Not a lot of [progress tonight, mainly just screwing around the Tomb of Raithwall. I managed to take down both Demon Walls, though I am sad the Zodiac version removed the Demonsbane as a prize. Now it's just a Scathe Mote. I did manage to score a lucky theft and stole a Blood Sword from a Steele Bat, so along with the one as a treasure in here, I'll have two. Though I do find it funny how the Blood Sword gets some legacy treatment despite not being a terribly great weapon. It gets its own license on the board, and while the Sap effect inflicts on use is great, it does lose it's usefulness when you realize the Chopper knife does the same thing and can be acquired earlier. Granted the Blood Sword is a stronger blade, but even before you get it, you'll have access to a stronger sword through the shops beforehand

The other distraction here has been trying to find and kill the rare game in here. One was really annoying because it's one of those two-faced statues that wander around this dungeon, but it only appears in the area right after the Demon Walls, and like the Kaiser Wolf in the Westersand, you have to wrack up a 12+ Chain before it appears, and unlike that rare monster, I can't leave the area it spawns in. Now this area is swarming with Steele Bats, so this shouldn't be a problem, but it also has a few amorph slimes as well, so you end up needing to switch gambits around so you don;t accidentally break your chain by killing one of them. The other one I was trying to spawn never happened for me, and sadly, the game kind of crashed before I could try again. This one is a special Lich that only appears when a regular Lich gets knocked to critical health and uses an ability called Divide to create a second Lich, but the issue is that there is only a 20% chance it will be the Cultist Lich and Lich's created through Divide can't use the ability. Complicating the matter is that the Lich may not use Divide right away when knocked into critical health, so you have to be careful you don't kill it before hand.

I will say, the Lore from the beasts in this dungeon has been some of the best so far as it fills in backstory about Raithwall and the major royal and political families. In fact it kind of spells out why Judges exist, which is interesting because they are not intentionally military units but basically a law enforcement group created to keep the Archadian Military from trying to overthrow the empire, like it tried in the past. House Solidor is so powerful because their family is from the Ministry of Law and thus control the Judges. So they effectively run the military. Likewise, a hint as to why Vayne is so interested in Raithwall is revealed as well because Raithwall is originally from the continent of Valendia where the Archades Empire is from. The Dynast-King simply set up shop in the Galtean Peninsula due to its strategic importance. It's also impressive that his family line and empire survived for four centuries before collapsing, and even more impressive that the Dalmasca line Lady Ashe is from managed to maintain their country for seven centuries before the start of the game.

The game never fails to impress me though. It's interesting how subtle and well crafted the differences are between different countries. Like Bhujerba feels very different than Rabanastre, and likewise the Archadians feel very different from either of them. And while the Ivalice races are all culturally unique, it's emeshed better with their nationality as well, so a Moogle from Rabanastre has a bit of different attitude than one from Bhujerba. Like Bangaa and Seeqs get the raw deal in Rabanastre and Nalbina fortress due to the Archadian occupation, but they don;t deal with the racism you see there in Bhujerba. There are layers upon layers of detail that makes Ivalice feel a bit more real than say Spira or even Vana'diel for me. I think the biggest difference is that the races are integrated better in the different nationalities and the cultures they create, whereas both of those other places do the typical fantasy thing and have every race be their own nationality. Which isn't to say Ivalice is not guilty of this as well with the Viera and to a lesser extent, the Nu Muo and Archades, but I appreciate the fact that the major cities feel like both a melting pot ethnically, but still distinctively their own cultures from one another.

The other fun observation is how dense Vaan is and how he is essentially a Big Fish in a small pond type of deal who finds himself thrown out of his pond into the great big ocean. Like he's incredibly well respected among all the orphans in Rabanastre who look towards him and Penelo as role models with most of the pickpockets of the city being taught by him. Yet he is completely out of his depth in this story and completely oblivious to the geo-political nonsense he has been caught up in. He is incredibly adorkable. It's also pretty fun watching the adult characters teach Vaan and Penelo more about the world. Like people use to complain that no one in this game talks to each other, but that's just patently false, I think at this point the only two characters that haven;t had a straight up conservation with each other is just Ashe and Penelo and both are my newest recruits. There is also some great background elements going on as it is very obvious if you pay attention that Balthier knows way more than he's letting on. He gives it away a lot if you spot him in the background during plot heavy parts.

I'll try to take down Belias tomorrow night.