The one where I forgot to buy armor!

So, tonight sucked. In hindsight, mostly my fault.

I ventured into Riesz’ penultimate dungeon, the Night Caverns. It has a stupid Dark Cave from Pokemon mechanic, where you can't see where you're going. Feel free to turn up the TV brightness. It leads to the final dungeon, the Dark Castle, but that’s a story for another day. Inside the cavern is the final Benevodon, Zable Fahr. The fight here is another strange one. The battle starts with two disembodied heads on either side of the platform. There are no apparent differences in attack patterns between the two. Hit them enough times, and they die, separately. When both go down, congratulations, you now have three disembodied heads to fight. The three heads do new magic that hits the whole party. They do hit hard and often, but I found Durran’s new ability to heal everyone at the same time to be more than capable of out healing the enemy. You can kill the old heads, but you need to beat up the female looking one in the middle. She’ll revive the old heads when they die, sometimes, so there may be no point in killing them. The worst she can do is a spell called Annihilate that one-hit KOs a character. Bring a full stock of Cup of Wishes.

After the fight, Fairy will give us some bad news. It turns out the Corrupted Sword of Mana has been absorbing the souls and mana of the defeated Benevodons. We’ve been playing right into their hand! Fairy encourages us to end this now before it gets worse. With that in mind, I continue onward. In the very next room is my corpse. I died...without saving... The Cave of Darkness is filled with mobs who chunk the whole team's HP, even with regular attacks. Riesz has good defense, so I’m not sure how? After getting over my rage, I go back in. I die before the boss. And then again. And then again. And then again. I can say I’ve never died to Zable, but reaching her was the problem. After I beat Zable again, I take a trip back to Peddas to buy armor for Durran and Angela. Despite it not working well for Riesz, it makes proceeding back into the cave a lot easier.

Expecting worse in the final dungeon, I try my hand at finding the best gear in the game. It sucks even worse than the cave! The ultimate equipment comes from Gear Seeds that function like all seeds. They’re horrifically rare to find and even rarer to have something worthwhile. This is a great place for farm ??? seeds, though, if you need them. During my two hours, I found one piece of armor. I found more, but they’re for other classes I didn’t take for Riesz. So, it was about one out of seven. I stayed around farming until I could afford the best weapons money can buy for Durran and Angela. With that in mind,

I called it a night.

I’m on the precipice of the final dungeon, so this may have worked out in the end. I’m at level 45, have the second best gear in the game, and ready to end this game tomorrow. What finally soiled me on Secret of Mana was the long final dungeon, so I hope the Dark Castle is better with this for several reasons. Finale tomorrow!