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Fluorgis (main)
-We arrive in the city of Fluorgis where Luso dreams. Sepia-toned dream sequence time!
-He dreams of the game’s start. His day at school, finding the Grimoire.
Talking to Cid, Lezaford, to Cid’s would-be assassin.
-The dream shifts again, no longer in sepia. Luso is somewhere new. A red portal opens…
-…and Cid wakes him up. Argh! What was that about? A symbolic portal? A literal portal we’ll see in-person later? The latter seems more likely.
-Luso’s been having these strange dreams since the fens, when that ghost light entered him.
CID: “Most monsters like to sink their claws into your flesh, but some prefer to do it to your dreams.”
-Someone with a similar problem posted a quest. That may help solve Luso’s dream issues.
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Sleepless Nights (main)
-This mission takes me to Nazan, some old magicite mines.
-A ghost here looks to be the cause of all this. The Oversoul.
I think that was an XII enemy, though I don’t remember whether it was a regular enemy or a hunt mark.
-Undead parties are tricky. If I time killing them wrong, they could each start resurrecting each other.
-Got her! Her form disperses and that light that entered Luso back in the fens leaves his body.
-It shines brightly and engulfs the screen.
-Another sepia flashback… but this time it’s ADELLE! An older person talks to her:
“You have a special power. You must live the life your parents could not. It’s not so hard. You must simply be yourself.”
Did her parents die too? It feels like an aunt or uncle giving her advice in the wake of tragedy.
-And now a Cid flashback. He’s about to leave somewhere. This is before he gets shot.
-Now Lezaford, when he created the first Judge.
-The memory shifts to Luso arriving in Ivalice. Then to Adelle joining the party. Why the trip down memory lane? Is that just the nature of the Oversoul’s effect on people?
-Then, back to full color, where Luso’s last nightmare ended before the three wake up in the mines.
A vision of Mist-infused ruins.
-Luso feels compelled to find that place.
-Adelle seems unusually disturbed by her memory.
-We all return to an inn to recuperate, where a moogle bard with great hair is performing.
-The bard posts a quest bill and leaves. Traveling bards are versed in lore. If we help him, maybe he’ll help us learn where that red portal area in the shared vision is.
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Notices, Rumors, & Side Quests
-I don’t like the chocobo knight job. The abilities you get when you hop on a chocobo are pretty sweet, but you don’t get to keep them or gain new permanent abilities.
-The items in game often have neat callbacks, like the Orb of Minwu hearkening to FFII.
-One side quest is odd and sad. I have to help convince a zombie that he’s now undead, not human.
-I met a quest giver from “outside Rozarria” confused because the judges he knows about are regular people upholding mortal laws, not mystical beings. They must be from Archadia.
-Frigging tonberries.
I treasure their FFXI origin story, as world-saving heroes.
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Brightmoon Tor
-The Sun Stone/Stone With No Name quest continues, opening a new area: Brightmoon Tor.
-I’m afraid I’m here too early. The enemies don’t scale like regular enemies.
-As the name suggests, Brightmoon Tor is a tower. I ascend through increasingly tough floors.
-A voice on floor #4 warns me that the tower’s guardians can be nasty. I have no doubt.
-My health doesn’t recover between floors and I’m fading fast. Tiamat appears as a floor 4 boss.
-Each floor I complete, I get experience and rewards. I really hope that I keep those if I fail later.
-Floor five is “Brightmoon Tor, First Watch.”
-All prior enemies were level 30-37. This floor features a level 50 rabbit named Fury. And Humbaba.
-OH AND TWO LEVEL 90 MALBORO KINGS NAMED NEMESHIS. I have zero hope.
-Survived a few rounds, but the biggest problem is that I can’t do any damage to them. They’re so high level that my attacks only do like 15 damage max. The malboros have 700+ health. I flee.
-PHEW! At least I keep the experience I earned on the prior floors.
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To Be a Spellblade (spellblade unlock)
-A red mage wants my help to undertake the spellblade trial. Y’know, I hadn’t thought of spellblade (or FFV’s mystic knight) as an upgrade to red mage, but it kind of is!
-The law in this fight prohibits “actions by Gria.” Gria must be the demon race.
-The quest is really tough. I have a small area to work with and have to fight off ten enemies, all while protecting someone resistant to holy (meaning they get half healing from my white mage).
-My next attempt goes much better. I bring an elementalist into the party with a fire-based heal.
Plus, I have a ninja. That job is by faaaaar the most powerful so far, strictly thanks to dual wield.
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Treasured Tomes (scholar unlock)
-A scholar wants help finding old volumes. I found these volumes in the bazaar, scholar and seer weapons.
-In thanks, she teaches us to be a scholar like her. Yay!
-The scholar is… interesting. The abilities deal damage to friend and foe both.
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The Cat’s Meow (seer unlock)
-Someone in a white cat-eared hood is surrounded by monsters on a hill.
-These protect/escort quests always make me nervous. So much depends on the protectee’s AI. This one is unusually frustrating because I start all the way across the map and the protectee starts surrounded.
-Still, I manage to race across, get him healed up, and take out the enemies.
-In thanks, he teaches me the Seer job.
It’s all about the cat-ears.
-Seer seems red mage-ish. Mix of healing and damaging magick.
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Next time: the moogle bard’s quest. Also going to take stock of my job strategy.
