Part 10: Page 10

Phoenix Tower. Same desert as the North Mountain, different compass directions.


Take a step inside, and there's nothing there! No stairs or anything!


Or is there? All the stairs are hidden in this place, in one of two sections of this core here. Pick the right one, and some stairs show up. Pick the wrong one, and they still do, but...


First you have to fight an enemy. It's going to be either Sol Cannon, LiquiFlame, a Kuzar, or a BandelKuar, all powered up to be approximately your level.


By the by, this guy in particular is notable because you can rarely steal a Guard Ring from him. He's also notable because he prompted me to hack the game because FUCK.


Also notable are the random encounters here. They're all human, even the half-snake one, so the Man Eater auto-criticals against them. Also, you can steal all kinds of crazy stuff from them. From Bella Donnas (half-snake lady) you can get a Rainbow Suit or rarely a Coral Ring; from Cheries (the one with the weird sash thing), Red Shoes or rarely an Elf Cape; and from Chamcubias (flower lady), a Wall Ring or rarely a RIBBON . The Rainbow Suit and Red Shoes are Dancer-only equipment (armor and accessory respectively) with notably high defense (the Red Shoes are only one defense point below the Genji Glove). Also, having one equipped increases the chances of using Sword Dance with the Dance command to 50%. But who cares about that, I can get a RIBBON. I get one, but I didn't get a screenshot because FUCK.


Also in the tower are these guys. Magic Pots, as I'm sure you already know, demand Elixirs. If you give them one, they have a 1 in 3 chance of running away, giving you 100 ABP. I was going to get some Red Mages and get a few job points with them here, but 1 in 3? Fuck that. I'll come back once Faris has mastered Mimic, so I don't have to waste any Elixirs.

Anyway, after all the crazy shit in the tower, I finally get to the top.

Well, look who it is. I thought he ran into Lenna and blinked out of existence.


Then the Hiryuu flies over them and gets ready to do something XTREME


I TOLD U GUYS I WAS HARDCORE


Not exactly sure how Cara made this connection here. How is diving off a tower and catching on fire a help to anybody? Was this Hiryuu a significant financial burden to Lenna? Hey, maybe it landed on Exdeath and totally killed him!

But no time for speculation, there's a flashback coming! Stand guard! DWEE-DWEEEE!

Gasp! Lenna's mother is dying, and she's about to do something crazy! Her matron (that's the right word, isn't it?) goes out to stop her.


I chose no because Lenna is supposed to be a crazy animal lover. And if you say yes, I think the king just comes out and slaps her and says, "You fool!" Anyway, the Hiryuu stays alive and her mom doesn't. But now the Hiryuu is dead too!

...Or is it???

Phoenix, as I'm sure you know, hits all enemies with a (kinda weak) fire attack, and revives all your party members with full HP. It's surprisingly not useful because I'm basically unkillable.


With the last summon under my belt, in addition to a fourth Guard Ring and four sets of ruby red slippers and amazing technicolor dreamcoats, Lenna gives a few parting words to her old friend, and we all head off.

Oh, and I did this before I went to the tower, but I forgot to take screenshots of it until just now.

This one is the third, and the one I steal in the tower makes four. There I go again, doing things out of order. Okay, get three Ribbons and label them 1, 2, and 4...
Okay, I got the Sage Staff, the Flame Whip, and Yoichi's Bow, but I skipped uploading the screenshots because who the fuck really cares?


Here's an opening in the ground. Undersea cave or whatever. Look, I got better things to do than talk about this place, okay? It's boring. A waste of my time. It is not worthy of my playing it.


There were some gargoyles, I'm sure you know about these gargoyles by now. Page comes out, catches on fire, let's go already.


Now, when I said there were creepy undead mutants here, I wasn't kidding. I mean, look at these things. They're fuckin' creepy. They also have unusually high physical defense, but since two of my people are using Holy-elemental weapons, which these things are weak to, it doesn't make much of a difference. And this is a fire dungeon, why aren't they weak to water?! Fuckin' conspiracy!


And the dwarves. I did in fact mention dwarves. There are five of them, and none of them really have anything interesting to say. One hints at the location of Mirage Town, but I've been there and back several times. I can also buy equipment that, would you look at that, I can buy in Mirage Town.


I'm about to get the third tablet when I'm attacked by this annoying fuck.


I guess there's three of him, but whatever. You have to kill all three at once, or else they'll all revive and I guess throw rocks at you or something. Okay, I'll kill them all at once.





I get the third tablet, so I can get three shitty weapons. Also, I get Meteo, which is a spell!

So I go to get the three shitty weapons. The Assassin's Knife, the Earth Bell, and...

APOLLO'S HARP This harp does magical damage, and it does extra damage to dragons and the undead! Also, when you use X-Fight while equipped with it, you'll pluck on it a few times ineffectually and do a massive 0 damage! It's a worthless piece of shit! Which is exactly why I plan to defeat Shinryuu with it
Okay, this is totally off the book, different save state, but...


A whole lotta 9's

Not only did I max out my levels and GP, but I also earned 99 Tiaras, 67 Plumed Hats, 28 Thornlets, 49 Mirage Vests, and 43 Man Eaters. Oh, the power of slopes and waterfalls. I'm probably not going to finish the game with this save, since that's no fun, but I just wanted to say that I got everybody to level 99. Also, I have almost as many Mirage Vests as I will need at any given time.