With a bit of searching, we found a tiny exit that we can use in midget form to get out of the prison-area of the tree. We reduced ourselves to miniature size, then scrambled through the prison exit. We found ourselves in a labyrinth inside the tree, and began fighting our way out. We quickly ran into mummies, who do some nasty damage on us. They usually come at us in pairs, and we’re taking a severe beating.

The situation is even worse in that somehow we had almost all our potions stolen when we were captured. Instead of 99 healing potions, we started with only 18, and we’ve used all of them up in making our way through the first few levels here.

I have no idea how much farther we have to go, but I am starting to run out of lower level magic spells as well.

Things look grim unless we can find this Hain guy in short order.

Status: Killing Stuff with a Purpose, but Not Confident

Our plan to search for that town to the east might have been a nice idea, but Final Fantasy, just like life, throws curveballs sometimes. On our way out of the Dwarf cave, a man came staggering in the cave and fell down. He told us that the decrepit town we visited a while back had been attacked, and that it badly needed our help. We scampered off to the rescue.

We sailed back to the inner sea, and headed right for the town. Once there, we were promptly captured! Eek. We were taken inside the giant tree that revolves around the desert! Aha! Even more mysteries are solved, however, as we meet the formerly missing King Argus and his followers inside. Not sure if you remember or not, but he was the leader of that deserted castle we found on the west side of the inner sea. Anyway, it turns out that he and his followers were captured by an evil warlord by the name of Hain. It is, of course, our duty to escape, defeat Hain, and save everyone.

Status: Killing Things with a Purpose?

Gutsuko transformed himself into a dragon and the fight was on. Fortunately, I had saved our magic casters’ most powerful spells for this battle. We were able to put some frightful damage on the demon. As with many of the creatures in this fire cavern, Cold spells caused significantly more damage. Within a handful of rounds, Gutsuko rattled around in his death roll and vanished! Victory!

Lots of good things happened after that. We received a congratulatory speech from the fire crystal, and then were magically transported outside of the cave. We ventured back to the dwarfs’ cave, where we were the subject of much celebration. The dwarf leader gave us a Magic Key, which can only be used once (no clue what for). The dwarfs then opened up their treasure room to us, and Christmas was here. We got all sorts of wonderful items.

I’ve also noticed that there are some new job paths open to us, which I’ll examine in the near future.

For now, though, it’s time to move forward. A couple of the dwarfs mention a town at the eastern end of the outer sea, and the head of the dwarfs suggested that we go there. We’ll continue our adventure tomorrow with a trip eastward.

We finished exploring the second level, which actually turned to be a good idea: there was an ice sword in the last chest we found. It’ll be very helpful in this fire cavern.

At this point, I was just about to pull the plug and have our white mage cast the dungeon exit spell to take us back outside. On a whim, however, I decided to see how much farther we could get. I was surprised to see that the next couple of levels were simple, mini-levels. Before we knew it, we found ourselves standing in front of Gutusko, the demon who had taken both of the horns. And that is where we currently stand, ready for battle. Behind Gutsuko is the glowing Final Fantasy III fire crystal, so this must be a big battle.

We’ll take him on tomorrow!

Status: Killing Things with a Purpose

We headed out from the dwarfs’ cave and made the short journey north to the cave on the north side of the island. This time the fire wall inside the entrance to the cave was gone, so we were able to explore the interior.

We fought our way through the first level and made solid but painful progress. The enemies did significant damage to our party, and we burned through potions at a frightful rate. We’re now in the second level, which is a medium size labyrinth of passageways filled with molten lava. The lava is wearing our party down at a ferocious rate. We’ve found the exit down to the next level, but many of the dead ends on this level have treasure chests at the end of them, so I’m going to explore this entire level before moving on. The problem is that we’ve only got about half of the 99 healing potions we started with left. I’m guessing this will be a huge cavern, and there is no way we’ll make it at this rate. I’m thinking of finishing this level, exiting, resting, getting some stronger potions, and returning for a second run. The second time through I can get through this level quickly because I now know the direct path to the stairs to the third level.

Status: Killing Stuff with a Purpose, but Taking a Beating