As the story goes on Rhek, Vivi and Nazomi all participate in an annual city wide hunt in Lindblum. Monsters are released in the city and the hunter who kills the most of them in the allotted time limit wins. Nazomi beat me by 1pt, damnit. Anyway, when the hunt is over we receive some disturbing news from a wounded soldier. Burmecia has been attacked by an army of black mages in pointy hats. With the hunt pulling all his men, Cid must send his own defending fleet to the aid of Burmecia. Nazomi is very upset, as it is her home country which she abandoned five years ago. Rhek and Vivi convince her to take them along to help out. They all agree to make Cysra stay put, to keep her safe. Cysra has other plans though. She poisons everyone with the sleep weed and makes her escape to Alexandria with Slayn while they slumber.
When they wake, they're upset that she's put herself in danger but there's nothing they can really do. They have to go help Burmecia. We take off on foot through some marshes and pick up... something... I don't know what the fuck it is, but it's our sixth character, Qu, the blue mage. He/she/it can eat weakened enemies to gain new abilities. I don't like the design of the character but so far I've picked up Mighty Guard, White Wind, Magic Hammer, Pumpkin Head and several other VERY useful abilities. Couple this with the fact that it has as much health as Rhek and hits almost just as hard makes it a very useful companion. Quickly, while on the topic of hitters, Nazomi is also a VERY nice damage dealer. I like her quite a bit, and her lancer abilities come in handy as well, especially her regen-all when I have no white mage around. Man I'm going through a lot of potions and phoenix downs when Cysra's not there...
After picking up Qu (wanted to name it Ichorid cuz he loves the BLU, but it's just so... not him, character-wise), I continued into Gizamaluke Grotto, an underground entrance to the city of Burmecia. There we found many dead Burmecian soldiers and fought our way through a couple of puzzles which involved finding and ringing bells to open doors.
Once we arrived at Burmecia, the city was in ruins. We saved a couple of people but the King had already escaped to Cleyra, a splinter faction of Burmecia which broke off thousands of years ago. When we get to the palace to find the King is gone, we find Queen Brahne instead, with her elite general Beatrix, and a new guy named Kuja. Kuja is obviously the guy behind all this evil, and must be the guy who Cysra said showed up in the palace shortly after her father died. Kuja's plans are still a bit fuzzy, but he's definitely up to no good. Just wish they made him a little less feminine, I thought he was a hot girl for the longest time...
(that guy is way too comfortable with his mid-drift)
Anyway, some lone soldier jumps in to confront the Queen and my party backs him up. The Queen leaves us for Beatrix to handle, and that she does... Effectively... After a drawn out fight, Beatrix simply decides to end it and in one move, knocking everyone's HP to 1 and then takes off. After she's left, Kuja walks up to our beat up crew and mentions something like, "This boy could prove meddlesome" over Vivi's unconscious form. Then he rides off on a big white Drake. End Disc 1.
I popped in the second Disc and got control of Cysra who was on her way to Alexandria to try to talk some sense into her mother. On the way, she meets Marcus of Rhek's old crew. Marcus is on a mission to find some remedy called Supersoft to heal our old buddy Blank who's still petrified in the Evil Forest. She volunteers her aid, not knowing that the plan is to steal it from some Nobles in the city of Treno (on the border of Alexandria).
Along the way, the train is stopped by a beat up Waltz #3. He's still alive?? He's still on a mission to retrieve the Princess for the Queen and kill everyone else. We engage in a fight and he goes down faster than a regular mob. I think the point of the fight was just that it's FINALLY starting to sink in for Slayn that it's POSSIBLE that his Queen sent the black mages. But he's still in super-denial mode.
We get to Treno and break into the house when we're discovered by none other than Dr. Tot. Well, Dr. Tot just happens to be Cysra's mentor from when she was a girl growing up in the castle. He left Alexandria shortly after Kuja arrived though. The party no longer needs to steal the supersoft, Dr. Tot just gives it to them. Then we get to see some flash backs of Cysra as a little girl being trained by Dr. Tot, as well as some interesting ramblings by the good Doctor about the connections between Eidolons (summons) and jewels, and about how no one has been able to harness the power of an Eidolon in over 500 years.
After some reunion, Dr. Tot sends our party to Alexandria in an old underground travel way which leads to the dungeons of Alexandria. We start our climb into the castle proper, when we're captured and arrested by the Queen's stupid little court jesters Zorn and Thorn, who want to take us to the Queen. Well we were headed here anyway, but whatever. Once we arrive in the Queen's chambers, Brahne tries to gives Cysra some bullshit speech about how Burmecia was threatening Alexandria which we don't buy. Kuja comes in and puts Cysra to sleep and she's taken away by Zorn and Thorn to have the Eidolons extracted from her. Apparently, Cysra is the first Summoner in quite a long time but the Eidolons lay dormant in her until her sixteenth birthday. The play at the beginning of the game was for just that occasion. So now they can pull the Eidolons out of her and harvest them for infinite power and eternal life, which they do so successfully. Poor Cysra, left half dead and powerless, her summons all gone...
Back with Rhek now, we head for Cleyra to warn them before the Queen arrives with her army. We have to travel into a desert sandstorm to get there, then make a tough long climb up a huge tree trunk to get into the city which is built into the tree top. The massive tree city reminds me of Avatar. When we arrive we find the king safe and it's explained that the residents of Cleyra use a magical harp powered by a powerful stone to keep a great sand storm whirling about the city. This makes it effectively impenetrable. But during a ritual to strengthen the storm, the harp strings break and the storm spell lifts, leaving the city vulnerable.
The Queen's army attacks. Mages teleport in little floating bubbles right inside the city and start killing people left and right. It's a massacre. Rhek and his gang try to kill as many as possible but it's just too much. They fall back to the citadel at the peak, where all the women, children and the King have retreated to. There's some brief story line where a guy named Fratley comes in to rescue a few people. Nazomi's lost love whom she's been looking for these last five years. She's so happy to see him and then devastated when he doesn't recognize her. His memory's been lost.
Back to the main story. Beatrix shows up, steals the stone on the harp and tries to escape. My party intervenes and once again she whips the shit out of me. Damn. After she slaps me around she teleports out through on of the Doll's bubbles. My party follows her through the bubbles.
We cut to the Queen's airship where the teleport has taken Beatrix and watch as Queen Brahne uses one of the stones extracted from Cysra, the Eidolon Odin.
The dark rider comes forth from the black clouds and summons a beam of light and devastation that completely obliterates Cleyra in one shot, killing everyone left in the city. Wow... that's just wrong.
The party arrives on the airship just after Beatrix, through the teleporter tubes and hides as she reports to the Queen. On her way, Beatrix complains aloud that she doesn't like that her abilities are being overlooked. She could have taken Cleyra with her soldiers. It wasn't necessary to destroy the entire city like that. Anyway she reports to the Queen as the party watches. The Queen treats her like shit then demands that Beatrix go find the 'last stone'. The Queen also mentions that now that Cysra has no more use, that she will execute her when she returns as a traitor to the crown. Beatrix is upset by this but can do nothing and leaves. The party decides they can't attack the Queen here and there's nothing left to be done for the dead of Cleyra and Burmecia. They use the teleporter tubes to go back to Alexandria and save Cysra.
In the mean time Slayn has been working to break out of the dungeon and save Cysra himself. He and Marcus break out, engage in a couple of fights where Marcus dies like immediately and finally we get to the surface where Marcus takes off to go help Blank. As he leaves, Rhek and his party arrive (minus Qu who was in Cleyra when it went up). The party has four again and it's time to save Cysra before the clock runs out and the Queen gets back. We get to her but must go through Zorn and Thorn first. I kick the crap out of those clowns, pun intended, and grab the unconscious Cysra. As we try to make our escape, we're confronted by the Queen and Beatrix.
Beatrix kicks the crap out of us for a THIRD time, damn I'm getting sick of that. But then Rhek reminds her of her sworn duty to protect the Princess at all costs. Beatrix's conscience finally gets the better of her and she flips sides, curing Cysra of w/e Zorn and Thorn did to her. Then she stands side by side with Nazomi against the Queen's minions as the others make their escape. That was kinda cool.
We bail out with my white mage back again, finally; so glad to have her back. But as we try to get out through the underground passage, Zorn and Thorn set off the same trap that got us the first time. But this time Blank and Marcus are there to save us. We thank them and head on down to the passage for Treno. Meanwhile Slayn, finally seeing the Queen for the monster she is and seeing Beatrix realize this, heads back up to help Beatrix and Nazomi as they make their own escape from Alexandria castle.
Rhek, Cysra and Vivi head back on the Gargan tram thing but can't control it and blow right past Treno. We end up at some place called Pinnacle Rocks. The game flashes back to the Queen for a scene where she hires on the best bounty hunter in the world, Lani and her Red-Headed friend. She gives her two orders, retrieve the royal pendant from Cysra, which carries on it the last stone, and kill Vivi. Aww, what's she got against Vivi? Lani asks what to do if she meets resistance, and the Queen says get pendant no matter what. Lani obviously plans to kill Cysra and is pleased that she's been given the go ahead. Aww, what's she got against Cysra? The Red-Headed mans asks if she cares what happens to any of the others, the Queen doesn't so the Red-Headed man seems like he plans on killing Rhek for something in the past. Aww, what's he got against Rhek? My whole party has assassins after them!
The game brings us back to my Cysra-controlled party at Pinnacle Rocks where we're confronted by an old man calling himself Ramuh. Cysra recalls that Ramuh is the Thunder God. Ramuh explains that it was Cysra's magic which destroyed Cleyra. She tells Ramuh that she was afraid of her own summoning power before, that's why she couldn't stop it, but now she's not afraid anymore. She accepts her ability, and needs to stop her mother from hurting anyone else. She asks Ramuh for his aid, but he will not give it until she's found 5 pieces of a story in the forest and returned them to him. Oookay. Very late and I had to work this morning so I crashed but it looks like my next adventure will bring me my first summon! Alright! =D
The Queen's going on a murderous rampage, taking out two full cities of people and countless others so far. Someone's gotta stop her before there's no one left to save.
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