Part 9: In Which We Are Insensitive Pricks

It's uneven until you fight things that cast Star Flare, which I'm pretty sure is based on a function of its target's level and will thusly only do 50 damage.


The next morning...

"Good... thanks to that medicine you gave me."


"Everything's gonna be fine. Trust me."








And another unavoidable ATE.


"Nothing."

Teach Me, Mogster is a sort of an in-game instruction manual sequence. Half of you are probably illiterate anyway and "read" these things for the pretty pictures so I'm not going to bother transcribing it or even screenshotting it.






And thusly do we clear out.


I'd trust this guy to have my back any day.


So here we are, the world map. "Call Moogle" is FF9's saving-in-the-field mechanic, from where you can save and use a tent, because it was too inconvenient to add this feature to the menu screen.

Not that I mind because it's a cute mechanic, but it's kind of...


We thief Huihui's Moonstone and give it to Garnet so she can start learning a spell that I'll never use.


This is our destination.

But there are other things to be seen first.




"I think it's called... Melda Arch or something?"

Another piece of trivial information that ends up being important if you do a sidequest later in the game.




yes they might swing a sword at you and clip through a wall or something i don't know

oh wait, this isn't oblivion


Anyway, there are treasures on the opposite side of the fence to the right and you can examine the door.









"If you'd like, I can help..."

I like how this establishes Kilika as a somewhat immature, if not easygoing, guy. He's chasing one woman's skirts already, but the next one is always the first thing on his mind at this point in the game.


You can buy potions from her. I don't really know how she gets them to you. perhaps she clips them through the wall

While wandering around grinding AP to learn shit, Huihui got Trance.

As mentioned earlier, Trance is different for everyone. He doesn't get any special commands or anything, but his attack strength triples.


Makakao also gets Trance. His is basically a Doublecast, which is useful but uses two charges of his Trance gauge.

Anyway, we master the -Killer ability on Huihui's helmet and give him the Iron Helm we stole from the Plant Brain boss.

It gives him access to Level Up, which provides an extra 10% EXP after every battle. Useless, of course, but then, Abilities are just cool passives you'll pretty much always have the same ones on anyway.

NOW we'll go the Ice Cavern.

yes Kilika that is what the world map text said as we approached it




"Yes."


"No one cares."


"He must've been sick of dealing with you"
"Kilika, that was awfully insensitive of you"
"It's not like those people have feelings"


Ahh, the Ice Cavern.


A little too much on the teal side for my tastes as far as ice dungeons go, but still a pretty well-designed place.


"You break it, you buy it!"


Well perhaps you should be wearing more than a medieval noble's wifebeater and a cravat


I really hate the encounter groups in this dungeon if only because this specific monster and this particular attack.


The damage, of course, is negligible, but the kicker is that it puts its target to sleep. This isn't deadly either, but it's a timesink and it cockblocks your actions, which sucks when you want to get 400-500 successful Steals in before the end of the game.


This dungeon also has these weird walls.




"You're damn right you are, I gotta make my quota of minority oppression and I only have like eight more images to do it in"


There are basically shitty treasures behind these walls. Nothing spectacular, and nothing we'll either ever use (Elixirs) or won't be able to buy in the next town for less Gil than we make in a single encounter.

There are also these weird gusts of mist that appear in certain places. If you walk through them while they're blowing through...

... you fight these ugly fuckers.


They aren't special or anything and they generally go down in one hit, but it gives you an idea of just what Mist Monsters are all about.


Anyway, more of these walls and shit. Basically, I'm just showing off the pre-rendered backgrounds. Like I said, a little too teal for my tastes--I like my snow areas deep blue and purple and maybe a little green--but who cares? What a place.


We come to a fork in the path. It's hard to tell from a still, but the right-side path has this ominous icy wind coming from it, so we won't be heading that way.


To the left, we find a Moogle encased in a block of ice.


Well, he's not too happy about this.

It sends us into another Teach Me, Mogster ATE.

Just in case you didn't believe me when i said that this is basically a straight transcription from the manual.


Anyway, when we're finished with that, we talk to this really angry Moogle, agree to deliver a letter for him, and save our game.

NEXT TIME

"i told you Kilika it's my bowed legs why are you insensitive"

QUOTA SATISFIED