Summary: Now THIS is more like it! A wonderfully fun, tense, and engaging session exploring the mysteries within the Depths of Judgment. The art’s great, the music’s great, the story is mysterious, there’s not a ton of combat bogging things down. Love it.
Depths of Judgment
-Whoa! SUPER weird mob.
Grangalan.
It’s… like, a sentient, hieroglyph-etched egg?
-Got “Heaven Materia” from a chest. It has the same icon as “Light Materia,” and the same flavor text: “One of the goddess materia.” Not sure what to do with it though. Can’t equip it, can’t fuse it, and it doesn’t add new options to my DMW. Maybe I get a few of them and they Voltron together.
-Now I got “Star Materia,” same group.
-Came across what looks like a tombstone, but it has a description of Act 1 of LOVELESS. About three people bound together by oath to seek the gift of the goddess.
-There are a few different paths I can take. Two exits and one door. I’ll first try one of the exits to the “Lake of Oblivion.” I hope I can come back to explore the other two afterwards.
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Lake of Oblivion
-Now the “Life Materia.” What the heck is up with these?
-This place is awesome. A crystalline grotto. Examined a crystal and got attacked by a crystal monster.
G Lucifero.
A Satanic Genesis clone maybe. Defeated it, and the crystal I examined shattered as its light went out. Huh.
-THESE CRYSTALS ARE LIFESTREAM? This is wild.
-Got “Being Materia.” I’m getting a bit freaked out by what all these Goddess Materia might add up to. “Sabbath Materia” shortly after.
-There’s a chasm here I can’t cross with a glowing pod on the other side. I think I’ll have to come back here after exploring the other areas of the cave.
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Portal of Severance
-The next area. Got here passing through the Depths of Judgment, which serves as the nexus of this cave.
-This has the “LOVELESS Act III” engraving at the start, which makes me think I should come back. I’ll try the other area first.
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Depths of Judgment
-AHFJKLAHJKLFHAJKLFHA AAAARRGH – it’s a Malboro.
NO THANK YOU.
It’s SO SCARY TO ME. (Though it dies before it does anything, even its stinky breath.) Probably residual fear from when this type of monster used to absolutely obliterate me in FFIV, and force me to use precious resources curing myself from all the negative statuses is stacked on me.
-Those monsters are my most dreaded, maybe after Tonberries, and the Evil Masks from FFIV.
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Howling Fang
-This is a promising and hopeful name for an area in the Depths of Judgment.
-…it’s a prison?
-Opened up a cell with a chest in it and got “Mug.” Much easier way to get that materia than killing 1,000 soldiers.
-Howling Fang is labyrinthine.
So far, I can only access the top section of the map.
-One of the cells has writing on the wall suggesting that this is a place where Shinra members who wanted to be stronger than SOLDIER got experimented on.
-LOVELESS Act II stone is here. The person taken prisoner in the play escaped, met and fell in love with a woman from the opposing nation in the war, and lived with her. But felt guilty for abandoning his oath and his friends…
-There’s a big-ass behemoth (though really, is there any other kind?) in the prison. Let’s say hi.
-Never mind. I can’t say hi yet. I need a key to get in there.
-There are secret tunnels in here that lead me to other parts of the prison, other cells, but those cells are locked from the outside.
I have to find another way. Maybe that’s where the Portal of Severance comes in.
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Next time: the Portal of Severance.
