Part 67: Mt. Temza

Alright, so last time we were about to set off for Mt. Temza. Temza is fairly close to the Sands of Kogorh and Yormgen, and you can dock pretty much next to Yormgen.



On my way there I pass by this structure, and figured I might as well show it off.







Yeah, not really all that interesting, but keep in mind that something is here for later.

Anyway.













And Temza!


Watch the cutscene!



And here we are. Welcome to Mt. Temza.
Woof!



Could it be the Hunting Blades?
That, or it might be the Knights.
But why would the Knights be here?
Flynn was looking for apatheia too. If that's what the Hunting Blades are doing here... Then the Knights could be here for the same reason.
Why is everyone scrambling to get their hands on apatheia all of a sudden?
We never had the chance to get an explanation from the Don...
If Judy'll clue us in on what she knows, things might clear up.







What could have happened...?
Is there really supposed to be a town here...?



But I can't vouch for what's happened since then.
Ten years? That's quite a ways back. What were you doing way out here?
Uh, well...

The sound of Judith's dragon can be heard.

That voice... Is that you, Freak?!
Here's hopin' everything's all right.
Let's hurry!




Temza is, honestly, quite an annoying dungeon if you ask me.



But before we even get to explore it a lot, another cutscene:




It's even worse from up close.
There's no way this could have happened naturally.
It looks like something exploded here...
An explosion... Are there monsters that can do something like this?



What do you mean, wiped out?



What! Really?
So that means...humans and Entelexeia fought here...
The humans were victorious, but there were scarcely any survivors... The facts behind the war are shrouded in darkness...
Not even the official government histories give many details about what happened.
So the Entelexeia did this to the mountains... What terrible power.



The empire's kept a pretty tight hold on information about it. They've got a lotta secrets. You should know that by now.



What they didn't want us to know was that those monsters were actually Entelexeia...
You sure know a lot about this stuff, Raven.
You come across a lot if you live long enough, kiddies.



The monster's voice we heard just now... What if they've already got Judith cornered?
Beating up that dragon-freak is MY job! I won't let them beat me to it!
Yeah.
Let's hurry!


Skit: The Great War
Man... The Great War... I mean, leaving a gaping hole where a mountain used to be...
I still can't believe how much power the Entelexeia must've had.
How could the humans fight beings that powerful, and not get demolished? I just don't get it.
Indeed... The Great War may still hold secrets we haven't uncovered yet.
Y-yeah, but the war's over now. It can't have anything to do with us, right?
I hope so, but...




Alright, so, Mt. Temza. This dungeon more or less consists of lots of narrow paths with enemies you can't really avoid. A bit annoying, but not the end of the world.





Why do I not like this dungeon then? See that rock to the right here? You can only break it with a more powerful Sorcerer's ring than what we have at this point. So if we want those treasures behind them, we need to come back later and fight all those annoying enemies again.



Also, Mt. Temza is (as far as I know) the only place to get one specific material you need a lot of to synthesize something -- optional, but still -- near the end of the game. Which means even more backtracking here! Fun!


Anyway. Rita gets Violent Pain here, a neat darkness-elemental spell:







And another cutscene:



Yuri? What's the matter?
I was just thinking about what Judith said. "Ba'ul saved me during the war..." I just realized that maybe she was talking about the Great War when she said that.
So maybe she fought against the empire with that dragon freak during the Great War?



Huh? Why?
I'd think only someone who was on the scene would know so much about the war.
Really? But, there weren't supposed to be very many survivors, right?



Ah, if only I'd died then, things would've been so much easier, too...
If only you'd died? What a weird thing to say...
So, did you ever see Judith during the war?



Oh geez...
Hmm, I feel like I never saw Ba'ul, either. Maybe they ran away from the battle?
So it was really the Entelexeia who fought in the battle?
Yes, I guess so. Though at the time we thought they were only a really terrible breed of monsters.
But wow, you were really in the war, huh Raven? That's so cool. I thought only Imperial Knights fought in the war.




Well he certainly has some history.







A short walk later, we run into yet another cutscene!





Watch the cutscene!









Suppose it wouldn't make much sense to say she was feeling homesick.





Judith!



You...



Hunting Blades Member B: Go inform Tison and Nan!
Hey! Nobody lays a hand on one of our own. If she's broken our laws, we'll settle this amongst ourselves. Now get out of here!



Hunting Blades Member A: This doesn't involve you!



You're right. It's just a waste of time tryin' ta talk sense ta people like this.
Leave. Now. Or do you really want to do this?





Judith...



Yeah. We're here to settle things for the sake of the guild.
Judith. Tell us everything you know.
Why you destroyed the blastia. About the apatheia and the Entelexeia. Their relationship to Phaeroh. All of it.







...Honestly, I don't know if that's really a good thing or not.
You've already come this far, I suppose there's no going back now. Come.



Yuri... What did you mean about Judy's fate...?
...If there's one thing the Don's last moments taught me, it's that I've been too soft. If a part is infected, you cut it off before it infects the whole. Even if it's a comrade, an Entelexeia, or a friend.
You mean even if it's Flynn or Phaeroh?
...Yeah. It's the path I've chosen for myself.








Skit: The Hunting Blades Again?
The Hunting Blades again?
We didn't just cross paths this time. We're after the same thing. We just might have to fight.
I-if it does come to that, you guys don't have to worry about me.
But we can't keep Judith waiting. Let's go!

Karol leaves.

Karol...
Our boy's growin' up.
Yeah.
Isn't there some way we can avoid fighting the Hunting Blades?
I hope so, but it's pretty much up to them.
Yup.


Looks like we're finally gonna get some answers from Judith. But first, the second half of the dungeon.






Yuri grabs a new altered arte along the way, Cerberus Blast (Cerberus Strike + Alembic) is really just Cerberus Strike with an additional stab at the end.







On a much more useful note, Rita has used Demon's Lance 50 times, which means we can now use it without the correct arte altering skills!





I also run into this fake treasure chest, which is actually pretty easy to beat compared to what mimics usually are.





It drops a fuckton of money though, which is nice.


Skit: A Sentimental Landscape
The hole in this mountain is like the hole in my heart...
Ahh... How my chest aches...
Getting all sentimental on us, Old Man?
Nah, it's just memories of the war.
I'd appreciate it if we didn't spend too much time here.
Stop being such a coward.
Ohh, that hurts, Rita.
The only way to get past a bad memory is to embrace it.
Sounds like you're speaking from experience.
Not really. I was just generalizing.
Anyway, you want to hurry, right? Then let's go.
Our little genius mage is more mature than she looks.







Eventually, we reach a save point and the cutscene we've been waiting for.


Watch the cutscene!



Yeah. We heard from the old man here.
The Great War was sparked by a type of blastia.
What?!

This was not a blastia that had been excavated. It had been constructed in the city of Temza using a new type of technology.



Hermes blastia...?



And if you say it was newly built...
The Hermes models were even more effective at converting aer into energy. They were intended to...revolutionize the technology of blastia.
But something went wrong.
The blastia using these Hermes-type formulas required massive quantities of aer.





Just like we saw at Keiv Moc and the Weasand of Cados. Wouldn't like ta see that happen everywhere.
The Entelexeia realized the dangers of the Hermes blastia before the humans. And they moved to destroy them.
Which created a conflict that grew until it eventually became the Great War...
So then the Entelexeia fought against the humans to help the planet?!
But why didn't they tell the humans how dangerous those blastia were?!



There's never been any love lost between humans and Entelexeia. Probably didn't talk much.
There may've been other reasons, though. Still, we don't know what this story has ta do with our Judith, here.



Wait, you mean there are still Hermes models in operation?!



The ceres blastia on the Fiertia...
So then, you've been destroying the blastia in place of the Entelexeia...

















Ba'ul!





Nan!



You will not pass.





W-we won't allow that! Not even from you, Nan!
We were having a conversation over here! Butt out!
I don't usually like ta get my clothes dirty, but...



Have the Hunting Blades added people to their list of targets?



Karol. Have you forgotten the credo of the Hunting Blades? Step aside.



But the Entelexeia aren't evil! They were fighting to save the world...
Don't let them fool you with that credo nonsense. They're on a job. They're here for the apatheia.



If you have no intention of moving...




This is a pretty fun battle, but can be very hard if you're not prepared for it. Here is a run of it on Hard difficulty: (mostly fine but a bit sloppy at parts, see if you can count how many times I try to quick-step away from the enemy ala Graces and activate magic guard instead!)

Watch the battle!
Alternate run on Normal, includes waiting for secret mission opportunity



Stats on Normal:



Stats on Hard:






Listen to the full conversation!

All monsters should be killed!
That's the rule of the Hunting Blades!
He's not a monster! He's Judith's--
I don't care what you think of monsters! I will protect Ba'ul, even if it costs me my life!
It's pretty stupid to think anything out of the ordinary is automatically evil.
Aiding monsters is punishable by death!
But Ba'ul's different! He wouldn't just go around hurting people for no reason!
What are you talking about? Of course he would!
Hey little girl, you're too young to be that stubborn.
You're worse than monsters. They just got instinct, you got brains! So what's your excuse?
Shut up! We Hunting Blades will not back down!
So I guess we just gotta fight this out.
Don't worry, I won't kill you. It'll just hurt a little.
Don't blame me for what happens!


Like I said, this can be a pretty tough fight. You're up against two guys, Tison's attacks are quick and hit hard, and Nan's can cover a large area. To add to that, Nan can cast some spells, including First Aid, so you probably want to take her out first. But Tison's quick attacks make that kinda hard!

So let's see what stuff they have to fuck us up:








Nan has a couple artes where she throws her... giant boomerang blade ring thing? Honestly, what kinda weapon is that? Well anyway, Flying Blade is one of those. In this one, she throws it roughly forward, it makes a turn when it's far away from her, then returns, covering a fairly wide area.

Pretty early in the fight I get the idea that, since I have Karol's Mystic Arte already, might as well use it!








This turned out to be not so great of an idea since it really didn't do that much damage, and Yuri died in the process. Whoops!



Back to Nan's artes, Raptor Ring throws the ring vertically forward, which means it returns on the exact same arc it flew away at. So run away if you were hit the first time!




On my side, Yuri's Burst Arte gets altered into a wind elemental one due to having both green arte altering skills equipped.



This is probably Tison's most annoying arte, where he dashes across the battlefield really wast.



Nan's Raptor Assault, in which her blade circles around her for a bit before returning.




Those snakes can pop up even a bit away from Tison, doesn't have to be where he punches the ground.



Rending Slash hits a small area around Nan. Not all that threatening, and in fact opens her up for a free hit.




You may be wondering if Tison and Nan have Mystic Artes of their own. Yes they do!











They're not too damaging -- Raven lived through that -- but can still be bad. Nothing some quick healing can't fix though.












Here's Nan using First Aid. I didn't get her on-screen using it, but it heals for a couple thousand HP.









Nan also gets a Mystic Arte:










It kinda didn't really hit anyone here except Karol a bit, but I suppose it can be ass if you're right next to her.








Eventually, I get Nan down. As soon as only one of them is left the battle becomes fairly simple.




As Tison gets low on HP I decide I want to kill him off with Karol's MA, so I try that:







But I instead kill him with the Burst Arte. Whoops! Oh well, still alright.



All in all, a fun battle.

The secret mission in this battle is to knock both Nan and Tison down when they're stuck on the floor after one of their artes:










You have to do both, or it doesn't count. The reward is a Death Scythe.

Achievement/Trophy:

Secret Mission 12 (360) / Secret Mission 13 (PS3)






Alright, the game wants us to to forwards into that cave, but if we back out and go a bit further left we can grab two more treasure chests, so I do that.





Anyway. Cave.



Watch the cutscene!



Ba'ul is trying to evolve...as an Entelexeia.
It looks like he's suffering.
Ba'ul...come on...





I want to heal your wounds, but there's nothing I can do... My power is poison to you, isn't it...?



What do you mean?
Don't you remember Belius' words?

Power corrupts... But you, you are different.



My compassion for others...
Your thoughts are reaching Ba'ul. I'm sure of it...
All we can do now is hope for the best.
...





Amazing...
I knew you could do it.
Your partner seems like he's going to be just fine.
Yes. Thank you all, for helping to protect him... This is something I couldn't have done alone.
You're one of us. Of course we'd help!



Didn't I tell you? You got through to him.
Heh heh.
You may get through to Phaeroh as well. Will you be going to meet him?
That's up to Estelle to decide.
...I'll go. It's been the purpose of my journey, after all.
Are you sure? What if you end up getting killed?
Even still. I've got to stand firm on this...



How about a change in scenery before they show up and spoil the party?
There is only one path down from here, though. We're bound to run into them.
Get on. We'll fly as far as the Fiertia. We can finish talking once we arrive.




---

Notable Loot:


Defend 2: Increases physical defense by 10%.
Magic Guard Plus: Reduces damage received while using Magic Guard.


BA Force: Increases the effectiveness of Burst Artes attacks.
FS Bonus: Recovers HP every time a Fatal Strike hits an enemy.


Guard Artes: Cancels guard motion and performs an arte. Invincible to attacks for a short period of time.
Item Thrower: Able to use items on an ally.
Magic Guard Plus: Reduces damage received while using Magic Guard.


Immunity: Reduces the chance of receiving status effects.


Item Pro: Decreases the amount of time character is unable to move after using items.
Strength 2: Increases physical attack by 10%.


Alembic
Gale
Evade 2: Increases agility by 10%.


(Judith comes back with this equipped.)
Combo Plus: Adds 1 more hit to a regular attack combo.
Super Chain 4: Able to link base to altered artes.
O.L. Boost: Increases the duration of Over Limit.


Light Magic: Decreases TP consumption and cast time. Also decreases the spell's power.
OVL Bonus: Occasionally fully restores HP during Over Limit.