With the Hiryuu Weed in tow, the party returned to Bal Castle where Galuf's guards mistake them for Exdeath's monsters. Not sure how they could confuse their king and his friends for monsters, but at least Galuf has a secret entrance through the moat. There's a pretty well hidden Epee sword which I can't equip, but I do have a use in mind for its high attack power. Krile's plot telepathy makes her sick in bed but at least we know to go to Guido's (Gill) Cave for advice. The Moogle really likes Faris, hugging her through the short scene.
Of course, the Hiryuu is still sick, and since the Hiryuu Weed is why the dragons were all dying, it doesn't trust it. Reina eats some to show that it's safe, but it's poisonous to humans! Reina even knew that...but thankfully plot convenience Krile runs out of bed and has the antidote available! She was sick in bed, and now she's running around? Anyway, the Hiryuu gets better and the party flies off to Guido's Cave. However, Exdeath sinks the island where it is before the party can enter, so we make a detour to Zeza's fleet by Barrier Tower. Team Sidequest catches a Few Zs below deck, and Gilgamesh attacks!
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The Goblin palette swap ended up getting confused by Faris, and amusingly killed itself with that hit.
The first phase of Gilgamesh was pretty simple, dying to 2 Sword Dances and a Titan summon. I foresaw Galuf not being very useful here, so I set up to steal 99 Genji Gloves, which my party can never equip. Mostly for the novelty of it-I want 4 full sets of Genji equipment in my inventory at the games end. I plan to switch everyone to Bare with Genji equipment after beating the game as a little reward for this-don't worry, I'll have finished with the Fiesta part by then, so I'm not breaking any rules. I just want 4 characters outfitted with Genji equips.
Then Enkidou showed up, but I'd wisely prepared with a Golem summon. Golem blocks all physical damage up to a certain amount dependent on the level of the Summoner. Enkidou is flying, so I can't hit him with Titan. However, the Epee sword hit for 1984 damage, just under half his HP!
The Genji Glove Gilgamesh carries was stolen 3rd steal, and Faris stole a turn from Enkidou with !Flirt. Reina's Titan summons dealt 1400-1600 damage-the Gaia Gear boosting Earth damage is very welcome. She did end the fight with 0 MP, how I long for the Gold Hairpin to half MP costs!
Death Claw puts HP to critical and paralyzes the target, but since I knew Reina could finish the fight I didn't bother to heal. After the battle Zeza opens up a hole in the bottom of the ship and runs a submarine into Barrier Tower. I saved, and then it was time to make money a non-issue.
The Red Dragon enemy is guarding a chest that I don't need, as it contains a useless Drain Sword. It has a common steal of a Hi-Potion but more importantly, a rare steal of a Flame Ring. As I forgot to equip the Thief Glove (forgot I had it >_>) I have a 40% chance to steal and a 10/256 shot on a successful steal to get the Flame Ring-a Hi-Potion means escape and try again. Basically, any given steal attempt had a 1/64 chance of giving the desired result. I've had worse. Took a few flees after getting a Hi-Potion to pull off, but I got the steal. Winning the fight was trivial as since I had 4 Flame Rings stockpiled already, everyone was immune to Atomic Ray and with a Golem summon his physicals couldn't hurt me. Titan hit for 3k damage, and a Water Scroll for 1800. This normally threatening fight was completely shut down by Team Sidequest.
On the way back to the save point, a Wall Knight dropped a Wall Ring at 1/16 odds! Since this party isn't dependent on magic for healing, you can be sure this accessory will come into play on Exdeath. I have a strategy in mind already that will trivialize one of the hardest fights in the game. Also returning to the save point a Traveler enemy dropped a Dream Harp, also 1/16 odds. Outside of the string of fantastic luck (1/16384 for a rare steal and 2 consecutive rare drops- 1/16 as likely as my triple rare drop from the Ship Graveyard), the Barrier Tower was uneventful.
That Ziggurat enemy got confused and destroyed itself with a 3000 damage hit-so glad it didn't pull that out on my party! I killed off Faris to prepare for the Atomos fight, for reasons I'll explain in a moment.
The way the Atomos fight works is simple-if there are no dead party members, he casts comet 0-2 times until one dies, then every subsequent turn he sucks them closer. If the dead party member reaches Atomos, he eats them and they are removed from the battle. While he's eating someone though, he never attacks. Since Faris was already down, there were no Comets cast during the battle, and I won first try by just attacking with Shuriken and Titan. The tower blows up, Zeza dies, and we get access to the submarine.
After Guido's Cave with its stupid rock puzzle, the turtle Sage sends us to the Forest of Moore to stop Exdeath, but I'd rather do the Gil Turtle cave. Not because I need the money, but because none of my playthroughs have done it. While trying to find the cave, I found Koko and Moore Village, the latter of which I made 3 million gil in by selling 95 of my Flame Rings and Genji Gloves. I purchased a Lumina Robe and 2 Tiger Masks-which ironically are better than Diamond Plates! Also upgraded most daggers to Air Lancets, but held onto all the old ones though for things that absorb Air...
...like Gil Turtle. He's weak to Ice, has stupid high defenses, absorbs most elements, counters everything with dual physicals that inflict 5 statuses, and his regular attack hits hard too. Finally, when you kill a Gil Turtle, it casts Earth Shaker, which I believe the Gaia Gear will let me survive. My approach was to keep Golem up and deal damage with Sword Dance (scratch damage) and Ice Rods (500-600 damage).
Gil Turtle has 32,768 HP, I have 10 Ice Rods. I can do math, I can tell when it's a losing battle. Some other time Gil Turtle, some other time. I could do it right now with a bunch of leveling up to overwhelm his defense, but that would take the challenge out of the rest of the game. Can my level 22 party cruise through the rest of World 2? I sure hope so!
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