Knowing the Beast (job unlock)
-Ceva the beastmaster charmed a dreamhare. The hare escaped and she wants me to rescue it.
Two things:
1) I’m terrified that this will be an escort quest.
2) PLEASE let this unlock beastmaster!
-This is a holdout quest. I have to guard a bridge from wolves and baknamy for four rounds.
-At least the beastmaster and hare are behind me. They don’t start next to the wolves or anything.
-We successfully hold the bridge. And unlock the beastmaster job yaaaaay!
CEVA: “The bond between beast and master lasts only till battle’s end.” No permanent pets.
-Bazaar trading nets me chainmail that teaches thief and white monk “Counter.” My first reactive.
-With beastmaster, I can FINALLY progress my nu mou! Her only jobs have been white and black mage. I’d found ZERO weapons beyond the starter weapons and couldn’t unlock anything new.
But beastmaster is a nu mou job. Mastering one beastmaster ability opens sage.
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Foodstuffs: Texture (side)
-The Poison Tasters Guild, a.k.a. The Iron Stomach (that doesn’t sound like a fun one to join, but I don’t like spicy food) wants me to catch them some white-furred animals for food.
-The battle is with a flock of dreamhares, some white, some not. I have to kill ones with fluffy white fur.
-My white mage gets an “opportunity,” like a random limit break.
Its effect on who she’s adjacent to. Next to allies she seems like she can buff them while next to enemies she does a flurry attack.
-I kill a bunch of white bunnies but the fight doesn’t end. Hm.
-AH! I gotta get used to FFTA2’s special commands. I have to “Talk” to the Iron Stomach member.
-Gah. The fight didn’t stop after a couple of bunnies so I kept killing them. I turned in too much meat (the guild only asked for two bunnies’ worth). I gave him too much and failed the mission. Come on. He couldn’t throw out the extra?
-That busts my noodle. I reset and retry, since the mission didn’t show up in the Pub and I guess I permanently failed it, which sucks.
-The second attempt goes better. I kill exactly two white hares and turn it in. Eat hearty.
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The Star Seal (side)
-Mauri, a researcher wants me to look into the “Stone With No Name.”
“I think the Stone bears a message from the distant past. According to legend, holding the Star Seal to the Stone takes one to a hidden land, protected by watchful guardians.”
Count me interested. Will this bring us to Lemures? Probably not. I think this is like set after Revenant Wings when Lemures is destroyed.
-Mauri gives me the Star Seal, and it’s combat time. I have to “examine” the Stone with No Name.
-A lone level 6 baknamy guards the Stone. a level 6 baknamy, not a boss or anything. I’m suspicious.
-Argh! This is the second time I’ve seen blue magic, magic hammer. I’d been building Luso as a soldier working towards paladin. need to get my blue mage up and running on Luso.
-I take out the baknamy and examine the Star Seal. It warps us away to somewhere with six different foes.
BAKNAMY: “No forgiveness… none!” Forgiveness for what? For having come here in the first place?
OH GOD. What if that baknamy back there was his brother and I wasn’t supposed to kill him? If I wipe on this fight, I’ll try examining the stone without killing the solo guardian.
-They don’t seem too bad. A new enemy leads them, a werewolf. Another great portrait.
Who’s got five fingers and lycanthropic tendencies? THIS GUY!
-Got em! That side quest opened up a secret area in Targ Wood, “Ophy Point.” Not Lemures but still awesome.
-One of the new bazaar items is Venus Blade which unlocks “Doublehand,” an awesome passive.
-I gotta check Clan Info more. Lots of great lore here! On the Star Seal: “Though it is said that the ancients worked it to keep something at bay, the truth of the matter has been lost in the sands of time.”
This sounds innocuous right now, but I swear at the end of this quest chain waits Yiazmat or something.
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The Trappings of Failure (side)
-Camoa tried to stop monster attacks with traps. The traps failed, and now they threaten the citizens. I have to destroy them.
-A ranger is recommended for dispatch. They’re probably the job that sees/disarms traps.
-Whew. The traps are highlighted in blue. I can’t disarm them but at least I can see them.
-The law in this fight is that I’m not allowed to deal more than 50 damage. SHENANIGANS! I can’t control if I get a crit. Booooo.
My bangaa white monk is my biggest concern. She does heavy damage normally so I have to use Roundhouse even against single enemies, a lower-damage area attack.
-I take out the faerie heres and now it’s trap time. I have to spring the traps to destroy them.
All the traps do pretty nasty damage. That explains why the faeries were low level.
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The Perfect Gift (side)
-A son wants to give his mom a birthday gift. What a coincidence! The last quest just rewarded flowers.
-Hee! The flowers have heart-shaped petals.
-One of the rewards for this quick little delivery is a Trusty Frying Pan: “No surer means is there to reduce any foodstuff to a heap of black char than to cook it with this frying pan.”
-That clears all my current side quests.
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You Say Tomato (main)
“You say tomato, I say kill them all!” These rogue tomatoes are apparently quite a menace.
-Most of the enemies in this fight are regular killer tomatoes, but one of them is an alraune with a drill on its head that fetches a good price. (What the hell kind of sentence did I just write.) Cid is amped for the drill payoff.
-A girl enters the battlefield. She seems friendly, in a mercenary way.
Offers to help us for money. NEW PARTY MEMBER?
-oh my god I love her already
-During the fight, she keeps trying to bargain a higher split of our profits from the quest.
THIEF GIRL: “Three to two split, right?”
LUSO: “NO! Four to one we said!”
THIEF GIRL: “And I’ll take the four of course. Why, that’s even more for me!”
-She hasn’t introduced herself formally, but her name is listed as Adelle. It’s unsurprising that her job is Thief and she keeps using Steal Gil and Steal Items.
-Eww, the tomatoes have an attack – looks sort of like a headbutt – and it leaves a splat of tomato juice residue on their target.
-This is my first chance to try out the beastmaster abilities, since my nu mou has “Deadly Nightshade” and that’s what these tomatoes are. She controls the tomato for a single action, no movement.
It’s for a single action and I can’t move them. It’s has much more limited impact than in prior entries, but I’ll take the tradeoff since it’s so much more consistent. Seems like it has a 100% chance to land.
-Cid and Luso chat afterwards. We have the tomato stalk… but that lucrative alraune drill is somehow missing. GEE I WONDER WHO TOOK IT.
-omg she’s taunting cid with all the great stuff she plans to buy with the drill.
Pleeeease join the party! Getting major shades of Yuffie.
She flees. Cid’s speechless.
Well, temporarily speechless anyway.
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Next time: Checking in with Ribs back in Camoa.
