Part 8: "I may not be your guide, but let me join you!"

Last time, we experienced Final Fantasy's first PC death. Yes, Josef went out by being crushed by a boulder. As far as PC deaths go, eh. There's been better.







Salamand is crushed that their mayor is dead. That guy knew how to throw a punch.



So yeah, Josef's stalker's sole purpose was so that Josef's daughter wouldn't be completely and utterly alone. It's still pretty damn creepy that she's mainly taking care of his daughter because it's the only way she can show her love to him. Yeah, that won't introduce some weird issues in her future.



The FF9 version of this story suggests that the party doesn't stop by to tell Nelly that her dad got crushed by a boulder. Even if it's unpleasant conversation, it's rather dickish to just not tell a guy's daughter such grim news. Especially since you literally have to go by the village to get back to Poft or wherever.



Anyway, between all the gold from the tough encounters in the cave and all the items I'm not using, I end up with over 10k gold. Things went from "Can only barely afford one spell" to "I can buy whatever the fuck I want at this stage of the game." Of course, there's not much equipment I need.

Now, fast-forward through a bunch of boring battles against piss-easy enemies...





.... You can enter the Castle Casheon now. We are in a hurry! I will come to get you with Cid's Airship.

Coming back to Altea is optional, and this is the only new text you'll see. That last line's a bit confusing, but she's saying she'll pick you up from Casheon after you're done, which is nifty. We still have to actually get there, though.





But not after some more grinding! The enemies north of Fin will actually be popping up in the next dungeon, so this is good practice.



I also run into Ostriches and DualHeads out here, both of which have nasty attacks.



Mages are a pain, too, though they're pretty nice because they have some good drops.



I manage to snag a Stun spell from one, which inflicts paralysis. Status spells would probably be better if you didn't have to grind them high enough to be worth using. Oh well, might as well put it in Nathan Fillion's magic collection.



The grind session was a bust, as my main plan was to grind Dude some Agility and MP, and he only ended up netting one MP gain. That's not enough for me, especially now that Cure is L3 and thus costs 3MP to use. I need lots of healing during dungeons, so I need lots of MP.



Here's Stun in action. It does as you expect, even though that Hornet couldn't attack anyway due to its row. I'm undecided on whether I want to spend overworld battles grinding it up over Fire and Ice.



Anyway, I decide to take care of Dude's MP problems by buying him a new spell.



You probably know Anti better as Rasp. It attacks MP, though its success rate is pretty crap even when Dude casts it on himself. But hey, when it works, one casting ends up being enough to trigger a MP gain for Dude.



Also, Luna leveled Lit at some point, so here's L2 Lit in action.





I decide to visit Bafsuk buy a Pearl bracelet or mail or whatever for Guy since these things give good armor and very minimal magic penalties. I also buy Heal-1 because why not.

On the way here, I also gain some spell levels for Fire and Ruse.



After some grinding, I get Dude to 97MP, enough for 32 castings of Cure, and more than enough MP for any Life/Hel2 needs. I'm now ready for Casheon.





Unlike the other places, it's quite a walk to Casheon, plus I have money to burn now.





So I take the airship and ride directly east, past Bafsuk and over the sea until I'm dropped off here.





Enjoy the pretty nice music as we enter Casheon.



Also love the red hand there. Anyway, we want the Sunblaze, but we can't grab fire. The torch that holds this flame is conveniently in this castle, but we needed the Chime to reach it.





And with that Chime, now we can enter!



what

Remember how someone said Casheon royalty could also enter? This is to justify running into Gordon here.

I thought I was the only one who could get the Sunblaze. But .... I could not go any farther to get the Torch. I was stuck in here.
You must be familier [sic] with this castle!
Lots of mysteries in this castle, I could not know all .... I may not be your guide, but let me join you!



And with that, our newest member is the series' biggest sadsack.



That said, he's rather balanced stat-wise, though his HP and MP are pathetic and he has no spells or weapon skills. He's not as shit as you expect, but the lack of weapon skills really hurts him at a stage where the rest of the party is hitting three or four times an attack.



I give him a Long Sword and a Silver Shield that I have lying around so he can pretend he's helping.



The first couple floors are simple. The enemies are the same we've run into hundreds of times by now.



Since Nathan Fillion's going all Black Magic and I don't consider Cure to be very Dragoon-like, I give this to Gordon of all people. Might as well let him top off his own damn HP.





The enemies I haven't seen before aren't all that stellar.



That said, these early enemies can inflict Dark, which reduces accuracy, and it'll only get worse once we go higher.



For you see, floor three is when the game decides to start throwing tougher shit at you.



For instance, the Adamantoise that was the boss of the last dungeon, complete with its massive HP pool and high physical resistance? A regular enemy.



It takes a few turns to take him down with Ice, making me regret not leveling it up to L2 over focusing on getting Fire to L4. Oh well, at least the guy's hard hits lead to more HP, even if it hurts Dude's precious MP reserves.

Of course, I eventually get Ice to L2 in this dungeon, but only after I stop running into these guys.



This is me after that battle. Ick.



Otherwise, the monsters I've been grinding on north of Fin, the ones I was encountering long before I should have been, they're common here.



A chest of pathetic Wererats net Luna a nice shield upgrade.



The next floor has this room, which isn't empty.



No, it houses a Silver Axe, Silver Sword, and a Were Staff.



The Silver Sword's only slightly weaker than the Ancient Sword but with much higher accuracy, so Nathan Fillion appreciates it. And since Gordon doesn't have any weapon skills anyway, he might as well put that staff to good use.



Wizard Ogres are still dicks, casting Ice5 or Blind or Sleep on the entire party. I think I've even seen one cast Ruse.



But they also drop spellbooks. I end up getting three or four Blind spellbooks alone, one of which I give to Nathan Fillion because black magic.



Hey look, Gordon's helping!





Mines are the next step up in the bomb family.



Even this nice hit isn't enough to kill one. Fortunately, they only show up in this chest, so they can't constantly explode on me for massive damage.



Then there's these guys. Moving on.



Another Wizard Ogre drops this Sleep tome for Nathan Fillion. How kind of him!



Another treasure room with crap consumables.





Eventually, we find our way to the boss.





Red Soul's kind of a step up from previous bosses, though not really.





Red Soul starts off spamming L8 attack spells on the party, between Fire, Ice, Lit, and Bane (poison elemental). They'd be scary single-target, but Red Soul does them multi-target, which takes a lot of bite out of the attack. Also, it only has enough MP for four castings before reverting to its weak physical attack.



The big gimmick about this guy is that Black Magic restores his HP.



Any Black Magic, even status effect spells. So we're relying on physical attacks for this guy.



Unfortunately, Dude is the only one who can reliably hit the guy worth a damn. The others occasionally get a decent hit in, but Dude's the one doing the heavy lifting here.



That said, he's easy after he's stuck to physical attacks, so it's just a slog until he goes down, from a strike by Gordon of all people.



But hey, we've got our Torch! Now we just need to get the Sunfire.

One Warp spell later...



Done! That wasn't so bad.



Oh, and here's Fire4 in action, complete with new spell effect.



Welp, so much for that ride.



STR +2, AGI +1, VIT +5, INT -1, WILL +1, MAG +2, HP +125, MP +11, Fire +1, Ice +1

Oh, Nathan Fillion, ever the balanced warrior. Losing INT always sucks, but otherwise he's pretty middle-of-the-road. Still a pretty nice Black Magic user.



STR +2, AGI +5, VIT +5, INT +1, MAG +3, HP +163, MP +17, Lit +1

Oh, oh my! That Agility growth! Luna's not as reliable a hitter as Dude, nor does she have as much magical variety as Nathan Fillion has, but she won't have to worry about evasion soon enough with the way that agility is skyrocketing. She's also close to L5 Spear/Shield, which is always wonderful.



STR +1, VIT +4, WILL +5, MAG +7, HP +93, MP +67, Fist +1, Cure +1, Ruse +1

Yeah, I'm pretty much giving up on scoring Dude any Agility at this rate. I'll probably shove him in the back row once his nonexistant evasion starts weighing him down and once fists stop being so damn awesome. Until then, though, he's still a very useful frontliner who will make up for his lack of evasion with sheer HP.



VIT +8, INT -1, WILL +1, HP +153, MP +22, Shield +1

Oh Gordon, you may look like you won't completely suck after all!

And here's some spell updates, since we've made some progress in them and all.