More alert and determined, I decided to take one more look at the dwarf dungeon. This time, at the back end of the first floor, I found a looping passage I had simply missed the first time through. Once through, we found stairs down, and after that things went quickly. We got to the bottom, found the demon, killed him, and took the horn back. We then raced back upstairs and put the horn back in its proper place on a pedestal.

As soon as we did that, the demon reappears, takes both horns, babbles something about the fire crystal, then vanishes. D’oh! Tricky guy, he wasn’t dead after all!

The dwarves tell us he went to the cave on the north side of the island, which must be the one with the fire wall at the entrance. Given all the fire symbology, I’m guessing this will be a battle for the fire crystal!

Status: Killing Stuff with a Purpose

Last night was a mess. I was so tired when I started to play. I tried to take the party back out of the Dwarf dungeon to see if I had missed a clue in something they said, but I kept dozing off on the way out. I’d snap awake with my party walking in place against cave walls, etc. Eventually I did get out and talk to the dwarfs again. They mentioned a cave on the north side of the island, so I went to explore, but there is a wall of fire blocking my way there, so that can’t be right.

By this time I was about 10% awake, and I clicked off the DS and crashed.

I’m going to take another look at the Dwarf cave again tonight. I’m more rested today.

Status: Still stuck.

Wasting no time, we made one quick stop to sleep in an inn, then headed out of the inner sea and west towards the Dwarf Island. Once there, we learned of a demon that has stolen one of two horns that for some reason or another are very important to the dwarfs. As is the case in Final Fantasy, our good nature got the better of us, and we offered to enter a subterranean cave, dispatch the demon, and retrieve the horn.

If only things were so easy. We transformed into toads again to get through a pool to head down into the cavern. Once there, we made quick work of the various beasts that attacked us. We explored the entire first level. No stairs? Huh? We explored it again. Nothing. There doesn’t seem to be a way down from here.

Status: Ack. Once again, we’re stuck.

Lots of progress last night! We bravely returned to the Tower on the north side of the inner sea, and set to hacking our way to the top. Things didn’t start off well, though, as we immediately got stuck on the first level, with no apparent way up or down. Luckily, we stumbled into an area where Desshu suggested we turn into frogs to dive.

Hah! Funny guy, I was thinking, but after exhausting all our other options, I started to think that perhaps he was giving us a hint. Sure enough, there in our little bag of items was a “Toad” spell. I have no idea where we got this, but it’s obviously important, so if you’re reading this in hopes of getting help with finding it, I apologize. All I can tell you is that if anyone offers you a Toad spell, say “Yes”. By the way, this is generally not good advice for the real world, however. If anyone offers you a Toad Spell in the real world, you best response is to cast an invisibility spell and run away, fast.

Anyway, back to the matter at hand. We had our white mage learn the spell, and sure enough, he turned us all into toads, which allowed us to go poof and get up to the second level. Not sure how we actually did this as frogs, but we’ll give the game the benefit of the doubt on this one.

Back in human form again, we spent the next half hour battling our way up to the top of the tower. Surprisingly, although there were tons of levels, the amount of random encounters was relatively light, so things proceeded quickly. Within no time, we stood face to face with a red demon thingie with lots of snakes for hair. Here, Final Fantasy III is like real life, in that red demons with snakes for hair are generally bad, and he tried to wipe us out. This of course would have wasted all that time we spent getting to him, so we fought furiously, with our backs to the proverbial wall.

The battle was relatively short, and things went well. We had saved nearly all our magic points, and could heal and deal with force. After a few rounds, the demon shattered, then did the Final Fantasy III fade into nothingness! Victory!

There is a sad note here, however. After the battle, Desshu jumped into the molten red interior of a furnace that was in the room. I’m guessing he had a good reason for doing this, but one of the disadvantages of “no saves in dungeons” is that I only get to hear plot-turning conversations once, so I honestly have no idea what the reason was. I hope it wasn’t something I said. I can tell you he said he got his memory back, that he was a sole surviving guardian at this tower, and that it had gotten invaded, and he fell asleep somehow and forgot everything. Then he jumped into the furnace. So sad.

He also zapped us back to the Enterprise when he did this, with a final word of advice: Go the Dwarf Island. We can actually do this now because the defeat of the red demon stopped a whirlpool that was at the mouth of the inner sea.

Dwarf Island, here we come!

Status: Killing Stuff with a Purpose

Photo Credit: RazzleFrazzle

I decided to go back to the decrepit town and talk to the inhabitants again. Sure enough, they mention going “well past” the desert to find the town to the west of the floating tree. And they also mentioned that the village to the west of the Argus Castle is located in a cave! D’oh! It just goes to show you how much Final Fantasy is like life: listening well is important.

We started by looking for the town past the desert, and with just a bit more traveling to the west than we had done before, we found the town of the ancients right away.

This unlocked all sorts of helpful information and shops. We were able to improve our spells, buy some better armor and weapons, learn of the location of the Chocobo Forest, and get some information on the world history.

After a quick lap around the world on a Chocobo, which got us a prize from a kid in the town of the ancients, we headed to the town in the cave to the west of the Argus castle. Here we ran into some helpful people who pointed us back towards that tower on the north side of the inner sea, and told us some confusing things about four warriors of the dark, four warriors of the light, and maybe some more stuff about four crystals.

I didn’t catch all the Japanese, but I’m pretty sure that the four warriors of the dark are bad, and we are the four warriors of the light, and we need to get the crystals, and someone bad is in the tower. The obvious connection is that we need to go kill the bad person, so that’s where we’ll head.

So finally, we have a direction: the tower! We’ll start in on that tomorrow.

Status: Killing Stuff with a Purpose!