After resting at the dwarf castle for a night and replenishing our potions, we head back to Final Fantasy IV’s Cave of Summons. Once there we waste little time in getting to work. More determined than last time, we spend time trying to get to the chests we couldn’t reach last time.

This time our persistence pays off, as we manage to gain access to a couple of rooms with nice weapon upgrades. Cecil finds the Defender, which appears to be a kick-ass sword. I notice that we also picked up a Mouse Tail somewhere in here, which if I remember correctly should get delivered to that guy in the cave in the overworld. Good for us!

When we drop down to the town on the wooden walkways, we take our time exploring here as well. We find a small shop that has stuff, most of which we can’t afford. We do manage to get one of the two weapon upgrades available, and we’ll see if we can pick up the other one after a bit more fighting. We’ll continue exploring this area tomorrow.

Status: Sidetracked
Image: Poagao

We spend some time exploring Final Fantasy IV’s underworld, and find two caves of possible interest. We settle the Falcon down beside one of them and make our way inside.

We find ourselves in what apparently is called the Cave of Summons. Rydia claims it is the passage she took to get to the underworld after she fell afoul of the Leviathan. The place is a morbid black and fiery red. In addition to a tough assortment of random enemies, we also find ourselves getting badly burned as we walk through the narrow passageways. Within a few short minutes, we’ve burned up over half of Rosa’s healing power. We switch to potions to conserve her power for battle, but we’re going through the things at a ferocious rate.

Progress gets a little easier once we figure out that the fiery red spaces on the floors are the things that are torching us. We can make our way a bit easier by staying on the black spaces as much as possible.

We come upon several chests containing generic items, be we can see other chests in what appear to be inaccessible rooms.

The place has several floors, and after a bit we find ourselves in what appears to be a community built on wooden walkways. There are lots of guys in robes walking around (summoners, perhaps?), and they are friendly enough. There is thankfully no combat here, and as we make our way along the walkways, we notice what appears to be a secret passage in the floor. We take it, and sure enough find ourselves in a small room containing more chests. After we empty these chests of their contents, we notice another small, secret passage. We take this one and suddenly find ourselves at the entrance to the cave. Argh! Didn’t want to do that.

I have a feeling there must be something more important inside this Cave of Summons. I’m going to reload on potions and return.

Status: Sidetracked, but killing stuff with a purpose.

Just before we exit the Sealed Cave, we hear Golbez’s voice, summong Kain to him. I knew it was too good to be true. Sure enough, Kain falls under Golbez’s influence again. He highttails it out of the cave, crystal in hand.

Once again, we have been foiled. Once again we have failed to protect a crystal. Once again, Golbez has outwitted us.

Subdued, we head back to our buddies the dwarfs. Once again our friend the dwarf king takes our failure all in stride. He then tells us of yet another chance for us to redeem ourselves. His speech got fairly complicated and a bit long, but from what I could understand, it appears that we have to go the moon. Yes, I know, this sounds crazy, but apparently that’s where Golbez is heading. Fortunately for us, the dwarf king knows of a huge vessel that can take us to the moon. I’m not sure how, but another place, called Mysidia, is involved with this too. Not sure if that is on the moon or not, but it sounds like it’s important.

And then there is the minor detail of getting back to the overworld. I thought there was a hole we could just fly through, but apparently we need to drill through it to reach the surface. Cid comes to our rescue again, as he fits a large drill to the front of the Falcon for us to bore our way up.

Before we head back to the overworld, however, I think I’d like to do a bit of exploring in the underworld. This appears to be a big place, and perhaps there are some caves or towns to explore.

Status: Killing Stuff with a Purpose

I knew it. I just knew Final Fantasy IV wouldn’t let us off this easy. Just as I start to think that we’re safe, the cave rumbles and shakes, and we’re attacked by a massive Demon Wall, which makes those doors we fought before look like a flimsy veil. The massive structure slowly edges closer to us as we hammer away at it. It appears to be trying to crush us in addition to its steady rain of attacks \\.

This appears to be a formidable opponent, but once again Rydia’s potent spell collection helps us out. In a recent level gain, she learned a new fire spell, and she gives it a try on the Demon Wall. The spell hits for over 4,000 points of damage. Encouraged, we continue to hammer away on the door as it grinds slowly toward our party.

The thing never really had a chance. Rydia’s rain of fire is too much for the Demon Wall to take. Before it gets halfway to us, the thing explodes. We’re safe, for the moment.

With the dark crystal in our hands, we continue our way out of the Sealed Cave. It appears as if we’ve done it this time! We’ve finally gotten a crystal!

Status: Killing Stuff with a Purpose
Image: tanakawho

Well, so far so good. I’ve been busy, but I’ve been able to keep playing and keep posting. I’m feeling like I’m getting closer to the end of Final Fantasy IV, and I’m itching to start Final Fantasy V.

However, I know that I won’t be able to play or post starting early next week and continuing for a bit more than one week. I also likely won’t have access to the internet during that time, so I won’t be able to reply to comments either.

This weekend, I’m going to try and play ahead a bit and stack up some posts that I’ll release while I’m gone. I don’t think I’ll be able to make a daily post during that time. I’m hoping for one post every three days or so for about nine days. I’ll reply to all comments when I resume daily posting, which I’m hoping will be around February 6 or 7.

I will however, be making daily posts and replying to comments through Sunday.