Part 20: Digging Too Deep

Update 20: Digging Too Deep

In This Update:
- More clan privileges!
- More delivery quests!
- Kupo kupo kupo!!

---

Welcome back!


You know what we haven't looked at in a while? Clan Privileges.
Using Luck 1 last update reminded me that Bonus AP isn't the only useful privilege in the game.


Up first is Aptitude-Adaptability, which as usual are significantly lower than Negotiation and Teamwork.


Here's our stats going into the trial. It seems like every quest raises Teamwork and Negotiation, but only a handful raise the other two.


Master Explorers grants the very useful privilege we want.


Not too bad, right?


Uh, let's try that again.


Not terribly onerous, since you shouldn't really be attacking anyway.


This crew is pretty fast -- Samuel is still a little behind, but he's required to be here. We can make them move even further with the help of some equipment.

Sprint Shoes and Ninja Tabi are two of the best accessories in the game. They raise the wearer's Move by +1 and +2, respectively.


Let's get on with it.


The lights appear in random places. As usual, just walk up to it and click "Examine."


There's a handful of lights present at any time. When you pick one up, the remaining ones disappear and a new set of lights show up in different locations.


This makes planning rather difficult. You can't go, "I'll send Lenolia to pick up this light on her turn, then Zoe can fly over there to get the next one."


The key is to spread your units out. With high speed and mobility, one or two units will be able to react to the new light positions.


If you don't get too unlucky, anyway. Acid inflicts a random status condition.


That's two more. One left!


Bless the Sprint Shoes, honestly.




With MP Channeling, units will gain 20 MP per turn instead of 10.

Is it worth using? Sometimes. You have to consider two factors: What other clan privilege am I giving up? What can I use now that I have more MP available?

For example, a Bishop typically uses Half MP as his P-Ability. With MP Channeling, he could instead use Trickster's Ribbon Bearer and equip a Ribbon to protect himself against all negative conditions.

With Half MP and MP Channeling, a Summoner can Double Cast most of her spells every turn without dipping into her HP with Blood Magick. But Blood Magick also grants a damage boost, and it's pretty easy to negate the HP loss.

---


There's another great privilege that I want to pick up.



OK, that's not too bad, depending on how many enemies we start with.


Oh. Well. OK then.


There's the catch.




Annoyingly, the werewolf -- sorry, Zaghnal -- resists most debuffs thanks to the Orb of Minwu, including Stone.


Fuck it.




Move 1 gives +1 movement to all units!


As with most privileges, you can upgrade Move 1 by repeating the trial at a higher difficulty.




And in this case, it's exactly the same trial as before!




We don't have to care about the law.


Neat.




+2 movement to every unit. +4 if they have Ninja Tabi. That's kind of amazing, honestly.


And after those three trials, our clan skills are maxed out.

That doesn't mean much, we just won't be locked out of any clan trials or quests.

---

Let's take care of a few short side quests, too.




Here's our first good look at Goug. It's a truly industrial city -- compare it to the floating gardens of Fluorgis.


Being a scientist in Ivalice sounds terrible. First Mack is betrayed by his fellow researchers, and now this guy doesn't even have a post grad or lab tech to help him.


Talf is more than prepared to handle the duties, I'm sure.

This quest last 7 days because the researcher needs to submit his work by the end of the week.

---




This quest also takes place in Goug.


Samuel asks if he can see it when it's done. Unfortunately, there's no follow-up quest.


Perhaps it just takes too long.

---


This sounds a little familiar, doesn't it? Way back in the first couple updates, we delivered someone's lunch.






This quest seems a bit more urgent though.




Dreamhares are pretty scary.


Assuming Lyze isn't with a clan -- which he probably isn't, since few adventurers are -- then I'd say his wife is understandably worried!


At least she means well.

---


Some of you may remember the One Red Paperclip phenomenon. A man traded up from a single red paperclip to a whole house. It took him fourteen trades from 2005 to 2006.

There's apparently also a Japanese folktale called the Straw Millionaire who did a similar series of trades to get rich. It's the inspiration for the Legend of Zelda trade sequences.




I guess we're contributing to a little bit of Ivalice history!




He had a bit of silver liquid on his hands still. Oh dear.

This suggests to me that silver liquid is mercury and adamantite is composed primarily of aluminum. (Canonically, it's the fossilized shell of an adamantoise.)

---


Anyway, on to the main event: The Dig!







: It's crawling with moogles!

: Let's go and find the queue to get into a survey team, kupo!


There's an explosion off in the distance, and the whole room shakes.

: Kupo!? What's wrong?



: Kupo!?

The moogles start panicking.

: What are they talking about?

: Mooglebanes, kupo! Oh, they're very, very horrible. And they love to eat our *gulp* pom-poms.

: You mean that thing on your head!? They eat those!?

: Kupo-po! Speak of it no more, I beg you! It's too frightening, kupo!

: You up there! You tell the next shaft over about the mooglebane, kupo! You, kupo. Get the moogletron ready!


Man, this reminds me of that scene from Aliens.

: Hey! Look at that! Cool, it's a robot!!!


The moogletron sputters, sparks and explodes.

: Um... what happened!?

: Kupo-po! The moogletron's overheating!

: Kupo!!!

: ...Any longer down here and I'll be saying "kupo" myself.

: Are they really worried, or just hyper-active...?



All the moogles flee the room.

: Quiet at last.



: Guess it's up to us to clear these out.


Dreamhares are weak to fire, and Chocobos are weak to Lightning. The extra damage would be nice, but we should be OK without it.


These enemies may look mostly harmless, but they hit pretty hard and they're really fast. The dreamhares are lacking many of their usual abilities, but they can still Charm your team with Illude. The Chocobos have all their usual abilities.

I recommend playing this battle defensively. Let the enemy come to you, where you can easily swarm them.


The other important thing is to make sure you're protected against Charm.


Samuel and Leed have Ruby Earrings, which we picked up from auctions and the bazaar. They only block Charm, but that's all we need. Lian has the Orb of Minwu, which blocks against most debuffs. Adelle and Jalia have Ribbons. Hurdy is the only one not protected.




OK so maybe I should have protected Hurdy too. But Hurdy has no offensive abilities -- the worst he can do is hit someone or Haste one of the enemies. The rest of the team moves faster than him and can knock him out of it.


Again, I'm playing defensively. It's not easy for the dreamhares to get up to this position, and it should draw them up into this corner of the map.


Ranged damage really helps, too.


Adelle is still a Fighter. Usually that job gets more screen time in my runs, but I really haven't been using it much.

Aurablast has a huge range -- 1 square more than Air Render -- and deals AoE damage.


Lian brings Hurdy back to his senses.


Hurdy's whole job is giving everyone Haste, as usual.


The Chocobos are a secondary threat to the dreamhares. They have a few support abilities that could slow down the battle, but they're much slower than anyone else on the battlefield.


That's one down. Dreamhares have very high resilience and evasion, but we got a little lucky here.


Protecting against Charm makes this battle much, much easier.

Another option, if you don't have excess equipment slots or the right accessories: grind out the Debuff Resistance 5 clan privilege. That'll protect you from just about anything, including Charm. (But not Stone, Doom or Sleep, crucially.)


A few turns in. Adelle is boxed in, but that's just where she wants them. Leed's put Magick Frenzy to good use by blinding enemies with Gold Veil.


One down.


The Chocobos have taken a couple hits, so they buff themselves with Choco Barrier.


And that's just enough to stop Samuel from killing it.


You're only prolonging the inevitable!


Hey guess which one of my katana-wielding units doesn't have Dual Wield?


Critical: Quicken is an annoying R-Ability, really.


Two down.


The Nightmare timer finally runs out. Just one dreamhare and the Chocobos left.


This is a really good opportunity to recruit these Chocobos, by the way. I don't care about that though.


That's like the fourth critical hit this battle.


Jalia gets an Opportunity Command and uses it to kill the last dreamhare.


And another crit!


Killing that red Chocobo was enough to fill Samuel's Smash Gauge. This gauge fills up over the battle as you do certain actions.


Ones it's charged enough, you can use the abilities from certain accessories. For example, the Earrings of the Dead let Samuel cast Condemnation.


Yeah, sure, why not?

You're going to want to see the animated version of this.


The battlefield zooms out and a dark cloud settles over it.


The Angel of Death appears and unleashes a scream.


Neat.



: I was on the verge of saying "kupo!" the whole time.



---



: Huh? Check this out! Looks like a portable game machine! They have those here, too? Hmm... not that I've seen anyone playing one. Maybe it's one of those forgotten technologies.

: Kupo! A strange lump of metal was found in Shaft 57! It's awfully heavy. The team's requesting assistance, kupo!

I believe this is the Orichalcum we get as a quest reward.

: Kupo.

: Moogles! I need you to come with me!

: Kupo!

: I got to admit, all these wacky artifacts are pretty entertaining. I could get to like this place! This is just like back home, sneaking into the school lab... Or going through the closets looking for presents...


Meanwhile, Adelle is lost in thought.

: Huh? Did you say something?

: Nothing important. What's wrong? You hit your head during that battle?

: No, it's not that... I'm just... Maybe I'm just tired.

: The constant kupos -can- get a little wearisome.

: Look, I'm going to head home. You stick here with Hurdy, Samuel. Don't worry about me. I'll be fine.

: Samuel!!! We found something down here. I think it's an instrument!

: Duty calls.

: Y-Yeah. You be careful, okay?

---


Back in Goug, we find Adelle sitting alone in a room at the pub.

: ...Hmm.


The scene shifts to when Adelle talked to Lezaford after the battle with the demon.


The sepia tone fades into color as we see the rest of the scene.

: You know... I'm not like other humes. Ever since I was little, I've been good at everything I do. Reading, running, all of it. Even as a child, I could watch a dance once and mimic it perfectly. Songs, too.

: The other kids used to pick on me... but I paid them no mind. I didn't believe I was any different from them. Not really. Not until my parents died...

: ...

: It was a plague. It swept through the whole village. So many took ill, and nothing could be done for them. They died, one after another.



: That was when I realized I'm not like the others.

: Sometimes, the vagaries of lineage and location come together. And a child is born. One with great powers.

: They are the "gifted ones". Within their blood lies the seeds of an incredible, unknowable power. And with the prompting of circumstance, wondrous talent can bloom.

: Wondrous talent? How do you mean? It's been nothing but misery for me. If you know of someone who -wants- this, by all means, let me know! It's theirs.

: Yet, this is a dream that cannot be. You are what you are, and none of us may become that which we are not. Yet, you can accept what you are, and in turn, be accepted.



: I'm leaving.

: Should you ever have need of me, please come again.

: Not likely.

The scene fades to black.



---


Some time later, in the pub. Cid is pacing while Hurdy sits at a nearby table.

: Calm down, kupo! You look scary enough to kill, Cid!



Samuel walks in. He's come from the room above the pub, where we last saw Adelle.

: Samuel! Your timing's impeccable. Cid's in a bad way.

: K-Kupo!? What's wrong, Samuel? You look scarier than Cid!



: So what's Cid's problem?

: Problem? Catastrophe, more like. I'd been saving up to buy a new cloak, and it's gone!

: Kupo-po! Someone stole your nest egg!?

: That would be Adelle. Look at this.



: "Thank you for everything, but I'm striking out alone. Don't try to follow me." ...What's this!?

: She says all the stuff with Khamja and the grimoire was getting to be too much...

: "It's too hard to say goodbye in person, so with this letter I take my leave." Her leave? More like my money, that thief!

: Man, I knew she was bad, but I never thought she was capable of this!

: Kupo...

: C'mon, Cid, let's go do a quest. Something quick and dirty that pays. Times like this, you just gotta fight the good fight, make some gil, and eat a ton!

Cid nods in agreement.



: Let the girl go, I say.

: Yeah, who cares what she does?

: Kupo...

: Let's get questing!