What? Calling it Babylon
Five wouldn't be correct! At least it's not another Star Trek
reference!
So, yeah, from here, we're pretty much
on our way through the Tower of Bab-Il for the last time. It's not
as long a run as I remembered it being. Maybe it's just the two boss
fights in quick succession that made me remember it as being longer
than it was.
What sucks worse is that this time, I
didn't run into as many of one of my personal favorite monsters in
this dungeon as I usually seem to. There are monster eggs that the
party can get into battles with, see, and unless they get
one-hit-killed, they hatch into some other monster. And if Edge gets
his agility stat up high enough while here, he can even use his sneak
command to jack harps from the eggs.
But there is one halfway decent weapon
to be found along the way here. It's an ax called the Ogre Ax. It's
marginally better than the icebrand or the blizzard spear that Cecil
and Kain have. The down side is that it's really good against
anything classified as an ogre or giant monster in the game, but not
anything special against anything else. It's worth using the cloning
trick for here because there tend to be a lot of ogres in the tower,
though I've had playthroughs where I could have benefited most from
this weapon in the fight with the four Mad Ogres that the party has
to go through just to get the ax out of the box.
Aside from that and a couple cure three
potions right near the beginning, the only thing to really write home
about is the chest near the end that has 82000 gold in it, on the far
left side of the room. Once you come across that, you know you're
right near the end.
In fact, once you step onto the main
platform on that level, which is in the center, Edge's folks show up.
Turns out Doctor Lugae got to screwing around with them in true mad
scientist fashion behind Rubicant's back before Cecil and gang beat
his ass when Lugae showed up with Balnab. So, the King and Queen of
Eblan have been turned into mutant beasts that go apeshit and try to
kill Edge and the party.
Sadly, though, the Royal Parents
haven't fully mutated and come to their senses for their last minutes
of life. They tell Edge that they're not human any more and aren't
in control of their minds or bodies any more as a result, and
therefor have to kill themselves before they fall back under the
influence of whatever Lugae did to them.
With that out of the way, Rubicant
shows up and presents himself as the most civilized of the Four
Fiends by apologizing for the shit that Lugae did to the Eblan
Royalty. Edge has a Nostalgia
Critic moment and learns two new Ninja Magic spells when Rubicant
tells him that he can't win as long as human emotions are in play.
Make sure that Cecil and Kain have
their ice weapons equipped if you replaced them with the Ogre Ax
before and attack when Rubicant is in his “open cape” form.
There's supposed to be some sort of trick where casting fire on
Rubicant makes him do cure magic on the party, but I've never been
able to quite get the hang of it. It's an easy fight anyway, if Kain
has his Blizzard spear and land jump attacks when Rubicant has his
cape open.
There's a big Crystal Room behind
Rubicant, but the floor just inside the entrance is booby trapped,
which makes the party fall to the underground, so the party gets one
last look at the first seven crystals before they get locked away and
used to turn on the tower's link to the moon.
Now, I had thought this next part of
the tower was more than three floors long and had a boss fight at
some point. Thing is, though, I was wrong, and it's pretty much a
straight shot to the game's second, and most heavily modified
airship, the Falcon.
Take the Falcon to the Dwarf Castle.
King Giott tells the party that Golbez is trying to force
his way into the Sealed Cave to get the last crystal, so they
should take the key, which is Princess Luca's necklace, and go get
the crystal themselves so that there's half a chance that Golbez
won't get it instead and destroy the world.
When you're done with that, go down to
the castle's basement to the hospital ward. Cid's there, alive and
almost well after blowing himself up to seal the entrance to the
Underground. He'll get up and fix the Falcon so that it can fly over
the lava just like the Enterprise, which was left up on the surface,
what with the volcano being closed and all.
Yeah, we know where the next mission to
continue the story is, but there's a couple side quests I'd rather go
on first, while I've still got all my party members. They'll both be
worth it, the second one moreso if I start it now rather than wait
until later. I'll explain why next issue, in part one of Side
Questing Across The Underground!
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