Cloud of Darkness (FFIII, Day 43)

 Get comfy. This recap might take a while.

My party was well rested and ready to go when I began my play yesterday evening. Ektorp had some shiny new swords, Po'Ang and Hemnes had some shiny new magic, and Lack was and always will be the punchiest. So it was that I set out for the Crystal Tower once more. The Ancient's Maze is now more of a speed bump than anything, so it was pretty easy to make it through and create a new save on the world map just outside the tower doors.

Next he holds up a motivational poster that
features cat on a branch and the text 'Hang in there!'.

I'd been doing a decent amount of grinding. I was pretty much unscathed by anything found on the first floor. Once I arrived at the doorway leading to the upper floors, I was treated to a cut scene where Unei's key removed the blockade for me. The party expressed their determination, and off we went to floor number two. It had been my plan right from the start to go through the tower at least twice. Once to grab all the treasure. Then I'd head back outside, through the labyrinth to the airship and have a rest. Now, this pretty much went according to plan until I got to the last four chests on floor 7.

I was completely and utterly unprepared for a random encounter with a red dragon. This may not mean anything to you, and at first I didn't expect any issues either. So to tell you why this was a problem, I'll just FFIII Wiki entry for a red dragon: "It is, undoubtedly, the hardest common enemy in the game." As the above quote might indicate to you, I was most assuredly and royally REKT by this thing. Thus was lost about two hours of progress from my last save at the bottom of the tower.

For my second attempt, I decided to stick with the plan, but take the tower in stages. My research revealed that the dragons I now so fear tend to appear only on the upper floors. Stage one of treasure recovery was to grab everything on floors 2-6 and then teleport out to save and then trek back to the airship to heal. Now that I was somewhat familiar with the common enemies, this part was rather easy. Mission accomplished.

Stage two was to grind through the tower again and grab the chests on 7. This time I encountered a Yellow Dragon, and made it through the encounter alive. I was proud of myself until I checked the Wiki which states that: "The Yellow Dragon is the weakest of all the dragons that can be encountered..." Pride deflated. At least I retrieved the loot.

Stage Two down, I initiated another teleport, followed by another trek through the Ancient's Maze to reach my airship and rest, and then another return trip to the base of the Crystal Tower. This left me ready for what was to be my final run. "Run" I did.

Xande is a huge troll.

I avoided battle altogether whenever possible by running away because I wanted to conserve mana and items until I reached the top. It took a good 20 minutes anyway, but I was finally there ready to beat the game. I approached the mirror, and that's when the trouble started. I can't tell if the mirror was cursed by Xande, or if it just happened to be cursed when he got there, but he proceeded to inform me that anyone who looks into the mirror suffers "The Curse of the Five Wyrms" or some equally silly sounding thing. To me it meant that my party was unable to move. Not good.

Time for some "Deus Ex Doga". The recently deceased Doga Wan Kenobi informs the party that while his soul still exists he'll gather the five pure hearts that can dispel the curse. So of course, Doga visits the five NPC's who were in my party at one time or another. He appears to each one in turn who all say 'sure' when a strange old man appears out of nowhere and says they need to come with him RIGHT NOW. I mean, he does tell them that the warriors of the light need their help, but still.

By your powers combined, I am Captain Planet!

In any case, Princess Sara, Cid, Desch (who wasn't dead, yay!), King Alus, and one of the random old men who were masquerading as the Warriors of Light earlier, all rush to the scene to break the curse of the five wyrms. Thus our heroes can GET ON WITH IT. They do so by going into the very mirror that had just cursed them.

That's what they all say.

On the other side, Xande is waiting. With a Yellow Dragon already under my belt, this guy wasn't actually much of a threat. All I had to do was keep Po'Ang on healing duty, and let everyone else wail on him until he died.

"Can't touch this." You know, because of the hammer pants.

But if you know Final Fantasy, you know that's not the end of the story. There's always a bigger badder boss after the presumed final boss. In this case, that would be the Cloud of Darkness which is actually pretty glowy for being 'darkness.' It's basically "The Nothing" from The Neverending Story. I entered combat and promptly died. For a brief moment I was rather upset until it was made clear that this was a scripted battle that I wasn't supposed to win.

Stupid cheap unwinnable battle.

Sigh of relief there. Doga and Unei end up resurrecting the party, but from this point on I'm going to keep my description brief.  Suffice to say I made it all the way through the bosses in the world of darkness, made it back to the Cloud of Darkness, and fought the good fight. Much to my dismay, it wasn't enough.

So here I am, defeated. I load up my save. I'm back outside between the Maze and the Tower because there are no places to save once you enter the tower. I'll leave it to you to imagine all the non PG-13 things that I yelled at that point.

I think I'm going to do a bit of grinding and try again, at which point I'll properly recap everything that happens between fake final battle and real final battle.