Part 37: The Ghost Ship

Well, the people(?) have spoken, and we have three characters with shiny new classes.





Lethal joke characters, indeed. Since they've all been reverted to level 1, Akira's party probably won't see much use for a bit; I may have to do a little grinding to get them up to speed.






I can show off a few of Curly's new spells, though. He won't be getting anything else as he levels, but then, he doesn't really need it. The spells he has now can duplicate basically every combat effect that other magic can create. There are a few holes in it (Ironize, raising elemental resistance, and non-combat effects like Return), but what he's got is more than enough.




With that done, it's time to continue the main story at long last. Our next two divine artifacts both lie north of Paranor.



This accent is... something. I think it's supposed to be Norwegian or maybe Swedish?






The stores here offer a small selection of mostly unimpressive equipment. The most notable things are the witching staff, which consumes MP with each strike but hits all enemies, and the item shop, which sells tarot cards (though these aren't useful for our party since we don't have a harlequin).



A few people in town mention a lost, sunken city, which I'm sure will be in no way important later.



Likewise, it's not clear why this information would be important, but it's something to check out.




We heard about this back in Paranor. The fact that it's being mentioned again here probably means it'll be relevant soon.




I can be dense at times, but not enough to overlook such an obvious clue.




More mention of Tritonis, as well as a clue to someone who might know where it is. HMM...







Well, now we know why Tritonis is important. We'll have to find a way to get there soon. Luckily, we've got a lead on that.






And now we also know why we need to see the hunter up north. The king and queen of Norge don't really seem to grasp the importance of our quest, but they seem like decent enough people.





More clues to the sunken city's location. With any luck this won't be as irritating as finding the Cave of Wonders.



Well, we've found the king's cartographer.



He's not fun to talk to.



His dialogue appears very slowly and can't be sped up, and there's a lot of it.



This entire sequence probably took five minutes. That probably doesn't sound like a lot, but you can probably read through it in one.



I'm not an especially patient person by nature. Something like this seriously wears on my nerves.





He walks to the bookshelf and back, every step an event. Ughhhhh.






Oh hell no I'm never talking to you again.





Upstairs, we meet the prince of Norge. It seems he received a letter quite similar to the one we found in Aleksandria. This is something else we're going to need to check on in time.




The Auction House is probably the most interesting place in Norge.



We can get some really rare and even unique items here - provided we have the money.



Let's check it out.





Most of the items presented are stat-boosting seeds.



But sometimes there's something more interesting on offer.





The bidding system works a little differently than in Final Fantasy VI, as it prompts us to enter our own amount. It might be possible to game the system, but I'm not sure.



In any case, we lack the money to buy the Harp.

With our business done in Norge, we head north to see the hunter. The terrain is all forested, so we'll have to walk.




There only seem to be two enemies in the woods here. Mastidons [sic] have decent HP and power and can hit the whole part with their Icestorm attack. Mollusk shells haven't changed since we saw them last, and they're still kind of a pain to fight.



Eventually we reach the cabin.



This place is a dump. Well, let's head inside.



Oh. Well, that explains the state of the cottage. Although if the place has fallen apart so badly it's a wonder the body is still intact. The whole place should smell absolutely awful.







Not that we wouldn't have taken it anyway, but it's good to know he'd have approved.




Jackpot.





The old hunter has a well behind his house, but there's nothing here except some peeps.



All right, time to head out to sea and find... Wait, what's that?



Looks like we found the ghost ship. Since it's here, we may as well check it out.




The whole place is appropriately spooky.



A ghostly voice greets us as we step aboard. We've actually met Nonomi, though it's been a while.



She was the boss of the Jumongu lighthouse in chapter 3, a ghost in search of her lost love, Yasuki, whom we've heard is supposed to be captaining the ghost ship.




The ship has a few enemies, though only undead pirates are new, and they go down pretty quickly.



Because you didn't go to the lighthouse. Also we kind of destroyed her.




There's one interesting treasure on the ghost ship, and it's the Aeolus shield, which is, unsurprisingly, wind-based. (I suspect is protects from wind attacks).



Two ghosts, both pining for each other but unable to meet. I'm a sucker for tragedy like this.




After using a nearby save point, we head back up on deck, where a ghostly figure stands on the prow.








Our boss fight here is against Yasuki, of course. He's not a pushover, but we could have fought him earlier, so he's not as difficult as he could be. He opens with Mutespell (which thankfully only hits Harley), and after that goes into his standard routine. He damages the party with physical attacks, Blazemore, and Sea Gale (a special attack that hits the entire party), and debuffs us with Wail and Slowall. Wail in particular applied Chaos to three characters and nearly ended the fight, though we were able to recover.




Holdana's physical-heavy team can't do much here, so we swap in Zefiryn. Kali's Blessmore and Hexia's double-cast Bless spells deal tons of damage.





Harley can't really contribute meaningfully to this fight outside of the occasional medicinal herb, so I have her goof off a bit. These are some wildly swingy examples of what she can do: she could double all her stats, make an enemy start laughing, or try to put herself to sleep.



We eventually win, and our prize is the seafarer's bangle, which prevents random battles at sea while equipped. Sure would have been nice to have this when I was doing the airship quest, but at least we can make use of it in our hunt for Tritonis.



Hopefully they can finally be together now that they've both been freed from their spectral bonds.

Next time, we begin our search for Tritonis.

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