Part 195: Living Off the Land Part 5: Bear Beats Up Books and Birds

At this point, actually having a decent smattering of jobs to choose from kind of leaves me indecisive. I eventually decide on this party for now. I need someone to get !Control, and I wanted someone to start on Ninja. Honestly that should be Bear, but I need him to learn !Blue, and also I want !Steal for Galuf.



Also I need someone to learn Aqua Breath.



But you can imagine this happened a lot. It is actually possible for this party to survive Aqua Breath, but they have to be at full HP. So I have to heal up at the library, then make it here without losing HP, and hope it casts Aqua Breath right away.



It eventually works. I actually kill it entirely via Vampire, which I wasn't expecting; hell, Faris didn't even have a chance to Vampire her HP back!



And then I remembered that I forgot something and had to run all the way back to Karnak. Yes, this is chronologically how that happened. While I usually ran from most superfluous fights, I did fight some enemies solely for Turtles Shells. Yeah, I'm keeping !Mix in play, but the scarcity of ingredients should keep it somewhat balanced.

Or alternatively I'll forget about !Mix because I hate having to keep that damn mixing chart around.



As for the Library of Ancients, my main goal is to get Level Five Death. As you can see, my party level spread isn't ideal for this, but it's good enough.

First off, though, Ifrit.


Ifrit

Ifrit is a joke.



Yay armor that can be worn by non-heavy armor or non-mage classes! I'm still wearing the Leather Armor, by the way. And I still don't have enough helmets to cover the party unless I'm using a Knight, Mystic Knight, or Berserker.

There's only two other chests here: a ether and a phoenix down. Cool I guess.



Anyway, I got Level 5 Death'd not too long after the Ifrit fight. All right, I thought, I'll have to walk back but hey I got it.

Slight problem. This particular encounter cycles through seven monsters. And I've only got two characters to finish the battle. (Or use two Phoenix downs, but the Page 64 monster will re-appear, potentially making this pointless.)



But it didn't end up mattering, since the party got berserked and couldn't heal itself.



Didn't quite make it. Crap.



But don't worry, I eventually got both this spell and Level 5 Death. To be honest, I played this part so long ago that I don't remember what I did, and my screenshot library isn't helping me remember. I swear there was some shenanigans here. But I don't remember!

Anyway, what I do remember is that Bear got !Blue, switched over to Ninja, Faris switched over to Summoner, and I ran from all the fights after getting Level 5 Death. Apparently I can steal Green Berets and Ninja Suits from some of the pages but they're rare steals and I just don't want to bother.


Byblos

Byblos is a big fat jerk.



Mainly because he looooved Wind Slash this time around. That's Galuf out immediately. Although Galuf wasn't really contributing anything as a thief anyway; I should have switched him. Oh well.



Once again, this fight comes down to the summoners. Even with Wind Slash, it's not really a danger until his drain counter shows up.



With Vampire as my main source of healing, what's really kicking my ass is bosses with counters. He immediately followed this with Wind Slash by the way.

It really should have occurred to me that at this point I need to just forget healing and hope I drop him before he drops me. It didn't. Instead I had Bear Vampire his HP back, and Byblos took it out on Faris for some reason. It's up to Bear now!



Byblos is a big fat jerk.



On the second go, I just get sick of this shit and throw my only Flame Scroll. It does 1500 damage, around half his HP. I should have thrown it later, although Byblos starts countering relatively early in the fight, so I guess it doesn't matter?

I was also hoping that Lenna with Beastmaster might paralyze him with her whip. Spoiler it never worked.



Honestly, victory just came down to him not using Wind Slash.

And to think if I was just patient enough to get Death Claw none of this would be a problem.



How sweet beautiful free healing pot. How I love thee.



As a reward for saving him, Mid beats his Grandpa up until he repairs the Fire Ship for us. Nice kid.



And then Galuf reveals that he's been an alien all this time! And that he's fighting against an evil alien!

To think that the Lix Daily News called Bear a crockpot.

Anyway, got the Fire Ship, let's go sailin'



First stop on our fire ship cruise is Jachol Cave.



Yeah I am not fucking fighting these things. Sadly, even with Flee, Skull Eaters do manage to tag Lenna and Faris. (Also while Faris died from that hit, Lenna managed to survive, but was poisoned. And I forgot about Esuna so a Nutkin finished her off. I'm so smart.)

I do fight the Nutkins though, and at 2 AP a pop I get !Smoke, !Steal and summon level 2. Nice.



Blitz Whip, a Shuriken, and a Tent. I'd say the trip was worth it.



After healing up, I head to Jachol proper. Not too long after stealing this axe, these guys kill Galuf.



And the only reason to go here is the piano. Yeah, that was fucking worth it.

There's one more place I'd like to go, but there's no reason to go there with the ship.



So fuck off default Fire Ship you're awful.

No, there's something much better awaiting us.



But first Bear has to tackle an endangered bird.



Yes.

As for Crescent Village, all I can do here is get Mighty March and play the piano. But what I really want is in Istory.





Trivialize a large number of random encounters (and some bosses)? Why don't mind if I do!



Oh and this might be useful we'll see.


Ramuh

Hey guess what Ramuh's not immune to?



Yup. He's also not heavy, so he's gonna stay stopped for quite a while. (I also could have cast Dark Spark and then Level 5 Death.)



Even when he's not stopped, Ramuh isn't much of a threat. The worst thing he did was Flash us, because no one wants to see naked grandpa, but all that did was make Galuf less useful.



Not quite as big of a joke as Ifrit, but hardly a challenge.

While I'm not entirely done with side stuff, that'll be it for right now.

Final level: 16, 15, 15, 16
Deaths: 7ish (I legit don't remember how many times I died to the Chimeras)