Part 9: Update -VIII- Walking in a winter wonderland

Picking up where we left off (after the Yuna fight I mean), Reynn seems to sense something wrong in the force.

Oh, it's probably nothing. I just had this strange feeling... kind of familiar, but also kind of scary.

And that's all for that. Going back to the previous screen doesn't elicit any reactions by the way. Yuna and the Plumed Knight are already gone, so it's just an empty lake.



Running up the path, we run into a treasure chest containing a teleport stone. This stone--



Right, never mind then. I forgot there are tutorial cards still hiding out around every corner.

Teleport Stone will be handy for backtracking once we start going out to collect the Mirages we had to skip (like Magic Jar). Also for hidden areas that we can't access without the right field ability (like back in Nether Nebula).



Further up, the presumably tropical forest quickly transitions to a frozen hellscape. This dude apparently prefers to chill out in the snow, as opposed to just moving 8 feet to the left and being in the forest.

Actually, now that I think about it, I'd probably prefer to stand in the snow as well. Screw RPG forests.

Oh, right. He gives us a pick-me-up as well. It works on exactly what he just told us about.



Anyway, moving to the next screen triggers Chapter 6. We're going to the Ice Region.



Wimps, both of you. The cold is good for you. Puts some hair on your chest.

But fine, we'll stop at the Inn. Not like we would have skipped it anyway. Could be stuff to swipe in there. Can't pass up a chance at kleptomania.



First, using the gate to pop back to Nine Wood results in us getting hit by another tutorial card. Thank you, game.



We can also check in with Chocolatte about that new stock that was mentioned. It's just as stupidly expensive as everything else in her shop.



She also starts selling items that can inflict different elemental damage. These are actually a bit more helpful. Having them around can be handy for when/if you run into a Mirage that requires a specific elemental damage in order to capture. Unfortunately, they are also expensive.

Just to give you an idea of what we're dealing with, most regular Mirage fights are only paying out like 50 gil or so each. We're getting chump change, and the only things we have that are worth selling are the Mega-Phoenix items. I'm a little hesitant to sell those at the moment. This game isn't crazy difficult, but those items are very nice to have when in a pinch (they revive characters with full HP instead of just a little).



And during the run back to the park, we swing by Serafie to grab the thing on her head. Some of the items she has are auto-use items that do special things. Pixie Stone will fill up our Champion Gauge a bit. There's another called Mover which will give all the Mirages in the party 1 SP each. I kind of wish we could save these, but whatever.



Turbine Shark looks like he's adapted to the climate.

Anyway, let's check out the Inn for real this time.

Update 8 Highlights - Sherlotta's Solace + Refia
World of Final Fantasy Music: Happy Melody








Sherlotta is voiced by Stephanie Sheh in English and Marina Inoue in Japanese.

World of Final Fantasy Music: Prismelody (Sherlotta)


Sherlotta is here from Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time. The Crystal Chronicles series is a Final Fantasy spin-off that was made for Nintendo systems. If you're old enough to remember the Gamecube (as in you were a gamer when that was the hot new console), then you've likely heard about this game if you haven't already played it. It's the one where all your friends could play with you! Provided they all had Gameboy Advance systems with Gamecube Link-Cables (and fresh batteries for the GBA). There was a 4 year gap between the release of the original title and the follow-up. Once that follow-up arrived, Square proceeded to blast out 5 Crystal Chronicles games in the span of about 2 years. Then 2010 rolled around and the series vanished. There hasn't been a new game since 2009, so it appears as though the series is dead by this point (at least until Square goes rooting through the attic to try and dig out some spare change).

She's here as the representative because Echoes of Time has an avatar hero that the player customises. Sherlotta is an immortal girl that finds a crystal and then gets the power to make more crystals and the bad guy uses that for whatever typical evil plan that all those guys sit down and think up while their bored. She's 2000 years old by the time the hero gets involved. I can't say a whole lot more about her because it involves a minor thing in this very game.

Ahh! So much warminess!

Oh! Um, hello there. Would it be okay if we rest here for a little bit?

Sure! The Solace wouldn't be much of an inn if we turned away freezing travellers.



Lann, why do you just randomly turn to Jiant form like that? There's been no indication that Lilikin form is uncomfortable or anything.

Oh! We don't see very many Jiants these days.

Wha-- Lann, what are you--

Whoops! ...Oh. She doesn't really seem all that shocked.

Hm? Oh, well, I'm sure some folks would make a fuss. But I remember a time when Jiants wouldn't warrant a second look. It's only lately your kind has truly gotten scarce. But even then I doubt anyone's eyes have been popping out.

Well, now that you mention it, I guess not.

Eh, don't give it a second thought. Everyone is welcome under my roof.



You're barking up the wrong tree there Sherlotta. Chocolatte barely gets any of our cash and she's been hanging around way longer than you have.

(Good idea. I wonder if she's got anything to keep us warm. That would help.)

We can't actually buy anything from Sherlotta, which is a shame. Competition is good for consumers. Chocolatte has us by the balls since she's the only one that has anything to sell right now.

Also, Sherlotta raises some questions. We've seen that Jiants were most certainly a thing in this world. The Cactaur Express has at least one entire car just for people that size. We've seen that the Bahamutian Soldiers are apparently just empty armour being animated by some force or another. So then where the hell did all the Jiants go? How many of them were there? There's a train car for people of that size, but Sherlotta's inn doesn't exactly look like it's built to accommodate anyone outside of this living room area. There wasn't any place in Cornelia where Jiants could stay outside of the throne room. Yet Sherlotta just said that it's only recently that they have gotten scarce.

Curiouser and curiouser...



As soon as the scene ends, we can see a shiny. Must collect all the shiny.

Ooooh! Is this for warming up?

Oh, this looks nice and toasty.



Hmm? Wait a sec. Tell me you're not planning to cross the ice fields.

Duh. What, you think we wandered through that forest as a fun day trip?

We kind of have to get to Saronia.

Ugh... Forget it, don't even bother. Making the trip at this time of year would be difficult enough on its own. But for a while now, the ridge has been overrun by nasty Mirages. No traveller is safe. Jiant or Lilikin, you would be torn right to pieces.

That's cute. Did you not see the Turbine Shark we rode in on? We're good.



Huh?

Oh, you see, we're Mirage Keepers.



Right?

Yes the sirree!

Oh wow! We have had a lot of guests over the years, but you two are definitely my first ever Mirage Keepers!

Uh, excuse me?

Hm?

Um... Sorry to intrude. My name is Refia.



Refia is voiced by Megan Goldsmith in English, Yoko Hikasa in Japanese.



Refia joins us from Final Fantasy III, or more accurately, the DS remake of Final Fantasy III. Final Fantasy III had kind of the same problem as Final Fantasy I did with Warrior of Light. Original FFIII had you start with four generic Warriors of Light that you swapped classes and jobs with over time. None of them had a distinct character. When the game was remade in 3D for the DS back in 2006, they decided to establish the four generic heroes as actual characters, which is where Refia comes in. She's one of the four Warriors of Light and can take on multiple different classes/jobs, but World of Final Fantasy has her acting as a White Mage (as we'll see in a bit).

Despite FFIII getting the same treatment as FFI in terms of developing actual characters, Refia would not appear as the representative in Dissidia a few years later. They went with Onion Knight instead. This is actually one of the few games (outside of mobile) where Refia is picked instead of Onion Knight.

You see, I've been stuck here in the inn for a while now because of all the Mirages in Icicle Ridge.

Refia. Are you certain about this?

Yes. I've made up my mind.

Hmm... Don't give me that look. I won't stop you. Honestly...

Well you can't stop her, or us for that matter. You're an innkeeper, not the fucking border patrol.

Ugh... Hey, Mirage Keepers.

Huh?

Yes?

You did say you're on your way to Saronia, right?

That's right.

In fact, you might say that we're on a mission of sorts for Cornelia, so we can't stay here long.

Reynn, how about you stop giving Lann shit for blurting stuff out, hmm? You are doing exactly what you get all huffy at Lann for doing. Sherlotta does not need to know why the hell we're on our way to Saronia, especially when it involves government business.

I'm starting to feel bad for Lann now. He's still dense as hell, but he has been getting way too much undeserved lip from everyone else.

Good grief. I must be the only one around here with a lick of sense. Okay, fine, you win. But at least take along the warlock's warmer. In exchange, I want you to let Refia here go along on the trip with you. She knows a bit of white magic. You can't say no to that.

Kind of feel like you're getting the raw end on this deal, but whatever, I'm not going to complain. Refia will be incredibly nice to have on this leg of the trip (or any trip for that matter, but unfortunately we can't just kidnap her).

Sherlotta!

Hey, no skin off my nose.

Or mine. Besides, if she can use white magic, she'd really be doing us a favor.

Great! Everybody wins.

So! If that's settled, why not rest up before you go?



With that out of the way, it's time to make a beeline to the right. There's a treasure chest peeking out from the top right of this screenshot and it has something the thread will love.



Using Reynn or Lann's Jiant form will allow us to reach it. This let's us finally obtain the rename prism.



Meaning that all the Mirages we've been collecting can now be renamed whenever we want. Up until now we only had once chance to rename them, but that was immediately after capture.





So you guys are free to suggest whatever names you want for the Mirages we have or acquire. We get 10 character spaces (blank spaces count as 1 each by the way) and the two screenshots above show what letters and symbols we have at our disposal.

At the end of the update, I'll show off everything that we currently have in the party and the Prism Case. You can suggest names for the Mirages as well as Stacks (which can also be renamed), and I'll fill out the rest of the travel party with the popular Mirage choices.



Moving on. Right next to where Refia is standing, this little white cat will have something on its head. It turns out to be Old Personal Posting 1.



Oh boy, more collectibles to watch out for.



Big deal. Chocolatte charges us through the roof for basic items all the time.




There's an examine point near the front door by some chests/boxes/assorted items. We don't pick it up, we just read it. Weird.



Saronia, here we the-come!

Oh well, let's just get back on the road.



That's a long way to go. This calls for Turbine Shark.
World of Final Fantasy Music: Joyride Melody





Update 8 Highlights - Icicle Ridge
World of Final Fantasy Music: Labyrinth of Ice




There's only one the-way to Saronia, and that's through this ridge.

*We hear some howls in the distance*

Is that the Mirages she mentioned?

Stay close to us, Refia. Okay?

Okay.

I make a small change to Lann's stack by removing Mandragora and putting in Black Nakk. Fire is helpful for this area (obviously), and I don't want to get rid of Zapt (for reasons).

Before we get started on this ice dungeon, I abandon Refia and head back to Nine Wood through the nearby Gate. There's something I want to show off real quick.



The quickest way is to travel to The Watchplains and--



...how the hell did I miss that? Curse you locked camera angles!

The nice thing about this game is that it doesn't really lock you off from anywhere. You can pop back to old locations and track down stuff you might have missed. In this case, the treasure chest had Eye Drops in it. It's probably because I immediately bolted for the Cornelian Knights when we were first here.

Anyway, that's not what I wanted to show off. Leaving The Watchplains and heading to that little crossroads outside of Cornelia (remember that road we took to get to Nether Nebula?). Go south and you'll quickly spot a certain someone just hanging out.



Princess Goblin showed up in the first mini-update where she attempted to woo (through kidnapping Princess Sarah) the Warrior of Light. However, by the end of the intervention quest it turns out she was actually pretty cool.

We received a prism for her, but she wasn't capturable during the intervention quest. We can challenge her to a battle outside of Cornelia though, which gives us a chance to get her. First of all, preparations must be made.



Go to Chocolatte and pick up a few Flash Bombs. These items can inflict Blindness on enemies (alternatively, bring along a Mirage that has a Blind inflicting ability). Inflicting Blind is Goblin Princess's capture opportunity condition. This is incredibly fortunate, because Blindness will be vital in another way during the attempt.

You get the chance to back out in case you change your mind at the last second. It isn't really necessary, since losing a fight here will just cause Tama to send the twins back to Nine Wood with no punishment (you'll still have all your items as well, so no need to worry about buying more Flash Bombs or reloading the save).

Update 8 Highlights - Princess Goblin Capture


So here's the major issue with this fight. Goblin Princess is a brick wall at this stage of the game. 26,500+ HP completely dwarfs everything we've battled so far.



She's also completely resistant to every ailment except Blind, which she still resists a tiny bit.



She also hits like a truck. Even if you've done some extra grinding for this part of the game, the best you'll be able to hope for your stack to survive two hits instead of one.

This is where Blindness being key to capturing her will benefit us. Throwing Flash Bombs out has a chance to blind her (she has a small chance to resist). This creates a capture chance and also reduces her accuracy.



Missing will be what you have to hope for as Princess Goblin is not down for being Imprismed. She also has Counter (she'll swing at you after an attack/failed capture chance) and Esuna (she'll cure the Blindness).

So this is very luck based. The good news is that challenging her costs nothing, she only takes a few seconds to get to, and any time you lose you just get dumped off in Nine Wood with all your Flash Bombs back (remember, Tama turns back time to before a battle happened).

That means you can try this as many times as it takes to successfully catch her. Sooner or later the RNG is bound to cooperate. Well, unless the Random Number God is pissed at you for some reason.



Capturing her (or beating her if you can actually manage that at this point) rewards us with a shitload of EXP. 45k is enough to send Reynn from Level 13 to Level 23.



The bad news is that either Lann or Reynn's stack will likely have been wiped out during the attempt. You can try to separate your stacks to give Princess Goblin more targets, but unless you get lucky right away then there's still a good chance she'll pick off one of the twins.

So one of your main characters will probably be grossly over levelled compared to their counterpart.



As for Goblin Princess, she's a good early game addition. Her very first ability is Cura, which is an upgrade over Cure. She also gets quick access to stuff like Esuna (ailment cure) and Protect (lessen physical damage during battle). Her stats are an even 15 across the board at her starting level of 1, although her agility starts at 24.

There's something you can try for if you want. I didn't save this attempt due to the insane EXP received, but if you guys really want Goblin Princess on the team right away then I can go back and make it happen.

There are other bonus strong Mirages that you can snag with a bit of trickery as well, although they are a bit harder.


Also, I forgot to grab a screenshot of it for the update, but I did include it in the highlights. There is a quest back in Cornelia for some dude at the bottom of the stairs. He just wants us to fight a bunch of Goblins in The Watchplains.



Anyway, back to what we were doing. You'll notice right away that we need a Mirage with Sizzle. There's an Ice Block blocking the path forward just a little ways ahead. Thankfully we already have Black Nakk with us.

There's another Ice Block on the other side of the clearing. Clearing that one out of the way will lead us to a side route off to the right with a treasure chest.



Before that, we get our first new Mirage of the area.

Ice Bat needs to get hit with Blindness for a capture chance, just like Goblin Princess. I kept the Flash Bombs I bought though, so this is easy. Taking out the other two bats is a cinch. They have a Leech attack, but it doesn't pull much HP out of you.



This is a rare misstep by the description writer. I want to remind everyone here that Inception came out in 2010. World of Final Fantasy came out six years after that.



Old-ass memes aside, here's a brief look at the map we've got. We're currently heading for the treasure chest that was blocked by ice. Up North is a path that we can't get to right now. South of the centre is our progress path.

The chest to the right has 2 phoenix downs in it. Not bad. Any curative items are welcome.



During the backtrack to the centre area we run into another new slave friend.

Quachacho just needs a little healing to capture.

Unfortunately these little bastards have a chance to run away if the capture fails, so the first one slips through my fingers.



I get the next one though.

Quachacho gets early access to the Chill field ability, so we'll need to keep it in mind for future fire-related stuff.



Of course there are sliding ice puzzles. You can't have an ice world without ice sliding mazes.

These aren't super hard (mercifully). For the first one, go right from the starting point, then down, then left, then up, and finally right. This leads you to the Sizzle point where a treasure chest has been frozen (it has 3 potions).

From the chest, go back to the left, then down, then left, down, right, and down. This leads to the south path where a treasure chest hides out.



From there, go back up the path. Now just slide up, right (to the opened chest), down, right, up, and right. We can then leave the first map.



Where a scene awaits us.

What the?!

Look out!



Oh come on, that thing is adorable.



This is a battle against two White Nakks. We already have one (or at least we can get one by Transfigging our Black Nakk) but even if we wanted to catch one, we can't. These guys run away as soon as they are beaten.





Moving on, you can run into stacks with Deathskulls and Right Claws in case you weren't lucky enough to find them back in the forest.



Continuing on the story path, there's a treasure chest you can't miss. I really question the need for these ice blocks when in order to even get here we have to have Sizzle. Who would melt those first two blocks, then go back and dump off their Sizzle Mirage?

The chest has some Wobblestoppers in it.



We then get to slide puzzle #2. Ignore the Gimme Golem up near the top of the screen. He is there for almost no reason, as we'll soon see.

Up, right, down, right, up, right, down, gets us to the path we need to progress.



Another new Mirage appears along the way. Going to have to knock that stack down first, though. A few uses of Topple abilities while casting 'Cure' on the stack will eventually produce results. After it's toppled, get rid of the Babyhemoth and use Physical Attacks on the Baby Paleberry. Be careful that you don't take it out, it only has 355 HP.



Now I'm hungry...



We also get a first look at what Refia is capable of. Refia will automatically heal you up completely when your HP falls below a certain amount (around half I think). Very nice to have.

We run over to the left a bit more to grab that treasure chest, which just contains an item called 'squishsparkly'. This is just the item that the Gimme Golem wants.



Beyond that, we'll hit another scene with more White Nakks.

All these wolves...

Must be a pack. They're not going to leave us alone unless we show their leader who's boss.

There's three of them this time. Still no threat to us at all.

Wha--? Hey! Stop running!

They certainly like giving us a hard time.



The path we were on just circles back around to that Gimme Golem from before. Giving it the squishsparkly we found like 10 seconds ago will make it go away.

Returning to the slide puzzle, go down from here, right, down, left, and down to get back to the start. From there, up, left, up, right, will get you back to the Golem's location.



Reynn is looking right at the path forward through the dungeon, but first we'll grab that treasure chest.

Get back to the path on the right hand side, then go down and left. The chest has a Defense+ mirajewel in it, which I slap on Reynn since she has an open slot.

Getting to the story path is pretty easy. Start at the north (where the Golem was), then go down, left, down, right, and down.



As soon as we get to the next screen, another scene triggers.



That's... slightly more threatening than the White Nakks. It just turns and runs off, though. Suspicious...

He's huge!

Is that the Mirages' leader?

Good! Let's go after him!

There's only one path to follow, and it leads straight to--



Slide puzzle #3.

Left, up, left, up, right, up, right, up, right, down, right, up, leads us to a chest in ice.



Containing an item that we have need for. It'll have to wait until we finish up with this place though.



Our goal for this place is the path on the top right. You'll notice that there is a path in the upper left as well, although if you study the map layout you'll also notice that there's no way to actually get there.

However, there's also a strange outline in the middle and some kind of path jutting out of the left side. Getting up there is how we get to that upper left path, but unfortunately the route up there is being blocked by an ice boulder that can't be melted. We need a Mirage with the Smash field ability. That place will have to wait for the time being.

Which might be for the best. The area up there has a very difficult battle against two special Mirages. Of course, that also means that (like Goblin Princess) there's the opportunity to score some good Mirages early on. It is possible to get Mirages with Smash at this stage, so I'll swing back here a little later (as well as to that area in the Nether Nebula). I'm pretty sure that Chapter 7 is laughably short, so that seems like a good opportunity for side-stuff backtracking.

For now, we're going to push forward with the story. From the Elixer chest, go left, down, left, up, right, up, right, and up. This gets us to the path we need to take to progress.



Icicle Ridge - Slip 4 is the last area. The save point should tip you off that there's a boss fight approaching. Take advantage of this, because Tama cannot intervene during big boss battles. Losing this fight means game over and running all the way back through Icicle Ridge.



We've got you now, furface!

Lann, wait!





Ahhh!



Oh no... White Nakks... the same ones we've been shooing off this entire dungeon.

I-I don't believe it. Did the wolves lure us here?

Excuse me?

No way...

What is it, Sis?

Could it be...



The wolves didn't lure us anywhere, you idiots! There was only one path through this frozen hellscape! Waiting at the only exit for people to wander through is not luring, it's ambushing. These aren't some incredibly intelligent super wolves. These things are actually pretty stupid. They wasted energy doing hit-and-run tactics when they could have just waited here. The results would have been exactly the same.

Where did that come from? That's cold, pointing at me every time something goes wrong!

Yeah, well in Icicle Ridge, do as the icicles do.

And icicles the-point!

What?!

All of you shut up!



Yeah, what she said.



We've got more important things to do.

Update 8 Highlights - Fenrir Battle
Okay, that does it! I'll show you which one of us has more brains!

That's what I'm scared of.

We already know who's the-smarter.

I... Hey!



Grandfenrir is strong to ice and weak to fire, no surprises there. 3500 HP is pretty beefy and he is accompanied by four White Nakks. Normally this would be a little dicey, except...





Problem solved. The White Nakks aren't especially tough, but if you've unlocked an ability (that isn't ice) that can hit all targets (like Zapt's Thunderbolt), then you can blast them all in a single shot.

That just leaves Grandfenrir, whose main attack is Gnaw, which only hits for about 150 damage.



He also has an Ice Storm attack that isn't really much better. Lann's stack is weak to it and it still only hits for about as much as Gnaw did.



Meanwhile, a fire attack (like Red Fang that is pictured here) will dish out 300-500 damage. He is not long for this world.

With the Nakks out of the way, this just becomes a war of attrition that Grandfenrir shouldn't be able to win. He does have the ability to summon more White Nakks, but he wouldn't do it across the two fights I had with him.

If you DO have to take the Nakks out one by one, then you will have to keep a careful eye on HP. You could end up in trouble if everything decides to gang up on you at one time.



Beating Grandfenrir gives us 4000 EXP and some decent rewards. Fenrir Memento will let us transfig a White Nakk into a Fenrir (Black Nakk can't be, but Black Nakk can be transfigged into a White Nakk, so technically it still can reach Fenrir).

Black Nakk is actually a high enough level to be able to do that already, so here is the database entry for Fenrir.



Don't remind anyone of Advent Children, World of Final Fantasy. I have to talk about that at some point during this play through, so let's not go making an extraneous mentions of it.

Fenrir is a palette swap of an enemy called Werewolf in FFII. Werewolf first appears in the original FF as an enemy type and actually does look like a big-ass wolf as opposed to a dude that has transformed into a wolf (like Wolfman or something).

Fenrir shows up in a bunch of other forms as well. It is a Summon Monster in FFVI, IX, and XI. In FFXIV it can be acquired as a player mount (and also has another slightly spoiler role that I can't mention). It's also an airship in IX, a palette swap enemy in X, the name of Cloud's motorcycle in AC (as well as his spirit animal in a sense, which is pretty eye-rolling). There are other minor appearances as well, but there's too many to fully talk about here.



Refia, are you okay?

Yes, I'm fine. Thank you. Once we're out of here, Saronia's just a skip away.

Skipping will wait. To the right of where Fenrir was there is a path down to a chest that contains 3 ethers.



Backtracking to where Fenrir was and taking the path to the left will lead us to a Murkrift. This one is both easy and difficult depending on how you want to approach it.





We've got a battle against six Mini Flans. They aren't much on their own. They're weak to magic and resistant to physical. I could have Zapt use Thunderbolt and finish this battle in a single move.

Wanting to actually catch one of these guys is where trouble starts. All-Target magic attacks will almost certainly kill all of them at once, which means we need to pick them off one at a time. That's kind of a problem.



That's because they have an attack called 'Sticky Goo'. It deals low damage, but it has a chance to inflict Slow. Since there are six of these guys and their turns are all clumped together, they will hammer you with it and all but assure that your team's speed gets bogged down. If they manage to get both of your stacks, then they will very quickly outrun you and switch to a different tactic, which is to say that they will start hammering you with regular attacks.

Unstacking and trying to quickly take out five of them is an option, but just remember that you'll be leaving yourself more vulnerable to damage that way (not to mention possibly splitting any Slow resistance you might have).



What is with Icicle Ridge and making me hungry? Stop talking about food, description person!

Flans are an entire species in the FF series. There's a bunch of different types and elemental variants. They started off in FFI and have appeared in (almost) every mainline title since. I don't recall them ever appearing in FFVII though, which is really weird... Oh well. They are usually characterised by being resistant to physical damage and weak to magic. Elemental variations have specific weaknesses.



Anyway, time to blow this place for the time being. Going up the (unnecessarily long) path that Fenrir was blocking, we'll be able to leave Icicle Ridge and climb the hill to reveal--



--another huge snowfield. Alright Turbine Shark, you know the deal. Let's go.



There's another Murkrift off to the left, but it's way above our current pay-grade. Another pin for the board I guess. Going to need a notepad doc soon just to keep track of everything we need to return to later.



The end of the snowfield brings Chapter 6 to a close and moves into Chapter 7, so this is where today's journey (of story progress) will end.

Before we call it quits for this update, let's swing by a certain someone we have recently encountered.



Back to the forest and through the spooky lost maze, we return to fetch the Magic Jar.



We have the Elixer that it wants, so we just need to use the item on him to create a capture chance.



As soon as you use it on him, he casts Curaga on your party to repay the favor.



And then we imprism him for eternity. Also, Magic Dutch Oven would have been fucking hilarious and I wish that was a true fact.

Magic Jar (or more commonly, Magic Pot) is an enemy from FFV that has made regular appearances in the series beyond that. They are a kind of gimmick enemy. Usually they are near impossible to defeat using regular means. They instead require you to use an item on them (like the Elixer we just did) before you can beat them. They are known for giving really good rewards though.



We can also turn Floating Eye into Ahriman at this point.

Ahriman is the more familiar version of this enemy type. This is the one that appeared in FFIII and has been the basic design of the species.


Now that we've finished this update (and chapter), let's take a look at what we currently have available in terms of Mirages.



These are the Mirages I'm currently carrying. Starting with the top row (and skipping Reynn), we've got Zapt, Floating Eye/Ahriman, Mandragora, Quachacho, Ice Bat, and Babyhemoth.

The bottom row (and skipping Lann) is White Nakk/Fenrir, Right Claw, Magic Jar, Paleberry, Mini Flan, and Sharqual.



In the Prism Case starting from the top and moving Left to Right, we've got Tama, Chocochick, and Black Chocochick. Then White Chocochick, Slyph, Reaver Mu, Goblin. Then Copper Gnome, Mini Golem, Moogle, Deathskull. And finally Cockatrice and Dualizard.

Just a note: Goblin can come in the Red varieties we saw during The Watchplains assault. Goblin Princess is available for capture. And due to the Valefor memento we got, Cockatrice has the potential to become Valefor with a bit of levelling.


~Suggestions~

I'm willing to take Mirage/Stack suggestions from the thread. Two users have already made name suggestions for both Copper Gnome and Mandragora. Copper Gnome is henceforth known as Mugsy, because that name is awesome when considering his description. Mandragora is now Basil because there's a user who is a big fan of it.

As for others, remember that there is a 10 character limit for renaming. Mirages and Lann/Reynn's stacks can be renamed. We can carry 12 Mirages around in our pockets, so I'll take whichever ones people seem to give a damn about and maybe cycle through them as needed. New Mirages can be swapped in as we find them and people request them.