Humm. The Sealed Cave is supposed to be to the southwest of the main castle, but we can’t seem to find the place. Matter of fact, we can’t even seem to find the southwest: lava is blocking our way and we can’t fly over it.

Thinking we can get to the southwest by going northeast, we explore that direction as well. This idea doesn’t get us far either. We find some sort of hole in the ground, but we can’t do anything with it. This doesn’t appear to be the cave either.

Confused, we resort to random wandering, but this doesn’t get us anywhere either.

One thing, however, lingers in my mind. When we got the necklace from the dwarf king’s daughter, we took some time and talked to the guards in the throne room. One of them mentioned that the Falcon couldn’t fly over the lava, but the guard also mentioned that “that old guy” could have likely fixed that problem. I’m pretty sure that he was referring to Cid, but Cid is dead, right?

Or is he? Maybe I need to go back to the castle and explore a bit. I have a funny feeling I missed someone back there.

Status: Lost

Well now, Final Fantasy IV continues to be full of surprises. We appear to have fallen into the underworld again. More precisely, we appear to be somewhere in the underworld portion of the Tower of Babel. We must have fallen down through several levels of the tower when we tried to reach that crystal.

This’ll be good, though. We can go check out our buddies the dwarfs. They always have ale.

With a locational clue now, we continue hacking our way through this lower section of the Tower. After a bit, we stumble upon a large flying ship, called the Falcon, that is moored to the Tower. We quickly decide to steal it and make our escape. Within moments, we’ve left the Tower of Babel behind us and are soaring towards our friends the dwarfs.

Once there, we go to check on our buddy the king. He is pleased to see us and fills us in on the situation. Seems that Golbez is still trying to get into the cave where the last crystal resides. This cave, called the Sealed Cave, is thwarting even the powerful wizard’s best efforts. The dwarf king, however, lets us in on a secret. Apparently we need to use a special item to get into the sealed cave.

The dwarf king calls over his daughter. For a second there we were excited, as we thought there might be some sort of human sacrifice involved, but alas, he merely gives us his daughter’s necklace, which somehow is supposed to open the way into this mysterious sealed cave.

With high hopes, we head back out to the Falcon. We’ll get that crystal yet.

Status: Killing Stuff with a Purpose

I thought we were going to die. Several of us were low on health and Rubicante was babbling about a battle. But surprises never cease. I might have gotten some of this wrong, but I swear Rubicante told us he admired us, and he most definitely healed us completely. Confused, I thought he might let us go without a fight; perhaps he had a change of heart? But no, I was wrong. After healing us, he attacked.

If the battle with the Eblan King and Queen was long, this fight was eternal. We hammered Rubicante with everything we had, but he refused to fall. Not only that, but he occasionally slammed us with a sort of fire tornado that almost always killed in one shot. And he attacked fast, spewing fire on our party with reckless abandon. Fortunately, Rosa and Cecil could hold up with their healing and raising spells. Although there were a couple of moments that could have degenerated into disaster, in the long run we managed to outlast him. After about ten minutes of back-and-forth battle, Rubicante toppled to the ground! Dead!

With little fanfare, we passed through the door behind his corpse. I’m not quite sure what happened next, but when we approached what looked like a crystal in the wall in front of us, we suddenly found ourselves falling through air. We end up in a different portion of the Tower of Babel.

Humm. With little choice and much confused, we continue to fight our way forward.

Status: Killing Stuff, but not sure where we are going, or where exactly we are.

Wow! What an intense session! We continued where we left off, plowing forward through the serpentine passages of Final Fantasy IV’s Tower of Babel. After a bit we came to a small platform sitting in front of a door. Standing on the platform were Edge’s parents: the King and Queen of Eblana!

Final Fantasy IV, however, just keeps hammering us with misery. After a brief conversation, the two monarchs transform into hideous monsters and attack us. This battle dragged on interminably, but was not particularly difficult. The text at the top of the screen—even on the slowest level—goes by fairly quickly for me to read in hectic combat, but I gathered that Edge’s parents were pleading with him to put them out of their misery. In any case, we’ll never know the details of this hideous transformation, as the two creatures fell to our blows and perished.

Before we could take a deep breath, however, Rubicante reappears. Yikes, our health is low, and we’re a bit light on magic points as well. This could get ugly…

Status: In trouble?
Image: amg2000

The enemies change as we work our way up the Final Fantasy IV Tower of Babel. The ogres are gone. We now find ourselves battling sorcerers, soul knights, and purple balls that explode when we beat on them. They put up a good fight, but we are gaining experience in leaps and bounds now, and our strength is too much for the hordes that oppose us.

We travel up and down the Tower of Babel now, as the way appears to zizag vertically through several floors of the structure. On the fifth floor, we find a safe zone, where we pitch our tent, recover lost magic points, and save our game.

We also come across a strange blue orb sitting on a large pedestal at the end of a narrow walkway. We approach and examine the orb, but nothing happens. Humm. Quite strange. There doesn’t appear to be any sort of lock or other mechanism nearby that would allow us to interact with the orb.

Puzzled, we continue on our way through the Tower.

Status: Killing Stuff with a Purpose
Levels: Kain (42); Rydia (39); Cecil (41); Rosa (41); Edge (33)
Total Time: 26 hours, 33 minutes
Image: bb_matt