Part 52: Odds and Ends
Chapter 49: Odds and Ends
Sailing into the glowing trench so haphazardly is a bad idea.
How does Burtz know that feeling so acutely? Well, now that I think about it, he has jumped dimensions before.
Well if this ever happens to me, I know it's due to time and space being twisted.
... Come on, let's check it out.Sure Burtz, no matter what the ominous voice portends.
Everything's normal so far.
Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit ain't goin' in that door.
It's called a lock.
Crystal shards? Here?
That's right, we're in the first bit of content added to the Advance release of FF5: 3 of the 4 new jobs!
This guy comes in and textwalls us about what the new jobs do. I'll summarize:
Oracles 'predict' things by casting a spell with a 30-second delay. This wouldn't be so bad if !Condemn's damage spells were more powerful than ~ra magic and if Heavy-type enemies weren't immune to them. Their other big ability, !Predict, can hit the party depending on the last digit of the user's HP, and doesn't even do that much compared to the tricks you have to have to get here. (like Holy or Meteor) If you can get past how much they innately suck, they have a few bonuses. ABP Up does exactly that; Read Ahead reduces encounter rates, and they have outplaced Summoners for the highest magic.
Cannoneers already get high marks for getting swords and shields. !Open Fire uses a Napoleonic cannon to deal a fair bit of damage and cause statuses. !Combine is sort of like !Mix except that everything combined deals damage. The combinations require special items called 'shot' that this guy starts selling. Cannoneers get the EXP Up ability for those who care.
Gladiators are the good class here. They can equip knives, swords, knight swords, lances, bows, and axes. Their two action ablities are also pretty interesting. !Finisher has three results; failure, a critical hit, or an elemental attack that hits for 9999 all the time. The failure rate decreases while the elemental attack rate increases as the character levels up Gladiator, and the element depends on the essence the character obtained (Burtz's is wind, for example.) !Bladeblitz simply deals 3/4 of regular attack damage to all enemies. Compared to the shit I'm already playing with, Gladiators can actually keep up. I use one for a bit, actually.
Since that guy opened the door out, the only things left before the Rift are a few sidequests. Jachol cave contains one of them.
The inside is a mess of switches and chests opened by some werewolf from waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in Walse.
Aside from Nut Eaters, we get Skull Eaters.
NAME: Skull Eater
LEVEL: 32 EXP: 300
HP: 1 GIL: 100
MP: 100 SPEED: 50
ATTACK: 50 MAGIC POWER: 90
ATT. MULT: 30 MAGIC MULT: 15
EVADE%: 90 MAGIC EVADE%: 90
DEFENSE: 90 MAGIC DEFENSE: 90
ELEMENTAL IMMUNITY: None
STATUS IMMUNITY: None
ELEMENTAL ABSORB: None
CAN'T EVADE: None
ELEMENTAL WEAKNESS: None
CREATURE TYPE: Magic Beast
IMMUNITY: None
INITIAL STATUS: None
SPECIALTY: Incisor
SPECIALTY EFFECT: 100% Hit + Pierce Defense, Adds Poison, Adds Confuse
SPELLS:
CONTROL: Fight, Specialty
BLUE MAGIC: None
CATCH: Strong Fight
DROP (ALWAYS): Nothing STEAL (COMMON): Tent
DROP (RARE): Elixir STEAL (RARE): Nothing
AI SCRIPT:
{Fight,Specialty,Escape}
Condition:Alone & React:Magic{
Unhide Monster: Skull Eater (All)
}
In Burtz' world you simply don't have much of anything to use to deal with these guys. Now, their teeth hurt but dispatching them is easy. Remember that !Rapidfire ignores evasion and defense!
Also I never knew about that last bit of scripting and it concerns me a bit.
How witty. Except it isn't.
You can climb up this wall. Before the worlds merged, it led only to a gap in the mountains. Now, it leads to...
Bal's basement!
Behind the locked door, too!
It's a long walk, peppered with broken pillars and holes. the statues bug you every step of the way, but blasting them out of existence with Lv.3 Flare or Lv.5 Death is no trouble.
Oh shit! It's Odin!
You're reading that right, only one minute to beat this guy.
BOSS FIGHT: ODIN 
With only 60 seconds, Hastega is vital. Fewer dead seconds waiting for ATB gauges to fill, y'know.
Burtz and Krile cast Break Sword. Odin's vulnerable to petrification, but his high magic evasion prevents Break and Catoblepas from hitting.
He occasionally attacks with this.
Hurts like hell, but you can't waste any time trying to recover. You can do that after Odin is down.
Works like a charm!
This is one of the most beautiful messages in FF5.
It means that the fight is over. Odin just ends that random encounter then and there with Zantetsuken.
The jobs that would want to equip a rod either 1) already can or 2) want an actual command in the 3rd slot.
Most of the sealed weapons sell for squat. The ones that do sell for something only fetch like 15K at market. Anyway...
Now it's the black chocobo's time to shine!
He can't fly over the Rift.
Ah, the vast desert.
The only way here is with this bird, landing in this forest, and hiking to North Mountain or Phoenix Tower.
Lv.3 Flare would work just fine, but this looks cooler.
North Mountain looks exactly the same. It holds exactly the same enemies except for the giant dragon on the peak.
That is one sturdy rope. It's survived the worlds fusing and shit.
Get to the peak and...
You say that like it'd be hard.
BOSS FIGHT: BAHAMUT 
Burtz and Krile cast Flare Sword since Bahamut has no weakness.
Reflect helps a lot against this fucker.
Burtz hits like a train with the Chicken Knife.
Krile hits like a smaller train with an Enhancer.
Lenna uses Quick to cast Meteor twice.
Faris just flings a Holy.
I've noticed that, in RPGs, I tend to go for relentless offense as a style. Looks neat for LPs, I guess.
Bahamut tries Mega Flare but due to that Ruby Light earlier...
Bahamut deals buckets of non-elemental damage to all enemies. It replaces Syldra as Faris' primary summon since it hits a bit harder than a boosted Syldra.
Use a Cottage, save, and pull up your britches, it's time for Phoenix Tower.
30 floors straight. As the guy in Mirage's bar said, check the walls. I could just use the internet to find the staircase every time, but doing it haphazardly and fighting all the way is more true to the spirit of a 30-fucking-floor tower.
This thing in the wall claims to be Liquid Flame. It dies to Holies and Blizzagas really quickly.
The second floor!
Odin cut your fucking head off.
You can steal various dancer-exclusive equipment (all of which increase the frequency of Swords Dance) and even Reflect Rings if you need any from the random encounters here. I don't need those so DECAPITATIONS HAHAHAHAHA
Here are the stairs on the third floor.
But I wanna fight!
Whatever it was, it's dead now.
4th floor didn't have an interesting stairwell guard.
every 5 floors these urns show up.
One urn contains a sum of gil.
The other contains a monster.
Give him elixir and...
He has a 1 in 3 chance of running away.
He gives 100 ABP when he runs.
Ouch, Odin. You cut of her feet and her head.
A Soul Cannon just pokes out of the wall and shoots us. Wave Cannon deals 50% of a characters max HP in damage and inflicts Sap. Hell of a problem, it is.
Never stood a chance.
I came into the tower with 20 elixirs, and I leave with 0.
White Mages get a dinky +10% MP for mastering the class.
Nothing much here.
Or here.
Heh, boob.
1) Find something that claims to be a staircase.
2) If it is a staircase, proceed to 4.
3) If it is a monster, bash it so thoroughly that it becomes a staircase.
4) Climb staircase.
From the floor 15 magic pot, Faris gains this ability. All it does is give +16 agility. There are abilities that give like +14 and other bonuses, so all this means is that Faris mastered thief and any time she's a freelancer or mime I'm going to run headlong into walls.
Odin usually rips these chicks heads in half, so getting scorched to death must be a pleasant change.
Nothing here.
Judging by the timestamps on the next image and this one, nothing happened here either.
Any chance to avoid a fight is appreciated now, as MP is a scarce resource this high in a tower where Elixirs are requested by pots.
These chicks sometimes cast Roulette.
They aren't very lucky with it.
Krile masters Mystic Knight against the floor 20 magic pot.
So she opts to punch a gun to death.
It's the home stretch!
Hey, Liquid Flame, don't look behind you.
Go! Go! GO!
You sure as hell ain't stoppin' me!
The last Magic Pot!
But by probability I won't make it!
That's never stopped me before!
Burtz takes down Dragoon...
...and Krile masters Monk.
HahahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Nothing will stop me!
I don't know who you think you are but you are fucking dead for not being a staircase.
And that's floor 29's staircase! Badass is over, time for melodrama.
Is this the wind drake that saved you?
He says he wants to help you...
Hiryu!!!
Hiryu catches flames from the descent...
Lenna... Hiryu knew that he didn't have much longer to live... that means... in the ancient forest, when he saved me- It seems he came to this tower so he could help you with the last of his power... Hiryu...
We go to a flashback of shortly before Queen Tycoon's death, with Lenna, the king, and Jenica...
...What do you mean, Mother's not going to make it?
Dear, the doctor did his best... It seems the only thing that can cure her is a wind drake's tongue....
Where are you going with that knife!? ...Certainly you don't mean to- Stop!
Sire, I'll go.
Consider some things:
1) Queen Tycoon is still dead.
2) Hiryu is a bro. Don't be cuttin' a bro's tongue out.
3) This scene deals with Hiryu wanting to help you.
4) This is a JRPG.
No is obviously the correct choice.
Phoenix is an interesting summon. Deals fire damage to all enemies, revives all allies, and costs an astounding 99 MP. It's nice to have on an already stellar skill like !Summon.
Use Teleport to get out unless you want to manually descend the whole tower.
NEXT TIME:
All of these guys will die horribly! It's time for the Rift!