Part 11: Faris vs. Death

Here's our current stats. From the last batch of voting, Reina got Ninja, Galuf got Trainer, and Faris got Geomancer. That said, we'll only be seeing one of those today.



Bartz picked up L2 Summoning in the last dungeon, so now's as good a time as any to take him to Red Mage. While I could grind up White Mage, Red Mage gets access to L3 Black and White magic (though none higher, like Esna), so might as well make use of the job while it's still relevant. Plus, it gets me closer to that beautiful Doublecast that Bartz will be taking huge advantage of in the near future.



Galuf and Faris are just a few AP away from their next job levels, so let's grind them up a bit first.





Galuf learns Chkra (Chakra), a self-healing move that cures a few status effects. More importantly, Faris picks up L3 Time Magic, all she'll need for now.



I switch Faris back to Blue Mage so she can get to work learning the actual command, with Time Magic as a secondary. As for Galuf, since he's set on Black Magic and Monk's not too useful for him, I decide to give him time as a Trainer, a rather interesting if gimmicky job.



But first, Chkra in action. Waste of an ability slot, so I swap to barehanded.

Remember those random weapons we found in Tycoon that nobody could use? Geomancers can use the bell, Trainers the whip, and Ninjas the katana, so there you go.





I go back to the Fire Ship to obtain a couple Blue Magic spells I missed out on, and forget that there's a story trigger here.



Cid's more concerned about breaking the crystals than putting us in danger in the other translations, though he's also less melodramatic. I do find "I wish I'd never been born..." kinda hilarious, honestly.





It must be tough on him...



I'm cool with Cid. His poor judgment resulted in us getting lots of wonderful jobs, after all!





So back to the ship for a bit to get Blue Magic.



Exploder kills the caster to deal their current HP worth of damage to a chosen monster. It's as horrible as it sounds.



Also, Reina picks up L1 Sword Magic. She'll probably be sticking with Sorcerer until she hits L3 Sword Magic, then to Ninja she goes.





Someone told me in the thread that these guys only cast Flash when they're alone. Knowing that, I actually have them cast it on me.



Flash inflicts Blind on a group of enemies. Could be handy if you had any idea whether it actually worked or not. Oh well.





So here's Flash in action.





???? doesn't even have a battle window. As I mentioned previously, it deals the caster's MaxHP-CurrentHP. It has its uses, I guess.





The Trainer's special ability is Catch. To actually pull it off, you need to lower the enemy's HP to 1/8 its max, which can be tricky since everyone's so god damn powerful now.

...And now I'm starting to regret missing out on picking up Doom Claw.





And there's Exploder, as useless as you'd predict.

Alright, let's heal up and visit Karnak before venturing further.







Everyone's in chipper spirits considering their castle blew up and all their fire is gone.





Speaking of which, with all the fire dead, now we can gain access to this Fire Rod. Neat.



This guy's my new favorite NPC.



gettin' snockered!

Anyway, we can talk to Cid again upstairs.



Stay back! If only I hadn't made that machine...





So yeah, Cid's a tad depressed over inventing a machine that's inadvertently destroying the world, though to be fair he's not the one sending monsters to break the crystals, so it's not really his fault.

That said, nobody really cares enough about Cid to try to encourage him.



destroyed...



The Queen survived, but she's not interesting in the least.



I actually remember to stay at the inn this time, so go me.





Anyway, we can now move west. Our next destination is the Ancient Library, but it's a bit of a walk.



Now, the same guy who warned us about Cool Dust said something about a certain monster in this desert. I didn't show the screenshot because I didn't want to spoil the name. What is it, you may ask?



The Quadrharpy. I have no fucking idea. Maybe the gimmick is to name all tough monsters something-Harpy.





Anyway, this guy can hit incredibly hard.





The reason we want to fight him is this spell, a very useful Blue Magic spell that's really nice to have.





Of course, we have to survive it first.





Opened with two Aqua Rakes for that one.





This fight I'm actually well in control. I just have to stall him until he finally casts Aqua Rake. Then I can lower him to under 1/8 HP and...







Galuf learns his first Trainer ability, Tame, which apparently may stop a monster from attacking or whatever. Screw that. More importantly, Faris picked up Aqua Rake and Galuf caught his first monster.



Further along are these Silent Bees.





Here's Muddle since I'll probably never use it otherwise. It inflicts confusion on a monster, having it attack itself and other monsters. Definitely one of the more useful status effects, though it's still a status effect in a game where there's a hundred ways to murder enemies quickly.



Speaking of which! Aqua Rake is expensive as hell at nearly 40MP a cast. It's generally not worth the MP since other magic can be as powerful for much less MP, namely summons. It's still a bit more powerful and can be incredibly useful in the right situation.



Anyway, here's the Ancient Library.







I'm always filled with delight to see scholars running around in random directions for no discernable reason. Maybe I should've animated it. Ah well.



Oh yeah, there's essentially two Cids in this game to make up for this game's Cid not being as badass as the last game's.



Why would monsters go to a library.





Actually, all the monsters in this dungeon are books. It's a neat little gimmick, though one that gets tiring quickly.





Keep this in the back of your head.







OH SHIT A BATTLE



There's four monsters you'll encounter here, and even this translation can't fuck up their names. This guy's big thing is casting Aero 2, so it's not a big deal that I missed it in Karnak.





Once you beat a page, it'll turn to another page. This is Page 64, who can be a fucking nightmare in certain circumstances.



And now I decide to grind for levels. You'll see.





Let's see what happens when Galuf releases a monster.



So Trainer can capture a shitload of various monsters, and each has their own effect. Thus they have much more variety than even a Blue Mage, but good luck knowing what each enemy does, and which enemies are useful to have at a certain point. Thus Trainers, while very handy, are generally not that useful in a game where there's already so many simpler ways to murder anything. Still very useful in challenges, at least, and they're still not a bad class.





While you can't go past this desert yet due to the moving sand, you can encounter some of the enemies here.



The guy in the hole is a SandKiller.



His gimmick is Quicksand, which deals 60 damage exactly and inflicts Sap. Kind of pesky, really.



Red Magic takes much longer to level, which is annoying because it makes Doublecast take forever to level.





There's also a Sand Bear, one of the cooler-looking enemies in the game. It's not some weird monstrosity, it's just a fucking bear that lives in the desert. It's also a powerful brick wall of HP.





Anyway, back around the library, there's also MithrlDrgns.





Turtle!



Blaze is not so effective, unfortunately.



Oh, are we done?



Yes! This will be just fine.





Right, let's do this dungeon and look for Mid.



There's a lot of moving bookshelves to deal with here.





It's a tad annoying, but whatever.





HERE WE GO



Raise costs a ton of MP, close to 30, plus I only have a few Phoenix Downs, so revival opportunities are limited here.



At any rate, I pick up L5 Doom, which instantly kills all enemies that are L5. This is vital for exploiting one of the best grinding spots in the game, and there are ways to manipulate levels to make it work on almost everything. So yeah, definitely worth the time wasted grinding my levels.



Of course, I then decide to continue the dungeon rather than grind Galuf and Faris to L16, so this dungeon suddenly becomes a pain in the ass.



Also, we can't pass this shelf until we do a certain something.







Fuck these guys.



Progress!



Before we can progress, we have to interact with this book.







Of course, it's a boss and there's no save points around. Bleh.





So here's Ifrit in all his glory.





He's not a huge threat, but he's not one to take lightly, either.





Pathetic, really.



Galuf actually scores two criticals on the guy, knocking off 700 damage. Nicely done, Galuf!





Of course, that pales compared to Ice2 Reina wrecking shit.



Ifrit: I shall impart my power... ...to all of you!





So now we can summon Ifrit, one of the few mandatory summons in the game.







Shelf: Oh my god! I...Ifrit. Go right through, sir.

So with Ifrit, we can do the rest of the dungeon.



It's still a bit of a maze.



There's a mandatory battle here blocking us from reaching the last part of the dungeon. It also respawns every time.



OH THANK GOD.

That said, I'm not done yet.



Here's Page 128. It's the only one without Blue Magic, instead using a slime attack to inflict Slow and Sap.



And here's Page 256.





It casts Moon Flute, inflicting Berserk on everyone.



At least Berserk boosts damage.



But it's still not that great when one of your guys has the Healing Staff equipped.



At least I learned that you can learn Blue Magic even if you're dead at the end of combat! Just gotta be alive to get hit by it.





Man, I've picked up a lot of Blue Magic this update.



And now fuck the rest of these encounters.



I always have trouble finding this chest. It's actually a pretty visible path in the room where the asshole shelf blocks you, but I always overlook it. Anyway, this gives a nice speed boost and is a handy armor upgrade for characters wearing the weaker type of armor (i.e. jobs like Monk and Thief).

At this point, I've fucking had it with this place.



I know this fucker's going to Moon Flute me. Bring it.



You know what?



FUCK



THIS



FUCKING



DUNGEON



Right, let's kill this boss and get the hell out of here.



What's that?
Mid?
Watch out! There's somethin' funny about this!





OH FUCK, KNOWLEDGE





Here's Biblos. In certain challenge runs, he can be a huge pain. Mainly, when you're doing a Four Job Fiesta and rolled Monk and Berserker... He can be powerful physically, he'll cast Protes partway through the fight, and overall he can a major pain to kill.

But this isn't a challenge run, he's weak to Fire, and I've got three people who can scorch his ass. This is payback for this slog of a dungeon, and for the last FJF when he was a major pain in the ass to kill.





MagHammer does MP damage, and is yet another Blue Magic spell. I'm not going to bother stringing him along to learn it, though.



Here's Ifrit in action. Burn, baby, burn.



He can counter with Toad, though it never hit me.





FRY



Yeah. It was a bit cathartic to wreck his shit like that.



Biblos: I may be finished... But wait, my master's seal will be blown wide open!!!



Biblos is the first boss to get his own special death animation, so there's that.



what





You gotta be kidding, didn't you hear us fighting?
Hmm? Oh, I thought something was banging around behind me... Was that you?x`





Is this guy for real...?





At least we don't have to backtrack, so there's that.







Thank you so much for saving Mid!
What a relief!



Well...thank you. Perhaps I should have said so sooner.

At least Mid's not a total dick, though his reaction's still kinda dickish in the GBA version ("I don't know what I needed to be saved from, but it was nice of you anyway.") He's more apologetic in the RPGe translation, at least.

I still don't really like him that much.





See...with this book we should be able to repower the Fire Ship! We've got to tell Professor Cid right away!
Cid?!
Yes. You know him? He's my grandfather.





"Could you speak English, please? I didn't understand a damn thing you just said."



That's three fucking words in one sentence where they replaced letters with apostrophes. Come the fuck on.







Welp, so much for all that.



Next time, we go back to Karnak and mostly deal with story stuff. There may or may not be a revelation or two, and there may or may not be something cool at the end (There is).