Pualei Plains
-The plains west of the Conde Petie mountain pass are pretty small.
-One of these non-combat fights against a nymph.
We give her three ore and she gives us 30 AP. Fair trade!
-The nymph wants us to watch for her friend the Jabberwock. First the Bandersnatch, and now the Jabberwock. For some reason, it seems to fit with this world.
-HEY! I can now use the Phoenix Pinion as an accessory. It will teach Eiko how to summon Phoenix. So that’s what it’s for.
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Iifa, the Ancient Tree of Life
-FFIX keeps delivering with badass epithets.
-Mist is here. Iifa may be the source of the Mist. But if so, why is there Mist on the Mist Continent and not this northern “Outer” continent?
-lolol – Zidane touched the seal, and it bounced him back. He touches it again. I now have three options: touch it yet again, BODY SLAM it, or ask Eiko. See, I think he should ask Eiko. But I think he would body slam it.
-Another question: although I now get why the dwarves call it Sanctuary, it doesn’t seem like a honeymoon spot. Do they just kind of hang around here with the ominous synth music to keep them company?
-Eiko will break the seal by resummoning the eidolon they failed with in the first place.
-Her “summoning” was pure nonsense. “Boom boom boom” and the like. But it worked and we now have a ruby.
-Dagger is frustrated. Eiko said that the eidolon asked her to hurry up, but Dagger couldn’t hear it. This is even reflected in equippable abilities. The ruby allows us to summon Carbuncle, but while Eiko can learn it, Dagger cannot. Not yet at least.
-Creepy monster: Stroper.
A giant tentacular tree. I remember the name “Stroper” from FFVI, but somehow never pictured it like this.
-Saved at Mocchi the moogle.
-Came to what looks to be an elevator or platform of some kind. Something clearly designed, not natural.
-Vivi’s fear of heights is troubling him here.
-Zidane touched thing that looks like an elevator, and everyone startled. Nothing happened. I have another choice: touch it, stand on it, or ask Eiko? Let’s ask Eiko this time.
-She asks him to try standing on it. This is her first time here. She doesn’t know much about this place.
-It’s an elevator.
-Everyone goes down.
-Ok, this is getting legit creepy. We’re deeper inside its roots, and mist is blasting up from below. What’s at the bottom? The source?
-I WAS NOT EXPECTING THAT. We encounter a monster: a Draconozombie.
I was expecting plants and trees and stuff. A dragon zombie was not on the list. Its wings are more feathery than I would’ve expected.
-For one of the first times in my FF life, I remember to try healing magic against it. It works.
-Came to a long tower. Just finished Dark Souls 2 and this next area reminds me of the Black Gulch zone. A shade of bright green that reminds me of poison and corruption more than health and nature.
-Interesting. When Eiko got on the elevator alone here, it didn’t respond. When Zidane got on, it did. Magical destiny thing specific to Zidane? Or is it rejecting Eiko specifically?
-They’re on an open platform racing down a spiral, but unaffected by wind. There’s a green sparkly thing, a field around them, that must be protecting them.
-Mog pops out of Eiko’s dress to take a look around, see what he sense. He senses life. Lots and lots of life.
-Zombies attack us on the elevator. What’s up with the undead?
-Vivi is disturbed by all this. He’s thinking back to the factory in Dali. He thinks the Mist, Kuja, the black mages, and this tree are connected somehow. I agree. Just not sure how.
-We reach the bottom. GOD this place is eerie.
-Dagger thinks this looks more like a machine than a plant. Or some sort of hybrid.
-They watch the sparkle of the water together and… omg eiko XD XD
-It finally hits Zidane that she’s crushing on him. More than that, it hits him that he’s been acting towards Dagger the way Eiko’s acting towards him. “Is this what I’ve been putting Dagger through?” He vows to back off a bit.
Well done, Zidane! It's extremely rare for a romantic pursuer to come to this sort of conclusion in fiction. Not just someone getting that they've been rejected, but rather someone still showing interest but admitting that they've been overly aggressive in a one-way manner and deciding to ease up.
-Found a great chest piece for Zidane, Brigandine. It grants the Ability Up ability, increasing the rate of ability gain.
-Crap. Something’s coming from above. Smells like boss spirit.
-A giant brick-zombie-tentacle-plant-thing.
-But something else is going on. There’s a voice in Vivi’s head?
-AH! It’s the boss thing, talking to us. Telepathically. [Later edit: I now think that the elevator reacted to Zidane because the tree was expecting Kuja, and interpreted Zidane as Kuja.]
Mist isn’t natural – it’s a by-product of “the refining process.” (???) This thing, which must be the embodiment of the tree, spreads the Mist to other areas to “stimulate the fighting instinct.” Why? Why does it want to make things hostile? Must be driven by Kuja.
-Or maybe not. It seems to be working in conjunction with Kuja. It wants the constant war to cause the downfall of civilization, and Kuja’s using the Mist to make weapons… weapons like Vivi.
LOLOL EIKO: “He’s really ticking me off. Can I kill him?”
-The creature says that if we kill it now, no more Mist will flow. But by doing so, Vivi will “deny his very birth.” Oh god. This is horrible. In an indirect sense, fighting this thing is a form of matricide.
-This is super ominous. It says it’s seen the end of its life, and it’s not now.
Soulcage.
-Hell, even the name is super ominous. It’s not named, like, “The Great Iifa.”
-Phew. It cast Level 5 Death, but none of our levels are multiples of 5 apparently.
-Cast fire on it, and got a message that says “the fire started.” This was either a really good idea or a really bad idea.
-Going to try the Phoenix summon. I don’t need the KO cure, but I don’t have Ifrit and the fire damage could help.
As usual, it’s beautiful and overwhelming.
-Victory! But I’d be surprised if it’s a “he’s dead” victory as much as a “we beat him temporarily and made him change form/retreat/something else” victory.
-Or… not? We get a cinematic of happy music and the mist departing.
-No. I still think he’s alive in some way. If he had said, “You cannot defeat me! I am eternal, mwa-ha-ha!” then I’d believe him to be dead. But he said he foresaw his death at a specific other place/time. I believe him.
It’s horrible prediction time! I’m going to guess that the boss being called Soulcage and the plethora of undead implies that Kuja was using the tree to “refine” the spirits and bodies of the dead into weapons, and can still do some kind of necromantic shenanigans with them.
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Outside the Iifa Tree
-Poor Vivi. He did the right thing, but he just removed the possibility of creating more black mages.
EIKO FOR THE FUCKING WIN!! She comforts Vivi, telling him that his brothers would feel the same way as he does. They won’t hate him.
-Moco the moogle comes. Tells Eiko that someone “stole something precious from the village.” The party will wait here for Kuja.
-Phew. They don’t make her go along. Screw Kuja. They’ll all help her.
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Next time: back to Madain Sari.
