FFVI – Part 63: Provenance

Summary: We head to Owzer’s Mansion in Jidoor. Haunted art galore. We help Relm with a possessed painting, and then get Excalipoor.





Jidoor

-Ominous music here.

-Someone saw a perfect likeness of Gestahl in a painting in Owzer’s mansion. I would say that sounds Relm-ish, but we already met the guy who painted it.

-Townsperson: “In a world like this, you have to keep an open mind.” Uh oh. About what?

-Aha! Deathgaze’s secret: he doesn’t recover HP after battle. We just have to keep fighting him and whittling him down, and eventually he’ll die. Ok. I now just have to find a reliable way to encounter him.

-Just noticed Gau’s level is so much lower than everyone else. I thought that when the rest of us were higher, he’d be auto-leveled to match us, but maybe that mechanic ignores my cactus adventure.

-A little girl was seen going into the art collector’s house recently. YES!

-Owzer’s diary is readable somewhere.

-A rare sword is going to be put up for auction.

-…And it’s Excalipoor. I have the choice to bid 150,000 gil. I know it’ll suck, but I wonder if it’ll be useful anyway… Gah…

I bid. The bidding goes higher, and eventually reaches 500,000 gil. I’d bid it, but I just don’t have that much gil. Maybe later.

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Owzer’s Mansion

-The lights are out.

-Oh, cool! I can click the lamp to turn the lights on or off.

-I look at the flower painting AND IT COMES TO LIFE! I KNEW IT!

-We beat the flower monsters, “Raffleasia.” Does this mean I’m going to have to fight Ultros in his painting?

-Never mind. That Ultros painting looks to have been replaced by Gestahl.

-Which is just a painting. It doesn’t attack. But the “portrait of a lovely lady” does. Two ladies: Misty. Just normal combat though, not a boss fight.

-Oooh, a secret door opens up where the painting used to be! Though before going through, I actually want to check the paintings again with the lights off.

-YIKES! A voice calls out and I get force pushed down the stairs.

Owzer’s diary then appears on the table next to us. He spent a fortune on a huge new painting he keeps downstairs.

-He disliked the work of a painter from Zozo who came by.

-He bought a new lamp recently at the item shop. “’Twas a tad pricey, but now everything’s bright and cheery with just a flip of a switch.” Haunted lamp?

-An artist he brought in from Kohlingen wasn’t up to par.

-He started hearing things from the painting in the cellar. CREEPY. Like, I have goosebumps right now. Haunted paintings have creeped me out since “The Witches.”



Ran out of the theater when I saw that scene as a kid.

-Still can’t get up the stairs with the lights off, so I turn them on and walk on.

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Cellar

-More paintings down here.

-OH GOD THAT SCARED THE SHIT OUT OF ME. I walked up to a painting of a chair. It slowly pulled me in to sit down in it, and then a woman walked up behind me IN THE PAINTING

AAAARGH

-This painting thing just… I love it. I hate it, it scares me, and I love it.

-It’s just some normal monsters. But after we win, the painting now shows an old woman sitting in the chair. This is horrifying. Way worse than even the library in FFV, though similar aesthetic.

-This place is trippy. There are doors and switches and if I go in the wrong door it spits me out of a painting of a door and wheeee!

-Got a “Lich Ring,” which makes the wearer undead. Isn’t that bad?

-Now in a room with floating treasure chests… Sat under all of them. When I did, each dropped, monsters attacked, and then I got to loot the chest for some gil or an item.

-Next painting: a suit of armor. “Still Life.”

Is that a fish and parchment? Creepy again. A door opens…

-HJFKDLSHFDJKLSHFDKLSFH

-The painting next to it was of a woman with her back to us. Now she’s facing right. It doesn’t attack, but I can’t describe how freaked I am and I literally got up to take a poster in my apartment of Harry Dresden down and put it in the closet lest it move.

-Save point. The nightmare may be over soon.

-There’s Relm. Absorbed in painting. But there’s a dude in a sitting on a beanbag chair behind her. He pleads with us to “help the painting.” A monster is possessing his prized goddess painting. Yikes.

-Chadarnook. Boss time.

-AWESOME boss art! It’s the goddess portrait. Chadarnook wants the painting for himself. Maybe it’s a real person in the painting? Dunno.

-AAAARGH!!!! The painting changes into a demon.

Again, phenomenal sprite design. Then shortly after back to goddess form.

-Victory. Chadarnook had a metric ton of hitpoints though.

-Relm’s music plays now. It helps relax me after this harrowing session.

-Owzer bought a magic stone I think, and was overcome by the desire to have a painting of Lakshmi. He found Relm to paint her, but he thinks the stone lured the monster.

-Cool! The stone is magicite. We now have the Lakshmi magicite. Relm joins. Hurray!

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Owzer’s Mansion

-After a quick stop to get Relm back at the Falcon, I come back to the mansion to check on the paintings one last time for missing bosses/treasure.

-Success! The Gestahl painting has a letter: “The legendary treasure sleeps where the mountains form a star…” Interesting.

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Jidoor

-Screw it. Grinded outside for the rest of the 500k gil. Went back to the auction house and bought Excalipoor.

Here’s my reasoning: Gilgamesh was in FFIV:TAY, and people got excited for him. He was in FFV, and one of the best characters in FFV. Excalipoor is always tied to him, and he seems to be recurring. I have the hope that Excalipoor will end up somehow Gilgamesh-related in FFVI too. We’ll see.

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Next time: More exploration. I’d like to find Strago, but not sure where he might… GOD YES I’M A DOOFUS LET’S CHECK EBOT’S ROCK. That’s next.