Day 11

Game - Final Fantasy II, Day 11
Hours Played/Hours Total - 4-1/2 hrs / 12 hrs
Starting Point - Snow Cavern - B4
Current Goal - Finish the Snow Cavern and obtain the Goddess Bell.

What Happened - Been several days since I last played, so I'm hoping to get some real progress done today!
     So I begin right in the middle of a dungeon. I always hate beginning/ending in the middle of a dungeon, regardless of size. Anyways, I start on the forth floor and continue downwards. A few floors and some treasure chests later, I run into a group of...giant beavers. If you think that's a bit much, then the next part gets better! Apparently, you can talk to one of the beavers, and your party member (big guy named Guy) happens to SPEAK beaver... Yeah, I got nothing to add to that ludicrousness. You ask the beaver about the Goddess Bell, and he reveals to Guy that it is hidden nearby through a secret passageway in the room. He also warns of it being guarded by a giant monster. One small winding passage later, you come face to face with an adamantoise.
     I honestly thought this boss would be a pushover (he mostly was), but I did have a small scare near the beginning of the battle. You see...the adamantoise is a turtle-based monster (obviously ._.), and with that in mind, he has an insane physical defense. I didn't even remotely consider that, and my party was almost completely depleted of MP. Figured I could essentially beat him to death, but I soon found out that nobody in the party (except the guest member Josef) could hurt him with their weapons. Josef was bare handed. :| Thankfully, I had just enough MP to cast a handful of spells and kill the beast. With the beast gone, I grabbed the Goddess Bell behind him, which opened a staircase to the first floor, and headed for the entrance. At the entrance, you come face to face with a certain empire soldier named Borghen. He appeared a few times earlier, but I didn't mention him because he seemed unimportant. He attacks the party as you try to leave.
     I was about to be angry at this as well. Just luckily finished off the Adamantoise, and now I had NO MP left to deal with this guy. Thankfully, Josef gave him a good slap across the face and defeated him right on the first turn. The party walks around Borghen and prepares to leave. Borghen gets back up, yells something about taking us with him, and then collapses. A section of the wall opens up and a boulder flies out towards the party. Just as it is about to crush them, Josef holds the boulder back and helps the rest of you escape. Unfortunately, this was done without Josef. Sad time. T_T
     With the sadness in my heart (kinda?), I head back towards Altair to report in. Hilda and company are saddened by Josef's loss, but they all must go on and persevere, lest his sacrifice be in vein. I also took this time to restock items and buy some fancy mythril armor! Feels so nice to finally have better armor, not like it'd really help, but it is better than nothing. With myself refitted and resupplied, I made my journey back to the town of Poft to find Cid. You have to use Cid's airship to get to Kashuan, which is located on a far southern continent. He drops you off directly in front of the abandoned kingdom of Kashuan. I immediately ran inside, and after presenting the Goddess Bell to the door, you are allowed entry to search for something to contain the Sunfire. Just inside of the shrine, you run into Prince Gordan. He's apparently decided to man up and try and help out. He was here looking for the Egil's Torch, which can be used to hold Sunfire. He is afraid and unable to look by himself, so he has joined the party as to assist in the search.
     During my search of Kashuan Keep (what it is actually called), I ran all around with the same predicament as last time becoming imminent. I used too much MP during the first bit and was nearly depleted by the time I made it to the top. Thankfully, most of the enemies weren't anything too tough to deal with. However, I would like to complain that APPARENTLY it was okay to throw a few Adamantoise against me. An enemy that only briefly beforehand was considered boss material, and this time, I didn't really have any MP to spend on it. A large number of physical attacks later, it did go down but not without a decent fight. I proceeded a few more floors upward, and then I found the Egil's Torch!... Of course, it was placed in a chest behind a boss. Can't make it TOO easy now! It was a giant fire-y creature called a Red Soul apparently. I leaped into battle with the Red Soul and was immediately met with a nasty surprise. Turns out that Red Soul absorbs any magic thrown at it and was highly resistant to physical attacks. Yaaaay for me! On top of that, it was able to cast level 8 magic spells, and I'm just lucky that I cast a Shell spell on everybody and was able to resist the still fairly damaging magic. However, regardless of these conditions, it did go down with lots and lots of physical attacks.
     With the Red Soul defeated, I was able to claim the Egil's Torch! With the Egil's Torch in hand, I cast Teleport (best spell to learn EVER) and left Kashuan Keep behind...for the moment. Upon arriving outside, I re-entered and captured the Sunfire with the Egil's Torch. Now onward to blow up the massive Dreadnought! Or I would be, but as soon as you leave the confines of the Kashuan Keep, you are treated with a lovely little cutscene. You see Cid's airship and the Dreadnought flying overhead. You also see the Dreadnought's lower bay open and a claw reaching for the Cid's airship...just imagine the opening of Star Wars: A New Hope. With that said and done, I made my way back to Altair (should just call it home base I guess). Back in Altair, everybody is freaking out over the airship capture...because Princess Hilda was on it. After talking to a few people (most completely worthless), one old man plus Minwu inform you that the airship has a resupply base somewhere north of Fynn. With this in mind, I decided it was time to hit the old cliche and "rescue the princess". I did however run into one really large problem...
     Turns out I'm crazy under leveled or something because all of the new enemies I run into are able to easily take me down without trying. With that in mind, I looked up a guide about what it takes to level up some of your abilities. Seems I have been going about it aaaaall wrong. You are supposed to make battles last as long as you can because certain abilities only go up by chance if the right conditions are met. With this in mind, I have begun what is going to be a large amount of farming battles. Which isn't easy considering the normal enemies around are too easy, and the other, new enemies I found are ridiculously hard. Thankfully, after a bit of travelling around, I remembered something about Fynn. The soldiers there are insanely hard, but they are beatable. It's also close to the nearby rural town of Gatrea (for healing purposes). And thus begins my ongoing farming for money and leveling up. After about an hour and a half of this, I decided to quit there for the night. My next goal (after hefty leveling up) will be to charge into the Dreadnought and rescue the princess!...also possibly Cid.

Ending Point - Outside the town of Fynn.

Goals Accomplished - Retrieve the Goddess Bell. Got to Kashuan Keep. Retrieved the Egil's Torch. Obtain Sunfire using the Egil's Torch. Began Training for Dreadnought battle stuffs.
Next Goals - Level up abilities a lot. Rescue Princess Hilda and Cid aboard the Dreadnought. Destroy the Dreadnought.

~May the Crystals Guide Me~