We stomp into the Ancient Library and begin looking for clues to the locations of the four important keys to unlock the ultimate weapons that will aid us in our final confrontation with Exdeath. Well, at least I hope it’s our final confrontation with Exdeath, but with this game, who knows? Maybe when we kill him this time he’ll turn into a fingernail and come back to life yet again.

Anyway, the answer comes from two ancient tomes—one from each world—that we can now fuse together. Once together, they give hints about the various locations of the Four Keys. Of course, all these keys are apparently in godawful, out of the way, heavily guarded places. I’m not really sure what people are thinking when they put their keys in these kinds of places. “Oh, look, I’m on top of a pyramid. Here is an evil monster with seven heads. I think I’ll put my key here for safekeeping!” The First Key is somewhere in an ancient Pyramid in the middle of the desert, guarded by who knows what kinds of vicious creatures.

We waste no time in heading out for the key. In retrospect, we actually should have wasted some time before heading out, because I got halfway to the pyramid before I realized that I had neither of the following: a healer (Lenna, our only healer, is apparently under the rubble of a castle) and healing potions (remember that point I mentioned yesterday about using all our potions in the Antlion fight?).

After a couple of rather challenging random encounters, we’re pretty much dying. I realize that there is no way I can make it to the First Key in the pyramid without a bit of healing power. And so I do two things: I make Bartz a healer and I turn us around. Retreat! Bartz can heal well enough to get us safely to the Ancient Library. Once there, we can recharge and try to find a town or castle that sells high potions.

Status: Running Away!

Well, so much for being stuck. In an effort to get Final Fantasy V rolling again, I rode all over the place on that Chocobo again last night. I thought I had explored every possible route that the thing could take, but it turns out that I was wrong. I had missed one valley. And that one valley was a Very Important Valley, because it contained the trap. Traps aren’t usually good things, but when your game is stuck and you’re getting nowhere fast, any change is a welcome one.

You see, as I explored this little out-of-the-way Final Fantasy V valley, a great hole opened up in the ground. Bartz and Krile, our two party members at the moment, tumbled into the hole and were stuck. Before we could explore the surroundings, an Antlion popped out of the ground and tried to eat us.

This fight was a royal pain in the butt. The Antlion kept casting this “half-leveling” spell, which would essentially halve the amount of damage that Bartz and Krile would do. This meant that no matter what I hit the Antlion with, it end up doing less than 100 points damage. On a boss creature with upwards of 40,000 hit points, this makes for a long fight. Even worse, without Lenna, our healer, I was forced to resort to potions in order to survive the fight and kill the Antlion. So we are now completely out of potions. Remember this, as it will be important later.

After the fight, Faris, of all people, shows up and pulls us out of the hole with a rope. Turns out she got tired of dancing and decided to join us. This is all good, as it now gives us three members in our party. The world is wonderful now, except that Krile is complaining that she has a thorn stuck in her. This may seem unimportant, but remember this too, okay? It may save your planet someday.

Our three-member party continues on. I’m not sure where we’re going, but very shortly we come to a cave. This cave turns out to house Ghido, our turtle friend from the previous world. He fills us in on the back story, which essentially says this: Bartz’s World and Galuf’s World are now one. The crystals were actually used to split the original world into two parts to keep some mega-evil entity called Enuo from destroying everything a thousand years ago. When we beat Exdeath and the crystals shattered, the two worlds mushed together and became one world again. Real Estate concerns aside, this sounds like a bad thing, as it will most surely involve some sort of a fight against Enuo to save everyone.

In order to beat Enuo, we need to collect the 12 ultimate weapons. Aha! In order to do that, we have to collect four keys from various places around the world. Yes! Something to do!

But get this: before we can do that the thorn in Krile’s side turns into Exdeath! He had transformed himself into a thorn to be able to travel with us. Excuse me while I chuckle at the silliness. What follows is cut-scene battle that ends with the Castle of Tycoon getting destroyed with Lenna still inside, Exdeath getting zapped off to parts unknown, and our party—plus Ghido—getting zapped off to yet a different place. And, oh yes, I think it’s actually Exdeath, not Enuo, that is seeking to get the ultimate power (called “Nothingness”) to be able to destroy the world. Whew! I’m dizzy now!

Anyway, when we wake up, Ghido realizes that we’re near the Ancient Library and suggests that we go there to see if we can figure out how to get the keys to beat Exdeath/The Nothingness/Enuo, or whoever it is that is attempting to destroy the world.

Humm. As I reread what I just wrote, something feels off with the order of events, but I think I’ve got everything there.

Status: To the Library!

If Final Fantasy V gave frequent flier miles for distances covered while riding a Chocobo, I’d be set for life. Basically, I’m trying get the story moving again, but I’m having no success. I’ve got Bartz and Krile in my party at the moment. But the other two characters, Faris and Lenna, are endlessly dancing at some celebratory ball in the Castle of Tycoon. Every time I try to approach them, other dancers bump me out of the way. Very funny, Final Fantasy V.

I’ve explored every inch of the castle for a clue. Nothing. I’ve ridden the yellow Chocobo everywhere I can take it. Miles and miles and miles of ground covered by Chocobo, but nothing seems to matter. Lenna and Faris just keep on dancing and the world stays the same. One of the guests at the castle mentioned that the dance will go on for three days, so I went to an inn and rested three times. Didn’t make a difference. Those damn wenches are still dancing. On the Chocobo, I even found another small town and checked that out. No clue found there either.

And then I tried everything again. Still nothing.

Status: How Long Can They Dance?

Sorry about the temporary outages these past two days. I just upgraded all my web accounts to a better hosting plan, and a there have been a few glitches this week. Not sure how a file got corrupted to bring the site down today, but I’ve fixed it.

My only concern is that I don’t know the cause, which makes me wonder if it may happen again. I have a hunch that the problem today was a result of yesterday’s fixes, so I’m hopeful that we’ll be up and running more stably from now on.

*Fingers crossed*

Thanks for your patience!

We drive on toward the top of Exdeath’s seemingly never-ending castle. Frustratingly, the Excalibur sword that Bartz is using seems to be even more lame than the Blood Sword that always misses. Excalibur seems to hit often, but when it does it’s doing either no damage or exactly one point of damage. What gives with these crappy high-powered swords in Final Fantasy Five? I’ll stick with Excalibur for a bit, as maybe it’s just struggling against this type of enemies.

We don’t have to wait long to run into the massive Exdeath, former tree. After a relatively short conversation, our showdown with this myrmidon of evil gets underway. Excalibur has no better luck against Exdeath, but fortunately Fairis and Krile pour on the damage to Exdeath. Once we switch out Bartz’s Excalibur for a better weapon, we’re hitting for upwards of 5,000 points per turn. I have no idea how tough Exdeath is, but I doubt he can withstand this punch too long. His attacks do significant damage to us, but Lenna can handle everything he tosses at us. We keep pouring on the damage for a few more turns, and then suddenly Exdeath is done for! A relatively easy victory for us.

After the victory, the crystals in the room shatter, and we find ourselves right outside of the Castle of Tycoon, back on Bartz’s World. Humm. What gives with this? Everyone in the castle congratulates us for a job well done, and then Fairis and Lenna, the two daughters of the King, start a dance in the castle. Bartz and Krile opt not to dance, and this sets in motion a series of relatively minor events that end up with only Bartz and Krile in our party, our long lost friend the Chocobo available for riding, and Lenna and Fairis still dancing. All this begs the question: What do I do now?

I have to confess, I did see references to a Third World when I was looking at some Final Fantasy V maps, so I know something’s coming up. Also, one of the random people in Tycoon is making comments that the sky looks funny over the castle, and things don’t seem quite right. So I’m guessing something bad is going to happen. But what is going to happen and how I make that happen are mysteries at the moment.

I’m going to keep talking to people in the castle and see if I can figure out what to do to get the game to move forward.

Status: Exdeath Down. In limbo.