In this episode I largely excise the two or three days spent farming for a Rainbow Pudding. I do this so you don't have to!

So we begin our optional adventure back in Baron Castle, believe it or not.


The guards are very apologetic that they allowed an evil Archfiend to usurp the throne. Which does beg the question of who actually runs the Kingdom of Baron.

We explore a bit and uncover some treasures that were previously hidden in the east wing of the Castle, but heading down into the basement, we stumble upon a fascinating discovery:



Hey! It's the actual King of Baron! I'm guessing Cagnazzo chained him down here, but that still doesn't explain why he needs us to visit this land. I mean, he seems healthy enough. Can't he rule now? So many questions!

We leave Baron and revisit Mysidia to tell the elder that - whoops! - we killed his child apprentices.

He takes the news surprisingly well, all things considered.



We get some augments from the elder, who promptly decides to continue gazing into the sky and presumably suffer from eye damage from starting into the sun. As opposed to, I don't know, fetching Palom and Porom's statues. I can only imagine what the guards are thinking back in Baron.

Next up, we visit the Town of Troia to meet up with an old and soon-to-be annoying friend, Namingway.



Uh-oh.

We decide to help Cheatingway along by stalling with the first date while he 'deals with' the second, presumably by dumping her body in the bottom of the well.

This small sidequest is simple enough, and actually reminds me a bit of the kind of humour you'd find in FFVII during the Midgar segment. So anyway, we try to stall the first lady, who turns out to be the bartender. Well, this'll be easy, bartenders love small talk. And it's a bar so they'll have plenty of drinks available.



Smurfing what?

Cecil is such a White Knight.

Cheatingway thanks us for our efforts, and leaves Cecil to drink his goddamn milk.


Or he would be able to drink his milk like some primary school kid, if he hadn't found himself in FFIV's version of the Honeybee Inn.



It even comes with authentic creepy clients!

The only other thing in Troia is this guy who continues to add onto the mystery of Baron Castle:


Oh and finally, a woman who sunbathes in a full-length dress:



After enjoying the many pleasures of Troia, Cecil and the others make way for the town of Mythril, which - you guessed it - sells Mythril equipment. Located on the far eastern archipelago of whatever FFIV calls 'the world', Mythril is home to the land of transmogrified people.

Yup, Mythril is full of tiny folk, pigs and frogs, who presumably couldn't afford a healer to just cast Esuna on them.

Anyway in Mythril we pop by the shops and get what we need. We also encounter upon an interesting event.



Uuuuh?

That was it for Mythril, pretty much, but the town sells some fantastic items so I can finally cure the transmogrification ailments.

Cecil sets sail for Agart next, the central southern island, and we encounter THIS GUY:


Cheatingway becomes Puddingway, the most annoying of his nine lives.

So he asks us to find a Rainbow Pudding, which sounds nice, but can only be found on flan-type enemies, and they have a 0.4% chance of dropping. Per battle.

Now I'm sure veterans of FFIV were saying "oh Formy just do it later when you get treasure hunter". Which is a good point, except you get treasure hunter after completing all the maps, so that basically makes it an endgame thing, and I'd be damned if I was just going to ignore a major sidequest for over half the game.

So after killing many yellow jellies:



And I mean many, the gauge maxes out at 999:



YOU'RE WELCOME.

Tune in next time as we explore the rest of what Agart has to offer and explore the monster-filled environs of Eblan Castle.