Earth Crystal, where art thou? We went back to Jachol to talk to people again, but no one there said anything about it. They did mention a crescent moon island to the east, but didn’t connect it to the Earth Crystal. That doesn’t feel quite right, so we ignored that for the time being.

When you’re totally lost, any direction is fine, so we simply boarded our boat and started following the coastline west. After a bit we turned north and continued on. All this searching turned up nothing. I didn’t spot a town or a cave, or anything that looked like it might help us find the Earth Crystal. Eventually, we came to the other side of the isthmus near Karnak, so I decided to check out that town again to see if we missed something the first time around, But they mentioned nothing of help concerning the Earth Crystal.

I’m fairly certain the crystal doesn’t lie any farther north, so we returned to our boat and sailed all the way back south, then east, to take us close to the town of Jachol again.

Time for Plan Two. I can think of two possibilities at the moment. The Crescent Moon Island to the east is one option. The other is a flickering spot on our map that looks to be deep within the mountains to the north of us. It’s hard to tell, but it looks to be connected to the Ancient Library by a narrow valley. Could this perhaps be the location of the Earth Crystal?

I don’t have a strong feeling about the island, and the spot in the mountains is closer, so we’ll check that out first. We head back up to the old library, where Mid mentions again the island to the east. Humm? Maybe that really is the location? But we stick to our plan for the moment. We head west from the library and fight our way along a narrow valley. Eventually we come to a desert deep within the mountains. Once we enter, we find ourselves in a shifting maze of desert sands. We’ll pick up our adventure at this point tomorrow, as we try to cross this desert maze.

Status: Perhaps Lost, Perhaps Not

Humm. Well, now I’m nearly certain I’m in the wrong place. I spent a half hour wandering around Jachol Cave, but there appear to be only two levels. At one point, I climbed up a wall that led outside the cave, to a small clearing surrounded by mountains. But there is nothing there. Inside the cave, there are a few random treasure chests that contain nothing of note. I can’t seem to find a boss and can’t find anything to do with the Earth Crystal.

At this point, I’m thinking I’m in the wrong place. I must have overlooked something, or just not have gone far enough to find the next step in the story. This doesn’t appear to be the way to the Earth Crystal. With that in mind, we exited the cave and made our way back to the town of Jachol. I want to rest up, buy some more Phoenix Downs, and see if I missed something important that the villagers told us about the cave. If I run into a dead end here, I think I’ll head back to the ship and sail around some more. There must be something I’m missing.

Status: A bit lost

Sometimes you just have to suck it up and eat some humble pie. I tried to take out the killer squirrels in that cave again last night, and once again they ripped me apart. After a couple more attempts, I decided to rethink things. On our next attempt, we ran from the gray squirrels whenever they showed up. They can still kill one or two of our members, depending on how quickly we escape, but this is the only thing I can think of that will get us through this dungeon alive. I do wonder, however, if they have some sort of weakness that I just haven’t figured out yet.

I also wonder if I’m in the right place. I don’t remember anyone in the town we came from talking about the Earth Crystal, and my Spidey Senses are tingling in here. Something feels like I’ve gotten off the track of the main story, or have jumped past something.

Currently, I’m on the second floor of this dungeon, which at a glance doesn’t appear to be very large. I’ll keep plugging away here for the time being however.

Status: Running Like Chicken

Don’t know what happened there for a while. I think I was just burned out on life after the busy last year, and ended up vegetating for the past couple of weeks. Didn’t have much of a desire to do anything remotely creative, like write.

But I feel pretty refreshed now, and started playing Final Fantasy V again last night. I’ll make a new post in a few minutes, and I hope to be off and running again.

We point our bow south and leave Karnak behind us. Our goal is the Earth crystal, but we have little idea where to find it. Looking at our map, we can see what looks like two points of interest on this lower half of the world. We aim for those and drive on. After a few days, we locate both an entrance to a cave and further south, a town. We decide to check out the town first. It actually takes us a while to get there, as we have to leave our ship on a beach then walk down a narrow valley for quite a ways to gain access to the town.

Just as we are about to enter the town, we are ambushed by a couple of huge Bio Soldiers, who come precariously close to wiping us out with their Bios spells. We barely survive the attack, and limp into town with our confidence shattered. At this point I’m wondering if I’m in a place well above my level.

The town is Jacohl, and things here are friendly enough. The inhabitants don’t specifically mention the Earth Crystal, which strikes me as odd, but they do a lot of talking about a cave to the northeast. A cave sounds like a likely location for the Earth Crystal, so we’ll head there next. Before we set out, we buy some new weapons and armor, which I’m hoping will help a bit if any more of those Bio Soldiers show up.

After a bit, we set out again. The Bio Soldiers do show up again, several times, as we make our way to the cave entrance. We dispatch them a bit more easily, but their Bios spells do some significant damage on our party. We burn up quite a few of our healing potions before we even make it to the cave entrance. Once there, however, we immediately head inside.

And here is where it gets interesting. As we work our way inside, several groups of brown squirrels attack us. That’s right: brown squirrels! Ha, I’m thinking. Brown squirrels? This is cake. Sure enough, the furry critters have no chance against us. Yet wave after wave of them try to wipe us off the earth. We butcher them with our massive weapons, and they barely scratch us. Yet they keep coming. And then suddenly, we find ourselves facing a solitary grey squirrel. Har! What a joke! “Here cute little squirrel!” Suddenly—Wham! The thing hits us for over 1,500 damage and takes Bartz out with one shot. What!?!?! Before we can react, the squirrel flees. What on earth was that? We get Bartz back on his feet and continue on.

And then again. Another grey squirrel! Wham! This time Faris gets taken out. Bartz unloads on the thing with all his might, and does…zero damage? Argh! What the hell are these things? We quickly turn to magic. Galuf summons Ifrit, who unleases her fiery fury. Surely that will end the fight.

Or not! Zero damage again! And wait. Oh my, that attack suddenly caused the sole squirrel to mutate into seven grey squirrels. Who wipe our party out in three more attacks. What is going on? What demons are these?

Status: Totally Messed Up by Killer Squirrels.