On Day 10 of my Final Fantasy Marathon, I left off after placing the White Mask on the statue under Mysidia. I started day 11 by sailing to a small island in the middle of the ocean to find the Black Mask.

Boredom Island

This dungeon is fairly large, but not very interesting. The enemies are pretty easy, and the treasure is uninteresting.

To add to the tediousness of it, there are many pudding-type enemies that force you to switch between physical and magical attacks, so you can’t just autobattle the whole way through. Additionally, there are branching paths that dead-end, though you can avoid some of the backtracking by using the Warp spell.

One dead-end path takes you to a jungle full of masked weirdos who taunt you and offer to sell you some stuff you probably don’t need. Eventually, we arrived at a chest guarded by four Big Horns.

This battle was as easy as the rest. After winning, we took the black mask from the chest and used the warp pad to teleport out before we died of boredom.

Cave of Mysidia

I sailed back to Mysidia, rested at the inn, and restocked supplies before walking to the Cave of Mysidia, which lies in the center of a mountain range next to the town. This dungeon was a bit tougher than the black mask dungeon.

The enemies are more challenging and some of them have special attacks and inflict status effects that can wipe your party if you’re unlucky. My characters got turned to stone so much, I was in serious jeopardy of running out of gold needles, but I made it out with two left.

There are a few notable treasures. First, I got a Gold Hairpin for Elayne. Next, I got some Black Garb for Rand.

A Doppelganger was guarding the door to the next level. Putting the white mask on the statue caused it to be motionless.

Placing the black mask on it causes it to disappear. I find a Flame Lance in a chest, which I give to Leila.

I find a second Ice Bow in another chest, which also goes to Leila. I pick up a Drain Tome, which goes to Rand.

Eventually, I reach a room with three chests, one of which contains the crystal rod. I get an Osmose Tome from another and give that to Rand.

I would have teleported out at this point, but I missed a chest somewhere, so I warped back through the floors to look for it. I thought it might have been behind a door I didn’t go through, but it was just sitting out in the open where I apparently walked right past it.

It contained a monster-in-a-box fight against some bombs. I got an Ogrekiller, which is a good axe, but I already bought two for Perrin, so I gave this one to Leila. With all the treasure collected, I teleport out of the dungeon.

Leviathan

After resting and restocking in Mysidia, I return to my ship and sail to the Mysidian Tower. As I approach it, a giant whirlpool appears and pulls down my ship.

My party emerges inside the belly of Leviathan, except for Leila, who is missing. We make our way through occasional pools of stomach acid until we find a Twist Headband in a chest, which I give to Rand.

I also find a Power Sash, which goes to Elayne and a Power Armlet that goes to Perrin. We find a group of people living inside Levithan, who has kindly swallowed some furniture, books, and things for them.

Among them, is a the Dragoon Ricard. He and the other residents were all looking for Ultima when they were swallowed by the beast.

I show him my crystal rod and he decides to join the party. He tells us there is a boat we can escape on, but a powerful monster guards it.

On the way to the boat, I find a Gaia Blade in a chest and give it to Rand. The monster is a Roundworm.

It hits pretty hard and has a fair amount of HP, plus Ricard is rather underleveled and doesn’t do much damage. However, we slog it out for a few rounds and get the victory.

We board the ship…which I’m not sure exactly how it was attached to Levithan, but anyway, we get on it and sail to the island where the tower is.

Tower of Mysidia

The Tower is by far the largest dungeon so far and I was well ready for it to be over with by the time I got to the end. It starts out pretty tame, but by the time you get to the last few floors, large groups of enemies that inflict troublesome status effects, like confuse, sleep, and stone, show up in every battle.

I collect some treasures along the way, the first of which is a White Robe that I give to Elayne. Rand gets the Flame Sword.

I forget who got the Flame Helm. I think Perrin got the Flame Armor.

On some of the floors, we must defeat a Mage to progress. The mages all turn into various types of Gigas, with the first being a Fire Gigas.

I cast Blizzard at it with Rand and Elayne, and it goes down quickly. I find an Ice Brand in a chest that goes to Rand.

Not sure who got the Ice Gloves. Perrin got the Ice Armor.

Ricard gets the second Ice Brand. The second Mage we face turns into an Ice Gigas.

We easily defeat it by casting Fire spells. I find a Wizard’s Staff that I just hang on to.

The final Mage turns into a Thunder Gigas. This one is the most troublesome, because I don’t have any magic that is super effective against it and it is resistant to physical attacks.

However, I manage to wear it down by casting the best spells I have available. A monster-in-a-box encounter yields the Flare Tome for Rand.

Minwu’s sacrifice

Finally, on the 10th floor, I find Minwu. He has been waiting for us.

He knows that the power required to break the seal on the Ultima Tome will cost him his life, so he has been waiting for us to show up to go through the door.

Minwu throws everything he has against the seal and breaks it, but then dies after telling us to take Ultima. In the final room of the tower, we find several orbs.

The orbs around the outside of the room grant us stat increases. The orb in the center grants us the Ultima Tome. I have Elayne learn the spell.

A warp pad opens up, but I missed two treasure boxes along the way. Though I know they probably aren’t worth the effort, the loot goblin in me can’t resist going back for them.

I use Rand’s Warp spell to check the previous floors until I find two boxes just sitting in the open on different floors. One contains a Flame Shield.

The other has a worthless Staff. Sad trombone.

I teleport out with Elayne’s spell and save the game at 11 hours and 48 minutes in. I’ll conclude this post with a bit of a complaint about the structure of this game.

It takes a long time to level up spells. As a result, this big, dramatic, difficult push to obtain the two most powerful spells in the game feels like a bit of a waste, because unless you do a ton of extra grinding to level them up, neither ends up being powerful enough to be much use in the endgame.