All in a Day's Work (Aly's Escapades)

1st of November, Weather: Sunny with occasional hot spells

[Today's Companions] Jetsam (Hume thief) AKA Jet Daggwi (Galkan paladin)

[Today's Lunch] Dhalmel Pie

Ever since buying his new armor, Daggwi has been living in poverty. In order to save him from a life of destitution, we decided to scour Castle Oztroja for items to sell. Jetsam, the most proficient gil-earner among us, took the lead.

Castle Oztroja is the Yagudo stronghold, situated on the eastern side of the Meriphataud Mountains near the base of Drogaroga's Spine. Drogaroga's Spine is an enormous bone-shaped structure that divides the northern and southern sides of the Meriphataud Mountains. It also has a really hard name to remember. I keep calling it "Drogalka's Spine," and Daggwi gets mad at me every time.

Anyway, back to Castle Oztroja. It was carnage the first time I came here. The guards of Windurst asked us to find Ajido-Marujido somewhere in the castle, but the Yagudo were too strong and Ema and I ended up running for our lives.

I've come quite far since then. Now the Yagudo on the fourth floor only take one look at me before deciding to ignore me completely. My greatest enemy is not the army of Yagudo, however. It's the makeup of the castle itself. There are trap doors everywhere, and two gardens that look exactly alike to me. I could wander around lost for hours!

Jet used to make his living in Castle Oztroja. Of course, he didn't actually work for the Yagudo. Rather, he picked the treasure chests that you might find with some luck in the castle and made a fair amount of gil selling rings. Lately he hasn't been able to find any more rings, though. Still, the Yagudo possess magic and ninja scrolls that can be sold for a nice profit, so we decided to aim for those this time.



"Aly, are you all right?" "Oh, I forgot to mention it, but you can get to the basement from the second floor."

I worked so hard to pull that stubborn handle, and it was a trap! Of course, Jet forgot to mention it too. Wouldn't you know it! I guess I shouldn't have rushed ahead trusting only knowledge from my vague memories… Anyway, I rushed back up to the first floor to meet Jet and Daggwi.

"You won't fall through the traps if you run from the center of the handles to the door as fast as you can after pulling. Be careful next time!"

I guess being a thief teaches you those kinds of things. Daggwi kept giving me cold stares as if he also knew all along, though, as we finally cleared the first hurdle. After that, everything went quite smoothly until we arrived together at our first goal in the basement.

We were aiming for six types of ninja scrolls: Katon, Doton, Suiton, Huton, Hyoton, and Raiton. But Jet insisted that trying to get all of them would be a waste of time. The chance of getting each type is about equal, but it's possible to get more of one type than another, depending on your luck that day. Anyway, it's most efficient to fight until getting four types or so, since ninja scrolls are so valuable. However, there were three of us, and although it took time and the items were not common, each of us collected five scrolls.

Afterwards, we headed to the fourth floor, which was swarming with powerful Yagudo. This time we were hunting Yagudo mages to get magic scrolls, such as Tornado and Aero. We worked our way past several traps on the way to our destination. The Yagudo here attack even seasoned adventurers. We could take them on one by one no problem, but several at once might be a real challenge. Also, our party consisted of a warrior, a thief, and a paladin, so we couldn't use Sleep or Lullaby. If the Yagudo decided to surround us, we would have no choice but to use Sleep bolts and simply try our best.

We defeated several Yagudo one at a time and received a lot of magic scrolls, but nothing of the expensive variety. Jet was having great luck stealing gold beastcoins, though, and they sell for quite a bit. We plan to split the earnings from today, so I hope he steals a lot so Daggwi and I can increase our spending reserves. After fighting for a while, we discovered a treasure chest! "Leave this to me!" "But there isn't anything good in the treasure chests here anymore, right?" "Well, there's nothing as great as there used to be, but we should still be able to make tens of thousands of gil from it!"

Jet tackled the chest with his thief tools, but it turned out to be a mimic! After fighting for a bit we realized we didn't have a chance. Rather than us dying, I sucked in my pride and chose to teleport us all out. I'm glad I came with white mage as my support job.

We were satisfied with our loot for the day, so we decided to disband at that point. Hopefully Daggwi won't starve now!