Seven ambushes in a row!

It sucks that it happened once, but it happened three times!

We finally get to enter Fynn castle. The town is as peaceful as we've seen it, so there's no need to go there. Just head straight for the giant fortress behind it. On the stairs to the second floor is Leila, waiting for us. Not as an enemy but to be our fourth party member again. From here, we can do one of two things. We can either bumrush the throne room or explore the castle. There are so many random battles with mobs that don't mean anything, so I'd suggest just heading for the boss. But I guess any EXP is good EXP.

In the throne room is a man named Gottos. He's shocked to see us as the Wild Rose Rebellion was very quiet about this attack. But he knows where we're from, anyway, and a fight happens. Curse procted, and so did Guy. Gottos dropped a ripper knife, which does extra damage per hit. Leila may be doing more DPS than Guy now. Hilda and Gordon will sit on their fancy chairs with the Queen of Fynn in her rightful spot. The King of Kashun is here too, I guess. We have our home back, but the war is not over. Before we attack Palamecia outright, Hilda wants Minwu back. He's gone to Mysidia to learn Ultima and hasn't returned, so we gotta go find him. She and Gordon give us various keywords. Take one of these to Paul (White Mask or Ekmet Tellos), and he will tell us about a secret passage in the throne room. Following his advice takes us to the White Mask, an important item in the coming dungeon. From here, loot all the treasure in the keep. Some of it is pretty good; the tomes come to mind. The weapons and armor shops are open now, and all the citizens rejoice that they can return home.

Our next goal could be Mysidia. But they tell us that we need the Black Mask to break the seal on the Tower of Mysidia. You'll need to come here at some point, so find the staircase down in the center of town and place the White Mask on the statue there now. After this, sail to the random place in the middle of the south sea. This is Tropical Island. I hate the dungeons in this game. None of the mobs are scary, but there are so many of them! And I get ambushed seven times in a row again! It's a place similar to Deist Cavern with several offshoots that lead to treasure in a giant maze. One even takes us to a village of masked weirdos. They talk about their Black Mask, but there are a few vendors here, as well. One sells ethers on the cheap, and all this fighting has gotten me 200000 gil, so I buy as much as the game lets me. The gear merchant is less useful, but I bought a demon spear for the fun of it. But, in time, we make it to the bottom. Four big horns are waiting for us, but they're no stronger than the average mob. Get the Black Mask and use the teleporter behind it.

If you didn't already, place the White Mask on the statue in Mysidia. Then sail to the otherside of the peninsula, unless you wanna walk around the mountains, and find the Mysidian Cave in the middle of the range. This is, once again, a dungeon with too many mobs and ambushes. There's a lot of paths but only one way down. Blocking us from the second floor, though, is a doppelganger of Firion. Give it the Black Mask, and it'll turn to dust. As we venture down, there are two very important items you need to get. One is a gold hairpin for Maria, and the other is the black garb for Guy. I think these'll be their best armor because they should be wearing light armor with how I want them to work. I think they're finally getting agility stats, but I don't know at this point. This system is so convoluted and/or not explained. There is no boss, and the Crystal Rod is found at the bottom of it all. The mages of Mysidia tell us that the Crystal Rod is used to break the seal on their tower, north of the village (sail from Altair). So we'll be finding Mimwu deep inside a place we opened...

...tomorrow!

There's a bookcase in the village that we can use to find backstory on a few of the keywords. It's not much, but it does make the world feel more alive. I can dig it, unlike the battle system. FFII's biggest complaint is how this works, and I'm reminded of it every seven steps.