Part 34: Bazaar Rewards

Update 34: Bazaar Rewards

In This Update:
- Meet an old friend!
- Take on low-level quests!
- Get a bunch of new items!

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Today's update is all about rounding up loot for the bazaar. We have almost every piece of ability-granting equipment in the game, largely thanks to the auctions. The last few items can only be found in the bazaar. Fortunately, the loot we need is all available from quests.

And some of those quests have been sitting around for a while, so it's high time we did them.


Every once in a while, the request board at the pub is almost empty. Every non-story quest is available for a certain part of the year -- the "Other" tab contains all the quests that we can't pick up right now. A lot of them will be available by next month.


- Craftsmoogles' League Foreman

First up is this bounty hunting mission.


On one of my least favorite maps, too.


Have you noticed that nu mou are often the bad guys in this game?

: The foreman at the Craftsmoogles' League is saying you ripped him off!



: Well, why don't you come and tell that to the foreman? I, for one, would love to hear how a 20,000 gil hammer -isn't- a rip-off. We'll escort you back to town.

: So that's how it's going to be! Boys, we'll find that scum after we deal with this lot!


Why? Why this law? It doesn't even make any sense.


Going up to this portion of the map gains you nothing in this battle. There's no treasure, and all the enemies are in the lower portion of the map.




We're only slightly overleveled for this quest.


But levels don't mean much when you've been abusing the auction house all game.


Yes, we ended this battle in two turns without the enemy taking a single step.



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We're arresting them, I guess.





: Wh-Who're you!? One of that alchemist's cronies!?

: No, no, quite the opposite. They were after me, you see. I saw you capture them, and thought I might speak with you.


Ezel Berbier is quite familiar to those who've played Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. He played a significant role in the plot, being the inventor and main supplier of Law Cards.

: I'm Samuel. Of Clan Sawyer.

: Yes, erm...perhaps I've ought with which I kin repay you.

: Huh? Hey, no, don't worry about it.

: Ah, yer clan is adjudged, eh? In that case, I've just the thing 'ere!


Ezel pulls out a card.

: A card...?

: It is a protection... a ward for yer judge. There are those of less reputable natures who'd filch away a clan's judge.

: I can have this? You're sure?

We're quite familiar with those kind of people. This protection could be very useful.

: Of course. I did craft it fer a client, but seeing as you've just appre'ended him...

: What, that alchemist!?

: He could hardly hope to make it himself. So he hires me...then doesn't pay. So I asks him for 80,000, straight up.

: 80,000 gil!? For one card!?

We could buy... 3 of them. And have money left over for a hammer or two.

: That card right there's the only thing in this world'll stop anything comin' at a judge. Physical or magickal. It's one-of-a-kind. My price was a bargain.

: Wait... so you're giving me this card? ...For free?

: Ah, worried there might be a catch, eh? If ye don't need it, I won't force ye...

: Wait, no, I'll take it!

: Ah ha ha! Well, I'd best be on me way. Would love to chat, but time's a scarce commodity these days. Aye, it's tough when you've genius of my caliber. Every lord in the land wants ye. Fare well, Samuel.



: A 20,000 gil hammer, or a 80,000 gil card... I can't decide which is the bigger rip-off!

In-universe, I think the card is worth it. But we've never had trouble even when our judge has been forcibly removed from the battle.

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See those Sturdy Bones? They can be traded for six items, only one of which can be found at the auction house. They also seem to be relatively rare drops from monsters.


Plus I'm going to have to do this quest eventually anyway.


There's two humes here, an Archer and a Black Mage. If we took this quest when it was first available, they would have been serious threats and the law would have been an interesting twist.
At this point in the game, the law just prevents us from spamming Magick Frenzy Illusions.


The plan is for Zoe, Adelle and Jalia to dive in and take down Lord Grayrl quickly.


You may remember Lord Grayrl from the quest, "Lord Grayrl!", which unlocked the Viking job. Here, they're trying to make off with a boatload of gems.

: Sorry pirates, this cargo is under our protection!

: Bweh heh heh! And just who do you think you are?


I just love the fighting stances.

: ...And foolish. We'll have that cargo!




Quick educational aside: the thread had been discussing ways of restoring MP besides Ethers or abilities like the Cannoneer's Ether Shell. One suggestion was the Templar's Soul Sphere, which deals MP damage. By wearing element-absorbing gear and using a weapon of that element, the target would absorb the damage as MP.

Unfortunately, this technique only works in FFTA, where Soul Sphere's damage is based on the equipped weapon. In this game, it is treated as a normal spell.


But there's another option: Raptor's Soul Crush does HP and MP damage and is based on the weapon used! Zoe can heal Talf and restore his MP. She's doing roughly 60 damage with a frontal attack -- the same as Cannoneer's Ether Shell -- which means a back attack could grant 120 MP. The only disadvantage is Soul Crush is melee range, but it might be usable with a Greatbow for cross-map healing.


Five turns worth of MP gain in one hit. Excellent!


Anyway, Adelle kills this dude.



: We'll never steal again! Please! Forgive us!

: Whew! The cargo is safe.



A quick trip to the bazaar to trade in those Sturdy Bones yields some useful rewards:







We're able to buy the last couple weapons for Juggler and Cannoneer. We're missing one more rapier still, but we won't get it this update.

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- Udite, Second Year Akademy Student

Those Bat Wings, I need them.


This mission is probably the easiest item pick-up quest so far.




We're also really too strong for this one.


Walk around, talk to the glowy spots, pick up all the papers, and slaughter everything that moves.


Talf is going to handle the enemies all by himself, actually.


Soul Crush to give him over 80 MP, and Haste so he has plenty of turns to blast things.


Everyone else is picking up papers.


Illusion #1, Deluge, is super-effective against the Tomatoes. The one next to Vaan ran into a trap, so it was already weakened.


Illusion #2, Prominence, hits the Dream Hare's fire weakness. It kills all of the remaining enemies.

I don't remember if I've shown this in a while. Every enemy drops loot when killed, and it shows up as a little bag dropping on the ground.


Two turns (in a row!) to turn the enemies to ash. Power feels good.


And then everyone else runs around and picks up the exam pages.





The Bat Wings can be traded for the Satyr Flute and the Gale Sword. The Satyr Flute is good because it lets Talf control Headless, which can teach our Blue Mages Quake, which as you may remember is the only Blue Mage spell that works with Magick Frenzy.

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All good loot, though we really want the Kempas. We did the first of the "Foodstuff" quests back in Update 4, I believe. Like that one, we're trying to kill a certain number of one enemy type.

Can you guess what kind we're hunting for?


Points to those of you who guess Malboro.


Sure hope we don't get any random crits!


Like last time, we need to kill the required amount of Malboros -- four, in this case -- and talk to the Bishop to end the quest.


We're going to kill a lot of tomatoes, too, because we need to spawn a lot more Malboros.


Someone in the thread wanted to see Adelle slam some fools with Lennart, so here you go!





Talf will again be handling crowd control, with support from Henri's Ether Shell.


I'm never going to get tired of this.


Adelle gets a lucky critical -- the knockback is negated by the elevated terrain behind the Malboro. And it drops the last Sturdy Bone that we need!


Not long after that, Adelle crits a tomato in self defense and accidentally breaks the law.


And then we kill a couple more Malboros and end this silly battle.




The last Seer book and the last Fusilier gun! We're going to master a lot of jobs after this.

You don't really need this Seer book, to be honest. You can turn your Seer into a Black Mage and learn the three -ara spells from rods instead. It'll be faster than using the books if you have Dual Wield!

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No, I'm sorry, but if the family heirloom that brought you good fortune breaks, you're stuck with bad fortune.


You can't just replace it, that's not how it works.


An annoying but not insurmountable law. I prefer holy damage anyway.


Elementalist and Bishop both have spells that aren't banned by the law, so they're good choices here. For your melee fighters, make sure they don't have elemental swords!


This is really just a headhunt.


The first part of this battle can be summed up in two pictures.


Remember Meteorite? We used to see it all the time. It's a blast from the past!

I haven't missed how evasive the faeries are at all.


Lenolia and Liam are our main damage dealers, since they can take advantage of the monsters' elemental weaknesses.


Hurdy is tossing around plenty of Hastes, and it doesn't take us long to burn down all the minions.


Frimelda lands the finishing blow. Can you believe we're getting paid 5000 G for this?


More importantly, we finally get our hands on some Spiral Vines!


We're only missing one more katana. The Thorn Bow teaches the last Ranger ability, which sacrifices your own HP to heal someone. It also has one of the better Archer abilities, Leg Shot.


We pick up some other stuff. The Rubber Suit can be fun for Lightning shenanigans. The Arbalest has the largest Greatbow range in the game, but I shouldn't have bought it -- you can get it from the Camoa and Graszton auctions.

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Last one! A lot of very, very nice robes can be bought with Prime Pelts. But we own them already.


This is one of my least favorite quests, actually.


You see, the point of this mission is to keep Prima Donna from getting in the water.


(That's Hurdy and Talf lurking in the back line.)


Thanks to a lot of miscommunication, Prima Donna thinks we're trying to spy on them while they're bathing. So they're going to beat us up.


Meanwhile, we're just trying to find them because they're supposed to be putting on a concert. Hence the whole "stop them from getting in the water" objective.


Notice that the water is between us and them. Also notice that they're viera and gria, and therefore quite fast, and that they are going to try to attack us. Which means they'll end up in the water.

If this game had better crowd control, this wouldn't be too bad.


We could try rushing in and stopping them at the water's edge, but I have a better plan.


First, Leed and Talf load up on MP. (You probably already see where this is going.)


Zoe rushes forward to act as a distraction. She's far enough forward that Prima Donna will attack her, but not so close that they'll get in the water behind her to attack.


Quick aside: Mayhew has basically the same battle sprite as Zoe. One of this game's various faults is its lack of a coherent color scheme for units. It can be quite hard to tell at a glance if a unit is friendly or not.


Prima Donna moves up. Mayhew is making me a little nervous, she's a little close to the water. This Death Sickle doesn't do anything thanks to Zoe's Ribbon.


The next step is buffing Leed with some Haste.


Ready? There's Illusion #1.


Illusion #2, backed by Magick Frenzy. That's the two Devotees dead.


Magick Frenzy Illusion #3 follows soon after, because the Devotees were supposed to go next after Leed's last turn.


Magick Frenzy Illusion #4 comes in hot and finishes off Prima Donna.


That's why you raise your Seers as Ninjas. With Haste and some good luck with the turn order, Leed had three turns in a row and almost single-handedly killed every single enemy.

I did say I didn't like this quest, right? It got everything it deserves here.


I am so glad the thread told me to try out Seer.


With those Prime Pelts, we're able to buy the last Card for Trickster!

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Also during this update, I was able to teach Quake to Samuel and Leed! So now we can use that for Magick Frenzy if we want. Seer Samuel might happen for a bit.


Nice.

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Thanks for reading! This was pretty dense update, but I really wanted to get my hands on these weapons.

More importantly, we've gained quite a few levels. It might be time to take on the next story mission!