Nalbina Dungeon
-Holy SHIT – we come two seeq beating up a defenseless bangaa.
-A third jumps me. They drag me off to some arena.
-Balthier to the rescue! He jumps into the arena to help me. We take them out with fisticuffs.
-Imperial soldiers arrive. But so does Fran! (I LOVE her voice.)
FRAN: “Through the oubliette, there’s a way out. Only…”
BALTHIER: “Only you sense the Mist.” So Fran has some kind of special sense.
-A bangaa, Ba’Gamnon, is a “headhunter” collaborating with the Imperials. He’s pissed that Balthier doesn’t seem to be here. (We’re currently hiding from sight.)
-A Judge arrives, complete with his own Star Wars Imperial March varian. Judges are elite guards of “House Solidor,” some high-ranking Archadian house.
-The Empire is Hume-centric. Bangaa are second-class citizens.
-The “Captain” is in solitary. We’re coming Amalia!
-We sneak behind them into the oubliette. There’s a section of the music here with a low repeating baseline or something that I adore.
-The Judges reach a high-security door that they open with magic. There’s an awesome animation of drawn-on thorns retracting as the spell unlocks it.
-IT’S NOT AMALIA, IT’S BASCH! HE’S STILL ALIVE!
-The Judge asks Basch why he’s still alive. Basch replies: “To silence Ondor.” Ondor must be some loved one of Basch, someone who would speak out with sensitive information maybe if Basch were killed.
-Btw, I’m bad at telling people apart, but the Judge looks a whole helluva lot like Balthier.
Not saying necessarily that they are twins or anything, but I’m keeping shit like that in mind until they see each other. For now, we’re still stealthing.
-The Judges leave and we approach Basch. He asks us to break him out.
-Vaan and Balthier are not having it. Vaan is raging, Balthier is coldly snarky. They see him as a Kingslayer, the betrayer of Dalmasca.
-Guards hear Vaan yelling. We have to escape, and the only way is down. We hop on Basch’s hanging cage and ride it to the bottom like an elevator.
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Barheim Passage
We’re now in Barheim Passage. Oh, hey, I know this place. This is where the two seeq brothers’ boss was searching for treasure or something.
-Basch joins the party as a guest!
-There’s a bangaa vendor down here. Is this the seeq’s boss? He sells a mix of armor, weapons, gambits.
-The main gimmick here is electrical charge. Mimics try to eat electrical charge, and we have to kill them before they drain it too much. The darker it gets, the more monsters come out.
And yet, I want to see what happens if it goes full dark. I let one a mimic chow down.
-Not much happened. More undead came out, specters and zombies. I complete their bestiary entries.
-Aletap Rumors, Specter bestiary: a storm has made fishing impossible. When it breaks, everyone will want to fish.
“If you’ve any horn or foul flesh to be sold for bait, now’s the time! Why, they’re selling for as much as it costs to buy an imported JAVELIN or the like, I hear.”
So… if I sell horns or foul flesh I might get a javelin back.
-Sage Knowledge, Mist: Mist is naturally occurring energy. You can harness it as magick and magicite. In high concentrations, Mist can do damage, change animal behavior, or change the environment.
-Talk About Town: If we bring “scales or fangs” to the bazaar, we might get munitions.
-Town Crier, Flan bestiary: “Caramel” from Flans might turn into something.
-I love how bombs look in this game! They have little fuses stuck to their heads.
-Bomb bestiary: their explosions deal physical damage, NOT fire damage.
-Deep into the tunnel, a pause in the action. Basch remembers Reks.
-Vaan keeps insisting that Basch killed Reks. We see a confused flashback, the night the king was killed.
-WAIT, BASCH HAS A ~LITERAL EVIL TWIN~ WHO KILLED THE KING?? LOLOL. Here I was preparing myself for Balthier to have the evil twin, but nope. It’s Basch.
-Basch still blames himself for Reks being there. I believe him about this twin thing. Vaan doesn’t.
BALTHIER: “Believe what you want to. Whatever it takes to make you happy!” Oh fuck off dude. I get that he wants us to move past this – but still. Fuck off with that “whatever it takes to make you happy.” That gaslighty linguistic bullshit is a huge pet peeve of mine.
-Mimics really do take the shape of treasure urns in this game.
-Sage Knowledge, Bazaar Goods: Loot is crafted into articles on the bazaar, but some require MULTIPLE items. So perhaps the Rat Tail isn’t enough to get whatever I get from a Rat Tail.
-Aletap Rumor, Skull Defender bestiary: the western island nations should lower the quality of their iron swords to improve their fishing gear.
[Non-rhetorical question for y’all: does the vendor to whom I sell Loot impact the Bazaar Goods I get back?]
-Sage Knowledge, Mimic bestiary: electricity is a thing in Ivalice, but Mist is much more efficient, and thus the dominant energy source.
-Boss time. A queen mimic with her little battery mimics around her.
-I take out the little battery mimics around her, then move onto the Queen.
-I love the design and colors of the Queen Mimic! She looks like she’s made of stained glass.
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Return to Rabanastre
-We emerge into Estersand. The two seeq brothers are here and say their boss is still inside Barheim Passage. He has a key for another entrance. I’ll bet the other entrance is the door southeast of the Banks of the Nebra.
-I sell my loot at the South Bank Village, and get all kinds of cool stuff. The bestiary entries prepared me for much of this - a javelin, an iron sword, some ammunition.
-Teleporting back to Rabanastre. Basch splits off. See ya.
-Much as I love Fran’s accent, voice, and character, I dislike her costume. It feels like it’s designed by the chainmail wedgie school of fashion.
-BALTHIER AND FRAN LEAVE THE PARTY?? BUMMER
-The Moogling is a new device that lets me teleport within the city.
-Word of our party has spread. Some citizens talk of their love for the viera (Fran), others talk of how suspicious and familiar that bushy bearded dude (Basch) seemed.
-Kytes is so excited to hear about Vaan’s daring escape.
Vaan conveniently leaves out that he followed others, but I can’t blame him. Big Brother Cred is awesome.
-No sign of Migelo or Penelo.
-I hear about Bhujerba, a mining-based sky city ruled by a wise man who has kept it independent from the Empire. Okay, this is LITERALLY Cloud City from Star Wars.
-Bhujerba’s version of Lando Calrissian is Marquis Ondore. Isn’t that the person whose silence Basch’s captivity purchased?
-I meet a viera named Ktjn. She has trouble sensing the land compared to other viera, including her sister. Maybe Fran is her sister.
-Rumors of a huge, powerful wyrm in Westersand.
-I pick up two new marks at Clan Centurio: Cluckatrice in Giza Plains, and Rocktoise near Bhujerba.
-Bought a crapload of new gambit targets. I doubt I’ll use many, but I want the tools to try.
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Wraith Hunt
-Picked up one more mark in the Sandsea. A Wraith in the Garamsythe Waterways.
-The petitioner’s kid saw the Wraith and was terrified. Now he locked himself in an abandoned house in Lowtown.
“I think it came to avenge the cruel slaying of rats and other poor denizens of the waterway.” If so, I’m FUCKED.
-I find the Wraith. It’s where I fought Firemane. It casts Doom on me immediately. It’s not a fast count, but I still die before I kill it.
-Next try. I BEAT IT!! …temporarily. Like two seconds later, the Doom countdown kills me.
-So I need a way to deal with Doom. I can get a license that lets me remove Doom with a remedy. Ooh, or what if I use my Mage Masher to silence it immediately?
-The silence didn’t land immediately, but I killed it again – and this time, ran back to Lowtown before Doom ticked down. The city seems to nullify the status effect.
-I return to the petitioner, and can now tell the li’l seeq kid that the big mean ghost is dead. Yay!
-The previously locked house is now open to me. A letter is inside:
“I know my days grow short. I regret only that I shall not have the opportunity to return that item entrusted to me all these many years. I have divided it into four pieces, in hopes this might prevent it falling easily into searching hands.
“I have enclosed the whereabouts of one of the four, in the event its rightful owner should come seeking to recover it. Stop the water’s flow, then loose it once more. East Southeast East Southwest Southeast. I pray that it rest there undisturbed.”
-I’m not quite sure where this refers to. I don’t remember seeing anywhere in Garamsythe Waterways to adjust waterflow.
-The seeq kid sounds like he can help me.
-Uh oh – I just checked and I still have that Doom status on me. It’s just not ticking down in town. I gotta find a save crystal ASAP.
-This fourth mark increases my Clan Centurio rank to Rear Guard.
-Aletap Rumors, Battery Mimic bestiary: Silent shot doesn’t inflict silence as I thought it would. Rather, when it misses, it doesn’t draw unfriendly attention. That sounds… kind of useless tbh. Unless it also can pull an enemy without pulling its friends.
-Street Corner Musings, Tiny Battery bestiary: “a rock what’s got magick in it” is needed for lots of crafting. I’ll bet I have to stock up on magicite for some Bazaar Goods.
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Cluckatrice Hunt, Round One
-Checking out the Cluckatrice before I head to Old Dalan’s. I’m afraid that if I go there now, it’ll shunt me into the next story segment.
-Dania is the petitioner. She’s the cockatrice tender in the nomad village, and this mean old cluckatrice is scaring the tame cockatrices.
-The Cluckatrice is hiding at first. I have to clear all the monsters in the region and then return. Her chick is here. I attack, and then the Cluckatrice arrives to protect her baby.
-Make that babies. Two more chicks arrive with her, and they all hit hard and fast. She also hits me with Slow and Petrify.
-She and her brood flat-out OBLITERATE me. I do barely any damage. I’ll come back later.
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Basch Returns
-I show the Goddess Magicite to Old Dalan. Vaan thanks Dalan humbly and sincerely. Good job, Vaan.
-Dalan has a task for Vaan. He wants Vaan to give a sword of the “Old Order” to a person named Azelas.
-Still no Penelo. Dalan will do what he can to find her.
-I find Azelas in Lowtown. He and his group have met Basch. They debate his trustworthiness, whether he really killed the King, whether (IF Basch is telling the truth) you can trust him with a Judge for a brother.
-Aha! Azelas is the resistance leader. Basch is here, trying to convince Azelas to work with him. Azelas remains unconvinced.
-And I don’t blame Azelas. The possibility that Basch is not a traitor is so new. Plus, Vayne’s ploy just burned him hard. He’s extra wary.
-Basch leaves with Vaan. Vaan thanks Basch for helping at Nalbina. “We couldn’t have done it without you.” I know this isn’t a high bar, but I love when characters act graciously, thanking people who deserve it, treating those who with respect who deserve it.
-BASCH JOINS THE PARTY HOLY SHIT NEW PARTY MEMBER!!!
-I want to make him a Bushi, or a Knight, but I have filled already with Knight Fran and Shikari Vaan. Instead, I make him a White Mage.
I can headcanon this as him wanting a fresh start, or a new identity. White mage is a good “redeem myself” job. But really, I just want access to powerful white magic.
-My gambit list has blank space for one more permanent party member. Must be Amalia.
-Vaan tells Basch that his parents died before the war, to the plague. He now accepts openly that the Empire is fully to blame for Reks’ death, not Basch.
I’m glad but confused. What prompted such a complete turnaround? Was Basch just that convincing?
-We enter the Sandsea. Migelo is talking angrily to Balthier, angry that Penelo was taken because of him. Huh??
Maybe I’m missing something. Why would that bangaa, Ba’Gamnon, take Penelo to get back at Balthier? They don’t know each other as far as I know.
-Balthier doesn’t want to rush to the rescue, but Vaan offers the Goddess Magicite in exchange for at least flying them to Bhujerba.
-Basch will join us too. It’s implied he wants to meet the Marquis of Bhujerba.
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Next time: another crack at the Cluckatrice, revisiting Ktjn with Fran in the party, and seeing if I can make progress on that waterway puzzle. Then onto Bhujerba.
