Scarmiglione (FFIV, Day 49)

Let's jump right in, shall we?

As our intrepid coding languages reached the summit of Mt Ordeals, a sinister hissing was heard, that was quickly blamed on CPlus+ as he was suspected of clowning around. Pascal, however, had other ideas, as sages often do. Dude knew something was up, is what I'm saying.

Oh the smell? No that's a fart.

He's right, of course, and out comes our buddy Scarmawhatsit. Last time I mentioned a legion of undead, but it turns out he only brought four guys with him. Get it together, pal. I know COBOL's only companions are kids and the elderly at the moment, but they have cure spells and fire. It's going to end badly for you, Scarmidirtbag.

Fire BAD!

So I made sure to light their grills up with healing and burning. Undead don't really last very long when subjected to such conditions. The cure trick didn't work on Scarbohydrate, but he burned rather well. I ran back to save, because I knew I wasn't done.

Oooh! He said "H" "E" "double hockey sticks"!

Death is kind of Scubatuba's thing, so he was up and at them again in no time. Now we get to see his true form which he hid from us earlier by... wearing a cloak. Good job, Scootaloo. Master of disguise.

Gross

This time I wiped the floor with him. Nice thing about him dying and coming back, is that now I could exploit cure spells again. So that was one of four fiends down, and I continued on my way to the summit where we say goodbye to the darkness and hello to light and flowing bishie hair. Fabio? Psht. He's got nothing on this Paladin.

Son? Son. Son! Son?!

Mind you, there's still a matter of redemption for COBOL. Curiously, the voice that speaks to him calls him son. Anyway, In order to gain the full power of a paladin, he has to face the darkness within, and he has to do it without help. So we get the following trope.

Classic

The trick with this battle is you have to refrain from attacking your alter ego. All he does is cast Darkness on you, which if you're familiar with the way Dark Knights work, means you drain HP to make a powerful attack. So it's essentially a waiting game while you pop a potion or two and your opponent slowly kills himself. You get some more cryptic words from the mysterious voice, and then the fanfare plays.

Noice

After a quick descent down the mountain, the party returns to Mysidia where the mages are all about as shocked as can be that COBOL survived and became a Paladin. Next, a visit to the village elder reveals that the sword he just got has some legend inscribed on it, and that it's likely about him.

So wait... he's a Dragonborn? Sweet.

Regardless of the prophecy, it's time to go 'kick some backside' so the mages open the devils road. This puts the party right smack dab in the center of Baron. Upon visiting the Inn, they encounter a familiar face behaving unfamiliarly. SQL doesn't seem himself and orders the capture of COBOL and friends. Luckily, when someone has head injuries enough to suffer amnesia, the cure is to smack them around even more.

Except for the fact that he suddenly remembered that he can't remember.

With SQL back in the party, I called it a good stopping point.  I'm 6 and a half hours in, and by my husband's estimation, about a quarter of the way through the game. It's nice to be moving along and making regular progress. Until next time!

Progress makes the K8 happy.