Part 33: "A" is for...

Chapter 31: "A" is for...


There's a little hole in the mountain range west of Drakenvale you use to fly away.


Anyway, here we are at Ghido's island.



Yup, Sage Ghido's place.
Let's find him!
Wait-
An Earthquake!



The island's breaking apart...
We gotta get back to the wind drake-hurry!


Welp, there went Ghido.


...Sinking isn't a very cost-efficient scheme, Exdeath.


Anyway, here's the nearest blinking dot. It's Surgate Castle!


Burtz. Pillaging.



King Xezat is leading the fleet to Exdeath's castle.
Really!


Thus began the Sack of Surgate.


I know, Galuf should be on screen while saying this, but why not cut corners? The song is Swift Song.


Something I forgot to show; the Library of the Ancients also had a very old tome that was missing half of its pages. The meaning? that poor bookkeeping transcends time and space.


You there, help me put some of these away.


It's filed under "F", not "Do not read ever you morons"



-Hey, this is all about donkeys!
...Er, Burtz? What were you trying to look up?
Eh? Oh, nothing! Nothing at all!



...Anyway, "F" is right near. Let's get the next book...


This is filed under "R", not "M" for monster. I think it should be with Monster Encyclopedia and Monster Mania!, but I guess Surgate's librarians are persnickety bastards.


Not "R", but "W". Very persnickety bastards.

...Wait, weren't the Ronkans from Burtz' world...?


So she opens some hole in the wall.


you to levitate, and it's hidden somewhere in the castle.


This, of course, refers to the Lancer ability !Lance, which drains HP and MP when used. This also assumes that MP recovery is ever a problem and that those problems can't be solved by Ethers.


Well, I was up there, and this huge eye started glaring at me! It's amazing I made it back alive!


Here's Float. Let's stop bugging old people already.


Should? For some reason, this sounds to me like "But if you can't, you and your loved ones will die."


Pretty standard stuff. Everything is a gimmickless attack increase except the Poison Axe, which is a poison-elemental attack increase.

Anyway, it's time for wacky plan central!


First, Everyone is a Bard, except Galuf, who is a Knight.


Next, everyone is a nearly dead floating bard, except Galuf, who is a healthy floating Knight.


There's this nearly useless cave between Bal and... coastline.


It hides a secret. This door and the corridor beyond.


Every step earns you gil.


Increasing amounts of gil.


The gil gains increase by a factor of 2 times 10. We're at (2^2)*10.


However, nothing is that simple.


You run in to this motherfucker.

BOSS FIGHT: GIL TURTLE


He uses Turtle. Turtle deals wowzers damage and Poison and Blind. It hits twice in a row.


However, Turtle is a physical attack, so !Guard reduces it to zero damage. With the other three characters near death, Galuf will automatically use Cover, taking Turtles for them.


And the Bards? Well, the Gil Turtle has a simple problem.


He's undead. Requiem deals ~2000 damage and costs nothing. It's a trivial task to take away all 32768 of his HP.


This would be a problem if it weren't for the floating.


Now, the thing that's supposed to make this really hard is that you run in to the Gil Turtle every 3 or 4 steps, quickly depleting MP used on Blizzagas and stuff.


When you can literally automate the process, he's nothing.


(2^9)*10. As you can see, it starts to pile up.


It ends at (2^12)*10 or 40,960. One more step would mean 81,920, which is above 65535 and totally not fly. At this point, you cast Teleport, since going back doesn't earn gil but still causes turtle encounters. Each run earns 81,900 gil, along with whatever AP killing the Gil Turtle earns you. Not half bad when the turtle is such a punk.


This set-up doesn't last, but I took a picture of it anyway.

NEXT TIME:


Bright flashes when sprites meet! It's a battle!