Random Missions, Rumors, Combat
-The sage job description is outstandingly unhelpful: “Learned users of sagacious magic.” Thanks, game.
-Found a weapon that teaches my Nu Mou sage “Wise Combo.” My first non-Marche combo ability.
The game is similarly useless in telling me what the combo does.
-Finished off my second ability my bangaa warrior, which unlocked THREE new jobs! Gladiator, dragoon, and defender. Gladiator looks like the Mystic Knight in FFV, a spell-based warrior. Dragoon is… well, dragoon. And defender seems like a tank. I’ll start with defender.
-A new rumor: Bervenia Palace let it slip that crystals exist in “seams,” folds in space. The Palace is apparently taking steps to protect the crystals since the crystals are beneficial to Ivalice. Beneficial how?
-Rumors tell me about the totema. You can use JP to summon them after you defeat them.
-Each race has specific totema. A moogle can’t summon a human totema, etc. What kind of totema is Famfrit I wonder?
-Some of these random missions just crack me up. XD
-One mission is an artist looking for someone to model for a statue. “Youth, beauty, and physique a plus.” What gets me is that I need a Tonberry Lamp before accepting the mission. *shudder*
-Just got a weapon that teaches my dragoon Fire Breath. HELL YES. I assumed dragoons would be just jumpers. This looks like the more versatile Freya-style dragoon.
-Milly completed a good array of Fencer abilities. Red mage or sniper next? I’ll try Red Mage, mostly cause I want to try out Gunner as a ranged job on Montblanc. But also cause I love the rapier aesthetic.
-THAT’S AWESOME!!! I TRIED TOTEMA (on Montblanc, so Famfrit is a moogle totema) AND HE BASICALLY FIRED MISSILES AT THE ENEMIES
-One mission has us track down a black mage who didn’t pay his restaurant bill.
Epic.
[Non-rhetorical question: what impacts how much xp a given action grants me? I’ve noticed more and more that certain actions give me like 1-2 xp. Is it lower exp if I attack a lower level enemy?]
-I’ve started culling some of my lower-level clan members. They don’t all take it gracefully.
-One quest reward is a nice FFIII reference, an “Onion Sword.”
---
Caodan
-Townsfolk in the new city of Caodan are upset that the laws are strengthened.
I struggled at first to understand why townsfolk cared about laws against spears or whatever, but my headcanon is that the laws impact them too. Like, I can imagine some dude about to cook dinner when the judge rides up on his chocobo and declares the law that he cannot eat carbohydrates tonight. So now the poor guy has to bake some chicken/chocobo when he was really excited for pasta.
But then along comes the strengthened laws that say “No carbs OR poultry!” and he’s just like WTF.
-A Nu Mou walks up to us with an awesome hat and splotches of pink. She tells us of a way around laws.
-There’s someone named Ezel Berbier with “antilaws.” Like a band of outlaws?
PINKNOSE: “He’s a busy man with many admirers, shall we say.” Ah. A player.
-She has to go suddenly. NO COME BACK PINKNOSE!
---
Mission: Raven’s Oath
-Now I see what the “strengthened laws” are about. I have two laws to follow instead of one.
-Finally found Dread Raven, that Clan Borzoi head out for revenge. I JUST LOVE ALL THE PORTRAITS IN THIS GAME
-This is another boss fight. I like how FFTA plays with party size, how it can design a boss for four party members while another boss is for six. Adds flavor and variety without shackling themselves to one pre-set party size.
I personally just hope they don’t go above six party members for a given fight. The game has been signaling hard that six is the max, so I haven’t been building more than six active party members.
---
Mission: A Challenge
-Ooh, I have the chance to join another clan! It’s tempting… you know what, sure! Let’s try joining Clan Baham!
-Wait. That’s a failure? Boo. I’m resetting and trying that again. I needed negotiation to take this mission, so I thought that agreeing to join them was going to win me allies or something.
-So apparently trying to make allies and friends is bad. I fight them instead and win.
---
Mission: Antilaws
-As I was going through missions again, I came through Caodan and get a cutscene.
-It’s that pink-nosed Nu Mou… OH SHIT THAT WAS EZEL LOL.
I should have seen that coming but the gender thing threw me off. I keep reading Nu Mou as female.
He’s cornered, surrounded by various guards.
-Ezel’s music is hilariously atonal or discordant or something like that. Cartoonish.
-As the fight goes on, it turns out these guys aren’t guards. Ezel tried to swindle or con them or something.
-AH! He offered to remove laws for 100,000 gil.
-Ezel uses an awesome ability that sure looks like a totema summon called “Azoth,” which tries putting all enemies to sleep.
-So now that we saved Ezel, maybe he’ll lend us his anti-law skills for free?
-Aw, no. He’s gotta run.
MARCHE: “Someone else after you?”
EZEL: “Something like that.”
So either he’s ditching us just cause, or something legit scary is after him.
-The “something legit scary” arrives. It’s Mewt’s dad, Judge Cid, on a chocobo. With three templar guards.
-Ezel’s about to flee, but Cid uses some sort of magic to bind him. Ezel calls it “an advanced law,” something only the judgemaster can use. It means if Ezel uses any ability at all, he goes to jail.
-YES! Ezel brings out what looks like a book or card of his own. The antilaw. It breaks the advance law and gets me and him out.
So what if Ezel is like someone who’s hacking into the game world of Ivalice?
-Scene change to the Clan Hall where Ezel is gloating.
He’s so great. A charming, goofy rogue. One of the older tropes, but somehow seeing a Nu Mou in that role makes it feel fresh.
-And he’s principled: “No no no, it is THEY who have [erred]! Making all their laws without asking us what we think.”
-Sounds like he’s not joining our party, but he does have a store for trading antilaw cards.
-I get to put down a new symbol: Aisenfield.
-A new rumor tells me more about the antilaws. I’ve started accumulating cards that’ll remove various laws (fire, swords, etc), but this tells me something fascinating: I can ADD new laws! For instance, if a tough enemy uses Fire, I can set a Fire law to prevent that.
---
Mission: Diamond Rain
-Apparently, it’s literally raining diamonds in Aisenfield. (It’s not.)
-I take out the monsters, and then… an actual diamond or sparkly thing falls to the ground. By the time Marche reaches it, it’s faded away.
-This was a mission that required me to bring Marche, so I have a feeling it’ll have some larger meaning.
---
Next time: I struggle what to put here. More jobs, more missions, maybe searching for more crystals? I don’t really know what comes next in the story more specifically than that.
