Part 20: Galuf vs. His Basement

Good news! We'll actually be learning abilities soon! More on that in a bit, though.





So last time, we saved a Moogle who told us how to get to his place. He said not to cross the desert, but screw that.



The Sandcrawlr is a pretty beefy dude and serves as the big bad of the desert.





It likes to use Maelstrom, knocking people to single-digits. It's possible to evade it, as Faris did, but it's still a nasty attack when combined with two other enemies.



Fortunately, Break works on him.



After a couple minutes trying to find the damn entrance...





...we arrive at the Moogle Village.





Of course, the Moogles aren't exactly excited to see us.





A few Moogle antics later...







Kupo! Kupo!
Are you thanking us?





I think it's telling us we can take what's in here.





The only chests worth it are the cash and the Dancing Dirk. Basically, attacking with it does the same thing as the Dancer's "Dance" command, which I'll get into once I make Bartz into a Dancer.



Anyway, the Moogles are now friendly to us, though obviously they aren't great conversationalists.







Anyway, for some reason one of the Moogles owns a Moogle-sized costume. I don't know either.





The point is to use it to seduce this Moogle for...



...a third Elf Cloak! Elf Cloaks are awesome, so it's a cool reward.



Anyway, going back to our friend triggers the next plot scene.



What the devil are you doing?

-----









After some non-verbal words with the Kupomeister...





?
Moogles are telepathic. They can communicate across great distances...
Moogle village...that's far.
Yes...and the dragon can't fly either...









Are you sure it's all right?



Looks alright to me.

-----



What's going on?
Kupopopo!
Nose?

-----





Kupopo!
Huh? Near the nose?



...The fuck?







Grandpa!





Grandpa! We must hurry to the castle!











-----





And so we arrive at some castle.









Thank you for taking care of things while I was away!
Your Majesty!

-----



What about X-Death?
No activity since the barrier went up.
I see...and my troops?
Almost entirely wiped out battling X-Death's monsters...
...
I'm sorry...



Yeah, well...

Yes, Bartz. Immediately after Galuf hears his army is decimated is the best time for this to come up.





Yes, Sire!





What? You think I don't look like one!







Just kidding! I guess this means I gotta call you 'King' Galuf now?
...



So from now on when you address me call me...
...Galuf!
Yeah! Haaa, ha ha ha!



And now, the GBA (General Bullshit Anonymous) version of the exchange:


...I'm sorry.

Anyway, this castle is "Bal" in the other two versions, but here it's "Val." OK, then.





Teleport is a L3 Time Magic spell that I'm happy as hell to have. As you may have guessed, it lets you leave dungeons and escape from battles. A handy spell to have, indeed.



Anyway, to progress the plot we need to speak to Krile, so let's do that.



Krile?
The dragon's... dying...
What?
How can it be?
He flew while only pretending his wounds were healed...
Just to help us...
How can we help 'em?
...



Hiryuu Plant in RPGe.

Would that cure him?
Yes, but does this world have any?
It only grows where dragons live.
Then...
Got any ideas?







Bartz!





What a sloppy sentence. Kelb (Quelb in the GBA version) is where werewolves live.

But...what about the monsters outside?
Aw...We're all together aren't we?!
Right!
We'll be all right!
F'arr! Sure as I live, we'll bring back that Dragon Grass!

With teamwork, anything is possible!



But that shit can wait. Let's explore the castle first.





total annihilation.



Groceana desert... They were never heard from again...

World-building!



Val has the same shops as that last town we visited whose name I can't remember.



So be careful when using this command, lest you inadvertently lose items' special effects.

I don't know why this game waits until close to halfway through it to tell us that optimize sucks with accessories. It could've been good to know much earlier (even though I've played enough Final Fantasy games to know this).



Anyway, free armor upgrade.

Forgot to get a new weapon, but I'll get it next update (if I remember).







Anyway, here is an area I'm sure many of you are very familiar with, the basement of Val.



The door won't be opened for a long time, but that's not the interesting part about this place.





It's these guys. RockStatues come in packs of either 2 or 5, and they are the only enemies here.



They hit pretty damn hard and can be tough to wear down.



They also like to cast Break, though they can only afford one casting of it.



Here's Faris casting Return, since I was getting my butt kicked and wanted to run away.

Anyway, these guys are pretty interesting for a variety of reasons.







They're statues, so using a Soft on them will instantly kill them, bypassing the whole "deal damage to them" thing.





Here's Esna in action.



Why am I using an Ether on this guy, you ask?





It needs MP to cast Doom Claw, a Blue Magic we missed in the first world. It's a pretty awesome spell, so might as well learn it here!





However, we get to the true beauty of this place: It's a fantastic area to grind. The two-statue encounters give 4 ABP, with the five-statue one giving 8. With Soft killing these guys easily and these being the only enemies here, this is one of the best places to grind jobs in the game, especially at this stage.

The money is also nice, and more than replaces any Softs we use on them. EXP gains are low, but that's not really that important.



Oh, and we also learned Doom Claw.

However, using Soft to kill one enemy at a time can be time-consuming. Fortunately, there's an alternative.



You see, these guys are L45. Very handy for the five-monster encounters.

So on with the abilities!



Bartz learns the ever-awesome Mix, which I'll show off in the future.



I then swap him to Red Mage because I might as well start making progress in that 999 AP thing.



Firstatk is a Ninja ability that boosts the chances of a preemptive strike. Not bad, but again, why bother?





Galuf learns L4 Black Magic, and was close enough in Monk to pick up Counter as well. Might as well leave him in Monk for the time being since it can require a lot of AP.



Faris receives L4 Time Magic, so I switch to Thief.



Val has its own inn and item shop as well (and its own save point), so there's pretty much nothing stopping you from grinding to your heart's content.



Anyway, there's one more nifty little detail about these guys, namely their rare steal.



Oh, hey, speaking of which.



The Double Lance is a rather odd weapon. It says "Lance" and it looks like a lance, but it's not a lance. It's a Ninja/Thief weapon.

We want two of these, so





Now, what's so special about these?



Each weapon attacks twice. On a Ninja, that's four hits. They're also a step up from any of our current weapons (remember that Reina's in the back row, thus the lackluster damage). So yeah, statues are awesome.

So next time, we go to the werewolf village and then get some Dragon Grass...maybe after a bit more grinding.