FFXII - In over my head

The days are dwindling fast, I must make haste.

I arrived in Archades to find that I needed some chops to enter into the inner city. This involved running around in a little matchmaker game for a while in the city. Sorta pointless time sink. After that I got into the Draklor Laboratories and once more I found myself someplace where there were a number of murdered imperial guards. Seems like everyone this Cid is involved in, imperial guards die.

I worked my up to the top floor through guards and puzzles to finally face Cid himself. But before that I met a pirate by the name of Reddas who had been enlisted by the Marquis to obtain the nethicite from Cid. We duke it out with Baltheir's old man for a bit then he retreats. On the way out he mentions to Ashe that he's headed to Giruvagen to obtain more nethicite, he'll see us there. Yea, he's insane.

After the battle Reddas explains his purpose there and we learn about the maneuvers of the Marquis, Halim Ondore to build the fleet of the resistance. He's actually done quite a good job amassing a fleet to match that of the Imperial army, but with the nethicite at Vayne's disposal, the forces of Archadia will surely win. They need that stone.

But at the same time, Vayne doesn't have the stone either, Cid does. So it's off to Giruvagen to get it from the madman. Some interesting notes... The capital ship of the resistance fleet is called the Garland. Also, I believe this is the first time that the character Cid has been a villain in a FF game.

Anyway, the name of the game is neutralize the nethicite Cid has to even the odds for all out war with the imperial army. To get there we have to head through Golmore Jungle, then the Feywood, then into Giruvagen itself. It's a REALLY long journey through some tough places. After a time I arrived in Giruvagen, and my party has started to delve very deep into the earth. They're starting to think this might be the birth place of nethicite. It's a pretty crazy dungeon, complete with invisible floating platforms to walk on, evil malboros and behemoth type mobs we see in typical final dungeons. The end of the game is nearing.

Right now though I'm way deep in this dungeon and the malboros keep casting disease on me. I have only two remedies left. After that I'm pretty well and fucked over. I hope the dungeon end is soon. I might be at a point where I get really really stuck. That would... suck.