Moderate spoiler warning
Here’s the first post, should you want to start at the beginning
While exploring the surrounding area, I found that Zabo in the town of Leyton will sell you a Memoir Page for five-thousand gil (I’ve collected seven Memoir pages so far). You can also find a treasure chest containing a Magic Shard in the far northwest corner of Leyton.
In the rainy Esper city of Auslen, what do we hear but Slam Shuffle and what do we find but a bunch of thieves.
We know a thief, don’t we?
I scoured Auslen looking for Laka to no avail. It seemed like a decent bet: Laka is aware of her prestige as a thief and a newly-displaced city of Esper thieves would be a decent place to up her game. I also felt encouraged by the relic shop in Auslen carrying a Sneak Ring (why would an item that increases the success of the Steal command be offered if not because we may have someone with a Steal command?).
Speaking of thievery- there’s surprisingly little to be afraid of on that front. The worst I ever found was a Peddler, whose combat sprites look like the combat sprites of the merchants whom Locke steals clothes from in VI. They’ll take a few hundred of your gil and may or may not promptly flee.
The real danger from Auslen’s random encounters are things like Cut-Throats (swordsman looking person above) and the Stray Dogs and the swarms of slightly weaker foes they often arrive with: Peddlers, Hive-Minds (hunched masked figures above) and Slamdancers. The Slamdancers can cast supportive magic on their party including Reflect which can be annoying.
Beside a fellow who looks like a Narshe rebel and a green-robed wizard is a tower, of the kind typically seen throughout the thieves’ refuge of Zoso in VI. In a pot on the second floor, I found a key item called an Auslen Key.
Beyond the Auslen Key and the absence of Laka, I did not find much here. The Espers can be fun to talk to; Auslen was always rainy but somehow ended up in a place with more rain on Gaia once the Merging contraction happened. The town is also filled with locked doors which made me wonder if a side quest might be forthcoming. Zoso in VI had the clock puzzles with hints scattered throughout town. I sorta assumed the Auslen Key was maybe one in a series of obtainable keys for the doors.
Instead, our old friend from VI Dadaluma tries to shake us down for the Auslen Key on our way out. His hardest-hitting attack is Sabin’s Pummel (VI) which deals multiple hits of physical damage; each in the thousands. If you grabbed the Golem summon from the Living Cavern, now is a great time to use it. Overall, I’d say he’s slightly harder than Phunbaba.
Mystic Mysidia is our last stop before Darnacles Castle which is accessible through a mountain passage called the Auslen Cave. Within, a Lupin called Koja tells us that the people of Mysidia built a gate in the passage to isolate themselves from the Auslen bandits. This is the door that the Auslen Key unlocks (one wonders if unlocking the gate was Dadaluma’s actual motive?).
In the upper northeast of the labyrinthine treasure room beyond the door is a hidden path that leads to a Memoir Page (count rests at eight).
In the switch room ahead, pull the left and right levers, leave the middle one untouched and push the button to unlock the door. Luckily, this isn’t exactly a dungeon.
On the other side, both Mystic Mysidia and Darnacles Castle can be easily reached astride Shadow. Before Darnacles Castle, there is a river to the west. I crossed with Shadow and found a cave called the Cleft of Wind with its entrance sealed with what looks like a Mysidian glyph barrier from earlier in the game. You know, those things that Elina was unlocking when she first joined the party.
Turns out that’s not the case but we’ll be back here eventually.
Unbeknownst to us…we are, in fact, in the Merged World’s version of Branch. There are also a number of dragoons, who joined the fighting forces of Darnacles Castle since it became the major power center in the area in the last year. Unlike Auslen, Darnacles Castle was once surrounded by forest and is now in the middle of a desert. Astov, in the stock room, sells Shards for tens of thousands of gil. He also sells Turbo Ethers and Hyper Ethers at the usual shop prices but no basic Ethers.
In the throne room, we catch King Vale up on everything we’ve been through. He seems to know who Malacore is but only by reputation. King Vale himself cannot help us but he knows someone who can: Godot, from the Rift Shrine.
When the Archareons combined their energy to seal off the Shrine of Water, they tapped into their own collective energy which also tapped into a wellspring shared between worlds. From Gaia, tapping into this shared energy field has the effect of tapping into the “world’s” energy itself, which had unforeseen consequences. The Rift Shrine was engulfed in magic which attracted the attention of Gylfi-Hans.
Godot panicked and did what he could: use the last of his Esper World magic to move the Rift Shrine close to Darnacles Castle’s new location. The Rift Shrine moved before anything else, you see: it was originally right next to Darnacles Castle in the Esper World, where it was protected. This, however, was too little too late: Gylfi-Hans knew where to find the Rift Shrine and had brought followers.
When we first encountered the Rift Shrine at the beginning of the game, either Ramah or Godot said something that made me wonder about its true nature. In both human and Esper worlds, it is a place one can go to but also partakes of external dimensional space, as though it were a three-dimensional expression of something else.
Gylfi-Hans and his followers have entrenched themselves in previously unexplored depths within the Rift Shrine and have taken control of it. They are, effectively, in charge of a dimensional gateway now. Since Valiar was the Archareon enforcer who channeled the wider exertion of power on Gaia, he was present for Gylfi-Hans to capture and is now being held in the bowels of the Rift Shrine, in a place called the Etherdepths. Godot and the troops of Darnacles Castle have been repeatedly trying to free Valiar since Godot moved the Rift Shrine over.
The Etherdepths are a rudimentary maze with a tiny little spotlight of visibility. I did not recognize the music here but it’s one of the more memorable pieces in the game so far. We also learn shortly that Godot is an exclusive mage with no physical combat ability. His character class is listed as Red Mage which- in Blackmoon Prophecy -amounts to someone who can use both black and white magic (equivalent to a Sage in IV). This also explains how the kinds of spells typically classified as red magic have been redistributed across a few other classes.
Godot really made me feel the absence of Ami’s Cheer ability. I’ve honestly been feeling it for awhile. Since awakening in the Merged World, we haven’t been able to use Cheer for ambient MP restoration and we no longer have Laudo at camp with his cheap Ethers. Both Oalston and Elina were effectively magic-only but at least we had Ami back then. At least Godot’s Malachite Orb weapon comes with +1 MP recovery each turn (Godot’s weapons of choice are magic orbs, which he can dual wield). Remember that the Darnacles Castle item shop has Hyper Ethers and Phoenix Downs, which you may need a lot of.
The Etherdepths also have the kind of monsters that you need to hit as hard as possible as soon as you see them which means lots of MP usage. One upside to having Godot with us is his white magic. We now have the ability to triage healing and status recovery outside of battle with something other than items for the first time since the Merger.
Vahn’s Stock Break can work on Tonberries but it works a little better when they take a few thousand points of damage first. I’m pretty sure the problem isn’t a four-digit cap on damage done, either, since when Stock Break lands on a Tonberry it deals about twenty-thousand points of damage.
The Etherdepths contain three switches; each one materializes a path to the others. The problem is surviving long enough to hit all three. The first one can be found to the far east, relative to the entrance.
Once, after getting frustrated, I decided to check out more of the surrounding area and rediscovered Oaktown. This is where Darius is from, which- in the Merged World -is “Branch’s only active military stronghold.” Darius’ mother Raine also lives here and can be found wandering outside the armor shop. If we act like high school mean girls with personality disorders and rotate Darius to the head of the party out of curiosity, he will insist that his mother travel with us. He fears for her safety since the dimensional contraction nearly plopped an Esper castle on top of Oaktown. Immediately afterward, she was present neither in the party nor at camp.
Other townspeople have interesting news. One person says that Castle Branch may be “in the middle of the ocean” and another says that “(l)arge swathes of Branch are now deep under the ocean.”
Dion, in his room atop the fortress, says that many displaced dragoons found employment defending Darnacles Castle. Consequently, the Oaktown armory has not seen much use of late. For fear of it going to waste, he gives us a pair of Dragoon Boots, which enables the wearer to use the Jump command.
Evidently, Mount Gulug and its surrounding land mass has sunk, to.
Back in the Etherdepths, I found another switch at what I suspect is the southwest corner of the map. The third switch lies in a roughly northeast direction starting from the second one. The third switch will require you to jump over two-to-three sets of floating platforms.
The third switch will unlock a path to a door. In the next zone, we immediately encounter a four-way platform-hopping intersection. The west path leads to a treasure chest with a tent. To the east are a set of platforms with a Phoenix Down and Gaia Gear.
Going straight ahead / down / south leads to a rectangular outcropping with two platform-leaping bridges off to each side. The one to the left leads to a chest with a Tonalite Shield.
The one to the right empties on a platform with a diverging northern jumping path that leads to a Glyphed Belt. If we proceed past the jumping path, we find a long corridor with a stairwell at the end. Within the stairwell is a save point and a narrow corridor leading onward.
In the chamber ahead, we meet Gyfli’s follower Chiron. This fight is not much trouble if Vahn is leveled beyond 40, when he learns Dragon Strike. It may take out most of Vahn’s MP but it’s worth keeping him topped off for it. Not to mention Vera summoning and Godot spell-slinging. Even Brindle’s Heavy attack costs MP to so hopefully you stocked up on Hyper Ethers at the Darnacles Castle shop. With Vera and Godot being magical bad-asses, you should be fine so long as Vahn keeps using Dragon Strike and Brindle spams Heavy.
Once Chiron is no more, the four figures in crystal stasis nearby are restored: the Archareon Valiar, the moomba that Ami named Crepe, Laudo and…Raine? Darius’ mom?
Was she supposed to be recruitable to the camp (rather than the acting combat party) pre-Merger? With this moment being where we would ultimately “see her again”…?
In any event: Valiar says that Gylfi controls the Rift Shrine but taking out his servant Chiron “should weaken the magic protecting the doors leading into the main chamber.”
As usual, Gylfi-Hans only uses moves from the same ‘Dragon’ command roster that Vahn has. After two turns, Vahn succeeded with Stock Break, dealing over thirty-thousand damage. The next hit obviously won the battle (9000 exp!).
With Gylfi defeated, he loses his grip on Hans’ body. According to Valiar, he is alive but sharing his body with Gylfi all this time has taken a serious toll. All we can do for him at the moment is wait and see. Valiar knows how to access the sealed Shrine of Water but- until we have our airship again -that information won’t do us much good. So he does us the favor of teleporting us to the place where he believes it ended up: a distant island called the Eagle’s Cradle.
In the Eagle’s Cradle, there are a lot of water-aligned monsters with high defense. If you have the right supplies for Coral (like Swift Bolts for her Supercell Mixture), great. If not, than Godot is a good choice to. You’ll need someone who can give some magical, elemental hits to take some of that pressure off of Vera. She’s a magical beast with the summoning but she can’t be handling the magical damage alone, here. In fact, the longer I have Godot in the party, the more I’m realizing how well he and Vera compliment each other.
This is also a good place to make thorough use of the availability of Godot’s white magic outside of battle. Just grab a lot of cheap Ethers from Laudo.
The Eagle’s Cradle also has monsters like the Ancient Coral that cast Protect, which is something Coral the human party member’s Prophylactic spell can help with. In the absence of Prophylactic, Godot’s black magic roster includes Dispel. The Amur Hammer can also be found here in a chest and it’s the best weapon I’ve found for Brindle so far.
Just like the empty treasure chests in Torian Grotto, stand in front of the turtle shells and press the interact button. The end is not far off and it is absolutely nothing to be afraid of.
Once the bozos are out of the way, we finally have our wings back.
If we take the time to stop at a camp site, Crepe has Yoichi Arrows for us and holy crap those things give +25 to all stats. Yay Coral. Laudo has also come back to us, now with Ethers, Turbo Ethers and Hyper Ethers, all for hundreds less than in any other shop.
With the power to traverse the globe once again at our fingertips, Valiar tells us what he knows. Malacore is trapped beneath the ocean, under the ruins of the Shrine of Water and “infrastructure from the Esper world.” As Malacore now contains the five crystals, Malacore is now sometihng of a crystal domain himself. The five crystals have established a protective barrier around him. Enmeshment in his being and his malice over the last year has created monstrous personifications of each crystal now known as the Five Fiends; each of which needs to be defeated before the crystals can be extricated from Malacore.
Here’s the sauce
Until next time, TBC
