Side quest and loot prep

I just got my first esper and the dusk shard, and I am suppose to be traveling to the see the garif. But I decided it was a good time to do all the possible side quests, etc.

I pretty much need like 100k just to buy all the stuff I need, and it isn't looking to good right now.

I have like 5 marks available right now, but they're all looking pretty rough though...White mousse, Gil snapper, the for whom the wyrm tolls one as well, and 2 others I think.

Party is pretty much around lvl 20 (underleveled maybe?).

I pretty much can't really decide what to do yet.

Any suggestions or advice on what I should do or try to do before I continue on my journey...

EDIT : Also, where can i find magick like "decoy" and etc. Becasue I can't find anything.

That's where I stopped playing tonight. I'am at lvl 20 with everyone and wouldn't considered it underleveled. If you've been keeping up with the hunts, then before you went to where you got the first esper none were available, then suddenly five of them open up. You can't get to the white mousse yet, ring worm is too tough and gil snapper probably is too. You're nowhere near ready to make it to the Maralith fight, much less beat it. I don't know about the other two. The only thing you can really do is make some gil then move on to Garif. Make sure you do the sidequest started at West Gate first. Buy modern equipment before moving on. For gil I recommend either chaining skeletons in the mines at Bhujerba, or chaining the "sand people" where you just came from. There might be a sidequest going on with the people in Estersand being sick, but I haven't gone to the village yet to check.

I second the recommendation to build up gil chaining skeletons in the Lhusu Mines. That's how I built up money enough to pick up the items I wanted before moving on around that time. In general the bones yield more gil than the sandpeople. Some levels will come along with the gil-collecting, so I wouldn't worry about that.

As for the spells, I can never remember where everything is, but I would check Rabanastre, Nalbina, and Bhujerba each, then just check incidental villages and stuff for anything else, but I wouldn't make it a point to search them out unless there's something specific you're looking for.

For the record, you can get to the White Mousse. You have to take the fourth path on the right or something. The enemies there are pretty damn hard though. As for Gil, I also suggest Lhusu mines, on the second bridge. I remember building a nice 50+ chain just walking back and forth.

You should be fine to take out the hunt in the Sandsea near the esper temple and the other one in the Plains. I did so today. The one near the temple at level twenty with some challenge, and the plains at lvls 22/23.

You can get decoy when you get to where you're ultimately supposed to go after going to see the Garif. At least, that's where I got it and a lot of the other magic I was wanting (float and haste anyone?). I got a couple of nice ~70 chains in a place after that xD

Marilith is actually pretty easy to get to, I'm just glad I was able to run away fast enough.

I would try to continue with the storyline, use your summon to take out hard groups that might gang up on you and run from the rest if you need to. There's a couple of hunts that open up after you go to Garif-land that aren't too hard, if you can make it through the plains easily.

Definitely don't try to take on the white mousse ;ooo I tried to go down there and ran into just two monsters that had far more HP than I was ready to get rid of in a normal monster, so I quickeninged my way out of that place and hurried back to the surface.