-I backtrack before heading to the fete. During the Great Rat Murder of 2017, I saw a part of the Waterways I hadn’t explored back by the first door.
-No luck. The unexplored area is blocked off by the “Central Waterway Control.”
-The only issue I have playing two FF games concurrently is that triangle makes me jump in XIV. I keep trying that in XII, which just brings up the main menu.
-Went back, sold my rat murder loot, and bought the Forgotten Grimoire. It gave me the Hunter’s Monograph: “Possession of this text enables the acquisition of superior loot from beasts and avions.”
-I’m surprised. I assumed it’d be a gambit thing.
-A license on the board, “Red Spiral,” gives me a warning: I can only get three. They seem to unlock things. There are four Red Spirals on the Shikari board that unlock different types of ninja swords.
-WHOA WAIT – “Vaan has learned a new Mist ability!” This is a whole new command! Red Spiral is the this quickening, a “focused and damaging attack.”
-AAAH HOLY SHIT THERE’S LIKE A MINI CUTSCENE AND VAAN’S LIKE “Got a surprise for you ” AND NUKES THE POOR RAT
I don’t know if it did any damage. I think I was supposed to do something. I only have one charge and have to reset it at the save crystal.
-I experiment with Red Spiral a bit and figure out that I need to trigger it during the animation, like Squall’s Renzokuken. I hit R2 a few times (it said that was “Shuffle”) and did 33 damage. The next time, I just held down R2 and it did over 1,300 damage. Holy shit lol.
-You know what? The fete can wait. I have a date with a Flowering Cactoid.
-GOT HIM!!! Brought the Flowering Cactoid to low health like last time, but this time I blasted him with Red Spiral before he could use 1,000 Needles.
-I bring the cactoid’s flower back to Dantro in the Estersand village. He asks me to take it to his wife in the village to the north, on the south bank of the Nebra. She needs the flower to help a sick person.
-I teleport there from Rabanastre’s south gate. Dantro’s wife rewards me with… a “BUNDLE OF NEEDLES!” This is the what the cactid’s bestiary entry told me about.
-It’s in the “Loot” category. I’m tempted to sell it. I made the mistake back in FFIX of holding onto an item I was supposed to sell, and don’t want to repeat that. Hm.
First, checking in at Clan Centurio. They don’t have any use for it. One more mark and I advance in rank.
-Okay. Selling it. The game has signaled to me pretty hard that I should sell “Loot” for bazaar goods, and… nothing. Boo. I kind of want to reset, but nah. That’s the risk on a blind run. Ah well.
-Checked the notice board in town. No new marks.
-One more thing I want to try before the fete: Rat Murder Fest Part 2. My Hunter’s Monograph says I can get “superior loot” from beasts and avions. Rats are listed as beasts. I’ll stop after 100 kills if no tail.
-EIGHT KILLS IN I GOT A RAT TAIL!! So that’s it. When the bestiary describes some awesome loot from a creature, I need the right key item to have a chance to loot it.
-I sell the Rat Tail, but no new Bazaar Goods appear. Hm. The bestiary mentioned that Rat Tails could be used as potions or food. I checked the potion listing at this vendor, and there’s no “Rat Tail Potion” or whatever. Maybe I should’ve kept it to give a chef later?
---
Crashing a Fete
-Here we go. Up the stairs to the palace.
-We briefly see a dude with a gun on a bike, and a bunny woman behind him.
I can’t remember if these are the two rebels we glimpsed in the Waterways or different people.
-I enter a hall with servants. A court painter created a signet of a hawk and one of a lion, both of which are on the upper floor. One of those signets is probably where I have to wave my sunstone.
-A seeq sees me skulking about and thinks I just want to get some food upstairs. He helps me distract a guard. That’s kind of sweet.
-The next floor is a cool puzzle where I have to taunt guards into the appropriate place so I can explore.
-My sunstone lights a Signet of the Lion, and I find a secret passage.
-It leads into a jackpot of a treasure room. A statue opens up, revealing a small crystal that Vaan grabs.
-OH SHIT CAUGHT! It’s the dude and woman from the hoverbike.
“Fran, the magicite.” So this is magicite, and bunny woman is Fran.
-Before they can take it from me (“The Goddess’ Magicite”), guards approach. The pair flees.
-We escape the palace. Outside, shit is going down. A huge melee – rebels versus Imperials. An airship called the Ifrit blasts the rebels below.
-The theatrical dude and Fran corner me. They knock me off a bridge and we all fly off on their hoverbike.
-Fran is a “Viera.” Vaan hasn’t seen her.
-This guy is Balthier. [LOL HI BALTHIER! After like years of this series, I now know where the name comes from.]
-Yay for foes teaming up! I love this trope. BALTHIER AND FRAN JOIN THE PARTY!!
-Argh! I really wanted a white mage, but Balthier nor Fran feel like that would fit.
I’ll start with Balthier. One job on the job board shows the technick of “Charm: Temporarily convert foe to friend.” This fits what just happened. I already have a crossbow wielder, but whatever. Balthier is a machinist.
-I know even less about Fran. Again, she doesn’t seem like a white mage. Not even a bit. More of an in-your-face type character. Knight, Foebreaker, or Bushi are my finalists, and I go with Knight.
---
A New Party
-We descend and Balthier tells me a bit about gambits. You can combine one action with a target.
-Okay, this is VERY much like Dragon Age: Origins’ tactics. And gambit shops provide me new targets. Okay.
-We find some dead insurgents down here. The fete was very deliberately planned to draw them out – hence the Ifrit airship above, ready to blast the shit out of rebels.
-A woman is being chased by imperial soldiers. We fight them off. She’s Amalia.
-My magicite starts glowing near her. It’s Goddess Magicite – is she a goddess in disguise?
BALTHIER: “You have a lot to learn before we even get started on your thievery.” I feel like I’m missing something.
-I also wish I hadn’t made Fran a knight because HOLY SHIT AMALIA IS TOTALLY A KNIGHT!
-Amalia is a guest character. She won’t take orders, will leave when she wants. This again reminds me of FFII. A lot of temporary party members in that game who dropped in and out. (Usually when they died.)
-A trio of boss flans attack. I love the art design on them. It’s super gross.
-They go down. Yay for having a full party!
-Sage Knowledge, the Royal Palace: Built centuries ago for Dalmascan monarchs. Remains true to “Galtean design.” Contains documents and treasures of the royal family.
-The bestiary entry for ghosts is so sad! They are spirits who were trapped in coffins – not necessarily even evil! Just spirits who were trapped and grew enraged. I know what ya mean, ghosts.
-Sage Knowledge, the Ifrit: An Archadian cruiser class airship.
[Non-rhetorical question: am I reading this correctly, that you don’t use up ammo? That if I get a single quiver of arrows or whatever it’s indefinite and doesn’t need to be restocked?]
-We loop around the full waterway, connecting to where we first met Vaan. A fiery horse boss named Firemane appears.
-It goes down super quick. Vaan’s Red Spiral and Fran’s Feral Strikes obliterate it. I just held down R2 each time. I don’t quite understand how that works, but doing so seems to pile on damage.
-Imperial soldiers surround us. Lord Consul Vayne himself is here.
---
Caught
-As soon as Amalia catches sight of Vayne, she looks ready to attack, no matter the odds. Real hatred for the Archadian empire. Balthier holds her back. “Now is not the time.” Balthier knows a lot about Amalia.
-Oh nooo Penelo! She sees Vaan in handcuffs. This is like her worst nightmare.
Balthier manages to stop her from hitting an imperial soldier, giving her a token/cloth thing to hold onto.
-Two bangaa look on, annoyed that they didn’t get the chance to kill “that philanderer.” I get the sense a lot of people have it out for him.
-Scene change. A memory. Vaan is visiting someone in a hospital room. This person likes the smell of Galbana Lilies – this is why Vaan picked them up and got so pissed when an imperial stomped on them.
-She doesn’t acknowledge him. Seems out of it. He thinks she did something.
“Even if you did… even if you were… Captain Basch must have tricked you into it!”
-Ohhh it’s his brother, Reks! He thinks Reks helped kill the king. This is a dream, not a memory.
-Reks vanishes. No answer given. Vaan holds some kind of ring.
---
Nalbina Stockades
-Vaan wakes up in a dungeon. Balthier is here too.
-This isn’t a normal prison with locked cells. It’s just a sealed-off part of Nalbina Fortress. Fran’s off looking for an exit.
-The sound of screams in the distance.
-The prisoners here fear the lower levels at night. The sound is like “demons weeping in the deep.” I LOVE this imagery.
-A prisoner named Daguza is in on top of the prison hierarchy.
---
Next time: seeking a way out of the Stockades.
