Part 5: Getting Stoned on Toads

Now that we have access to a ship, we can explore a few new areas. We're somewhat stuck, so we can't go back to old areas yet, but there's a few new places to explore.






Our first stop is the town of Tokkuru. I can never remember these damn town names.






The residents are acting rather oddly.



There's some nice loot in this town, though, so it's worth the trip.



So the benevolent king we're supposed to visit to get an airship? Turns out he's an asshole who raids towns for fun. I sense a flaw in this kind of government.



It's nice that you can blame everything bad that goes on in the world on that damn earthquake.




Some nice upgrades for the Monk, though at this point I've decided to fully dedicate myself to the Fighter class.






Our next stop is Argus Castle. We still need an airship, and maybe we can threaten the king not to be a dick to villagers, or perhaps convince him to adopt a better method of rule.



Place is deserted, though. Nothing to do here but move on.






If we head west, we end up in the Gurugan Valley. You may remember these guys from the intro and from other NPC's.

The music's nice and relaxed here. One of the many fine pieces of music in this game.



They're a group of blind people who can see into the future. Since they're clearly a wise people, they govern themselves, not led by anything silly like a king.



So that earthquake kind of fucked everything up. Of course, this is kind of weird once you realize we're on a floating continent. Oh yeah, if you didn't know, we're on a floating continent right now. The game gets more into it later.



How specific...



We'll be going there soon enough. Dwarves and more jobs? Yes, please!



The entire reason to go here is to get the Toad spell, which we need to progress. Ugh.



A man awakening in a tower to change fate, and we're heading to a tower. Huh, what a coincidence.



Toad is a L2 White Magic spell, like Mini. I change Stalin into a Red Mage so I can cast it. Unfortunately, I sold my Mithril gear, so Stalin's going to be nude for a bit. At least it's temporary.






Welcome to the Tower of Owen. The whirlpool next to the tower is impeding our progress, so we need to enter the tower to get rid of the whirlpool.




The enemies here are tough, and they'll require some actual strategy at times. I don't plan to actually fight anything as a Red Mage, though.



Some enemies can cast Mute here, which is an inconvenience. At least it gives me an excuse to use that Echo Screen I got in the first update.





The good news is that you only need Toad to go through that little opening. I switch back to normal and switch to Fighter again, because Fighters are awesome.





Deshu will change his dialogue every time that mystery person speaks to us. It might be worth talking to him a few times during the long trek to the top.






Mute doesn't bother me now. Tiny Wizards can cast L2 magic, but at this point it's not too bad for Stalin. Pygmen aren't really that tough either. Farjalgs... I don't know. They cast Toad sometimes? I know they die easily.





Deshu is one of the ancients responsible for creating the technology to make a continent float.



Hey, another Red Mage weapon! Still not worth using a Red Mage for!




I forgot to take a screenshot of this, but the top room is closed off from the bottom half. Deshu's telling you which chain you need to activate to open the path further.



Mad Masks require a bit of strategy to deal with. All the other enemies I can easily get away with dual-wielding death, as they're all weak squishy mages. Mad Masks, as you can see, hit very hard.




When fighting Mad Masks, I equip a shield and move to the back row. The Mad Masks miss more often and hit for less as a result. This does reduce my accuracy and draws battles out longer, but at least it means I don't die in this tower and have to start all over again. Did I mention this dungeon has ten floors? It would suck to die in this dungeon.



Blood Bats are another enemy you want to be in the back row for. Fortunately, they're much weaker than Mad Masks when you're on the defensive and become easy to destroy.




High in the dungeon, there's a couple of nice upgrades for Stalin.



There is a boon in being defensive, and that's by doing so many actions, you level up your job quickly. Your job levels up by doing actions relevant to your job, and for a Fighter, that's selecting Fight. Since Stalin misses all the time and battles take a couple minutes each, he spams Fight maybe ten-twenty times in the longer ones, which levels up his Fighter class like crazy. He's also gaining a lot of levels. I'm saying all this because he's now getting 2 hits from the back row and 3 hits per weapon in the front, which makes the final stretch of this dungeon much easier. Which is good, because I've already burned through thirty Potions.







Medusa is an...interesting fight.



This is what she does almost every turn. If she hits me with Stone, I'm fucked.



Thus I need to beat the shit out of her, which comes easily to Stalin.



She very rarely attacks, which is weak.

Granted, I was kind of worried, but not very. Years ago, I dicked around with a four-character Sage party for shits and giggles and came to this boss. One thing to know about Medusa is that her Magic Defense is very high. My Sages couldn't hurt her with their spells, so they had to plink away at her with staves. It was a very slow process. During this time, she spammed nothing but Stone. The entire length of the battle, Stone never hit once. Medusa was never even a threat to my characters, and because of that I knew that she wouldn't be much of a threat here.



The journey here was exhausting and resource-draining, but at least they make up for it with a very easy boss.






Deshu: No! Stay back! This is dangerous stuff! ...I've finally got my memories back! I was the last of the ancients who kept watch over this tower. I'd been sleeping for a long time. I guess I woke up when things started happening to the tower. Looks like I slept so long I went a bit senile...



Deshu: This sure is pretty bad... hard to say if anything will help now. But I've got to try, or else the whole continent's going to go splat.















And so Deshu sacrifices himself to save the continent from destruction. The game actually pauses for a moment just to let the entire piece play out before warping you outside.



Deshu's sadly gone, but at least our way is open now, and we're getting close to unlocking some new jobs! Joy!

Next time... Chocobos! Dwarves! Jobs! And probably a lot of deaths!

Update Death Counter: 1
Total Death Counter: 23