We wander the outlying areas of the Dwarf’s Castle for a few days and battle the various and sundry creatures that constantly harass our party. Slowly, we are getting stronger and more powerful, and the loot we take in slowly fills our money bags.

Perhaps it was the tedium, however, that led us on our next rash action. One day, while wandering to the west of the castle, we come upon a massive, ominous tower. Lightning crackles in the gloomy skies overhead. Our brave warriors can’t resist the temptation, and with little rational thought, we drive forward into the tower.

After a few short minutes inside, it’s clear that we are in Golbez’s Tower of Babel. Tentatively, we fight our way through the serpentine passages of the first floor. The battles are manageable, and our confidence rises. We rise to the second floor…

Status: Scared

Back in the throne room, the Dwarf King seems unfazed by both our amazing failure rate, and by the uncanny coincidence that as soon as we show up somewhere a crystal gets stolen. He happily enlists our aid in obtaining the last remaining crystal, which apparently Golbez is on the way to get from a cave that lies to the southwest.

The King, however, changes track and comes up with the idea of sneaking into Golbez’s tower, the Tower of Babel, and stealing Golbez’s other seven crystals while he is away trying to get the last one. We blissfully agree, but before we set out, we take a walk around the dwarf’s castle. The massive structure actually has some shops filled with armor and weapon upgrades for our party. Unfortunately, we have nowhere near the gil needed to buy the stuff.

Before we head out on our plan to infiltrate the Tower of Babel, we’ll do a bit of grinding for cash and improved gear. I have a sense we’ll need upgrades for the upcoming battles.

Status: Grinding

Once Golbez appears, things get crazy. First he immediately summons a massive dragon-like creature. He follows that with an incredibly powerful spell that zaps our entire party. Everyone goes down except for Cecil. Things look grim, as Cecil must stand alone against both the wizard and his dragon. Cecil, however, strikes one for the good guys: he casts some sort of white magic that blows away Golbez’s dragon and even stuns Golbez himself.

Just then, surprise surprise! Long lost Rydia—who disappeared when we were attacked by the Leviathan—shows up to help our cause. With her help, Cecil is able to defeat the stunned Golbez and save the day! All that remains of Golbez is one hand. Huzzah!

Sort of…

Golbez’s hand crawls forward, grabs the crystal, and escapes before we can do anything to stop it.

Argh. We just keep on losing these crystal things. You’d think that they’d get someone else to guard these things, as we definitely suck at this. Every single time we show up, Golbez gets a crystal. What are we now, something like 0-5?

Defeated once again, we slink back to the throne room. Golbez now has seven of the eight crystals. Things look mighty grim for our heroes.

EDIT: Thanks to Big D for pointing out that it was actually a summoning by Rydia that knocked Golbez’s dragon out. I missed that one completely.

Status: Losing, but alive.

After dropping through the darkness, we find ourselves in the underground, in the midst of a pitched battle between tanks and Red Wing airships. The Enterprise gets hit in the crossfire, plummets to the ground, and crashes. We survive the crash, and find ourselves near a large castle. We leave our damaged Enterprise behind and head inside the castle, which appears friendly.

Inside, we meet the Dwarf King, who confirms Kain’s tale about the dark crystals. It turns out that two of the four dark crystals are in the hands of Golbez already, and the battle we witnessed upon arrival in the underworld was the Dwarf King’s attempt to prevent Golbez from taking the third crystal, which the Dwarf King has in a secret room behind the throne room.

The Dwarf King is excited to use the Enterprise to help fight the Red Wing airships, so Cid heads out to fix and armor the craft. Shortly after he leaves, Yang senses activity in the Dwarf King’s secret room. We enter the room, and quickly find ourselves entangled in a freaky battle with six bizarre dolls. We pound on them for a while, but then they morph into one huge doll. We continue hammering away, and suddenly the huge doll morphs back into the six smaller ones. Argh. This goes on for a while, before finally the six dolls die for good, I hope.

And just when we think we’re safe, there standing in front of us is Golbez! Oh no Mr. Wizard!

Status: Killing Stuff with a Purpose

How does one go about looking for an entrance to the Underworld? I’m guessing that I should be looking for some sort of hole in the ground, and I’m guessing that lava rock will connect with some sort of a volcano, but that’s about as far as I go with it, and I don’t remember seeing any volcanoes in the game so far.

With nothing better to do, we decide to do some random exploring and look for anything that might be a clue for what to do with this hunk of lava, and how to get it to find the underground world.

Random exploring, however, doesn’t get us very far. We do stumble onto a small village inhabited by small people who make nice mithril armor. Distracted, we spend some gil on the stuff, and get some minor stat improvements.

But this doesn’t get us closer to the underworld, so we decide to get a bit more precise with our wandering. I start taking our Enterprise in a grid search across the world, in hopes of getting unstuck. Within a short time we hit the jackpot: we find Agart, a town where everyone is babbling about volcanoes and earthquakes. Also in the town is a well that appears bottomless! Aha! On a whim, we drop the lava rock into the well.

Kaboom! A mountain to the north of the town explodes, thereby opening up the way to the Underworld! Although this is not a key system that I would probably design, it does work well enough. Within a few minutes, we’re sailing the Enterprise down into the darkness…

Status: Killing Stuff with a Purpose