Day 21

Game - Final Fantasy 3, Day 21
Hours Played/Hours Total -  10-1/2 hrs / 26-1/2 hrs
Starting Point - Nearby Replito.
Current Goal - Figure out what to do next. Fix the Earth Crystal. Save the world.

What Happened - So I was hoping to get a second post in really quick after that last one, but all I accomplished since then was a couple hours of leveling up. That couple of hours wasn't worth posting about,  and I added it all in to make one post. With that all said, on to the show!
     Nearby Replito, I began farming up a storm. I kept killing and killing and killing. My plan was to get a massive pile of gold so I could buy all the summons available in town. I found out when looking through a guide that the summons would soon become unavailable for a really long time. Therefore, I spent time fighting a lot of random battles so I could muster up 35,000 gil (7000 each with 5 of them) to buy the summons. It took quite some time, but I eventually finished. With that done, I decided it was time to proceed through the story. The next step...was a little/large kingdom known as Saronia.
     Saronia is the largest area/town/kingdom so far. It composes of a castle and four pieces of a town separated into sections. However, I was not allowed to arrive in a fun fashion. My beautiful, awesome airship gets shot down...Why is this game determined to take away my one love? I love my airship, but the game doesn't want me to have an airship apparently. Anyways, the group somehow survives the crash and "lands" in Saronia. From there, I was forced to look around and figure out my next step. With the kingdom being the size it is, I ventured into all of the different sections before finding out a few things. Apparently, the king went crazy, kicked his son (the prince) out of the castle, and has begun a civil war among himself. Honestly, I wasn't really caring or preoccupied with that thought. I just wanted out of the place. While looking around, I located the prince (Prince Alus) being bothered by a group of soldiers. I fought and scared them off. The scared-y cat Arc finds Alus to be like him, so they start getting buddy-buddy for the time. With Alus with me, I started looking around some more.
     There isn't too much you can do inside the walled kingdom of Saronia. There aren't any monster encounters on the world map while inside the kingdom. However, there is a tower called Dragon Spire in the southeast section of the kingdom that you can climb. Inside it are monsters as well as a set of dragoon exclusive equipment. I went ahead and took the time to venture in as to claim it all for myself. There wasn't anything too hard enemy-wise, but it was still worth the climb for the experience and equipment. With my new dragoon equipment, I swapped Ingus from Viking to Dragoon to try the stuff out. Turns out that most of it wasn't really any form of improvement over the Viking, but I decided to stick with it anyways. I really need to stop switching classes and just keep with the ones I have. Side note! I also changed Arc from Black Mage to Evoker...I just wanted to try out the summons, but I probably should have kept him a Black Mage.
     After the climb up Dragon Spire, I figured there couldn't be too much more to do, so I made my way to Castle Saronia. I actually had tried to enter the castle upon initial landing/crashing, but they wouldn't let me in then. With the prince in tow, we were allowed back into the castle for some reason. I know that the prince would normally be let in, but he was just recently kicked out. Suspicious! Anyways, story and cut scenes occur. Turns out that the king's right hand man Gigameth was controlling him all this time. Gigameth...really? What kind of name is that? It just sounds terrible...With his plan starting to fail, Gigameth resorted to his only other tactic...BOSS BATTLE TIME! Gigameth turned into some large bird-person, and it turns out that he was actually kind of difficult. I fought with him twice and went down both times.
     Seeing as I couldn't beat Gigameth, I went back to the Dragon Spire and started to farm some levels. Unfortunately for me, it was taking a lot of experience to level up, and the large amount of experience turned into a large amount of time. Thankfully, all the time and effort paid off! I went back to fight Gigameth for a third time, and I managed to come out on top. It wasn't a perfect fight, but I finally beat him! With Gigameth defeated, the king was truly free but at a price. He sacrificed himself to protect his son and died. Prince Alus (I guess now King Alus) took over the kingdom and thanked the group. With him in control, he put a stop to all the madness that Gigameth had caused. With the kingdom back at peace, it was time for me to move on. Of course, I was still lacking in air transportation. However, after a little looking and talking around the castle, my worries of air travel were soon over. A group of engineers told the party that they had recently uncovered an ancient airship called the Nautilus. It was in working order, and they were giving it all to us. Woo! Got my airship back! If I lose this one...I will just be very depressed.
     With the Nautilus at my command, I was a lord of the sky once again. This airship looked more like a flying yellow submarine than an airship, but I guess I will just have to deal with that. My next goal was to fly to the continent of Dalg and search for the wizard known as Doga. I was told to seek him out a long time ago, but I guess the game figured to sidetrack me for the Saronia Kingdom adventure. That and apparently it would be impossible to fly to Doga's mansion without the Nautilus. Something about powerful winds in the valley leading to his home that would have kept me out. Anyways, I flew through the twisting paths and valleys of Dalg and located his mansion. Inside the mansion, Doga....joins my party as a follower. He explains that the one behind everything is a man named Xandu. Xandu, Doga, and another mage named Unei were apprentices to a very old and powerful wizard known as Noah. Long ago, Noah presented each of them with a gift. Doga received great magical prowess. Unei was given power and control in the realm of dreams. Xandu was given mortality. So basically, Xandu was mad that the power he was given sucked in comparison to the other two. Back to current time, Doga plans to lead the group to the Cave of the Circle so that they can get their hands on ancient powerful weapons. Doga feels that the group desperately needs these weapons in order to fight and defeat Xandu. Without further questioning, he tells the group to take the secret passage in the back of his home to the cave, so onward I went to the Cave of the Circle!
     The Cave of the Circle turned out to be a huge waste of my time. The secret passage required that I go Mini to travel forward. Just an FYI, Mini status causes your strength and defense to go to 1, which means that only magic does any good while Mini. On top of Mini, I walked through a pile of no treasure and few enemies. Then I get to an area where Doga casts a spell on the Nautilus to allow it to travel underwater. On top of that, he tells me that the group needs to head for the Temple of Time. It's located underwater by a landmark known as Cape Twin Horn. Once there, I'm to retrieve Noah's Lute so that I can wake up Unei from the dream world. After that, apparently I will obtain the ultimate ship known as the Invincible! Glad I walked all this way for something I could have done/been told in his house. Thanks Doga, I am glad I got to escort you to a hole under the ground. Dunno why mister master wizard couldn't have done it himself. He heads on over to obtain the weapons while we are off to find the familiarly named Temple of Time.
     Before the Temple of Time, I have a few side quests in mind (according to the guide). I do find it somewhat shameful to use a guide, but FF3 seems to be fairly harder than previous. Of course, I could just be under leveled. I'm not looking to get a perfect game here, but I would like some awesome aspects on my side (like a certain set of summons...Bahamut, Leviathan, and Odin). So thus begins some long and hard side quests for great rewards! I started off by heading to a secret village known as Doga Village. Turns out that it's just a large repository of almost all the white, black, and summon magic. I couldn't afford anything ,so I left that place quickly. Next step was an underground dungeon known as Saronia Catacombs. According to what I've read, I should be able to get some awesome equipment and obtain the Odin summon in there. I have a bad feeling I won't be able to beat Odin, but who knows? I might get lucky! However, lucky I did not get. The enemies inside were decently tough, and once I got to Odin, things just went downhill. I was holding my own in most aspects except that my Dark Knight was dying every round/other round. Unfortunate for me because he's my best and hardest hitter. As he was constantly going down, my other members were barely holding on. I eventually hit a point when everybody just went down, so I lost the progress since entering. I retried it all once again. I really slimmed down on everything. I saved up all my spells and items. I almost got Odin...and then he cheated me with a stupid one-hit kill move that can attack the whole party. I decided to say screw that side quest and moved on to the next.
     The guide I used pointed me towards a cave located in the southeastern corner of the world map. Under the water was a cavern known as the Sunken Cave. Inside is said to be filled with vast amounts of tasty treasure. I decided I would make this treasure mine. Nothing too big about this cave. Enemies are decent, but I didn't run into anything crazy hard. The only problematic items were the last four located in the cave. They were locked inside chests along with traps! The traps being set enemies of course. They decided it would be worth my time and effort to force a battle on me for super items. Each of the four chests had a separate but equally difficult enemy. Thankfully all of the items were worth the time and effort. After clearing out the cave, I returned to town to heal and save for the night.
     And thus ends another stupidly long post by me. I'm sorry for those who started to hate me before the end...but I'm getting ever so closer to finishing it! Then it'll just be Final Fantasy 4 glory days~

Ending Point - Inside the Saronia Kingdom
Levels Achieved -

• Luneth - Level 38 - Dark Knight Level 40
• Arc - Level 38 - Evoker Level 22
• Refia - Level 38 - White Mage Level 46
• Ingus - Level 38 - Dragoon Level 27

Goals Accomplished - Got a lot of experience, gil, and pile of summon spells. Entered Saronia. Located and rescued the missing prince (Prince Alus). Climbed the Dragon Spire and claimed the dragoon set of equipment. Defeated Gigameth. Obtained a new airship, the Nautilus. Located Doga's Mansion on the continent of Dalg. Entered the Cave of the Circle and sent Doga on his way. Upgraded Nautilus for underwater travel. Obtained a pile of treasure. Attempted to fight Odin and failed!
Next Goals - Find the Temple of Time and retrieve Noah's Lute. Wake Unei. Save the world.

Side Note Time - This post...just feels terrible. I always try to type this up while I'm actually playing it, but yet I always somehow miss a few details (mostly names of people and places). I'm doing my best to explain what happens without revealing every detail (although I still do generally), and it just seems to feel not as good as older posts. That and the further I get in the series, the more plot they start to have and can be revealed. I realized the few people who read this will probably never play some of the older ones like I am. However, it can be a downer if you learn all the plot of something you might have considered playing.

~May the Crystals Guide Me~