Final Fantasy II Part 4: Finding Mithril

Journey Into Semite Cave

Three steps into the cave, I fight four yeti who continuously attack Minh without hitting him. I realize that with such low MP, I will have to keep fighting with Maria. I hope her intelligence doesn’t drop in the process.

But it looks different from everything else!

Suspicions confirmed: I can only use the items that I have equipped during battle.

This is the Sprinter I was talking about earlier. What is it; looks like an ostrich!

Concerned about the future for Maria, I place her in the front row. Even though she does not get hit in the back, she only has 25 HP, and I figure the second someone casts a spell, it will kill her with one shot. No pain, no gain, right?

After getting all the treasures out of the first floor, I cast Exit, which takes me out but also significantly damages the caster! I have Minh cure the party, and after saving, I step right back in. Then in the next fight, Maria takes a huge amount of damage and dies. Luckily, I revive her quickly enough for her to benefit from extra vitality and HP (In a sick way, it's kind of like working out; sometimes you practically have to kill yourself to get stronger!). 

On the next floor down, I have to wade through water.

Come on, Minh. Let us use the canoe!

After fighting several more monsters as I navigate through the water (There are so many random encounters in this game!), I find four doors, side by side.

Dear lord! Which door do I go through first?

I step through door number one and find stairs leading down. In case I missed treasure, I head back up and try the other doors. Bad choice! The remaining three doors put me in the middle of an empty room, and those extra steps cause me to fight more random encounters, which is very inconvenient when I’m trying to conserve my MP (Speaking of which, I notice Minh has an ether and an Ice Wind item equipped I don’t want to use at the moment, so I swipe, er, unequip them, from his inventory! Everyone knows in console RPG's that really strong characters never stay with you forever, so why have them keep their good items?)

I have a bad feeling I'll be seeing this screen a lot! 

Glad to be finished making huge choices, I go down the stairs in door number one and walk to the left side of the room. What I see makes my stomach turn.

The first real area and it's already become a sick joke!

I try doors two and three, but both of them take me to the now dreaded empty rooms. Then I try the first door and find the miners from Salmando.

Nothing there; just some dead slave.

I talk to Paul the thief (Robin Hood's Law: Thieves do not have to be bad guys!), who tells me that the girl next to him is Josef’s daughter and was being held hostage by Borgan (Named twice for selling out Phin and taking a NPC’s daughter hostage? Definitely an enemy to remember.) He agrees to take the hostages and Josef’s daughter to safety while I continue my search for mithril.

Deeper into the Cave

After searching through all the piles of bones for treasure (with no results), I continue downward, where I find the Fire spell! Since Maria already knows it, I teach it to Firion (Even though he won’t be as good with magic as Maria because of the way I have trained him, it’s always useful to build up magic with more than one character just in case.). There is yet another door that leads to an empty room, and when I get to the four-way intersection, I try every way but up, which all lead me nowhere. While the random encounters are frequent, I am noticing my characters are becoming much stronger. On the next level down, I find the Exit spell, which I will teach to Firion. I figure that if my healers are dead, chances are Firion is still alive and can cast Exit to quickly get out of there.

Monster-in-a-box!

The monster is a huge turtle that takes out Minh (strong character not as advertised in the face of serious adversity!) and Guy, leaving me with Firion unable to harm it with his sword and Maria without any MP left. Thank heavens I taught Fire to Firion (has a nice ring to it!), so I burn up the turtle that would surely have taken out my party and killed an hour of progress! I teach Exit to Firion (not as nice of a ring, but leaving certainly is) and save as soon as I’m out. With my extra money, I buy Life for Maria and then heal my party. Don’t think you’ve won yet, Semite Cave. I’m coming back!

At the Bottom of the Cave

At the bottom of the Semite Cave, I battle the Sargeant (Hey, that’s not how you spell it!), the first beatable boss of Final Fantasy II! Check it out below.

As you can see, despite the growth of my characters, I am painfully outmatched. I have to rely on magic with Firion and Maria, while Guy fights with little results and Minh casts support and healing magic. I finally pull through, and I think I will be doing some serious grinding in the future. I read in online FAQs that the Sergeant can drop mithril equipment occasionally, but I am not so lucky. Instead of redoing the fight,  I get the mithril and cast Exit to save and return to Altea with my prize.

My Semite Cave Treasure Haul: 200G, 10G, Eye Drops (must be for darkness), two potions, 1G (what a sick joke when every step can lead to another encounter!), 50G, Fire (spell), and Exit (spell)

Score!

On the way back, I see that the townspeople have made it back safely to Salmando. Since I can’t afford any more spells, I head back to Palm, where I buy Safe, Shell, and Blink (Uh oh! I can’t afford Ice anymore like I planned!). Upset, I head back to Altea.

The Dark Knight? Cecil from Final Fantasy IV? Batman?

When I make it back, Hilda asks me to hand the mithril to the blacksmith Tobul so he can make new equipment.

And I want a mithril sword, axe, hat, slippers, ...

I HAVE TO BUY IT?! I risked my life out there!

Unsympathetic to my first-world problems of having to buy mithril gear, Hilda tells me to head to Bofsk to stop the warship. Disgruntled about not being able to afford anything new, I head back to the other continent and head towards Bofsk.

I head to the east of Poft (I would be richer if I didn't have to keep paying for boat fare between Palm and Poft!) and find the Warship parked in a cave by Bofsk. Something tells me the next chapter of Final Fantasy II will be epic!

Holy moly! Look at the size of that airship!

Coming next time! The Assault on the Warship!

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