In this episode, we scale the Tower of Babil once more to snatch the seven crystals from under Golbez's nose. Yes, I know it seems like we've been at the part of the story for awhile. Don't worry though, we won't be scaling the tower for a third time.
I think.
Anyway, so where we left off, Edge had just gotten trounced by Rubicante, the archfiend of fire and the last one standing. Rubicante vanishes, and we're left babysitting a character who is like, a good fifteen levels or so behind us. I'm sure he'll be fine!
:shobon:
To compensate, I give him the 'Reach' augment which allows him to deal front-row damage from a back-row position, which'll help him as he's a fragile speedster type. He still does pretty pants damage, but I'm sure he'll (eventually) become a damage-dealer.
Edge, Cecil and the others go back to the Tower, where Edge sneaks us back in through the power of spinning round and round super fast.
Just put it down to mad ninja skills, I guess. We traipse around getting map bonuses and generally laying down the hurt on enemies. I notice Edge has a stealing ability but honestly it has a fairly low chance of success with most enemies (16% or so) so I ignore it.
Eventually we reach an area that holds... huh?
Uh-oh. This isn't going to go well, is it.
It even comes complete with totally-not-threatening ellipses... yes...
Yep, they're monsters.
Edge talks to them to try and make them see sense. Meanwhile we just keep attacking them because there's not much else to do, really.
On and on this goes for a few minutes actually until eventually...
The King and Queen of Eblan die, leaving Edge to his grief. Doesn't it make you want to cry?
As if taking his cue, Rubicante appears to tell us how emotional we are. After Edge's parents died. How dare us!
He also tells us how exactly they became monsters. Turns out our good ol' friend Dr. Lugae did it. Which does sound like something he'd do.
Tapping into his inner anger, Edge finds something within himself to go super-saiyan and unlock his latent powers.
It's a classic 'the bad guy cannot comprehend emotion' but it's effective nonetheless. Let's show Rubicante the power of emotion!
Rubicante throws down the gaunlet like he's reciting a passage from Dante's Inferno.
He even fully heals us beforehand, like a gentleman. A fiery, evil gentleman.
So we go into combat with the final archfiend. He's actually laughably easy. The main thing to do is steal from him whenever he opens his mantle. This causes us to steal his manhood and emasculate him into cancelling his ultimate attack. The real reason is probably different, but I like that interpretation.
Edge is on steal duty, and everyone else just attacks. I'm done before stealing his second testicle.
Ah, we beat him not only with the power of our emotions, but also with the cliche power of friendship!
He disappears, just in time for the calvary arrive and do nothing. Edge's people want him to help rebuild Eblan, but after giving Edge the crib note version of Golbez's plan, he wants to join us.
So away we go into the Crystal Chamber, but we're defeated by a smurfing trapdoor. What are we, novice explorers?
We die from massive fall damage and the game ends.
Haha, just kidding! We're completely unharmed. Our plan thwarted by the trapdoor of all things (what happened to Edge's people who were behind us?) we have to escape the Tower through a side-exit. We get the consolation prize out of it however: a brand new airship!
It just rises out the earth like it was nothing, so we quickly fly back to the Dwarven King to tell him the bad news.
He seems remarkably non-plussed by our failure. Instead, he tells us about what's happening over at the Sealed Cave.
He's still at it. By this point he might as well dig himself a new entrance.
The King wants us to go check on the Sealed Cave. To do so, he gives us his daughter's necklace, which is the key to the seal. Clever.
To get there though, we'll need mythril plating on our airship, the Falcon. We head to the infirmary, and look who's here...
Yup, it's Cid. who apparently survived exploding himself and a hole in the earth's crust. Remember that? It certainly didn't look survivable.
Well everyone's glad to see him but Edge, who wastes no time being honest and arrogant, just like Cid.
Despite being bedridden, Cid wastes no time single-handedly putting mythril on our airship through the power of montage.
He then plonks himself back in his bed and goes to sleep. Seems fair enough.
With Cid alive, maybe Yang is alive too...
Before the Sealed Cave, there's a whole host of optional areas now that we can fly over lava! So tune in next time while we visit some of the places the underground has to offer.
