OOC [application part 2]
Just a bit of warning, here: This history section for Cecil/Paladin is absolutely spoileriffic. I know, the game's been out for seventeen years, there's a statute of limitations on these things, but I might as well tell you. Also, the sucker is goddamn long, so heads up. ANYHOW, ALL ELSE ASIDE:
BACKGROUND: Oh lordy, we’re going to be here a while. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: The Story of Final Fantasy IV OR What Happened When The Squaresoft Writing Team Decided They Really Had It In For Mr. Cecil Harvey.
Our tale begins on a boat. A flying boat, to be precise, where we are introduced to Lord Captain of the Baron Air Force Red Wings, the Dark Knight Cecil Harvey. He and his troops are returning from the raid on the town of Mysidia, bringing with them the Mysidian Water Crystal, which they have stolen. His soldiers are distressed about that whole business, given that the Mysidians either did not or could not defend themselves, but Cecil takes charge and tells them to fear not, the king knows best. Move on, landing, et cetera.
Cecil is lying through his teeth-he’s just as bothered as they are by the whole affair, on which he casually comments to his buddy in the Praetorian Guard equivalent, Captain Baigan, as he goes to report to the king. Baigan decides to take this opportunity to be a jerkass by telling him to wait a minute while he goes in and tells the king of Baron that Cecil is a big fat doubting Thomas. Cecil then enters the throne room and hands over the Water Crystal while being appropriately respectful and considerate. He is summarily dismissed, but before he leaves, he, begging indulgence for the situation, asks the king if he could kindly tell him what is going on with this crystal business and plundering inoffensive sovereign states, as people are starting to worry. At this point, the king accuses him of treason, rebukes him for questioning the man who raised him, and demotes him to Lord Captain Gofer. His new job is to take the Carnelian Signet to a village name of Mist and kill the dragon that’s been hanging around there and you get the strong impression that Mr. King would be totally okay with it if Cecil doesn’t make it back alive. At this point Cecil’s bff Kain Highwind, Lord Captain of the Dragoons Who Wear Really Cool Armor, intervenes and asks the king to reconsider, at which point the king tells him to shut it or he’ll get demoted too and oh by the way you get to accompany your pal there on this humiliating errand. End of discussion.
Cecil apologizes profusely to Kain for getting him mixed up in this, but Kain remains optimistic about things returning to normal soon enough. Cecil retires to his bedchamber and on the way runs into two characters who will be important later. We know this because they have introductory subtitles. The first is Rosa Farrell, White Mage of Baron who just so happens to be Cecil’s girlfriend, and she is all “Hey I’ll meet you in your room later kbai.” Bamp chicka bow wow chicka bow wow. The second is Cid, The Goddamn Batman Airship Fleetmaster, father figure to Cecil and all-around cool old guy. Cid, like everyone else so far, is also concerned about the direction the country’s been taking of late and is especially ticked at how the king keeps sending his babies-um, airships, that is-into battles where they get destroyed and keeps asking for more. After Cid leaves, Cecil goes up to room to gaze at the twin moons and think depressed thoughts, mostly about how he’s done something for which there can be no forgiveness and he doesn’t even know the reason why.
Rosa enters, but unfortunately sexytimes do not ensue. She’s worried about Cecil (“If nothing’s wrong, then why won’t you look at me?”) and finally gets him to confess what he did in Mysidia and his doubt that there can ever be redemption for one such as him. She tries to make him feel better, but it is effort all in vain.
Cue the next day. Cecil and Kain meet up and march on out of the castle, accompanied by a rousing march and narration talking poetically about the beginning of the story. They have to travel though Noob Cave Mist Cave to reach the village of Mist, and upon entry, a mysterious voice repeatedly tells them to leave, though both remark that they can sense no evil or malice from anywhere. Eventually, though, the Mysterious Voice makes a last stand, revealing itself to be the Mist Dragon, which the two of them realize must be the critter the king wanted them to off. They proceed to do so with relatively little fanfare and proceed into the peaceful village of Mist.
Soon after their entry, though, it becomes obvious that Something Is Up. The Carnelian Signet glows, bursts into flames, and a whole slew of exploding fiery bomb monsters burst from it and proceed to do what exploding fiery bomb monsters do best. As Mist goes up in flames around them, Kain finally cottons on that the mission was to eliminate the village while Cecil has a major freakout, brought out of it by the sound of a seven year old girl crying nearby-see, apparently her mother’s dragon just died, and their lives are intertwined or whatnot, so her mother’s dying too. Kain, being the brains of the outfit, has another epiphany-these people are summoners, and the entire purpose of the mission is to kill them all off…which means that the girl probably has to die as well. Cecil is horrified and flat out refuses to comply. Kain concurs, and the two of them make plans to get Rosa, flee the country, and try and find allies to stop Baron’s rogue nation actions. Oh, and they’re going to save the little girl too-unfortunately, this part is where things go all pear-shaped…or, well, more so than they already were. See, the little girl has been listening to their conversation and deduced that they are the ones who killed the dragon and therefore her mother, and her (completely reasonable) response to Cecil trying to get her out of there is to attack him…with Titan. Who creates a gigantic crevasse that stretches the length of the continent. Cecil and the little girl are on one side of it. Kain and the kingdom of Baron are on the other. When Cecil comes to, he assesses the situation and concludes that he needs to get the still-unconscious little girl to safety, Kain or no Kain.
This, naturally, entails crossing a desert and being chased by sandworms the entire way, finally reaching a little town named Kaipo by an oasis. The innkeeper is rather startled by the sight of an armored man carrying a small child that is obviously not well and gives the girl a bed for free. Cecil watches over her until she wakes, trying to ask her what her name is and begging her not for forgiveness but rather that she let him help her though she (again, quite understandably) refuses to even look at him.
Much later, soldiers from Baron arrive at the inn. Cecil tries to reason with them, but they come bearing new orders from the king: Give the girl over to her certain death, and Cecil will be restored to his previous standing, all transgressions forgiven. Cecil responds appropriately (“What?!”) and the terms change: Girl is gonna die, so get out of the way already. A battle ensues, and when the Baron soldiers are dead, the little girl finally speaks to Cecil, thanking him for helping her and telling him her name is Rydia. They are not bothered through the rest of the night, and next morning prepare to stock up in Kaipo and figure out some way to keep Rydia safe while Cecil goes about trying to fix this mess Baron is causing.
However, they overhear stories of a traveler from Baron found unconscious and delirious with fever outside the village-a traveler “fair as the desert moon,” young, female…Yep, it’s Rosa. Cecil is extremely distressed, to say the least: New plan: find a cure for Rosa. According to the locals, what she has is the imaginatively-named desert fever, and the only cure is exposure to the light of a sand pearl, which is only found in an Antlion Den, which is only accessible to Damcyan royalty, who live in the castle to the north past the underground waterway. Time for a road trip. The locals also talk about some old guy trying frantically to find his eloped daughter, but no way that’ll be relevant to the story, right?
Turns out, it is. Said old man, named Tellah, is stymied in the underground waterway as currently big mean monsters are preventing anyone from using the waterway. Upon sight of big, armored, tough-looking Cecil, he immediately begs him for his aid as he cannot defeat the monsters alone, especially the big one at the waterfall, and he needs to get to Damcyan Castle ASAP to retrieve his wayward daughter Anna from the “silver-tongued bard” who “tricked” her. Since Cecil also needs to get to Damcyan Castle ASAP and could use an extra ally, he agrees and the three of them trek through the waterway, fighting many monsters, including the big one at the waterfall (an “Octomammoth,” which is Final Fantasy for “excruciatingly anatomically-incorrect cephalopod”), and then make their way through the desert (again, chased by sandworms) to Damcyan Castle.
Pretty much the exact microsecond that castle is close enough for the details to be visually apparent, a squadron of airships bearing a remarkable resemblance to the ones Cecil used to command descend upon it, blasting the living hell out of the castle and then raiding and leaving before they can reach it. Damn, hunh? The party races to the castle only to find their worst fears confirmed: the dead are many, the survivors few, and while the aforementioned “silver-tongued bard” is among the latter, Tellah’s daughter is among the former. Tellah is consumed with grief, which he sublimates into rage directed at said bard (“You spoony bard!”), brawling with him though the bard doesn’t even try to defend himself-until it turns out that Anna is not quite dead yet and implores the two of them to stop the fighting. Anna reveals that the bard is in fact Prince Gilbart Edward of Damcyan, disguising himself as a bard, and she really does love him, and they were just about to return to Kaipo and ask Tellah again for his blessing when the aforementioned air raid happened. Edward confirms this and mentions the name Golbez, an unnatural man apparently behind the whole affair.
News to Cecil. He drills Edward about this Golbez, and Edward obligingly tells him that Golbez is apparently a newcomer to Baron, and that the purpose of the raid was apparently to steal the Damcyan Fire Crystal, in addition to general murder and misery and whatnot. At this point Edward dissolves into tears and Tellah goes suspiciously quiet for a moment, then swears revenge, leaving Cecil dealing with an old mage beyond the point of reason whom he cannot stop from leaving and a sobbing prince, who, when spoken to, moans that nothing matters anymore and that he’s a worthless coward. Words clearly being useless, Cecil literally slaps some sense into Edward and tells him that he needs his help, relating the story of Rosa and her desert fever. Edward slowly comes around, and realizes the gravity of the situation, telling them both squicky details about the origins of the sand pearls and that they can use his hovercraft to get to the Antlion’s Den. Yes, it’s a fantasy game. Yes, it still has a hovercraft. I don’t ask questions about these things and neither should you.
So, Antlion’s Den. Because nothing in an RPG is ever easy, there’s naturally a whole labyrinth full of monsters before the nest of the critter itself-she frightens Rydia, being, you know, a three-ton arthropod and all, but Edward explains that they’re perfectly safe, they can just nab the pearl and walk away…at which point the antlion tries to nom him. One boss battle later, the critter is an ex-antlion and the party is one sand pearl richer, wondering what the hell is going on with the aggressive wildlife these days. This chain of thought is soon abandoned, however, as they need to hustle back to Kaipo all quicklike.
Back in Kaipo, the sand pearl cures Rosa of her illness and she and Cecil promptly share a mushy scene-see, she’d thought that Cecil was dead, the official party line being that he’d died in the earthquake in Mist. How convenient for the king. She also fills us in on Golbez being Cecil’s replacement leader of the Red Wings, having even spikier dark armor and all, and theorizes that Golbez is the real reason behind the king’s mad quest for the crystals. Upon learning that Damcyan’s Fire Crystal is lost, she figures that either the Wind Crystal of Fabul or the Earth Crystal of Troia is next, and, being that they have no way of getting to Troia, they must head to Fabul and warn the Fabulians of what’s coming and do everything in their power to stop Baron from more pillaging. Cecil is against Rosa coming with them on this quest as she should be convalescing, but is eventually convinced to let her come with, especially since without her, how would the party heal itself?
So! Fabul. The only way to get to it is to take the pass over Mount Hobs, and along the way they run into a lone man training in the wilderness. Well, actually, that’s inaccurate-it’s a lone man facing down a horde of monsters because the rest of the monsters have killed all his buddies while they were training in the wilderness. After the party helps him out offing the offending critters, he bows, thanks, them, and tells them that he is Yang, Grandmaster of the monks of Fabul, he of the Most Excellent Pornstache. The gang fills him in what’s going on with regards to Baron and crystals and death and all, and Yang is somewhat less than thrilled, especially since the monsters killed most of the other monks, leaving the castle near undefended. Naturally, the group agrees to go and help defend the castle of Fabul since Golbez is awful and Fabul’s sovereignty is good and Yang can hit monsters like a motherfucker so we want him in our party very very much.
In Fabul, the king is initially skeptical, since Cecil is wearing the uniform of the enemy after all, but Yang and Edward (he is a prince, remember?) corroborate his story and everyone agrees that the best thing to do is to secure the garrison as fast as possible. Oh and they’re going to take the female characters out of the party because they can heal and it is somehow more important to have healers in the back where they cannot get hurt rather than in the party so that I can have someone heal me during the various fights I’m going to have to endure. Sigh. Moving on.
The defense of Fabul begins at the outer walls, but although the party acquits itself valiantly against the ground forces, the Red Wings are doing their whole aerial bombardment thing and the troops are dying like dogs, forcing a retreat to the castle keep, barricading the door…which the enemy breaks through, forcing them to fall back more and more until they are fighting in the throne room itself, just below the chamber where the crystal is kept. Even then, there is no chance of survival, and the last of the monks accompanying the party has long since fallen, and it seems they have no choice but to make their last stand in the crystal chamber itself.
No sooner have they entered the room than the guy commanding the enemy forces decides to make an appearance. No, not Golbez. No, not the king. You’ll never guess who.
It’s Kain.
Cecil is thrilled to see him alive, and even more pleased to hear that he’s come to fight-but then he’s all surprised when Kain turns his spear on Cecil. Cecil, anguished, demands to know why he’s done this, but Kain will not answer him and defeats him handily. Lying on the ground, Cecil is all Et tu brute? while Kain readies the killing blow. Fortunately for Cecil, Rosa and Rydia choose this moment to decide that the whole behind-the-lines business can go screw itself, and Rosa is horrified to see Kain turning his weapon on Cecil. He falters, staggers, (“Don’t…don’t look at me!”), and a mysterious voice accompanied by ominous organ chords tells him to discard his hesitation and get on with it already. Camera pan to the entrance of the room and-it’s Golbez! Man, but low polygon count is not kind to him. Anyhow, he decides to pull a Palpatine and Force-Lightning’s Cecil, then Yang and Edward when they try to stop him. He orders Kain to take the crystal, but once again Rosa begs him not to while Cecil tells her not to put herself in the way of danger-and she promptly gets cape-napped by Golbez, who knows leverage when he sees it. Kain takes the crystal and marches out of the room with Golbez, leaving the party in shambles.
Rydia, who, being a small little girl, manages to evade attention quite well, steps into center stage and heals the three remaining men, who proceed to mope about the crystal and Rosa being gone. Rydia’s reaction is to demand what is wrong with them, as Rosa isn’t dead yet and they are perfectly capable, competent adult men (and Edward), so they can just regroup and go after him and knock Kain around until he comes to his senses. Outta the mouths of babes, hunh?
Cecil and Yang conclude that in order to go against Golbez, they’ll need airships of their own to counter his Red Wings. In order for that to happen, they’ll need Cid, but he’s stuck in Baron, so they’ll have to infiltrate Baron and get him out. Cecil, being gifted with insider military secrets being a former captain and all, knows that their navy is pathetic and that the best way to get inside Baron is by sea. Yang is certain that the king can grant them passage on a ship to Baron, so it is settled: They leave as soon as possible. Before leaving, though, the king grants Cecil a sword, the Deathbringer, though he warns him that against evil, such a weapon will be near useless.
The story picks up, once more, on a boat! A floating boat, to be precise. Everything is going smoothly, but then this giant coil rises out of the sea, a forked tail slaps the water, and everyone freaks out. It’s Leviathan, the Lord of All Waters, and apparently he got up on the wrong side of the Sargasso Sea this morning. The seas become rough, a thunderstorm appears out of nowhere, it seems, and in the space of two minutes Rydia is thrown overboard, Yang dives in to save her, Edward is knocked unconscious, and Leviathan himself rears out of the water to attack the boat himself. Screen goes black.
When the screen fades back in again, Cecil has avoided drowning (miraculous, when you consider that he’s wearing full-body plate armor) and has washed up on a beach somewhere. He gets up, calls out for his companions, but he is alone. He has no choice but to continue on and hope there’s some kind of nearby settlement where he can recuperate. And, well, there is, kinda.
Trouble is, it’s Mysidia.
Met with hostility, to put it lightly, from the townspeople (They will attack Cecil if you approach them, and the bartender will poison him), Cecil trudges through the town looking for someone, anyone, who is willing to hear his words and eventually comes into the hall of the Mysidian elder. The elder, though contemptuous of him, does hear him out when he explains what has befallen Baron and his current plight. The elder lectures him about walking the path of monsters, staring into the abyss, and finally says that he will assist Cecil in his quest…if. If Cecil can climb Mount Ordeals, face holy judgment, and return to Mysidia a paladin, a feat which no one before has managed, being killed along the way, then the elder will lend Cecil his hand in the quest to stop Golbez.
Cecil agrees immediately. No equivocating, no conditions, no complaining. This is one of the reasons I like him so much.
The Elder recognizes that there is a difference between sending someone to do the exceedingly, painfully difficult, and sending someone to do the impossible, and commands two of his mages to accompany Cecil on his journey (and to keep tabs on him and whack him if it comes down to that, but Cecil don’t know that). We are introduced then to Palom and Porom, primary-school-aged mages and twins. Porom is female and a white mage and pretty much the cutest thing in the game (her level-up animation just kills me), Palom is male and a black mage and pretty much the brattiest thing in the game (“So you’re that filthy dark knight from Baron! I’m only helping you because he told me to. You’d better be thankful!”).
Off we go, to Mount Ordeals! However, Golbez isn’t too pleased about this, as he is an omniscient villain (really, what villain isn’t, these days?) and he plots with Kain to eliminate Cecil by siccing some guy who talkssss like thissssss on him and who has armies of undead, as Cecil’s Deathbringer is useless against the undead (wow, gameplay and story integration!). They do this in front of Rosa, who is tied in a classic bondage pose to a bladed machine of sorts. Bamp chicka bow wow chicka bow wow.
On the mountain, they run into Tellah, who is there seeking the ultimate spell, Meteor, with which he plans to eliminate Golbez once and for all as revenge for killing Anna. Once again, given their common cause, they team up, Porom being duly impressed by Tellah, as he’s actually kinda famous. Hunh, who knew? As they climb, they are plagued by a persistent hissing sound, which Porom attributes to Palom trying (and succeeding) to annoy them, though Palom protests that it’s not him. HMM, WHAT COULD IT BE.
Right before the bridge to the summit, we find out what it is, as the hisser reveals itself to be the guy Golbez sicced on them, Scarmiglione, Fiend of Earth and lord of the undead! Scarmy makes a villainous speech and tackles them with an army of undeads, but they fall in short order and the party crosses the bridge…only to be surprised from behind as Scarmy attacks them again! Really should’ve expected that from the lord of the undead, though. He turns into a very ugly blond zombie, quotes Gandalf, and proceeds to get his ass kicked once more. We proceed to the summit of the mountain.
There’s a monument bearing a remarkable resemblance to a gravestone, and when Cecil approaches it, it teleports him and the party to an ethereal room of crystal, its most notable feature being a mirror-like barrier dividing it down the center. A strange voice speaks all the while, telling them that there are forces in motion they do not know, that tragedy approaches the full extent of which they may never understand…and the voice persists in referring to Cecil as his son, which especially sticks with him (remember, he’s an orphan). Though it grieves the voice, he produces a holy, golden sword from nowhere and bequeaths it to Cecil, who, upon touching it, changes from the iron mask and black armor to a helmless blue and white and gold outfit…also revealing that he is, in fact, the second prettiest character Yoshitaka Amano has ever drawn (first is Kuja, and this ranking includes the female characters). However, in the misty mirror, the reflection is still that of a dark knight-who proceeds to move on his own, stepping out of the mirror and drawing his sword, clearly bent on attacking…and Cecil lets him. The dark knight spends all of his rage, his darkness, his aggression on Cecil, and Cecil does not lift a finger in his own defense, only endures. The dark knight is consumed by his own darkness, quite literally, and Cecil steps away the victor in the fight.
The rest of the party is suitably impressed, though Cecil is still dwelling on the way the voice talked as if it was his father. Light forms around Tellah, though, and he finds himself filled with knowledge, with power, with Meteor. The twins try and talk to a still-rather-stunned Cecil, but are interrupted by Tellah, who feels that it is high time to get this show on the road and take the fight to Golbez. (A quick glance at the menu will reveal, however, that while Tellah indeed knows Meteor, he doesn’t have enough magic, even at his max, to ever actually cast it. This surely isn’t foreshadowing anything!).
They journey back to Mysidia where Cecil sells all of his possessions to buy paladin armor so he doesn’t have to fight naked anymore and the locals are all gobsmacked by this knight in shining armor walking amongst them. The elder is also very impressed, and reveals to Cecil how he had doubted him immensely and sent the twins along as insurance. Cecil doesn’t mind at all. The elder takes note of his fancy new sword, though, and wonders where it came from-why? Because there’s an ancient Mysidian prophecy engraved on it, the legend of one born of a dragon. The elder speculates that this may be referring to Cecil himself… then Tellah makes himself known. As it turns out, he’s buds with the elder, they go way back. The elder is also surprised that the mountain gave Tellah Meteor, as it should be kept hidden far away and the fact that it is not means that Something Is Up. Tellah relates his plans for Golbez and Meteor, and the elder warns him that all this hate will lead him to The Dark Side nothing good, but Tellah basically says that he doesn’t care. Again, this surely isn’t foreshadowing anything!
The elder opens the way to Baron by allowing Cecil use of the Mysidian Devil’s Road, a sort of teleportation network that the Mysidians closed off when Baron attacked them, for fairly obvious reasons. The four of them-Cecil, Tellah, Palom, and Porom-warp along to Baron in an actually fairly creepy sequence involving unnerving sound effects, and emerge in the castle town. Talk from the citizens reveals that things have taken a turn for the worse: Dark orders from the king, foul edicts, soldiers behaving like dishonorable curs, locking up old Cid for speaking his mind, and strange, musclebound men with pornstaches taking up leadership positions in the local patrol though they do not so much patrolling and much more drinking in the bar. Also, very few people seem to recognize this guy in the cape and pure white armor.
Cecil has a hunch that he knows this bepornstache’d individual and so makes his way to the bar-yep, it’s Yang! Cecil is overjoyed to see him alive, and isn’t even fazed when Yang doesn’t seem to recognize him, after all, very few people have. He tells him who he is, and Yang tells him that he has been looking for him, too! …Because Cecil is a traitor to the king of Baron and must be arrested immediately. Jesus Christ. Anyhow, Cecil engages in the tried-and-true Slap Some Sense Into ‘Em method of amnesia counseling and Yang eventually comes back to normal., though he needs priming on what exactly is going on. He is able to update us on Rydia’s status: Leviathan chow. Yeek. Doesn’t know whether Edward is alive or not, though. Yang recognizes that, in order to proceed with the plan they had formulated so long ago in Fabul, they need to bust ol’ Cid out of the slammer, and fortunately for everyone involved, his stint as a Baron soldier means that he’s got keys to get into the castle with.
Because this wouldn’t be an RPG if they didn’t shove a dungeon in any place it was even remotely plausible, the keys Yang has unlocks the door to the Baron sewer (ew), which leads into the moat (…ew) and both places are infested with monsters (ewwwww). From there, the party returns to the castle, and is sneaking around when they are found out…by Captain Baigan. Remember him? The jerk from the second paragraph? Well, he tells Cecil that he was here leading a party to rescue Cid and only he survived, sob sob, can I join your party I could be a big help? Cecil swallows this hook, line, and sinker. Baigan leads them to the throne room when the twins sense a monster’s presence. Baigan is all “omgwhut?!” and searches the area for this monster, the twins’ response is best summarized as “Bitch, please.” Yep, Baigan has been bought, and the price was…sentient floating purple snake arms? O-kaaaaaay, whatever. He is promptly dispatched. Cecil feels bad for killing him. The player does not.
The party continues into the throne room, half expecting to see Golbez sitting pretty there. But apparently, the king is still ruling! And he even greets Cecil warmly…until he figures out that Cecil’s just rolled a pally. When Cecil is confused (“My liege?”) the king clarifies matters: He is not, in fact, the king of Baron, but a monster who killed the king when he resisted Golbez’s schemes and has been impersonating him this entire time. His name is Cagnazzo, the Fiend of Water! Cagz transforms from a generic kingly-looking guy to a really disturbing, jittering turtle-man and oh god legs should not bend that way before Cecil and party’s eyes, and is, some time later, blizzaga’d and thundaga’d into chunky turtle-man soup. Cecil is coping with the death of his king when, all of a sudden, a commotion is raised outside, culminating in a short old guy in prison garb wielding a wooden hammer running in cursing the imposter’s name. It is, of course, The Goddamn Batman Cid. He, too, is amazed to see Cecil alive, and the party almost begins to exposit to him before they remember that, having just broken out of prison and apparently killed the king, respectively, perhaps it would be a good idea to get moving and talk on the way.
In a hallway outside the throne room, however, things go pear-shaped. Cagz’ voice booms from nowhere, and he tells them that they may have killed him, but he’s gonna take them with him to hell. At this point the walls begin to close in on them, clearly aiming to squish them flat. The doors are locked, nothing the strong men can do is going to halt the walls in their tracks…it is at this time that Palom and Porom step next to the wall and tell Cecil they had a wonderful time traveling with him and that he’s just like an older brother to them. Because that is totally going to make him feel better about their next actions: Turning themselves into statues to hold the walls in place, horrifying the other four as nothing they try (and they do try) will change them back to normal. Fused to the walls and floors as they are, the party has no choice but to abandon them in the halls as they flee to the airship hangar.
They’ve barely gotten into the air when they are waylaid by one of the Red Wings’ aircrafts…except that this one is flying a flag of truce. A midair parley is called, taking place on gangplanks extending from one hovering ship to the other, both parties staring the other down it is so very cool. Cecil leads the party on one side. The other side is led by our buddy Kain, who is trying on his Evil Smirk for size. He informs Cecil that if he wants to see Rosa alive again, he had better bring Golbez the Earth Crystal of Troia and be quick about it. Despite disgust from Tellah, outrage from Yang and Cid, and pleading from Cecil, Kain returns to his ship unaffected, telling them that he’ll contact them once they have it. Cecil, seeing no other choice, sets a course for Troia.
BACKGROUND: Oh lordy, we’re going to be here a while. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: The Story of Final Fantasy IV OR What Happened When The Squaresoft Writing Team Decided They Really Had It In For Mr. Cecil Harvey.
Our tale begins on a boat. A flying boat, to be precise, where we are introduced to Lord Captain of the Baron Air Force Red Wings, the Dark Knight Cecil Harvey. He and his troops are returning from the raid on the town of Mysidia, bringing with them the Mysidian Water Crystal, which they have stolen. His soldiers are distressed about that whole business, given that the Mysidians either did not or could not defend themselves, but Cecil takes charge and tells them to fear not, the king knows best. Move on, landing, et cetera.
Cecil is lying through his teeth-he’s just as bothered as they are by the whole affair, on which he casually comments to his buddy in the Praetorian Guard equivalent, Captain Baigan, as he goes to report to the king. Baigan decides to take this opportunity to be a jerkass by telling him to wait a minute while he goes in and tells the king of Baron that Cecil is a big fat doubting Thomas. Cecil then enters the throne room and hands over the Water Crystal while being appropriately respectful and considerate. He is summarily dismissed, but before he leaves, he, begging indulgence for the situation, asks the king if he could kindly tell him what is going on with this crystal business and plundering inoffensive sovereign states, as people are starting to worry. At this point, the king accuses him of treason, rebukes him for questioning the man who raised him, and demotes him to Lord Captain Gofer. His new job is to take the Carnelian Signet to a village name of Mist and kill the dragon that’s been hanging around there and you get the strong impression that Mr. King would be totally okay with it if Cecil doesn’t make it back alive. At this point Cecil’s bff Kain Highwind, Lord Captain of the Dragoons Who Wear Really Cool Armor, intervenes and asks the king to reconsider, at which point the king tells him to shut it or he’ll get demoted too and oh by the way you get to accompany your pal there on this humiliating errand. End of discussion.
Cecil apologizes profusely to Kain for getting him mixed up in this, but Kain remains optimistic about things returning to normal soon enough. Cecil retires to his bedchamber and on the way runs into two characters who will be important later. We know this because they have introductory subtitles. The first is Rosa Farrell, White Mage of Baron who just so happens to be Cecil’s girlfriend, and she is all “Hey I’ll meet you in your room later kbai.” Bamp chicka bow wow chicka bow wow. The second is Cid, The Goddamn Batman Airship Fleetmaster, father figure to Cecil and all-around cool old guy. Cid, like everyone else so far, is also concerned about the direction the country’s been taking of late and is especially ticked at how the king keeps sending his babies-um, airships, that is-into battles where they get destroyed and keeps asking for more. After Cid leaves, Cecil goes up to room to gaze at the twin moons and think depressed thoughts, mostly about how he’s done something for which there can be no forgiveness and he doesn’t even know the reason why.
Rosa enters, but unfortunately sexytimes do not ensue. She’s worried about Cecil (“If nothing’s wrong, then why won’t you look at me?”) and finally gets him to confess what he did in Mysidia and his doubt that there can ever be redemption for one such as him. She tries to make him feel better, but it is effort all in vain.
Cue the next day. Cecil and Kain meet up and march on out of the castle, accompanied by a rousing march and narration talking poetically about the beginning of the story. They have to travel though Noob Cave Mist Cave to reach the village of Mist, and upon entry, a mysterious voice repeatedly tells them to leave, though both remark that they can sense no evil or malice from anywhere. Eventually, though, the Mysterious Voice makes a last stand, revealing itself to be the Mist Dragon, which the two of them realize must be the critter the king wanted them to off. They proceed to do so with relatively little fanfare and proceed into the peaceful village of Mist.
Soon after their entry, though, it becomes obvious that Something Is Up. The Carnelian Signet glows, bursts into flames, and a whole slew of exploding fiery bomb monsters burst from it and proceed to do what exploding fiery bomb monsters do best. As Mist goes up in flames around them, Kain finally cottons on that the mission was to eliminate the village while Cecil has a major freakout, brought out of it by the sound of a seven year old girl crying nearby-see, apparently her mother’s dragon just died, and their lives are intertwined or whatnot, so her mother’s dying too. Kain, being the brains of the outfit, has another epiphany-these people are summoners, and the entire purpose of the mission is to kill them all off…which means that the girl probably has to die as well. Cecil is horrified and flat out refuses to comply. Kain concurs, and the two of them make plans to get Rosa, flee the country, and try and find allies to stop Baron’s rogue nation actions. Oh, and they’re going to save the little girl too-unfortunately, this part is where things go all pear-shaped…or, well, more so than they already were. See, the little girl has been listening to their conversation and deduced that they are the ones who killed the dragon and therefore her mother, and her (completely reasonable) response to Cecil trying to get her out of there is to attack him…with Titan. Who creates a gigantic crevasse that stretches the length of the continent. Cecil and the little girl are on one side of it. Kain and the kingdom of Baron are on the other. When Cecil comes to, he assesses the situation and concludes that he needs to get the still-unconscious little girl to safety, Kain or no Kain.
This, naturally, entails crossing a desert and being chased by sandworms the entire way, finally reaching a little town named Kaipo by an oasis. The innkeeper is rather startled by the sight of an armored man carrying a small child that is obviously not well and gives the girl a bed for free. Cecil watches over her until she wakes, trying to ask her what her name is and begging her not for forgiveness but rather that she let him help her though she (again, quite understandably) refuses to even look at him.
Much later, soldiers from Baron arrive at the inn. Cecil tries to reason with them, but they come bearing new orders from the king: Give the girl over to her certain death, and Cecil will be restored to his previous standing, all transgressions forgiven. Cecil responds appropriately (“What?!”) and the terms change: Girl is gonna die, so get out of the way already. A battle ensues, and when the Baron soldiers are dead, the little girl finally speaks to Cecil, thanking him for helping her and telling him her name is Rydia. They are not bothered through the rest of the night, and next morning prepare to stock up in Kaipo and figure out some way to keep Rydia safe while Cecil goes about trying to fix this mess Baron is causing.
However, they overhear stories of a traveler from Baron found unconscious and delirious with fever outside the village-a traveler “fair as the desert moon,” young, female…Yep, it’s Rosa. Cecil is extremely distressed, to say the least: New plan: find a cure for Rosa. According to the locals, what she has is the imaginatively-named desert fever, and the only cure is exposure to the light of a sand pearl, which is only found in an Antlion Den, which is only accessible to Damcyan royalty, who live in the castle to the north past the underground waterway. Time for a road trip. The locals also talk about some old guy trying frantically to find his eloped daughter, but no way that’ll be relevant to the story, right?
Turns out, it is. Said old man, named Tellah, is stymied in the underground waterway as currently big mean monsters are preventing anyone from using the waterway. Upon sight of big, armored, tough-looking Cecil, he immediately begs him for his aid as he cannot defeat the monsters alone, especially the big one at the waterfall, and he needs to get to Damcyan Castle ASAP to retrieve his wayward daughter Anna from the “silver-tongued bard” who “tricked” her. Since Cecil also needs to get to Damcyan Castle ASAP and could use an extra ally, he agrees and the three of them trek through the waterway, fighting many monsters, including the big one at the waterfall (an “Octomammoth,” which is Final Fantasy for “excruciatingly anatomically-incorrect cephalopod”), and then make their way through the desert (again, chased by sandworms) to Damcyan Castle.
Pretty much the exact microsecond that castle is close enough for the details to be visually apparent, a squadron of airships bearing a remarkable resemblance to the ones Cecil used to command descend upon it, blasting the living hell out of the castle and then raiding and leaving before they can reach it. Damn, hunh? The party races to the castle only to find their worst fears confirmed: the dead are many, the survivors few, and while the aforementioned “silver-tongued bard” is among the latter, Tellah’s daughter is among the former. Tellah is consumed with grief, which he sublimates into rage directed at said bard (“You spoony bard!”), brawling with him though the bard doesn’t even try to defend himself-until it turns out that Anna is not quite dead yet and implores the two of them to stop the fighting. Anna reveals that the bard is in fact Prince Gilbart Edward of Damcyan, disguising himself as a bard, and she really does love him, and they were just about to return to Kaipo and ask Tellah again for his blessing when the aforementioned air raid happened. Edward confirms this and mentions the name Golbez, an unnatural man apparently behind the whole affair.
News to Cecil. He drills Edward about this Golbez, and Edward obligingly tells him that Golbez is apparently a newcomer to Baron, and that the purpose of the raid was apparently to steal the Damcyan Fire Crystal, in addition to general murder and misery and whatnot. At this point Edward dissolves into tears and Tellah goes suspiciously quiet for a moment, then swears revenge, leaving Cecil dealing with an old mage beyond the point of reason whom he cannot stop from leaving and a sobbing prince, who, when spoken to, moans that nothing matters anymore and that he’s a worthless coward. Words clearly being useless, Cecil literally slaps some sense into Edward and tells him that he needs his help, relating the story of Rosa and her desert fever. Edward slowly comes around, and realizes the gravity of the situation, telling them both squicky details about the origins of the sand pearls and that they can use his hovercraft to get to the Antlion’s Den. Yes, it’s a fantasy game. Yes, it still has a hovercraft. I don’t ask questions about these things and neither should you.
So, Antlion’s Den. Because nothing in an RPG is ever easy, there’s naturally a whole labyrinth full of monsters before the nest of the critter itself-she frightens Rydia, being, you know, a three-ton arthropod and all, but Edward explains that they’re perfectly safe, they can just nab the pearl and walk away…at which point the antlion tries to nom him. One boss battle later, the critter is an ex-antlion and the party is one sand pearl richer, wondering what the hell is going on with the aggressive wildlife these days. This chain of thought is soon abandoned, however, as they need to hustle back to Kaipo all quicklike.
Back in Kaipo, the sand pearl cures Rosa of her illness and she and Cecil promptly share a mushy scene-see, she’d thought that Cecil was dead, the official party line being that he’d died in the earthquake in Mist. How convenient for the king. She also fills us in on Golbez being Cecil’s replacement leader of the Red Wings, having even spikier dark armor and all, and theorizes that Golbez is the real reason behind the king’s mad quest for the crystals. Upon learning that Damcyan’s Fire Crystal is lost, she figures that either the Wind Crystal of Fabul or the Earth Crystal of Troia is next, and, being that they have no way of getting to Troia, they must head to Fabul and warn the Fabulians of what’s coming and do everything in their power to stop Baron from more pillaging. Cecil is against Rosa coming with them on this quest as she should be convalescing, but is eventually convinced to let her come with, especially since without her, how would the party heal itself?
So! Fabul. The only way to get to it is to take the pass over Mount Hobs, and along the way they run into a lone man training in the wilderness. Well, actually, that’s inaccurate-it’s a lone man facing down a horde of monsters because the rest of the monsters have killed all his buddies while they were training in the wilderness. After the party helps him out offing the offending critters, he bows, thanks, them, and tells them that he is Yang, Grandmaster of the monks of Fabul, he of the Most Excellent Pornstache. The gang fills him in what’s going on with regards to Baron and crystals and death and all, and Yang is somewhat less than thrilled, especially since the monsters killed most of the other monks, leaving the castle near undefended. Naturally, the group agrees to go and help defend the castle of Fabul since Golbez is awful and Fabul’s sovereignty is good and Yang can hit monsters like a motherfucker so we want him in our party very very much.
In Fabul, the king is initially skeptical, since Cecil is wearing the uniform of the enemy after all, but Yang and Edward (he is a prince, remember?) corroborate his story and everyone agrees that the best thing to do is to secure the garrison as fast as possible. Oh and they’re going to take the female characters out of the party because they can heal and it is somehow more important to have healers in the back where they cannot get hurt rather than in the party so that I can have someone heal me during the various fights I’m going to have to endure. Sigh. Moving on.
The defense of Fabul begins at the outer walls, but although the party acquits itself valiantly against the ground forces, the Red Wings are doing their whole aerial bombardment thing and the troops are dying like dogs, forcing a retreat to the castle keep, barricading the door…which the enemy breaks through, forcing them to fall back more and more until they are fighting in the throne room itself, just below the chamber where the crystal is kept. Even then, there is no chance of survival, and the last of the monks accompanying the party has long since fallen, and it seems they have no choice but to make their last stand in the crystal chamber itself.
No sooner have they entered the room than the guy commanding the enemy forces decides to make an appearance. No, not Golbez. No, not the king. You’ll never guess who.
It’s Kain.
Cecil is thrilled to see him alive, and even more pleased to hear that he’s come to fight-but then he’s all surprised when Kain turns his spear on Cecil. Cecil, anguished, demands to know why he’s done this, but Kain will not answer him and defeats him handily. Lying on the ground, Cecil is all Et tu brute? while Kain readies the killing blow. Fortunately for Cecil, Rosa and Rydia choose this moment to decide that the whole behind-the-lines business can go screw itself, and Rosa is horrified to see Kain turning his weapon on Cecil. He falters, staggers, (“Don’t…don’t look at me!”), and a mysterious voice accompanied by ominous organ chords tells him to discard his hesitation and get on with it already. Camera pan to the entrance of the room and-it’s Golbez! Man, but low polygon count is not kind to him. Anyhow, he decides to pull a Palpatine and Force-Lightning’s Cecil, then Yang and Edward when they try to stop him. He orders Kain to take the crystal, but once again Rosa begs him not to while Cecil tells her not to put herself in the way of danger-and she promptly gets cape-napped by Golbez, who knows leverage when he sees it. Kain takes the crystal and marches out of the room with Golbez, leaving the party in shambles.
Rydia, who, being a small little girl, manages to evade attention quite well, steps into center stage and heals the three remaining men, who proceed to mope about the crystal and Rosa being gone. Rydia’s reaction is to demand what is wrong with them, as Rosa isn’t dead yet and they are perfectly capable, competent adult men (and Edward), so they can just regroup and go after him and knock Kain around until he comes to his senses. Outta the mouths of babes, hunh?
Cecil and Yang conclude that in order to go against Golbez, they’ll need airships of their own to counter his Red Wings. In order for that to happen, they’ll need Cid, but he’s stuck in Baron, so they’ll have to infiltrate Baron and get him out. Cecil, being gifted with insider military secrets being a former captain and all, knows that their navy is pathetic and that the best way to get inside Baron is by sea. Yang is certain that the king can grant them passage on a ship to Baron, so it is settled: They leave as soon as possible. Before leaving, though, the king grants Cecil a sword, the Deathbringer, though he warns him that against evil, such a weapon will be near useless.
The story picks up, once more, on a boat! A floating boat, to be precise. Everything is going smoothly, but then this giant coil rises out of the sea, a forked tail slaps the water, and everyone freaks out. It’s Leviathan, the Lord of All Waters, and apparently he got up on the wrong side of the Sargasso Sea this morning. The seas become rough, a thunderstorm appears out of nowhere, it seems, and in the space of two minutes Rydia is thrown overboard, Yang dives in to save her, Edward is knocked unconscious, and Leviathan himself rears out of the water to attack the boat himself. Screen goes black.
When the screen fades back in again, Cecil has avoided drowning (miraculous, when you consider that he’s wearing full-body plate armor) and has washed up on a beach somewhere. He gets up, calls out for his companions, but he is alone. He has no choice but to continue on and hope there’s some kind of nearby settlement where he can recuperate. And, well, there is, kinda.
Trouble is, it’s Mysidia.
Met with hostility, to put it lightly, from the townspeople (They will attack Cecil if you approach them, and the bartender will poison him), Cecil trudges through the town looking for someone, anyone, who is willing to hear his words and eventually comes into the hall of the Mysidian elder. The elder, though contemptuous of him, does hear him out when he explains what has befallen Baron and his current plight. The elder lectures him about walking the path of monsters, staring into the abyss, and finally says that he will assist Cecil in his quest…if. If Cecil can climb Mount Ordeals, face holy judgment, and return to Mysidia a paladin, a feat which no one before has managed, being killed along the way, then the elder will lend Cecil his hand in the quest to stop Golbez.
Cecil agrees immediately. No equivocating, no conditions, no complaining. This is one of the reasons I like him so much.
The Elder recognizes that there is a difference between sending someone to do the exceedingly, painfully difficult, and sending someone to do the impossible, and commands two of his mages to accompany Cecil on his journey (and to keep tabs on him and whack him if it comes down to that, but Cecil don’t know that). We are introduced then to Palom and Porom, primary-school-aged mages and twins. Porom is female and a white mage and pretty much the cutest thing in the game (her level-up animation just kills me), Palom is male and a black mage and pretty much the brattiest thing in the game (“So you’re that filthy dark knight from Baron! I’m only helping you because he told me to. You’d better be thankful!”).
Off we go, to Mount Ordeals! However, Golbez isn’t too pleased about this, as he is an omniscient villain (really, what villain isn’t, these days?) and he plots with Kain to eliminate Cecil by siccing some guy who talkssss like thissssss on him and who has armies of undead, as Cecil’s Deathbringer is useless against the undead (wow, gameplay and story integration!). They do this in front of Rosa, who is tied in a classic bondage pose to a bladed machine of sorts. Bamp chicka bow wow chicka bow wow.
On the mountain, they run into Tellah, who is there seeking the ultimate spell, Meteor, with which he plans to eliminate Golbez once and for all as revenge for killing Anna. Once again, given their common cause, they team up, Porom being duly impressed by Tellah, as he’s actually kinda famous. Hunh, who knew? As they climb, they are plagued by a persistent hissing sound, which Porom attributes to Palom trying (and succeeding) to annoy them, though Palom protests that it’s not him. HMM, WHAT COULD IT BE.
Right before the bridge to the summit, we find out what it is, as the hisser reveals itself to be the guy Golbez sicced on them, Scarmiglione, Fiend of Earth and lord of the undead! Scarmy makes a villainous speech and tackles them with an army of undeads, but they fall in short order and the party crosses the bridge…only to be surprised from behind as Scarmy attacks them again! Really should’ve expected that from the lord of the undead, though. He turns into a very ugly blond zombie, quotes Gandalf, and proceeds to get his ass kicked once more. We proceed to the summit of the mountain.
There’s a monument bearing a remarkable resemblance to a gravestone, and when Cecil approaches it, it teleports him and the party to an ethereal room of crystal, its most notable feature being a mirror-like barrier dividing it down the center. A strange voice speaks all the while, telling them that there are forces in motion they do not know, that tragedy approaches the full extent of which they may never understand…and the voice persists in referring to Cecil as his son, which especially sticks with him (remember, he’s an orphan). Though it grieves the voice, he produces a holy, golden sword from nowhere and bequeaths it to Cecil, who, upon touching it, changes from the iron mask and black armor to a helmless blue and white and gold outfit…also revealing that he is, in fact, the second prettiest character Yoshitaka Amano has ever drawn (first is Kuja, and this ranking includes the female characters). However, in the misty mirror, the reflection is still that of a dark knight-who proceeds to move on his own, stepping out of the mirror and drawing his sword, clearly bent on attacking…and Cecil lets him. The dark knight spends all of his rage, his darkness, his aggression on Cecil, and Cecil does not lift a finger in his own defense, only endures. The dark knight is consumed by his own darkness, quite literally, and Cecil steps away the victor in the fight.
The rest of the party is suitably impressed, though Cecil is still dwelling on the way the voice talked as if it was his father. Light forms around Tellah, though, and he finds himself filled with knowledge, with power, with Meteor. The twins try and talk to a still-rather-stunned Cecil, but are interrupted by Tellah, who feels that it is high time to get this show on the road and take the fight to Golbez. (A quick glance at the menu will reveal, however, that while Tellah indeed knows Meteor, he doesn’t have enough magic, even at his max, to ever actually cast it. This surely isn’t foreshadowing anything!).
They journey back to Mysidia where Cecil sells all of his possessions to buy paladin armor so he doesn’t have to fight naked anymore and the locals are all gobsmacked by this knight in shining armor walking amongst them. The elder is also very impressed, and reveals to Cecil how he had doubted him immensely and sent the twins along as insurance. Cecil doesn’t mind at all. The elder takes note of his fancy new sword, though, and wonders where it came from-why? Because there’s an ancient Mysidian prophecy engraved on it, the legend of one born of a dragon. The elder speculates that this may be referring to Cecil himself… then Tellah makes himself known. As it turns out, he’s buds with the elder, they go way back. The elder is also surprised that the mountain gave Tellah Meteor, as it should be kept hidden far away and the fact that it is not means that Something Is Up. Tellah relates his plans for Golbez and Meteor, and the elder warns him that all this hate will lead him to The Dark Side nothing good, but Tellah basically says that he doesn’t care. Again, this surely isn’t foreshadowing anything!
The elder opens the way to Baron by allowing Cecil use of the Mysidian Devil’s Road, a sort of teleportation network that the Mysidians closed off when Baron attacked them, for fairly obvious reasons. The four of them-Cecil, Tellah, Palom, and Porom-warp along to Baron in an actually fairly creepy sequence involving unnerving sound effects, and emerge in the castle town. Talk from the citizens reveals that things have taken a turn for the worse: Dark orders from the king, foul edicts, soldiers behaving like dishonorable curs, locking up old Cid for speaking his mind, and strange, musclebound men with pornstaches taking up leadership positions in the local patrol though they do not so much patrolling and much more drinking in the bar. Also, very few people seem to recognize this guy in the cape and pure white armor.
Cecil has a hunch that he knows this bepornstache’d individual and so makes his way to the bar-yep, it’s Yang! Cecil is overjoyed to see him alive, and isn’t even fazed when Yang doesn’t seem to recognize him, after all, very few people have. He tells him who he is, and Yang tells him that he has been looking for him, too! …Because Cecil is a traitor to the king of Baron and must be arrested immediately. Jesus Christ. Anyhow, Cecil engages in the tried-and-true Slap Some Sense Into ‘Em method of amnesia counseling and Yang eventually comes back to normal., though he needs priming on what exactly is going on. He is able to update us on Rydia’s status: Leviathan chow. Yeek. Doesn’t know whether Edward is alive or not, though. Yang recognizes that, in order to proceed with the plan they had formulated so long ago in Fabul, they need to bust ol’ Cid out of the slammer, and fortunately for everyone involved, his stint as a Baron soldier means that he’s got keys to get into the castle with.
Because this wouldn’t be an RPG if they didn’t shove a dungeon in any place it was even remotely plausible, the keys Yang has unlocks the door to the Baron sewer (ew), which leads into the moat (…ew) and both places are infested with monsters (ewwwww). From there, the party returns to the castle, and is sneaking around when they are found out…by Captain Baigan. Remember him? The jerk from the second paragraph? Well, he tells Cecil that he was here leading a party to rescue Cid and only he survived, sob sob, can I join your party I could be a big help? Cecil swallows this hook, line, and sinker. Baigan leads them to the throne room when the twins sense a monster’s presence. Baigan is all “omgwhut?!” and searches the area for this monster, the twins’ response is best summarized as “Bitch, please.” Yep, Baigan has been bought, and the price was…sentient floating purple snake arms? O-kaaaaaay, whatever. He is promptly dispatched. Cecil feels bad for killing him. The player does not.
The party continues into the throne room, half expecting to see Golbez sitting pretty there. But apparently, the king is still ruling! And he even greets Cecil warmly…until he figures out that Cecil’s just rolled a pally. When Cecil is confused (“My liege?”) the king clarifies matters: He is not, in fact, the king of Baron, but a monster who killed the king when he resisted Golbez’s schemes and has been impersonating him this entire time. His name is Cagnazzo, the Fiend of Water! Cagz transforms from a generic kingly-looking guy to a really disturbing, jittering turtle-man and oh god legs should not bend that way before Cecil and party’s eyes, and is, some time later, blizzaga’d and thundaga’d into chunky turtle-man soup. Cecil is coping with the death of his king when, all of a sudden, a commotion is raised outside, culminating in a short old guy in prison garb wielding a wooden hammer running in cursing the imposter’s name. It is, of course, The Goddamn Batman Cid. He, too, is amazed to see Cecil alive, and the party almost begins to exposit to him before they remember that, having just broken out of prison and apparently killed the king, respectively, perhaps it would be a good idea to get moving and talk on the way.
In a hallway outside the throne room, however, things go pear-shaped. Cagz’ voice booms from nowhere, and he tells them that they may have killed him, but he’s gonna take them with him to hell. At this point the walls begin to close in on them, clearly aiming to squish them flat. The doors are locked, nothing the strong men can do is going to halt the walls in their tracks…it is at this time that Palom and Porom step next to the wall and tell Cecil they had a wonderful time traveling with him and that he’s just like an older brother to them. Because that is totally going to make him feel better about their next actions: Turning themselves into statues to hold the walls in place, horrifying the other four as nothing they try (and they do try) will change them back to normal. Fused to the walls and floors as they are, the party has no choice but to abandon them in the halls as they flee to the airship hangar.
They’ve barely gotten into the air when they are waylaid by one of the Red Wings’ aircrafts…except that this one is flying a flag of truce. A midair parley is called, taking place on gangplanks extending from one hovering ship to the other, both parties staring the other down it is so very cool. Cecil leads the party on one side. The other side is led by our buddy Kain, who is trying on his Evil Smirk for size. He informs Cecil that if he wants to see Rosa alive again, he had better bring Golbez the Earth Crystal of Troia and be quick about it. Despite disgust from Tellah, outrage from Yang and Cid, and pleading from Cecil, Kain returns to his ship unaffected, telling them that he’ll contact them once they have it. Cecil, seeing no other choice, sets a course for Troia.