Part 12: Deadlia

10. Deadlia



There's not really much else left to do topside, so we'll just head on off to Agart...



Throw the Magma Rock into the giant well...



And head on into the Underworld.



But, of course, despite opening the only way down here just now we were somehow beaten.

Because Golbez isn't entirely stupid and probably didn't waste time blowing up a mountain when the Tower of Babel's sticking out by Eblan.



Also, the Red Wings are fighting Dwarven Tanks. Okay, sure.



Because of the lavagma, we can't fly around in the Enterprise anymore. Fortunately, we land right next to the one non-hostile place that isn't completely closed off from everywhere down here.

[Music: King Giott's Castle]



The castle of Dwarves is a nice, cool castle but a little small. It also features the return of hidden passages, so there's that.



Next to the Inn and Item Shop, we can find 5000 gil. It's the only thing we can get before fighting the boss, so we should go do that.



It's refreshing just how straight-forward Cecil is, really. He just outright tells the king to his face we want your stuff.



Cid leaves to make the Enterprise able to fly again, and because we're the protagonist(s) Giott tells us where to find the first of two remaining crystals.



Also we're being spied on by magical evil dolls.

[Music: Dancing Dolls ~ Calcobrina]



Said evil dolls are our next boss fight. The underworld is weird.



Oh, there's no boss music here. That same track plays on loop constantly.



So, the Calco's have more HP whereas the Brina's have more defence and an alleged immunity to every ailment that isn't Slow or Stop.



This is actually untrue. You wouldn't know it, but the Brina's can in fact be hit with at least one of those ailments. It just doesn't stick often.



In this case, though, it did. Not often you get to kill an alleged poison-immune enemy with poison.

[Music: Battle 2 ~ Boss Battle]



Once all of one type are taken out, the remaining ones do this on their next turn.

You can skip it by killing all the Calco's and Brina's pretty quickly but that's not as fun.

Also, yes, the fusing is their gimmick. Well, half of it.



Frankly, Calcobrena isn't difficult. She fulfills the second half of the gimmick by splitting back into 3 Calcos and 3 Brinas if you don't kill her quick enough but the time is super generous.



It's also more than easy enough to deplete barely 5,000 HP when we're used to bosses having more. She really exists solely as a way to waste resources before the harder fight.



Like, she hits kind of hard I guess but it's managable since we have lots of Hi-Potions and decent equipment.



Glance is the only tricky part of the fight. Not because it's difficult, but because it's annoying.



This inflicts confusion. Since Rydia still has White Magic this translates to...



Her casting Cure on Calcobrena a lot. And very, very quickly. It doesn't even remotely begin to matter but she spams it quick enough for Calcobrena to not get another turn for a little while.



But when she does, she dies anyway.

[Music: Golbez ~ Clad in Dark]



So, that was the appetiser. The main course is a fight everyone's been curious about, I'm sure. It's gimmick is... special.

Also, as soon as the fight starts all of Rydia's equipped equipment will change.



But first, Golbez decides to tell us his plan. His incredibly dumb plan.



So, this fight is a plot one. We'll win, because we have to, but it can be really, really difficult if you're not expecting it.



We get exactly one turn before the fight's gimmick kicks in here. Ordinarily, there's some actual fighting first but we bypass that.

Our attacks here will always miss. Always. Even stuff that seemingly can't miss (Dancing Dagger and Magic Arrow for example) will still miss.



The entire party will then get paralysed.



Golbez will then proceed to summon for the first and last time. His dragon will promptly kill everyone not named Cecil.



So, we're gonna game over and there's nothing... we can... do about... it?

It... it should be happening any minute now.



Not this. This shouldn't happen yet.

But it does anyway, because the Shadow Dragon apparently only kills Rosa, Yang and Kain if he's on-screen.



At this point, our combat options immediately change. We immediately, and unceremoniously, pick up 5 new summons.



We also pick up 3 new Black Magic spells and lose access to White Magic.

What the game doesn't tell you is that Rydia also learns Cura at this point. Kind of. It's dummied out of her commands. Makes some sense since the only opportunity to use it would be in the post-game otherwise.

Also in the DS/iOS ports, she gains more than just the -ara elemental spells now. She also picks up Drain and Quake.

[Music: Four Emperors ~ Dreaful Fight]



Oh, and we have two Rydias now. Just the one is honestly super overkill at this point.



So much so, that Golbez is getting wrecked by a whole two hits.



What can I say? It's nice having lots of new toys to play with. Helps keep things a bit different for a while.



We still have 2 Rydias in our party, but now the one we had before has also had a sprite and portrait change so don't expect any wacky shenanigans in that regard.



And now we officially have Rydia back and she never leaves again.



Oh, and Golbez got the crystal. Welp, just one (to fail to save) to go then.



It's in the real worst-dungeon, of course, but first Cecil has a smart idea.



Namely busting into the Tower of Babel and stealing all the Crystals.

But before we do that, let's go back a bit.

Rydia's equipment changes at the start of the Golbez fight so that's unavoidable, but everything else happens after the Mist Dragon pops up so what if we can avoid that somehow?



This'll do it. This one fairly lengthy code will enable us to skip the Ice Bind scripted part of the fight easily. It's a bit cheap since it enables us to just one-shot everything at the risk of the game maybe crashing in some fights.



In this case, it does something weird. Namely as soon as Golbez gets a turn he just dies. We don't even need to do anything.



This has the affect of changing Rydia's sprite... but not her portrait.



She also doesn't gain the mid-level elemental spells, any of the new summons and still has her White Magic. So, uh, if you kill Golbez fast enough you can be stuck with Young Rydia forever.

Other than missing 5 summons and 3 spells there's no real downside to doing it, honestly. It just makes the "spam Bio all the time" bit last longer.

[Music: King Giott's Castle]



Okay, now that we've re-equipped our good stuff we can move on.



And by "move on," I mean "loot everything."



The stores here don't have anything interesting or worth buying to worry about. The only new thing we can use is the Dark Arrows... but they're arrows, and we don't need them any more.



So, let's just go into the not-at-all-hidden passage between the weapon and armour stores.



It leads to the pub with the requisite dancer in it. We're interested in the area to the right though. It's the obvious hidden passage that leads to...



The Dev Team office. We'll poke around here for real later.



We're just after the Magazine since it's the only item down here.



With the totally not a porn mag honest picked up we can get the real stuff. We can't use the Dwarf Axe, but it sells for a fair chunk so it's okay with me.



On the next level of the western tower, there's more Bacchus's Cider because of course there is. I think at this point I'd be more surprised if I didn't find free booze lying around in someone's castle.



On the top of the tower, there's some fairly nice loot. The Power Armlet's not that great. Rydia can use it, sure, but it doesn't really help.

We also pick up an Elixir, a Silver Hourglass and an Ether.

To the Eastern Tower!



oh look more cider what a shocker



The top of this tower has the requisite Hi-Potion, an Elixir again and another Ether for good measure.

It also has this really, really nice piece of armour.



The +8 physical defence is great, the -2 magic defence is kind of a non-issue right now and the +2 attack is nice but not worth taking into consideration.



Now that we've got everything from inside the castle proper, let's head down into the basement and head on out to the back entrance.



Down here we have three free Cottages which'll come in handy much later. They always do after all.



There's also some random guy who knows the fourth fiend/lord/emperor is hanging out at Babel somehow. Makes sense, since they've been at basically every dungeon from Mt. Ordeals onwards with the weird exception of the Magnetic Cave.



We also have the requisite free healing that makes the inn completely unnecessary and worthless.



That done, we can head on off to a new world map for real and go to the tower.

Next time: Super Fighting Robot.









Rydiadult ~ Amano Artwork.