The White Ship
-I must’ve done something wrong. Missed something. It’s conceivable that I could’ve missed a city on my first pass of Esthar, but it’s unrealistic of me to think it’s some random square that I’m supposed to discover by trial and error. So back to the White Ship to retrace my steps.
-The White SeeD leader goes through his thing about never having been to Esthar, then when I talk to him again, he says this in follow-up:
“By the way, did you hear about the Galbadians? They’re salvaging something big from the sea. I think Watts was talking about this.”
Hm. Perhaps a clue.
-Watts says he found Zone’s “weakness,” but won’t tell us.
-He also says that the Galbadians recently “dredged up a huge monolith from the sea.” Worth checking out.
-My next step is to find the Galbadian ship. Going to start by searching the sea in this Centra Crater near the White Ship, then try to find the continent with Deling City on it.
-Didn’t find the Galbadian ship yet, but found something VERY interesting in my search for Galbadia.
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Winhill
-And I don’t care in the slightest that I’m certainly not supposed to be here yet. I’m so excited to see this place in the present!
-Kids are playing. They hired “two guys” for security.
-We see Raine’s house. Raine first appears to Squall like a young woman, but as she gets closer, he sees that it was his memories of her projected on what he’s seeing now – which is an older woman.
-Raine talks about how there are spirits here – spirits of inspiration for her art at least.
-She highlights white flowers downstairs with a certain fragrance.
-The vacant house is still here. Empty. No sign of Laguna.
-The guy who owns the mansion is upset that his vase is missing. He blames ghosts. Makes sense. That’s who I blame when I lose my keys.
-OK THAT’S CREEPY
I interacted with a statue in the house and it started talking.
-HAHAHA – fucking Quistis. She was doing the voice. She got me. The music cut out and I thought something spooky was legit happening.
-AAAAH AND THE STATUE TURNED OUR WAY AND STARTED GLIDING TOWARDS US
-lol it was a chickobo that got stuck inside the statue. The game is trolling me so hard.
She runs away, leaving a dropped vase piece behind. Shades of… hm, which game was it where there was something totally harmless inside the Shinra Mansion safe that people mistook for a ghost? Crisis Core? Dirge of Cerberus?
-The owner wants us to return any vase pieces we find to him.
-The woman growing flowers – not Aeris – in the square mentions that she can use flowers medicinally. Maybe just back story, but I’ll keep it in the back of my mind in case it comes up.
-Playing a few games of Triple Triad with Raine. I think there’s a decent chance she has a rare card for one of the Galbadian Trio.
-Have I described how much I hate Same/Plus enough yet? Because I hate it.
-FUCKF UCK FUCK FUCK FUCK
-I just realized that all this time I’ve been losing to her, it’s been the One rule, not Direct. That means that while I’ve been protecting my rare cards in game and losing, she just takes them anyway. GODDAMMIT.
-This is just so disheartening. It’s not worth trying to get back my Diabolos and Quezacotl because I have pretty much no chance against Raine. I think I’m doing okay, then “PLUS COMBO!” “SAME COMBO!” and I lose.
-Yeah, just gonna cut my losses. [Later edit: it hits me also that there’s no real purpose to keeping rares, as fun as it is to see them initially. So… yeah, whatever. Even if there’s some achievement or reward for getting and keeping all the rares, I don’t really care. That’s a thing to worry about for a replay.]
-Moving on.
-The flower shop lady is still here doing her thing.
-lol – down the road, I got to play a mini game where I had to kick that chicobo up into the air as it crossed the road. The timing was tricky, but got it down. Each time I gave a kick, got a new item. A vase piece, then some smaller items including a Phoenix Down.
Did it 3-4 times before the mother chocobo whomped me for hitting her chick.
What goes around, comes around.
-People here remember Ellone well and fondly.
-Wait, a guy here farther in town says Raine passed away? Who…
Goosebumps. Is that actually Raine’s ghost who kicked my ass in Triple Triad? Or some other woman?
Now that I think about it, that’s EXACTLY what a ghost would say…
-A couple of Garden dropouts are the two bodyguards who followed in Laguna’s and Kiros’s footsteps. They like the town. They also mention someone “undercover” who may also guard the town for sentimental reasons.
Really hoping for Old!Laguna.
-Time to leave this beautiful and creepy place.
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Next time: The search for Ellone continues. To Deling City and the waters around Galbadia to search for more about the monolith the Galbadians dredged up.
