Unfortunately, it’s not the ninja in our party who we’re talking about. I went back in to Final Fantasy 3’s Forbidden Land of Eureka and continued hacking our way down. We quickly passed the point we reached yesterday, and shortly came upon a purple sword: the Masamune Sword! Aha! We grabbed it, but before we could leave, a giant Ninja attacked us.

Oh my. This thing is nasty: faster than any of us, with three attacks per turn. He could take out any of our party in one round. He dropped our Devout at the beginning of round two. With her down, things got ugly fast. I tried to raise her, and succeeded, but by that point our summoner and dragoon were dead. On the next round, the ninja wiped us out with three quick attacks before I could get off a heal. Zenmetsu shita! Everyone dead.

Not sure if I’m ready yet to take this guy on. I think I’m going to push up my levels a bit before I come back in here. I think I’ll take my party to level 55 in the Ancient’s Maze and see if that helps. Time for a bit more grinding.

Status: Killey by Ninja, Level 50

I was getting frustrated with how slowly my Onion Knight was improving job levels, so I took a quick look online for some tips on how to speed things up. What I found was an explanation of why having an Onion Knight in your party at lower levels is a bad idea in Final Fantasy 3: their poor stats at lower job levels reduce the amount of hit points you gain when you level.

Oops.

With that in mind, I switch to a ninja for our next venture into the Forbidden Land of Eureka. This way I can use that cool chakram that we picked up on our first trip there.

We now have a Ninja, Devout, Summoner, and Dragoon.

I’ll return to the Forbidden Land of Eureka tomorrow.

Status: Killing Stuff with a Purpose, Level 50

Time to push on. I flew back to the Crystal Tower, worked quickly through the Ancient’s Maze again, and pushed on to the Crystal Tower.

We have two choices here, both of which start with a little cut scene. One of them is a bit more ominous sounding than the other, so I head for what sounds like the easier way: straight through the door in the middle of the Tower.

The door transports us to the Forbidden Land of Eureka. There are stone walkways floating in a star-filled sky. We start our way down, fighting as we go along. The enemies are stubborn, but we make good progress and pick up substantial experience.

After a level and a half, we come to a chakram (throwing ring) sitting on a stone dias. We grab it, which ticks off a huge skeleton-thingie named Amon. We beat on each other for a while, but his attacks are easily managed. After a few rounds, he drops. We pick up the chakram, but none of us can arm it.

After the fight, we are restored to full health, so we teleport out, save our game, and get ready to go in again. Pounding away.

Status: Killing Stuff with a Purpose, Level 50

On a whim, I decided to ignore the old man at the mouth of the cave in Fargabaad, who told me I shouldn’t enter the cave without a ninja armed with the Masamune sword.

Surprisingly, the fighting was easy. Most enemies went down in only a couple of rounds. I’m wondering if there isn’t more to the cave than I found, however, as it was tiny. It only took a couple of minutes to clear the place, and the loot was well below our level.

Strange.

Status: Killing Stuff with a Purpose, Level 49

I made it back through the Maze with little difficulty and with no sign of the Behemoth.

After a quick rest at our airship, I decided to do a little bit more exploring, to see if there were any places that I could get to with the airship that were previously unreachable. After about five minutes, I found a small village in the western mountains that I don’t believe I’d been to before.

The village has a cave at the far end, but supposedly this cave should only be attempted if one has a ninja armed with the Masamune sword. Humm. I wonder where I can get this sword?

Oh, well, another mystery to solve. I think I’ll head back to the Maze and Tower tomorrow to keep driving on.

Status: Killing Stuff with a Purpose.