News Post!

SO! This post is to just say that I've run out of ideas for Side Posts.
Well, I've run out of ideas for GOOD Side Posts at least. Sure, I could keep writing reviews, but I'm not up for reviewing all sorts of titles. I'd end up just reviewing an RPG here and there. I only have a handful of RPGs I'd end up wanting to review, so the list would go by pretty quickly. I'm not really the best at lengthy or detailed reviews either, so what you'd really get is a big post of "I REALLY LIKE THIS GAME! YOU SHOULD LIKE IT TOO!" Let's be honest...Who wants to play and review a game they don't like? I could maaaybe pull it off if the game in question was one I picked up with hopeful intentions, but I'm pretty selective about the games I buy anymore. A crappy game slips through the cracks here and there, but I look around and talk with people to make sure I avoid anything awful. 

Anyways, I'm considering doing something slightly different from the rest of my posts. I really enjoy pen and paper roleplaying games, but I don't ever get the time to play them. (To be fair, I have the time to play them, but my friends are never available to do them.) During this process of wanting to roleplay, I've made up a considerable number of characters, story ideas, world ideas, and more. I figure it's time to put some of those to use and attempt to write an actual story. 

TO SUMMARIZE THIS ENTIRE POST, I'm going to start posting up short stories. 

It strays away from the theme of the blog, but it'd be something different and/or interesting to anybody who comes along. It would also give me practice at attempting to type things up better. Who knows! I might actually enjoy what I write and try to run with it. The worst case scenario is I type up a story, read said story, and just think "this is awful". The best case scenario is I grow famous, sell the movie rights, and cry as Micheal Bay or some other director ruins my artistic vision. 

I look forward to the negative criticism that follows! Thanks for reading! 

~May the Crystals Guide Me~

Day 81

Game - Final Fantasy XII, Day 81
Hours Played/Hours Total - 11 hrs / 49 hrs
Starting Point - Eruyt Village.
Current Goal - Journey through the woods and reach Mt Omisace.

What Happened - The hefty foreword shall be pardoned in place of...Let's get on with this! For those who neglected the last post, I'm about to leave the woods and travel to Mt Omisace. That is...baring any Marks I attempt to do before that. I'll probably attempt a few of my backlogged Marks first. Let's get to it!
     Looking over the Marks, I'm still pretty sure I can't handle any of them. Not sure if I mentioned it before, but Marks generally come with ranks, and so far, I've received Marks with ranks as high as 5 and as low as 1. The rank 1 marks are pretty easy, but most of the marks that are 3 or more are generally outside of my level and/or abilities. Seeing my list, I would really LOVE to finish off the Cluckatrice, but I'm pretty sure I can't even deal with it during the rainy season on the Giza Plains. Skipping past that, I took another attempt at just trying to beat the Thunder Elemental that walks around the Giza Plains. My first attempt at this ended badly, but I didn't die! So...a step up. I was really close this time. It started with like 15,000 HP, and I managed to work it down below 4,000. I ran away, healed at a save spot, and went to try again. (Of course, you have to start fresh if you leave an enemy alone.) The last attempt came close enough though that I figured to try again.
     Long story short, I beat that stupid bitch! How? Basically, I blasted it like crazy with a Quickening Combo of 6. That brought it down to 4,000 HP. I followed up with ANOTHER Quickening Combo. I only managed a combo of 2, but that was enough to bring it down to 1,000 HP. I conjured up a few Blizzara spells, and this brought it right next to extinction. Unfortunately, it threw up an immunity barrier to all magic at this point. (Because that's insanely fair.) At that point, I had to break down into physical strikes and rely on luck. Honestly, I just barely came out ahead. If the damn thing cast just one more Thundara, I'd have been done for. The reward for all my ridiculous effort? 1500 experience and 3 LP. Not worth the effort, but I finally beat the darn thing.
     I'd like to comment though... It's a level 25 enemy, and it took a HUGE struggle with a set of over level 30 characters to beat it. I don't know about you guys, but this just feels like tacky game design. A lower level on an enemy means I should be able to beat it almost every time. You can make it surprise me with something, but it shouldn't be a life or death struggle versus something that's around five levels or more difference in my own level. Other comment for this section would be that Quickenings are ridiculous. Seriously, you can do a huuuuge amount of damage. It does take entire bars of magic, but the results are generally pretty amazing. You do more damage during a Quickening combo than you can from a constant barrage of attacks taking place over a couple minutes. Of course, a poorly timed Quickening is generally a bad idea. If you have no magic, you're basically screwed. Enough of this though! Back to the game...
     With that Elemental conquered, I refocused my efforts towards an actual accomplishment. I ran back to the Dalmasca Westersand to fight the Ring Wyrm again. Short answer is a big pile of "Nope". I tried a Quickening combo, and it didn't really even scratch the darn thing. Since that is out, I went Rabanastre to check for new Marks at the Sandsea. I know I already have a pile of Marks to do, but most of those are out of my range (as I've stated several times). Luck for me, there is one new Mark available, and it's of considerably lower rank! I take the Mark and head out to Jahara to learn more. Seriously, if I can't beat this thing, I'm moving right on with the game. Despite my lack of new and good equipment, I'm moving on. There's only so much leveling and looting I can force myself to do. At Jahara, I'm told about the Ixtab monster. It's some sort of evil spirit located in the Henne Mines, and the Garif can't deal with it despite their warrior status. That means I get the job! ON TO THE HENNE MINES!
     Of course, now I have to rent a Chocobo just to get there. Kinda annoying to require a Chocobo to reach a location...if you ask me. Lucky for me, I never cashed in on a free Chocobo ride earlier on! I jump on the offer and ride the Chocobo over to the Henne Mines. I head inside and quickly locate the Ixtab because it's basically right next to the entrance. Also this place is pretty small. MARK BATTLE TIME! Unfortunately, there's really not much to say on this thing. It cast Doom on Vaan at one point, but I beat the evil spirit monster before Doom even went off. Soooo...Mark Vanquished. I run back to turn it in and earn a pretty small pile of nothing: 1300 Gil, an Ether, and a random item (which I sold). Yaay, I guess this evens out really. I put little effort into beating it, so I get little reward out of beating it. Oh well! No point hanging around here. Let's move on to Mt. Bur-Omisace!
     That means we have to travel through the Golmore Jungle once again. This time though, I don't have to worry about random magical barriers. For less detail filled preferences, I'll just describe the first half of the trip as such...Malboros and Demons and Hell Hounds I can't handle! OH MY! Minus the running away from Hell Hounds, it's a pretty uneventful trip. I come to a small area though, and there is a save in the middle of it. This is the game spelling out the word B-O-S-S A-H-E-A-D. I save and head into the next area for...HOLY CRAP A GIANT DRAGON COVERED IN GRASS AND FLOWERS! BOSS BATTLE TIME! (Also apologizes for all caps there.)
     The actual name of this monster is Elder Wyrm. It's a nature dragon of sorts, and it comes witha  pair of treants. I easily defeat the treants though and quickly focus on the big guy here. Things were going well...too well unfortunately. That came to an end though after he did the move Sporefall. Sporefall only causes pretty much ALL of the status effects at once on every character. Screw you Elder Wyrm! During all this status effect crap, I lose a character to Confusion, but I manage to get one out of confusion to cure the others. Then it took me a full minute just to get everybody fully up and cured. Time to refocus the efforts! I kinda wanted to blast the thing with Quickenings, but I feel like that'll just leave me screwed without magic. And now another Sporefall! Thankfully, this time it didn't go off nearly as well. One person was missed by the attack entirely, so they get to heal everybody else. After that, I get my attack pace up and going again. Everything's going great...then another Sporefall. Yay for me though! Because it is even less effective than the previous one. (Only one) I quickly recover from that last Sporefall and then beat the Elder Wyrm into submission! CONGRATULATIONS! Time to move along...
     I finally leave the Golmore Jungle and enter the Paramina Rift. This area is all snowy-wasteland look, and it comes with a matching set of snow wolves, skeletons, and other snow-themed monsters. The worst one among these was the yeti, which looked like a lizard guy with white fur. From here, I spent a lot of time exploring the area. I wasn't really sure of where to go, so I ended up going pretty much everywhere in the Paramina Rift. Eventually, I figure out the direction because there's nowhere to go but North. I head up and into a scene. As we are heading towards Mt Bur-Omisace, Balthier mentions out loud how the Empire parades through the streets while refugees are forced to walk in the snow. He looks over at Larsa as he says this. Larsa responds that he's pushing for peace, and that his father will choose peace as well. Balthier asks if he truly will and that no one can truly know another person, not even their own father. This makes Larsa kinda unsure of what to think, but Vaan tells him not to take that the wrong way. SCENE SHIFT!
      Now we're back in Archadia, and Vayne is speaking with the Emperor/his father. Vayne is telling him that the Senate hates House Solidor existence. Vayne believes they will do anything to try and stop them. He figures they need to be dealt with and is willing to do what it takes to eliminate this problem. He tells the Emperor that it is necessary for their continual survival. The Emperor questions Vayne and asks why he's so quick to shed blood. Vayne says that the Emperor is the one who made their house so strong and powerful, and he just wants to keep this going. The Emperor then asks Vayne if this is his idea of vengeance, but Vayne likes to think of it as necessity. Then the Emperor asks if Vayne is simply willing to get his hands dirty to keep other's hands clean. Vayne finally ends this back and forth scene by saying that his hands are already stained with blood. He sees little reason to hold back now. Back to our group!
     I continue up the mountain a short ways and finally reach the top for a cutscene! It's basically just a sky view of Mt. Bur-Omisace. It's all pretty and nature-y. Thus, we have finally reached our destination after what feels like FOREVER! I climb a little further up the mountain and continue into the temple here. Another cutscene! Basically, it's just another sky view of the area, but now we're all focused on the temple here. Also, I finally learn the name I kept making fun of earlier. It's "Gran Kiltias Anastasis", and as that turns out, it's a single person and not a council. I thought it was a group of people for some reason. He's the lead person of the temple or head priest...Whatever you want to call him. I make my way into the temple and approach the Gran Kiltias Anastasis for a scene.
     The group approaches him, but he looks like he's asleep. Everybody kinda just stares, and Vaan eventually asks if he's asleep. He finally speaks up and says something about not sleeping but always dreaming. He says he's seen all of the dreams, including those of Ashe. He saw that she dreams of restoring Dalmasca, and he believes there is no one better to do this than her with the Dawn Stone in hand. Then randomly a guy walks in from behind us and interrupts all of this. Larsa introduces this man as the one we came here to meet. He's a member of one of the ruling Rozarrian houses. The man says he wanted to stop the war as well, but he couldn't do it by himself. Thus, he looked to Larsa for some help. The man introduces himself as Al-Cid Margrace of House Margrace.

Al-Cid Margrace

     Al-Cid begins by being Mr. Ladies-Man about Ashe. He's complimenting on her and such, and thankfully, the Gran Kiltias interrupts all of this. He has seen from their dreams that they both wish for no war and then goes on into something about how Empire joining Empire would bring a new age to Ivalice. Honestly, I feel like I missed something here because Ashe responds by saying she simply came here to fix everything but simpler. She wants to reclaim the throne, restore Dalmasca, stop the resistance, and prevent a war. Al-Cid steps in at this point and tells her that it isn't as easy as that. Her current "death" status is two years old now, and her alive status would simply cause problems for all of them. Ashe takes this as she is powerless and can do nothing, but Al-Cid says it isn't her fault in that case. Larsa comes forward and claims that her extending a hand in peace would allow the Emperor to change things. Unfortunately, Al-Cid drops the bomb on us...Emperor Gramis is dead! DUN DUN DUUUUUUUN! (Honestly not that surprised, but glossing past that.) He was assassinated! SCENE JUMP!
     We're back in Archadia now, and there are Judges moving all about. They're inside the grand Emperor Chamber/whatever you want to call it. The main group of them are gathered around a dead Senator who is next to the Emperor, who is dead on the throne. They're all discussing the event, and Vayne jumps in to say that the Senator poisoned the Emperor. He admitted to doing so right before he killed himself. (Yeaaah, this just bodes on suspiciousness.) With war on the brink of happening, Vayne suggests to them that they take away the Senate's powers and give it to the Emperor so that they can deal with everything. Of course, with the current Emperor dead, this makes Vayne the Emperor, and thus he will get the power. Only one of the Judges seems to directly oppose this. It is Judge Drace from that talk-y Judge bit before. She believes Vayne is up to something, but Vayne points out that only two survivors of House Solidor are left. It's between Vayne and his brother Larsa.
     At this point, Judge Drace pulls out her sword and attempts to arrest Vayne. She said a whole bit, but I didn't get it down. She believes he caused the events at hand just to become Emperor, but another Judge steps before her and says that Vayne didn't make himself Emperor, the Law did. By pointing her sword at Vayne, she pointed her sword at the Law and therefore broke the thing she swore to uphold. She swings her sword at the Judge before her, but he blocks it with his hand. He proceeds to lift her up one handed and then toss her across the room like she weighs nothing.
     At this point, Vayne instructs Judge Zargabaath to take the Alexander and go retrieve his brother Larsa. Gabranth steps forward and says that he was in charge of Larsa. Vayne mentions that he can't trust Gabranth because he was reporting Vayne's activities to the Emperor. He then lets Gabranth know that he can prove himself by dealing with Drace. She's been tried, convicted, and Gabranth must carry out the sentence right now. He seems reluctant to do it, but he goes over to her. He kneels down, and Drace tells him to do it. She wants him to stay alive so he can protect Larsa. Gabranth takes up his sword and finishes the job...End scene.
     We jump back to the main group, and Al-Cid is talking with the group, He says the late Emperor was the only one who would have given her the chance for peace. However, if she tried to reclaim the throne now, Vayne would claim her an impostor. He'd use that to stir things up with the resistance and start the war! Unfortunately for them, it seems that Vayne wants the war, and he's a military genius. The Gran Kiltias finally kicks in again to say that the dreams have shown that her revealing at this point would simply lead to war. Alongside this event, Vayne's name would appear in the books of history. Al-Cid brings it back in to add that Archadia has risen the banners and is coming around for war. He goes on to list off several fleets preparing for this. On top of their airships preparing, Ashe adds in that the nethicite is their coup de grace of it all. She proceeds to ask the Gran Kiltias about the nethicite.
     At this point, the old guy finally opens his eyes and says to her about wielding power against power being a hume thing. She is a descendant of the Dynast-King, and he tells her to seek out the other power that Raithwell left behind, the Sword of Kings. It seems that King Raithwell left behind another artifact, but he entrusted the item to the Gran Kiltias of his time. The item was then hidden in the Stilshrine of Miriam across the Paramina Rift. What was so important about the Sword of Kings? The blade can cut through nethicite. After giving this information away, he goes on to state out loud (kinda awkwardly) about why the King would trust a tool capable of destroying his legacy bringer to someone outside of his progeny. Before he bids us farewell, he tells her to take up the sword and to take her dream. Otherwise, it will remain but a dream. So we finally get to leave the temple and head back out into the Paramina Rift!
     Now I have to find this fancy Shrine place, but I don't really have anything telling me where to go. The World Map shows an icon to the south of the Paramina Rift, so I head south. This took me nowhere though, and I ended up walking all over the snowy wasteland. After a bit, I looked over the area map and spotted only one spot with a path that went somewhere different. Thus, this had to be the direction to go!...hopefully. I head over there, and that took me around, about, and straight to the Stilshrine of Miriam! I enter inside and find myself in a typical temple-like setting. I look all around the initial area, but the game won't let me go anywhere. It keeps making a mention of the Dawn Shard being needed. Since I got nothing to lose, I end up equipping a character with the Dawn Shard, since specialty items like that can be equipped. As soon as I do this, everything decides to work for me!
     The first device I try teleports me to an entirely different part of the shrine. Down there, I run into a couple of statues that spring to life! I fight those off pretty quickly though and continue onward. This brings me into an area with a trio of dragons, but they aren't so easily. I ended up running past them the first time and continuing my search in the shrine. After fighting off more statues, I went back to confront the dragons. I had to end up cheating the game system a bit here though. I kept going back and forth from one area to the next to slowly take them out one by one. (It kept their health intact despite my coming and going for some reason.) After beating the dragons, I went back upstairs and located a switch. This opened up a new path out of this area. I followed the path straight to a crystal! I went up to it, but it wasn't a save crystal.
     The crystal came to life and started attacking me! Of course, I realized something was up but gave it a shot anyways. The thing came to life as a "Crystal Bug" and started attacking me. To be honest, it wasn't that hard to beat really. It did have a hefty defense though, so I just had to take time to whittle it down. Once I beat it, a real crystal appeared. I made use of it and then moved right along. This brought me into a lower chamber with a couple different monsters. I quickly dealt with them, but then I was faced with a different dilemma. There's a large obstruction keeping me from moving through, but to move it, it said something about needing to face three Guardians to pass. With that read and done, a door is opened. Since it's the only way to go, I head on through. That brings me to a teleport that transports me back to the first area in the Shrine.
     From here, I've got two paths I can take. I head down the right one first, and this brings me to a large area with multiple paths. I just choose one and head on kinda randomly. Lucky for me, this brings me to a large statue (but not an animated one). The information with it refers to it as a Guardian and mentions something about facing the blade. On top of that, I can turn the thing. Basically, I have to find all three of these statues and make them face the middle one. The game designers were nice during this though, and they made the statue's position and facing direction available on the map. (Yay for small things!) With that statue turned, it's time to find the other two! I move right through the area and end up fighting off a whole pile of zombie monsters. I eventually find the second statue while wandering about, and I turn it towards the center as well. From here, I'm only lacking one statue to turn around. This path works me around through more enemies, around the large statue in the center, and through a big door to meet BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     The monster at hand is less of a monster and more of a giant, metallic three-headed dragon! The first message I receive after the opening video is enough to tell me this isn't your average battle. The message simply states that "Your metallic equipment grows heavy." Yeaaaah, I don't like the sound of that at all. As I move in to attack the dragon, it becomes quickly apparent what that entails. This game sure doesn't like to be fun. Anytime my fun meter rises, it smacks it down with some stupid twist. As soon as I start my actions, it's quite noticeable that everybody's action meter has slowed down. My current party was Basch, Penelo, and Ashe. Penelo and Ashe move at mostly the same pace, but Basch is slowed to a crawl. Basch has a full set of metallic items while the other two have significantly less. (That's my theory anyways.) Lucky for me, the giant metal dragon doesn't seem to have a lot of health. Every hit comes rather slow, but they take out a pretty good notch of the giant meter at the top. After a while, it unleashes a fancy scene special attack, Sword Dance! That doesn't do a whole lot though, and I push on through for its death! With its defeat, the giant metal monstrosity falls backwards into a randomly placed giant pit of lava. CONGRATULATIONS!
     With the boss's defeat, the door behind it opens up, and I head into the next room. The final statue is in here, and I turn in towards the center. Then I get a message about the colossus changing. I turn around and head back into the previous area to view the change. As it turns out, the bit blocking my path was actually the Colossus's colossal sword. However, with all the statues facing it, it lifted up the sword so I could go by! Of course, now I have to work my way back down to that lower area below the Colossus. While I'm heading down there, I run into a random yet rare and ridiculous supermonster! I ended up spending like fifteen minutes just trying to beat the damn thing! The name eludes me at the moment, but it was a floating head thing that could cast "necromancy" and summon up a pile of zombies. They weren't pushover zombies either though. They came with a surprisingly decent amount of health, and that's not even including the original monster! I spent quite some time and effort fighting the thing. I ended up losing my entire initial party here and had to switch over to the other group. I managed to beat it in the end, but that was quite a bit of work for a "rare" monster. I revived everybody and moved right along.
     Under the sword and through the door, there's a giant flying-fish ice-lady! BOSS BATTLE TIME! This was an interesting if not short battle. The first thing the giant ice lady did was summon up a pile of ice elementals, but thankfully, they weren't even remotely as hard as real elementals. Despite that, there were like five of them summoned, and they just kept casting Blizzard on me. It wasn't doing a lot mind you, but their numbers made it problematic. I kept trying to attack the she devil, but I couldn't get enough time in. The battle from before kinda drained my MP. I didn't go back to refill it either, and that was a poor judgement on my side. Then the stupid boss cast Reflect on herself. This ended up pushing me into the only option I felt would work...Quickenings! I blasted her with a ten combo Quickening! The combo breaker, Ark Blast, came in to finish up the whole package. I basically hit the "win" button with all that! Although Quickenings are limited to a single target, the "combo breaker" (as I call it) hits everybody within range! Ark Blast destroyed all of the ice elementals, and the overall combo left her with just a tiny portion of HP left! Woo!
     Super success for sure! The ol' girl wasn't going down without a fight though, and she wasn't very happy with being almost dead. She unleashed a massive special attack called Chain Magick! That ended up killing both Penelo and Ashe. I didn't want to swap out teams at this point though, so I had to quickly revive everybody. Once I got everybody back up, I charged at her and attacked like crazy. I had to hurry quickly before she wiped out my party again. With the final blow struck, CONGRATULATIONS! The giant ice-fish lady was all like YAARGH BLARGH and then transformed into a giant crystal like Belias did. Basically, we obtained another Esper, Mateus the Corrupt! Time to move ahead and retrieve the Sword of Kings. I open the door and enter into a mysterious, glow-y chamber. I walk towards the light and SCENE!
     Ashe approaches a giant spinning mechanism with the Dawn Shard in hand. It starts glowing, and then everything around begins to power down. That's what I thought at first, but then it seems that all the energy simply focused onto the sword in the middle. It floats out from its resting place and towards Ashe. She grabs it, the power goes off, and the sword falls over. Vaan approaches her and says she should try the sword out on the Dawn Shard. Might as well see if it will destroy nethicite like it is supposed to. She's all "WHA?", but Balthier chimes in and agrees with Vaan. We can't use the nethicite, and the sword does need to be tested. She puts the stone down and pulls back with the sword. As she does that, the stone begins to glow. Fran comments that the stone fears the sword. As she's readying herself, Mr. Rassler (the prince again) shows up, and then...she brings down the sword. The Dawn Shard loses its glow and is dead now. Looks like we have ourselves a nethicite destroyer! With that said and done, the group turns to leave. Ashe stops Vaan and asks him if he saw it that time. Vaan says that he didn't see anything, not even his brother. So...huzzah? Time to leave!
     I will give Final Fantasy XII something. Normally, you get a fancy in-game story item, and it's just a key item in your bag. However, in FFXII, you get a story item, and the item ends up being equip-able. This includes items like the Goddess Magicite, the Manufactured Nethicite, the Dawn Shard, and now the Sword of Kings. Now that the Shrine is conquered, I go ahead and take my leave. As I head outside, the group spots some airships flying overheard. CUTSCENE! The group is looking up in the sky, and there is a huuuge airship flying above them. The sheer size of it seems ridiculous even compared to all of the ones flying about it. The large airship is carrying a fleet of little airships aboard it. The fleet of airships are flying over us and to the south. The group looks to the north, and Mt Bur-Omisace has smoke rising from it. Well, looks like we took too long. The cutscene ends, and I have to head back to Bur-Omisace.
     I could have used a Teleport stone at a nearby crystal, but I figured I could use the loot-ercise. Walk, walk, walk. Walk, walk, walk. And now I'm back! I enter Bur-Omisace, and things are pretty darn grim. It's raining, and there are people scattered about. The place is all messed up and looks pretty bad. Bodies all about, and people trying to help those who are wounded. It's your typical "village just got attacked" look. From the ground area, I head for the temple. Things look pretty bad here as well. Everybody keeps telling me not to go inside because the Judge seems to still be here. The Gran Kiltias is trying to reason with the crazy guy. It's pretty obvious that things aren't going well nor are they going to improve. Despite everybody's warnings, I head inside. Surprise! The place is all messed up, and the Judge (Bergan) has killed the Gran Kiltias.

Judge Bergan

     Bergan starts talking about man and god, and that turns into a whole rant about history changing and man/humes taking the reigns again. He's talking crazy though, and the group suddenly notices a weird ghost figure behind him. It's just like the one who was behind Mjrn earlier on. Bergan seems to have a bit of manufactured nethicite, and he's using it to power himself into frenzy mode. During his big speech, he starts to pull out a pair of weird blades and BOSS BATTLE TIME! We charge the Judge, but then he brings in a group of unnamed Judges to rush us from behind.
     As the battle starts, it immediately becomes the definition of annoying. My initial goal is to try and take out the unnamed judges. Unfortunately, they all tend to focus on a single person and rape their face off. That forced me to keep a dedicated healer on the singled-out target. They took out Balthier at one point (Current team - Vaan, Balthier, and Fran), so I had to waste time reviving him. I had to deal with the unnamed Judges for quite a bit. Thankfully, they weren't able to do a lot of damage, but Bergan on the other hand was just pissing me off for sure. I eventually manage to focus enough attacks to eliminate the unnamed Judges. With them out of the way, I re-focused my efforts on Bergan.
     The first thing that Bergan brings to the table is being Shell'd and Protect'd. This means it's half-damage all around without anything else considered. I'm having to slowly take the guy down, but I start to get a bit of a pattern going. He can really only focus on one person at a time, but he tends to really beat on his current target. He tended to combo out of nowhere and nearly kill people. At one point, he went into a sort of battle frenzy and started doing 600 damage PER HIT! With that kind of power, I'm having to keep after healing everybody, or he'll just three hit them to death. At one point, he decimated Balthier with a five hit combo. Overall, it was a pretty slow uphill battle. He was all protected, so I just had to slowly chisel his health away while keeping my team healthy. Despite the setbacks, I managed to take the bastard down!
     With his defeat, he started going all BLARGH and then strange energies flowed out of him. That Judge be dead! Of course, the Gran Kiltias is also dead...Then Penelo wonders where Larsa went. Al-Cid hobbles in at that point and informs us that Larsa was taken by Judge Gabranth. Larsa went with him willingly to avoid any trouble, but it is quite apparent that Judge Bergan had some different ideas in mind. Al-Cid attempted to intervene, but Bergan went crazy at that point and started attacking. Al-Cid bids with Ashe to return with him to Rozarria. Ashe says no to him because she still has a job to do. With her reply said, Al-Cid informs her that the Empire is setting up for a massive preemptive strike. He feels that she needs to try and hold everybody off, but Ashe claims she isn't finished yet. She plans to go and destroy the Dusk Shard with the Sword of Kings. Al-Cid sighs and asks if she even knows where it is.
     Balthier steps forward then to answer that question. He believes it is most likely at Draklor Laboratories in Archades (an Imperial city). That's where the Empire's weapon research begins and ends. He looks over at Ashe then and simply asks when they will leave. And thus our plan is set. Al-Cid tells the group that he will go back to Rozarria now, but he imparts a final message from Larsa before leaving. "The differences between our two lands will fade before the shared dreams of men." With that said, he finally takes his leave of us. And...then we leave the temple as well. The group starts talking about how they plan to get to Archades. It's immediately told that they can't go by sea or air because of all the Imperial forces. This leaving traveling on the ground, and thus we have to hoof it. We have to head to the North and through Nalbina. From there, we will have to cross through a forest known as Salikawood. Overall, it's going to be a lot of walking. That means I'll get in a lot of training and hopefully some looting too. At this point, I'm pretty far behind on pretty much everybody's equipment, and I've got no gil to change that otherwise.
     After this whole Bur-Omisace business, my first action was to teleport back to Rabanastre and then work from there. I check the Mark board at the Sandsea tavern, and as it turns out, I've got a whole group of new Marks to add to my slowly growing pile. I'm sooooo excited. (/end sarcasm) On a whim, I went to the Giza Plains to check the conditions. It's not raining anymore! Time to deal with that damn Cluckatrice! I go over to its hunting area, clear it out, come back, and Mark battle time! I could go into details here, but I'm so far above the thing that there's not much to say. As before, it's the Cluckatrice and three baby Chickatrices. The Chickatrices can't even hurt me at this point, and they're quickly disposed of. After them, I attacked the Clucktrice next and slaughtered the stupid bird. MARK VANQUISHED! I've only had the darn Mark since....nearly the beginning of the game!
     I head to the village in Giza Plains and turn in the Mark for my reward. As usual, it's really not much to go on, but this reward is also pretty old. I also managed to hand off that random ring I got from the Croakadile some time ago. The lady explains that the ghost guy we met was her husband. He went to search for the ring when she lost it some time ago, and well...he died. Enough of this though, it's time to get on with the marks. Next destination is Jahara on the Ozmone Plains. I find the bird-man in charge of the Mark and learn about the Mindflayer! It's some evil creature that these people are at war with, but they're too weak to handle this one so they are outsourcing it. LET THE HUNT BEGIN!
     For this Mark, I get to return to that fun location, the Henne Mines. It's a bit further in than the last mark, but this place is pretty small anyways. I locate the Mind Flayer and commence to battling! My earliest impression was that I was in for a cake walk of a boss. Despite being a magic-using demon, it didn't seem overly powerful or anything. It's -ra spells didn't seem too powerful, and things were going pretty well in my direction. THEN THE TIDES TURNED. Early on in this overly long battle, it let me know that it had a special ability to Stop people. I hadn't dealt with this status much yet, so I had no idea how long it lasted. Eventually, all three of my current members were stopped, and I had to swap out two of them to continue on. Then those people got stopped...I ended up having to keep swapping out members to keep a balance of people moving and people stopped. It heals over time, but still takes some time to do.
     I managed to get past all the Stop business and was really close to beating the monster. Then the game decided that the ultimate strategy for every Mark (after the initial group of them) is to enable them with an ability to fully recover their health no matter what. They usually use it when they have less than 10% of their health when they do this. (I'd like to add that this "ability" pisses me off. I'm incredibly tired of having to fight an enemy forever just for them to fully recover on a whim.) After it recovered, it decided to make things even more fun by Superbuffing itself. By Superbuffing, I mean it gave itself nearly all of the in-game buffs that are available. I know it had at least Protect, Shell, Haste, Bravery, and Faith. (The last two are buffs for physical and magical strikes...I think.) With itself fully healed, it turned this somewhat challenging battle into an uphill climb of ridiculousness. With its new buffs, it's magical attacks were almost triple the damage they were before.
     Before this Mark battle was said and done, I ended up doing like four rounds of Quickenings in my attempts to stop it. The Bravery and Faith statuses eventually wore off, but it still had me in a bad spot. Half of the battle was just trying to revive and heal party members. It kept using an ability called "Invert" that swapped around their HP and MP. This gave them an immediate boost in MP, but it also meant I had next to no HP. This ability went off more times than I'd care to admit...Also I didn't keep track because it happened way too often. After nearly twenty minutes of annoying, I managed to finally put the Mindflayer down with a final set of quickenings. MARK VANQUISHED!
     Well, I've had enough of this placed. I left Henne Mines and went back to Jahara for my meager reward. He also asked that I go and speak to another Garif, so I walk over to the random Garif. He tells me of a place further in Henne Mines where a powerful creature lurks. He'd ask that I do it, but he says I should come back after I have more "powerful creatures" at my command. Basicaly, I'll need to continue on and get more Espers. Well, I've had enough of Jahara, so I teleport to Mt. Bur-Omisace for other marks. (I can buy Teleport stones now, so I'm not overly worried about running out.) I check in with two people there for a pair of marks to tackle. The marks I gained were a demon thing called Feral Retriever and a white chocobo called the Trickster. I doubt I can handle both of them, but I'm figuring to take down at least one of them. The Trickster is fairly out of my rank, so I set out into the Paramina Rift to find the Feral Retriever.
     As I leave Mt. Bur-Omisace, I run into a random clan member who is also trying to hunt the Trickster. He joins with the group briefly, but he's more of a tagalong than a guest member. I don't spot the chocobo though and just continue through without any incident. The Feral Retriever is located on the path to the Stilshrine of Miriam. I easily locate the beast and commence a battling! This is the part where I'd describe that battle, but it was actually stupid amounts of easy. So...it's not worth describing. I just attacked it with regular physical strikes and finished it off with a Quickening to prevent any of that renew crap. With its defeat, I head back to Bur-Omisace to turn it in and change locale. While heading back through the Paramina Rift, I end up running into the Trickster!
     The first and most obvious thing is that it is a HUGE chocobo. On top of that, it seems to ghost about the place. (Constantly disappears and teleports all about) I ran towards it to give it a shot, but I quickly learn it's out of my league. It did 1200 damage with a single strike! I'll have to come back for this big bird, so I made a hasty retreat and went back into Bur-Omisace. I turn in the Feral Retriever for my reward and then teleport to Eruyt Village to deal with the VORPAL BUNNY! (Oh yeah, it sounds sooo menacing.) I find the Viera who made the Mark and learn all about it. There's a bunch of story stuff with it, but I honestly do not care. LET THE HUNT BEGIN! I head into the Golmore Jungle to search for this special rabbit. I end up walking all over the place in my search for the thing though. I fought quite a few monster and made some decent loot while I went about. So...I at least got that much from this hunt.
     As I start to run out of places to search, I figure to try the only unexplored area of Golmore Jungle. WHAT DO YOU KNOW? The first thing I find is the Vorpal Bunny wandering around. MARK BATTLE TIME! First and foremost, this monster is based off the generally friendly bunny species throughout the game. They're easy to kill and won't attack unless attacked. In that vein of thought, I figured this thing wouldn't be too bad. So in all honesty, I can admit it wasn't a very hard battle, but the bunny wasn't going to let itself die that easily. After I attack it, it started running all over the place, so I have to constantly chase after it. While trying to chase it, it leads me into battles with everything else in the area. Before it's all said and done, I ended up clearing the area of all other enemies. They weren't beyond my level though, so it was just minor setbacks.
     The biggest problem was keeping up with it. It managed to escape me one time, and when I found it again, it was back at full health. So...I have to find it and beat it before it gets away, or I'll get to restart the whole process. The little rabbit was just fast enough to stay out of my reach. I had to keep cutting it off to get any attack in. I ended up switching my party to Balthier and Fran for use of their ranged weapons. I attempted a Quickening Combo, but I dropped the ball on the timing and ended up wasting it. Since the chasing method was working, I just stuck with it. This made the overall battle take quite some time, but it was pretty much all time and no challenge. Balthier and Fran having ranged weapons definitely helped because they were able to hit more often than I could as Vaan with a sword. After chasing it for no telling how long, I finally finished the rabbit off....MARK VANQUISHED! Time to turn in and reel in the goods.
     Back in Eruyt Village, I go and talk with the Viera again. I hand over the Vorpal Bunny's tail and story stuff! There's a whole thing about needing the tail for a friend who wants to become a master medicine bunny or something like that. It's not that important to me though, and I really didn't care. I took the reward and went to leave the village. However, before I left, I took to the save crystal because I'm cutting the post off here. In the next post, I'm planning to off a few more marks and then continue on with the story. So...stay tuned!
     On a final note, I'm going to apologize for the huuuge gap in posts. This one has been about 90% ready since...like late last week. I've been busy with other stuff though, so I haven't gotten in nearly the playtime that I should to finish the game up sooner rather than later. I'm probably going to double down before the month is up and just finish it. I'll end up skipping some of the side stuff, but I'm more than ready to just be done with the game. It's not been as enjoyable (IMO) as pretty much all of the Final Fantasy titles before it. I've said enough for now though...THANKS FOR READING! Recurring Fantasy...out.

Ending Point - Eruyt Village.
Current Party -

• Vaan - Level 32
• Balthier - Level 32
• Fran - Level 32

Goals Accomplished - Ventured around Ivalice. Defeated the Ixtab Mark. Journeyed through the Golmore Jungle and defeated the Elder Wyrm. Went through the Paramina Rift and finally made it to Mt. Bur-Omisace. Sat through a pile of scenes and learned about happenings. Traveled to the Stilshrine of Miriam and claimed the Sword of Kings. Returned to Mt. Bur-Omisace and dealt with the Judge Bergan. Defeated  several Marks, including the Cluckatrice, Mind Flayer, Feral Retriever, and the Vorpal Bunny.
Next Goals - Defeat more Marks. Head to Archades and prevent the war.

~May the Crystals Guide Me~

Day 80

Game - Final Fantasy XII, Day 80
Hours Played/Hours Total - 10-1/2 hrs / 38 hrs
Starting Point - Rabanastre, South Gate.
Current Goal - Prepare for the next part. Head south through Giza Plains to the Garif village.

What Happened - Final Fantasy XII is starting to show some fun moments here and there! I'm slightly surprised, but I was getting a tad bored of it. Doesn't help that I have several new games I want to play as well though...Anyways, things are looking up, and if I can keep after the game, I'll have it done in NO time! Let's get down to it.
     My current selection of goals was to try and weed out some of the Marks I recently collected. Of those, I decided it was time to take out my old friend the Cluckatrice. Unfortunately, I think I have missed out on that mark completely. The area is different due to the rainy season, and I'm unable to clear out the plains area the Cluckatrice was in. The problem lies in ONE enemy, the Storm Elemental. It's level isn't that much higher, but it throws out a Thundara spell that could almost wipe out my entire team. For now, I'll have to give up on the Cluckatrice. (Currently thinking I won't ever be able to do it, but I'll just wait and see for now.) Since the Cluckatrice is out, I decided to attempt the next mark on the list...the Croakadile. (Yes, the names are horrible.)
     The Croakadile likes to troll around a bridge in the southern section of the Giza Plains. I quickly spotted it and charged at it for MARK BATTLE TIME! The initial thought I had when the battle started was that it was pretty powerful and intimidating. However, I quickly threw out a round of Quickenings, and that took off around a third of its health. From there, I just had to keep after it with physical strikes. All in all, it was a decently hard fought battle, but it looked like the odds were in my favor. The Croakadile's vanquish-ness was imminent, but then...it pulled out two insanely annoying and game breaking moves. It cast two spells that completely changed the battle and forced me to run away. The first ability (missed the name) caused it to double its current levels. (Screw you Croakadile.) That would have been acceptable if it weren't for the second ability...Renew. With Renew cast, the Croakadile was restored to max HP from basically nothing. I won't comment further on this because it'd just be a big pile of swear words. *Insert angry sweary-ness here*
     With its levels doubled and health renewed, I had to end up running away from the monster. Thankfully, the big toad couldn't cross the nearby bridge, so I was able to heal up and restart. At this point, I was very disgruntled. I had it at nearly 10% of its health when it basically doubled its efforts and fully healed itself. However, this time, I pulled out an old trick that is insanely cheap. So take THAT Croakadile! I charged back at the beast, and the first thing I did was cast Blind on it. As luck would have it, the first casting of Blind struck true. And thus was the downfall of the Croakadile. You might wonder how, but it's actually pretty simple. With Blind on it, it's hit chance was pretty low. When you combine that against someone who uses a shield, which gives you a bonus to evasion (although it's technically blocking), you basically just get a big pile of screw you enemy. With Blind and Vaan's shield, I was blocking at least four out of every five attacks. Unable to hit, all that was left to this battle was a little time and patients. Apart from the regular attacks, I did take a little time to cast Protect on my party. Of course, that was just to eliminate having to heal Vaan so much. (Anything that did hit was pretty hurting.) After way too long of time, I finally defeat the toad! MARK VANQUISHED!
     Then the person who posted the Mark has a second task for me. The Croakadile dropped a ring, and he wants me to take it to someone. Of course, he didn't really give me a name or a location, so...I'm not going to do that. I considered doing it for whatever reward it brings, but I didn't really feel like wasting the time for now. Instead, I head back into Rabanastre to sell off what loot I have. I didn't have much to sell though, but I gained more marks...3 new marks. All three of the new marks are higher ranks, and I'm pretty sure I can't handle any of them! Since I can't deal with the marks, I decide to focus my efforts on looting. I need to upgrade everybody's armor anyways. I head out into the Dalmasca Westersand to explore, loot, and find out more about the Mark known as the Ring Wyrm. (Yeaaah, they went there.)
     As luck would have it, I almost immediately found the Ring Wyrm. It was exactly as I predicted too! The giant dragon was completely out of my league. I took a chance though and unleashed a Quickening combo on it. Even with a decently preformed set of Quickenings, I barely scratched the surface of the Ring Wyrm's HP. Then it unleashed its own attacks and killed two people without trying. Time to escape! With that Mark a huge bust, I decided to stick to leveling and looting. I spent quite some time exploring the Westersands, and that exploration eventually took me down into the Zertinan Caverns. Unfortunately, most of the enemies down here are at least 10+ levels above my own. I fought off the enemies I could while avoiding the rest, and somehow my exploration took me to a mysterious cave. The cave...was home to a special cutscene boss. Some sort of flying demon thing charged at the group and wiped out the entire immediate party with a single attack. Thankfully, this game lets you bring in your alternates even when the entire group is wiped out. I swapped in and made a run for it. Seeing as I'm not having any luck here, I figure it's time to turn in my loot.
     Loot is quickly approaching my list of "things I don't like about FFXII". Why? Because I spend forever killing a pile of enemies so that I can obtain a pile of loot. The loot, in turn, sells for next to nothing and takes forever to build up enough to purchase what I need. In all honesty, I'm probably doing it wrong, but I've rarely had money problems up until this game. I'm also tired of the random monsters that are seemingly five times more powerful than they really are for their level. (Looking at YOU Storm Elemental.) /end rant Seeing as I'm getting bored with it, I decided it was time to move right along.
     If you don't remember, my current goal was to reach the Ozmone Plains. To get there, I have to head south through the Giza Plains. I quickly reach the Ozmone Plains, and basically, it's just a nicer looking Giza Plains without the rain. There are quite an assortment of monsters about, but nothing here really gives me any trouble. As I typed that, a fun group of flying enemies head my way, and most of my party doesn't have ranged weapons. I have to resort to magic use on those guys, and I quickly push through them. Not a whole lot to add about the Ozmone Plains at this time. I did get slightly lost on where to go, and I even went an entirely wrong direction in all of this. The designers must have figured this would happen, so they threw in a few adventurers to point me in the right direction. They said I was going in the wrong direction, so I had to simply turn around and go further south. Finally! After a lot of death dealt out to a lot of monsters, I finally arrive in Jahara, land of the Garif.
     I quickly learn that the Garif are a different race of people. They're sort of a combination between a human and a bird, but they have fur. (The face looks bird-ish.) They're bodies are mostly human-like, but they have a bird-like face with antlers and such. (I found out later that these are masks.) As I approach the front gate, there are a pair of Garifs guarding who won't let me enter inside. Then a random Garif walks up and vouches for us. He saw us fighting on the plains and apparently that is more than enough for him. The other Garifs refer to him as War-Chief and ask him if he is sure about that. He says that he'll take responsibility for us, so we're allowed inside! As we get past the guards, the Garif introduces himself as Supinelu. After the introductions, he asks us why we are here. Vaan tells him (silently with no words...) about what is going on, and how we need to speak with the Elders. He explains the mask thing and lets us go about our business.
     As I start looking around Jahara, it's quite apparent...These guys are basically American Indian clones. They're all spiritual warriors who live with nature and have fancy tents and such. Anyways, as I'm looking around for the elders, I run into one of the higher ranking garifs. He's an elder, but he doesn't have anything to tell us about the Dawn Stone. (That thing we've been trying to learn about.) However, before we leave him, he gives us some fancy stick thing and asks us to deliver it to Supinelu. I take the stick over to him, and that starts up a small scene. He says that if that Elder didn't know, we'd have to talk with the Great Elder. That isn't going to be easy to arrange though, but then Ashe steps forward. She says that she has come this far and won't be stopped here. She's a royal descendant of Dalmasca and wishes to learn more about the nethicite and the stones of the Dynast-King. She claims that the Garif must know because they all seem to somehow have knowledge that no one else does. After her little speech, he simply asks for proof of her lineage. She doesn't have any, but he lets her through anyways. Time to go see the Great Elder!...after a little side trip.
     Waaay back there, I got a Mark for a monster down here in the Ozmone Plains. The Mark maker is in the village, so I quickly find him and learn more. After that, I head out to find the Mark! I wander all over Ozmone Plains and end up in an area called the Golmore Jungle. (It looks more like a cave really...) I head back to Jahara and find out that I couldn't find the mark because I was missing a few details. There was a random garif that had some vital information for me. Basically, you can only approach the Mark after dealing with all the enemies in the area he appears. (It's not a new tactic, but it's still necessary information.) Blargh! I decide to move on and talk with the old Great Elder instead. I approach the center tent and time for a long series of scenes.
     Ashe approaches the Chief and shows him the nethicite. He notices that it has been used, but then he adds that he actually has no idea of how to use it. So...this was basically a huge bust. He goes into a large story here about the origin of the nethicite. The Gods gave his people the gift of the nethicite, but they didn't know how or what to use it for. This angered the Gods, so they took the nethicite back and gave it to a hume King, the Dynast-King, instead. He took the stones and used them to bring about an age of peace to his people. The Chief finds it strange that despite her royal blood, she can't wield the nethicite like the Dynast-King did. Ashe responds to all of this with "So...you can't tell me how to use it then..." He apologizes for his inability to help her, but he adds in a surprising fact.
     Even with the ability to use it, the nethicite she has is basically dead. The Mist that was once collected inside has dwindled, and the power inside of it is pretty much gone. He adds that despite being void of power, the stone seems to want to drain the world of its power. Whether good or evil, men or magic, the stone seems drawn to people with intentions of power. (My translation of what he said. It was longer and word-ier than that.) During all of this, Larsa shows up. He asks Ashe to accompany him to help put a stop to an upcoming war. He says we need to get moving right now. Of course, this just brings on a line of thought (for me) going "...what?"
     Larsa explains that Marquis Ondore is leading a large resistance to face off with the Empire. (Learned this a while back from the history scene.) However, the true problem is that Rozarria is planning to aid in the endeavor and use it as a pretense to start a war with Archadia. He wants her to go with him to Bur-Omisace. Once there, they'll get the blessing of the herpa-derpa globba wabbo wang tang council (I just...can't care about the real council name.). With their blessing, Ashe will be allowed to reclaim the crown and restore the Kingdom of Dalmasca. As Queen, she could call for Peace and stop the Marquis from starting this fight with the Empire. Of course, Ashe brings up an important and angry point after he says his piece.
     He talks about Peace with the Empire, but they are to blame for all of this. The Empire started it by attacking Dalmasca and stealing everything from them. Yet, he asks that she saves them from War. Larsa explains that Dalmasca would be the battlefield, and what if Nethicite was used on Rabanastre? He reminds her that his brother wouldn't hold back in doing something like that. Ashe doesn't really have a response for that, and he apologizes and claims he didn't know what else to do. If she is truly unsure of his motives, he asks her to hold him hostage. And...that is all for that. We make a small time-jump forward, and Ashe is contemplating all of this. She spots Ghost Prince of Dead Guy, Rasler, and heads towards him only to find...Vaan again. He asks her if she saw him again, and she is sure now that Vaan saw him back there. They start talking about Vaan's brother next (Basch brought her up to speed on it). To be honest, I didn't really care about this conversation, so I didn't make any notes here. It's just emotional character-story stuff, and although I'd normally care, I just can't with these guys. /end scene
     Next thing I know, Ashe is talking with Larsa and has agreed to accompany him to Mt. Bur-Omisace. He's glad to hear that, but she says still has some questions and hopes to get them answered. As we are about to leave, he adds that there is someone he wants her to meet on Bur-Omisace. This person is supposedly both an ally and an enemy to her, but she'll have to wait and see who it is. Larsa sure likes them secrets, and the group heads out. As they are moving along, Basch is talking with Balthier and Fran in the back. Basch talks of the Empire's airships being unable to follow us to Mt Omisace. Balthier mentions that the Leviathan didn't have any trouble with the Sandsea or marching straight towards the Tomb of Raithwell. Apparently, there is something about how ships are able to fly that keeps them from flying certain places. It is assumed there is something to do with the nethicite. Basch asks why Balthier is even with them and what he is possibly after. He's great help for them in all of this, but what is it that Balthier truly wants. Basch belives he is interested in the stone, but Balthier claims that is the furthest thing from his mind. He's here to see this story to its end...and dodge the question (more or less). Oh well! Time to move right along.
     Larsa joins the party as a guest, and we move to head out of Jahara. As I go to leave, the Garif War-Chief gives me a Bowgun and some Onion Bolts for it. He also offers us a free Chocobo ride and wishes us luck on our quest. Finally! I get to leave this place. Sure, the scene was only fifteen minutes at most, but since I have to pause and take notes, it was at least double that for me. Anyways, the first thing I have in mind is to finish up the Mark I got in Jahara. I head out to a spot known as The Shard and prepare for the Mark. Supposedly, the monster, called Enkelados, doesn't like these giant Wu birds, so I have to clear them out first. After clearing them out, I leave, come back, and MARK TIME! The Enkelados is a massive stone monster, and it's not going to be taken down too easily. First things first, I throw out a huge Quickening combo of 7 hits (It's a large combo for me...Other people probably do better.). This takes out at least 3/4ths of the monster's HP, but then it just immediately recovers it all to piss me off. From there, it is at about half, so I just have to widdle it down from here. With an extra member, I'm able to wail at it with an extra weapon hand. It's not the best or most complex strategy, but we beat him easily. MARK VANQUISHED!
     I head back to Jahara to turn in the Mark, and then I do a little shopping to restock items and upgrade my equipment. I managed to slightly improve my setup, but I really wasn't that satisfied with it. A random thought struck me at this point, and I teleported off to the Dalmasca Estersand to take care of something. Remember that side quest with the lady and the medicine? If you do, good memory and thanks for reading! If you don't, no big deal really...I want to say I first worked on it back on like the first or second day of FFXII progress. Regardless, it is time to finish this side quest for good! Last thing I remember, I needed to head across the water to finish up this quest. To do that, I need a boat, but the only guy with the boat was last seen going to the other side. Luckily, it floats back, but he's not present. His son comes along and takes us over because he wants to know what is up. We head to the other side, and it seems that Cactoids are to blame. They're holding the village on the opposite side hostage because of a missing family member. Now we get to head back and locate the little guy.
     Of course, the first thought about the missing cactoid was...Have we possibly already killed it? The missing one has a flower on its head, and we did just kill one waaay back there. As fate has it though, the flower from the flowering cactoid is quickly found AND sprouts a new cactoid from it somehow. We take that cactoid to the other side, and the group seems happy enough with the scenario and finally leave. With that done, I can now freely venture into the desert beyond and collect the ingredient for more medicine. I quickly find out that it's probably best that I randomly waited until now. The enemies aren't necessarily hard, but they're close enough to my level that I'd have had some trouble dealing with them. Along the way, I meet a Sauren enemy (t-rex) and blow the crap out of him with Quickenings...kinda on a whim. I could have beat him regularly, but it would have required a lot more time and effort than I wanted to use. Anyways, I head to a northern part of the desert area, find the ingredient, and head back to the village.
     I hand over the ingredient to the woman, and she informs me that the guy I've been helping to heal is finally well. I go out back to talk to him. He thanks me for helping him and hands over a key and a lousy item. I'd like to thank the game for a pretty long and pointless side quest. With that done, I'm pretty limited on overall options. I can't beat any of the current marks I have, but I don't really feel like leveling up. So...guess it is time to move on! Now we move onward...to Mt Omisace! To get there, we have to cross through the Golmore Junlge, so I set sail for Golmore Jungle. This of course took me through the Ozmone Plains. Nothing to see there...and finally, the GOLMORE JUNGLE! As I'm approaching the jungle...guess what happened? A SCENE! SURPRISE! (I was super surprised.../end sarcasm)
     The group is heading towards the jungle, and Ashe starts talking with Basch. Basch is questioning Larsa's whole plan for the future, and he doesn't think that there can be peace between Dalmasca and the Empire. Ashe doesn't really want to go through with it, but she feels there aren't a lot of other options to avoid a war. Basch comments that it might cause shame for him, but it could give hope to Dalmasca. Ashe doesn't know how he could bear that shame, but he simply reminds her of everything he's been through. He'd rather carry that shame than let the people of Dalmasca suffer through more wartime. Ashe is unsure if her people would even approve of the idea. Basch looks over at Vaan, Penelo, and Larsa getting along, and he feels that there is some hope. Now...we shift over to a completely different scene.
     It's back over in Archadia, and there are a pair of judges I haven't seen before. They're discussing Lord Vayne when a third one enters the scenario. They start talking MORE about Lord Vayne, but I'm not going into details because it's a big pile of political games. Basically, there are three Judges here, and they all have different opinions of Vayne. As all of the Judges are talking, Gabranth enters the scene and says something about a meeting. Two of the Judges move right along, but the third one stays behind to talk with Gabranth. The 3rd Judge, known as Drace, asks Gabranth about Lord Larsa's current plan. It seems the plan involves the ally on Mt Omisace, and that all of this is to push back Ondore's insurgence force. Both of them seem to be quite pleased with Larsa's progress. They talk about how the Senate believes they are in control of Larsa, but the Senate will soon find out they're quite wrong. Unfortunately, when that happens, the Senate will try to strike him down, and the two Judges plan to protect Larsa at all costs. Finally...the scene ends. (Apologies for the horrible summary, but there was a lot of talking and nothing I found interesting...Moving along.)
     Time to enter Golmore Jungle! I move right along the "jungle" path and fight off the monsters as I go. Most of the enemies aren't any real challenge, but I do have to avoid a few spots where the enemies are way over my level. (Yeaaah, this game just loves to do that.) Things are progressing pretty well when suddenly...a giant blue circle of blocking-ness! I can't go that way, so...I move along to find a different path. This brings up another giant blue circle, but this time, a scene plays to explain things somewhat. Fran says that something in the forest won't, but she adds that it isn't us but her instead. She walks around to a different spot with Balthier, and the two of them start talking about something all mysterious-like. Balthier adds in something about it being both of them, and that the Nethicite has him troubled and all. She does some weird light-tracing magickyness with her finger, and then a path opens up random into the jungle area. After the path opens, she informs the group that we need the permission of the Viera here. Penelo says to her that they'll be glad to see Fran after so long, but it's obvious that something is up here. Fran tells her she is unwelcome here...so yeah. I follow the magical path, and that takes us straight into...ERUYT VILLAGE!
     As we enter the village, Fran directs us to go and find someone called Mjrn (prounounced me-yern) and bring her to her. She stays on the outskirt of the village because she isn't really supposed to be here anyways. I head onward into the village to look for Mjrn. While I'm doing so, I'm finding out quite quickly...Vieras are a big pile of jerks. They want nothing to do with our group, and they say very little beyond "unwelcome" or "don't want to talk to you". Regardless of their negativeness, I continue my search through the village right into...a scene! Unfortunately, the scene is pre-tensed with a lovely message of "You're not welcome here. Leave now!" Vaan inquires into the one who more directly approached them and asks about a Mjrn. Of course, they just respond by telling us to leave because we are unwelcome. Vaan says they aren't leaving until they find her and turns around to look some more.
     At this point, Fran shows up and says something about speaking with the woods and Mjrn not being here. She asks the one who directly talked to us, Jote, where she might be. This Jote asks Fran why she would possibly want to know. This drags on for a bit, but basically, Viera can somehow "speak" with the woods. Fran can't though because she abandoned the woods, and Jote adds in that Viera who leave the woods aren't truly Viera anymore. There's details about it involving the Green Word and their people's laws in general. Vaan tells them to leave the laws out of it, and we'll just go on by ourselves. For some reason, this makes Jote decide to give us something. She gets all weird aura, starts talking with the woods, and then tells us exactly what we wanted to know. Mjrn has left and wandered off into the west. She makes a mention of men covered in cold iron and warring. Before they completely leave, Fran tells her something about leaving being a choice (really crapped down but basically yeah...). Jote adds taht Fran told her the same thing fifty years ago. Overall, this entire visit, in my opinion, was a huge bust. Time to go now.
     As we are leaving the village, Balthier thanks Vaan because apparently he's the only reason we got what information we did. Of course, Vaan apparently ruins his moment of glory by asking how old Fran is. Everybody is all like "OHMYGOSH! SO RUDE!" I'll be honest...I was kinda curious too. Oh well! The group figures that our destination is an Archadian magicite mine to the south known as Henne Mines. Basically, I have to backtrack before I can proceed onward...for story! I head back out of the jungle and onto the Ozmone Plains. As I head out, there's a pair of Imperial soldiers nearby. One of them is injured, and his friend asks us for a potion. I'm a nice guy so I give him one. As I give them the potion, they thank me and offer me the use of their Chocobo. He adds that the Chocobo is necessary to access some of the paths on the Ozmone Plains, including Henne Mines. As he says that though, he tells us that we shouldn't go there because bad things are currently happening. Of course, we are going to ignore this and continue anyways. I jump on the Chocobo and ride my very first Chocobo in FFXII!
     The first thing that strikes me is...I have a timer on the thing. I'm only given 180 seconds to run around on the thing. Of course, it moves pretty fast, and enemies aren't a problem while riding. (That I know of...) I also get a sprint bar with three fruits in it, so I can sprint three times. Sprinting is crazy fast though! The only hint the guy gave me about the path I need to take is to look for chocobo footprints. I get out and look all around, and I never spot the darn footprints. I have a general idea of the location I need to get to based on the map, but I have no clue how to get to that part. I run around quite a bit trying to find the path, but I end up running out of Chocobo time. I run back to the Imperials and borrow their Chocobo again. This time, I work my way down to a southern part of the Ozmone Plains where I randomly notice Chocobo footprints! The footprints lead me through a grouping of bushes that I can't walk through as a person. I go through and find myself at a cave entrance! Huzzah! I disembark the Chocobo and go inside for a scene!
     The group is approaching the entrance to the mines when they notice a big pile of dead bodies scattered about. Obviously, this is a bad sign of what lies ahead. Larsa identifies some of the bodies as researchers from the Draklor Laboratories. He wonders why they could possibly be there, and Balthier points out the obvious...research! There are also dead Imperial Guards, but nobody seems to really care for that matter. Anyways, let's ignore the dead bodies and enter HENNE MINES! I don't go too far inside when I spot a random switch. Throwing caution to the wind, I immediately press it. Luckily enough, I had to press this switch anyways to continue forward because it opens a gate. I head on through, and that takes me to a cross ways with four directions. At this crossing, I discover what the true puzzle of this place is...switching gates. The switch will open either blue or red gates, but while one is open, the other is closed. I accidentally switched over the gates again at this point, and that just led me through a large circle. Oh well! Just a small amount of time wasted, but when I came back, I ran into one of the most annoying parts of this dungeon.
     I wander back into the cross ways, and then a group of flans, called Jellies, drop down to pick a fight. I wasn't horribly worried when they initially dropped down, but they proved to be incredibly annoying. They weren't the hardest enemy around, but the Jellies have a fun little technique called Duplicate. Every time I beat one, it had already spawned another one. On top of that, the new ones spawn with full health, so I have to keep after them or end up with even MORE Jellies to kill. I ended up killing at least ten of them before this little battle was all said and done. I'm not even sure how long it took to beat them because they kept confusing my party members on top of everything else. I eventually pushed through these jerks, switched the gates back, and moved right along.
     From there, I had to fight quite a few bats. This mine is crawling with bats...and then it changed from bats to demon horses. That's quite a change if you ask me. They were slightly harder than the bats, but nothing to really worry about. Then suddenly there were T-Rexs! Down in the mines! How'd they get down there? I started to think "Way to go FFXII!", but then I realized that basically all RPGs, especially Final Fantasy titles, tend to have random monsters in random places. So a T-Rex in the middle of a mine seems to be somewhat appropriate really. Glossing past that, I come to another set of door switch-ary. Somehow, I got confused at this point though and missed the switch. I ended up wandering around a bit and running into ANOTHER crossways with...more Jellies. I fought sixteen of the damn things in a confined space. If I hadn't resorted to area effect spells like Aero and Dark, I might have actually died right there. (Although... I did have fun since it was actually a challenge.) I wandered around for a bit and killed quite a few bats along with a couple T-Rexs. Eventually worked my way back around and located the switch. (No idea how I missed it...Maybe I'm just stupid?)
     This leads me right into a room for a lovely scene. Larsa tells the group that Draklor must be here looking for new ore veins. What with the resistance pushing on and Bhujerba closing off, the Empire will be hurt by the lack of ore veins. They'll need to start locating new ones. After that, they all walk forward and gasp at a big pile of dead soldiers. That is except for Fran. Fran simply says something about the Mist being here and that she is here. They look up and there's a Viera stumbling about...Mjrn! She yells at the group about the stench of humes and their power-hungry ways. She points over to Ashe, calls her power-hungry, and then runs off all weird like. Time to chase after that cwazy wabbit. (Apologies! I couldn't help it...) We head after her and that leads us straight to a dragon! BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     My first and foremost complaint is...How'd this big dragon even get in the mines? It's massive and couldn't have possibly just got down here. Oh whatever! Let's fight this guy! The dragon is called Tiamat, but it isn't nearly as cool or epic as a Tiamat should be. Honestly, this was a pretty easy fight. It wasn't really a pushover, but the darn thing didn't really have any big guns. It did throw out some fancy status effects. The only one that really affected me was Disable though. (Disable does exactly what it says. You can't do ANY actions while disabled.) Unfortunately for Tiamat, my entire team has the Esuna spell and a few Remedies just in case. The Remedy in this game is jacked up though.
     Not to suddenly stop everything, but I wish to explain. In regular FF titles, Remedy is the cure-all of statuses. It's kinda like the bottled form of Esuna, but in FFXII, Remedy only cures a handful of things. However, you can unlock more cures for Remedy on the License Board. It's pretty lame if you ask me, but I won't go into a rant here. Enough about this, back to the battle!
     The only real change I had to make while fighting Tiamat was changing Vaan's weapon. The current blade I had was wind-based, and each strike kept healing Tiamat. I just swapped it out though, so problem solved.  It didn't take much to finish off the massive dragon, and it was all BLARGH, DEAD! The only thing left to say about Tiamat is...Why did they put the weird metal rings around its neck and front legs? Or any dragon for that matter...I DON'T GET IT! Oh well, with the battle finished, it's time to commence with the scene. Mjrn is still stumbling about, but now it seems we've spotted the reason for her crazy. She drops a piece of manufactured nethicite, and a strange ghost-like creature appears and then disappears from behind her. Fran goes to her as she collapses, and Mjrn looks up and asks if it is really her.
     Small time jump later, Mjrn is explaining what happened. Hume soldiers came into the woods recently. Normally, the viera don't worry too much about things like that unless the woods were in peril. However, Mjrn felt uneasy about it and wanted to know why they came. Balthier fills in the rest saying that she came into the mines and got caught by whatever that creature behind her was. It's also revealed that she is Fran's sister. She adds that the humes caught her and put the stone next to her. They claimed that the mist would be drawn to her, and that it'd be an end suiting a viera. Unfortunately, the stone caused her to go crazy, and Fran related to this based on her frenzy about the Leviathan with the Dawn Shard. Larsa realizes it was the manufactured nethicite, and he asks Penelo where she put it. She pulls it out, and Larsa takes it from her. He says he didn't realize how dangerous it was and feels bad for giving it to her. She says it is okay though, and the nethicite did protect them that one time. Ashe adds in something about there being a place for dangerous things...I think. I didn't really catch it. Time to magically scene teleport!
     And we are back at Eruyt Village. Jote greets the group at the front and says that the woods whispered to her. She gives us something called Lente's Tear and informs us that we can now travel through the forest with it. Jote turns to leave, but then Mjrn speaks up. She tells Jote that can't be all, and that Ivalice is changing around them. They can't just sit back anymore and do nothing. Jote responds that Ivalice is for humes, and the woods is their place. Mjrn says she is wrong! How can they hide inside the woods when everything outside of the woods is changing so much. Mjrn says she will leave this place, but Fran cuts in at this point. She tells Mjrn that she can't let her do that. Mjrn needs to stay and keep the woods and village. She doesn't belong with the humes. Fran won her freedom, but it was at a great cost. She can't hear the woods anymore, and she doesn't want this for her sister. Mjrn pleas with her, but Fran says she isn't her sister anymore...Mjrn only has one sister to turn to now. Mjrn walks off, and Jote apologizes for making her do that. Fran reponds by saying it was her duty. She feels it is up to her to to keep others from straying from forest law since she doesn't uphold it anymore. (That's how I interpreted that.)
     Not to cut in, but this little bit of face time with the Viera has made me not enjoy them. They're less of fun bunny ladies and more like a big pile of elves from most universes. As far as most elves go, they generally seem to have a set of pointless law nonsense, and they never want to get involved with the other races. It tends to go to the point of "The world is ending...but we will not get involved." Way to go Viera! I can't appreciate your bunny lady ways thanks to you basically being lame elf clones. (There are good elf types, but I'm not going into it.) As a final note..there don't seem to be any male Viera around. What's up with that?...Going back to the conversation now.
     Fran asks Jote (assuming this is her other sister) to listen to the wood's voice for her. Fran thinks the woods hates her, but Jote tells her otherwise. The woods misses its child that has left it, but Fran believes it to be a pleasant lie and goes to leave. Jote warns her that the woods is jealous of the humes that have taken her. They need to be careful as they venture on. Fran bids Jote farwell...and identifies her as the other sister at this point. Well! Time to pack up and leave this village. Before I go though, I hit up the moogle merchants at the village entrance. I sell off what goods I have and prepare to move along. (If I didn't mention it earlier, these moogles are the ones we rescued on the Leviathan. The little guys made it off thankfully.) There is one good thing that comes out of this. I'm finally allowed to purchase the -ra spells! Of course, that leaves me broke...Yaaay. The next step is to finally head for Mt. Omisace.
     Well! This is as good a place as any to end the post. I'll be heading for Mt. Omisace next, but I'll probably want to get in some extra training and looting first. As usual, this game makes it incredibly easy to have no money. You have to spend forever gaining it up, and then you'll go through most of it just attempting to upgrade a few characters. Really feeling like a long and arduous process to do ANYTHING in the game. Oh well, I'll hit up a few marks and hopefully gain some money along the way. On top of all of this, I've pushed the completion of FFXII on into March. I was hoping February, but I got distracted with other games. It's hard to help at times, but I can't RPG all the time. You gotta have some variety! I'd like to say thanks to my loyal readers (if you exist...) and hope to see you next time on...RECURRING FANTASY!

Ending Point - Eruyt Village.
Current Party -

• Vaan - Level 28
• Balthier - Level 29
• Fran - Level 28

Goals Accomplished - Defeated the Croakadile mark. Made it through the Ozmone Plains and to Jahara, home of the Garif. Learned a little about the Nethicite's history, but I didn't learn anything about how to use it. Gained Larsa as a guest member. Defeated another mark. Began to venture through Golmore Jungle, but then I couldn't. Went into the Henne Mines in search of Mjrn. Found Mjrn and returned her to Eruyt Village.
Next Goals - Journey beyond the woods and reach Mt Omisace.

~May the Crystals Guide Me~