Part 23: Mystic Falls - Mystic Knight 10

Mystic Falls - Mystic Knight 09

Today we fulfill Ghido's last, pointless wish to obtain the Legendary Weapons. Which, even if Mihnwu wasn't alone and everyone was a Freelancer with dual wield would leave 4 of them unused makes it a little irrelevant.

Especially where there's superior weapons available elsewhere.

But enough of that, we're doing what Mr. "Smarter than Mihnwu" told us to. We need to deal with the lack of HP anyway.

The concern for HP comes from the final boss being capable of dealing 2 or more 1500+ attacks in a row. One of them is magical, so the Aegis shield could possibly evade it, or I could force Mihnwu into critical status to proc Magic Shell and halve it.

Its a soft goal, seeing as how Mihnwu survived other enemies with their scripts stacked against him, But it's possibly one he'll reach just by wandering around, rather than outright grinding.



Anyway, Fork Tower was covering Mihnwu's Secret Undersea Volcano Lair^TM.


I'm fairly sure this had nothing to do with the world's merging, we just walked into Cid's normal Sunday afternoon.


So the over-caffeinated geniuses make our airship into a submarine.


Don't encourage him Krile.


Remember when Mihnwu went to the Ronkan Ruins? Same thing, except it doesn't become disabled for no reason after it completes its purpose.


And the other tablet that you can't reach without the sub either.


The trench is roughly due north of the Airship hangar. Like Galuf's world, no random encounters underwater. Unlike Galuf's world, there are random encounters on the high seas.


Nothing special here, just that the Assassin's Dagger only proc'd death once.


The Trench is probably the place where I will grind if I have to. There are 4 "Unknown" type enemies. All of them are undead, so the newly claimed Holy sword will ruin them. These guys inflict sap as their distinctive feature.


These guys are not worth bothering with for most solo melee classes. They auto revive like the Gargoyles do, except they're immune or resistant to sleep.


This back attack reminded me that I didn't need to put Mihnwu in harms way down here, Half of infinite damage is still infinite damage.


2 of those respawning jerks means we're grinding up the Chicken Knife.


This room is full of trapped switches. This happy skull makes a land bridge to a treasure.


This leads to a Flame Ring, or as I call it "Half an Elixir"


At this point I decide to switch to the Thief's Knife. I think Holy removes the enemy from combat before death can technically proc, but I wasn't interested in finding out I was wrong. It has the same agility boost anyway.


Since there's only the one Polyp-like Unknown in this formation, I can kill it safely. The oozing stomach one when attacked without killing does an attack called "Possess" which removes itself and the target from combat. Holy Sword bypasses that counter thankfully. The hanging skeletal mass inflicts Doom. Not near as terrifying as it was with Exdeath, Mihnwu only needs half that time to end a battle.


Beyond the Flame Ring room is the main trouble with this dungeon. Rooms full of damage floors. In hindsight I could have flown the Black Chocobo to the North Mountain and danced for the cats to make them float me. That sounds an awful less than I'm going for though.


There's one other place too.


There's only a handful of Dwarves in the game. I believe they're from the first world, since the trench doesn't exist in Galuf's world. Edit: The trench is present in Galuf's world, but apparently Cid is a better engineer than Xezat, so it can withstand the pressures of the deep.



There's a shop down here. Armor and Weapons you could buy from Mirage. I guess it's technically that you can buy the stuff from here at Mirage, since you wouldn't know about Mirage without a guide or previous experience.


Proceeding south from the Dwarves is a small serpentine path.



This guy is the in-game hint to Mirage.


The one lava room before was just a warmup. This one is the real deal. Mihnwu came in with 99 Hi-Potions, at this point he used about 40 of them.


There are a bunch of switches in this room, one unlocks a treasure. One unlocks the boss room. The others don't punish you by dropping you into double magma or anything, so Mihnwu just wanders aimlessly and chugs Hi-Potions.


These Unknowns were very opposed to my attempt to run, so I took some time to Firaga Sword Mihnwu in the face to save some Hi-Potions.


15% of an Elixir.


This chest was a switch to open the door. If Mihnwu didn't trigger the right skull switch in the magma field, the lava in that little side room would flood out and drive him back.


Yeah, don't take it personally either.


These guys need to be killed simultaneously, or else they revive themselves. They have different weaknesses and elemental absorbs to keep one from just blindly nuking them with Firaga. Nothing stopping you from nuking them with Thundaga, or Aeroga, or... other ideas.


Like this. The magic lamp is full of mythical creatures.


Straight out of the box it lets loose a Megaflare.


Not too bad, considering Mihnwu's low magic score. That's about 1/6 of their health.

All you miserable worms can do is beg for your miserable lives.


If you're that desperate, act like a pig.


I said act like a pig!!!! Squeal!!!


DIE PIGS!

Final Level - 46
Total Deaths - 0


So in addition to 3 weapons we can't use, we also get this magic that we also can't use. Sorry fans of Sokka, no space sword or boomerangs here.


No !Time means no teleport either, so through the fire and the flames we carry on again.


The Magic Lamp doesn't recharge between battles. The Dwarves mentioned going back to the top of the falls to recharge it, but this little pocket does the same thing.


Mirage sells Elixirs at 50k a bottle. Inventory cleanup yielded enough for 5. This with very few exceptions will be all that Mihnwu needs for the final push. Probably won't use the Ancient Sword while the Air Knife will have maybe one use. The Ice and Fire shields might see use if I need pure physical evasion, same thing with the Mirage Vest. Probably could sell the Angel Ring since the Bone Mail does the same job and more. The Protect Ring is also probably useless. If Mihnwu isn't sporting the Bone Mail / Flame Ring ensemble, he's probably using the Hermes Sandals.

There's one more weapon to consider that isn't on this list, since I haven't picked it up yet.


The final tablet is north east of the map icon.


While the dungeon proper is above water level, it is inaccessible from the air.


This little cave is accessible in Galuf's world, leading to a fight with a summon. This time visiting is slightly less pointless.


These guys can encircle and erase Mihnwu from battle. Not interested.


One gargoyle didn't go to sleep, the other was insta-gibbed by the assassins knife and immediately revived. Nothing else interesting happened there.


This dungeon is all about water, so almost everything is vulnerable to Thundaga.


He isn't. I could probably finagle a win out of him with Sleep, but not worth it.


This enemy's gimmick is in 2 turns she kisses the frog and it turns into a dragon. Also not worth it.


There are two swords in this dungeon. This one probably is useless. I have one theory to try out, but I doubt it will work.


Eating 15 or so Vampires isn't interesting to me.


Another protect ring.


In addition to it being a rare steal from elsewhere, a second Aegis shield is here. Still stand by choosing it over the flame shield in Moore Forest.


The Artemis Bow has bigger numbers than the Legendary equivalent, at the expense of 0% crit chance.


The Enhancer is what Mihnwu will be flailing around with for the time being.


Bigger attack numbers than the Assassin's Dagger. At the moment it's still stronger than my Chicken Knife.


So let's get dressed for success. Our host will supply us with water for healing, so let's skip the bone mail for once, in case I need normal healing.


Like the third tablet, the real prize isn't 3 things you aren't going to use even if you're able, it's one different thing that I can't use.


If you'd have asked nicely I would. But not now.


No he won't, and no you won't.


Kill-stealing dick.


You baptize in water, I baptize in THUNDER .

code:

AI SCRIPT:
{Fight,Fight,Specialty}
{Fight,Fight,Specialty}
No Interrupt{
     {Fight,Specialty,Tidal Wave}
     {Fight,Tidal Wave,Tidal Wave}
     }
{Fight,Fight,Specialty}
{Fight,Tidal Wave,Specialty}
{Fight,AquaRake,AquaRake}
No Interrupt{
     {Tidal Wave,Tidal Wave,Specialty}
     {Specialty,Fight,Tidal Wave}
     }
{Fight,Tidal Wave,Specialty}
{Fight,Fight,Specialty}
No Interrupt{
     {Fight,Specialty,Tidal Wave}
     {Fight,Specialty,Tidal Wave}
     }
React:Magic{
     {Tidal Wave,Nothing,Nothing}
     }
React:Physical{
     {Entangle,Nothing,Nothing}
     }

Leviathan hits hard and hits fast. Tail inflicts sap. I'm unsure if I'm more tired of enemies doing that, or more tired of typing about monsters doing that, or if you're more tired of reading about me writing about monsters doing that.


He's heavy, but the bigger they are...


This tidal wave comes immediately after his second attack. It ends with a slight net heal for Mihnwu, but he pops an elixir anyway.


With a heavy enemy, instead of wiping them from the face of the planet, forces their defense to zero and does quadruple damage.


About 5 shots will do him in.


I think he considers !Spell Blade as a magic attack, since I didn't see the entangle counter.

Final Level - 48
Total Deaths - 0


There second one Wall Ring came from a chest in the dungeon.


Before wrapping up this, may as well go here one last time.


First, as mentioned previously, this guy is 0 threat to Mihnwu.


This was a Holy imbued sword, despite appearances, he's not weak to it.


So let's mix it up.


Until now, When talking about !Spell Blade, it's all about weakness, exploiting a vulnerability. Flare is different.

Flare is the answer to that. It reduces the enemies defense by 75% and adds 100 points to attack. In other words, Mihnwu is effectively doubling the power of the Enhancer, and the Shield Dragon's hefty 40 points of defense is reduced to 10.


If you were to wander in here in Galuf's world, Shield Dragons would be the only thing you fight. After the merger, Exdeath Souls appear. They're weak to Holy. They have two nasty things on their skill list; Reaper's Sword is basically a free heal for Mihnwu with the Bone Mail. Banish is instant wipe, but thankfully the Aegis Shield blocked it once.


The Masamune is a wonderful weapon. Good crit rate and a full ATB at the start of battle. In the main game, there's a stronger one as a rare steal, but without the First Strike capability.


This just does damage, Artemis has bigger numbers and hits magic enemies harder.


Fire Lash randomly procs Firaga. Unless you're doing a normal playthrough of FFV, it'll be a pretty lousy Firaga due to low magic. Only with dual wield and equip rods to boost it would it be a reasonable choice, but DualCast Firaga would make even more sense. A rare drop elsewhere is better in almost every way.

.
This boosts the Holy Element, so White Mages or Walter will be mighty pleased indeed to have it.


Personally my favorite of the 12. Does insane damage to dragons and undead. While Bard begins to turn a corner with songs in Galuf's world, this is a great payoff.


This has an autosell price of over 5 gil. If I didn't want to make the joke about Excalibur last update, I'd have gotten either this or the Fire Lash for cash. If you have no other choice but to use bells, get the upgrade as a rare drop in the final dungeon.


The Rune Axe crits by consuming MP. Not like a berserker is doing anything else with it.


The Holy Lance is just a holy elemental lance.


Sasuke's Knife is an upgraded Main Gauche, but limited to Ninjas.


Next time: Maybe Bahamut? Probably Bahamut, or at least a trip to North Mountain.