If I was a superhero who lived in a shitty apocalyptic world and owned this place I'd boldly say "This is MY villa" every time I went to my room too.



Yes, I am showing a useless screenshot of Cloud in his villa. Because I can. This is MY bathroom.



That's depressing.



Oh Johnny.



Johnny's an interesting contrast. He's the only one who got out of it well. He's got himself a girlfriend/wife, a nice place to live (how the hell did he do it anyway?).

Granted, I'm not sure how that qualifies as living on the edge, but what do I know?



And of course Tifa, Cloud and the others had to fuck it up anyway. But don't worry, Johnny, we'll fix it.



"Sea breeze, sun and meteor" sounds like a good name for my next post trip-hop song.



Apparently, the sailor in that boat behind the red airplane has a line of dialogue which, due to obvious reasons, we can never see in-game. Not sure if I'd mentioned it before.



Oh, well.



We're not in a rush, so let's fly around a bit. There are some islands to the northeast that you don't normally get to see during normal playthrough.



In the corner of the world-map there's this round island, though. It has a very special trait - it doesn't show in the minimap.

There's also nowhere in it to land. The highwind cannot land in the forest, and it cannot land in the mountain either. Which means this cave is inaccessible via ship.



In fact, there's been other places we've seen before that are still not accessible. Remember this structure near Cosmo Canyon? The entire terrain here consists of dense forests, so we can't land in it either.



There's this peninsula to the east of the Wutai continent. It's blocked by the huge mountain and has no beaches, although we could see it before when we had the Tiny Bronco.

The Highwind can't land on the badlands terrain either, only on grass. So we still can't land there.



There's only one thing to do. Remember the Chocobo Sage?



He talked of a "Mountain Chocobo" who could cross mountains, and a "River Chocobo" who could cross rivers.



We still have no idea how to get to the round island, but the Mountain Chocobo could help us with the Wutai peninsula and the Cosmo Canyon cake, so that's a start.



The basic instructions. Great Chocobo + Good Chocobo + Carob Nut = Mountain (Green) Chocobo.



Now we just need to find out where to catch these Chocobos and we're gol...



...crap.



I'm sorry frumious wolf, we must kill you so the Chocobo Sage can remember stuff. Nothing personal.



Ok, what? Corel is not to the southeast. Maybe he means southeast of Corel? Maybe this place was originally designed to be found in the Corel continent? Who knows.



I'm so confused. Ok, I'll assume he meant southeast of Corel, surrounded by greenery, and west of Corel.



He doesn't remember any details though, so we go the south look for random encounters. Supposedly, a monster has it.



Luckily we find it in our first try. Vlakorados, we met him once when we were walking to Icicle Inn. This is one of the few monsters which [Sense] doesn't work, as he has over 30k health.



Nevertheless we do get a Carob Nut. I hunt some more of them o we can stay on the safe side in case things go wrong.



Okay, we have the nut now. What's next?



Now we have something to look forward to. And a lot of work. He doesn't explain how we get a River Chocobo especifically, so we'll have to assume it's the same way you get a Mountain Chocobo.



Let's get started. Remember when we did it back in CD 1, to cross the Midgar Zolom swamp? First, we equip the [Chocobo Lure]...



...hell, let's toss in an [Enemy Lure] as well, to make life easier.



Let's equip an appropriately-named [Choco Feather]. The extra Dexterity will help us getting priority in the battle, so to reduce the chance of the Chocobo running away.



Last but not least, greens. We buy some nice greens, only the best. We're rich.



And we're good to go. There's some Chocobo trails southeast of Corel surrounded by greenery, so let's start our hunt there!



Next time:

Chocobo Catching! Chocobo breeding! More Chocobos!