Last time, we had a little roadblock getting to Drakenvale to look for the Dragon Grass we need to save Krile's Wind Drake. But it was fine because we met a furry and he taught us about how he and some mustache dads and a beard dad used to be romantically and sexually involved with one another. Er, at least, that's how I remember it.

But we got that out of the way and now the poor wolfie is sick because Bartz almost killed him. So we can finally go to Drakenvale!

Drakenvale is yet another mountain area like the ones we've been to before. I find it increasingly difficult to write about dungeon areas because they all play pretty much the same -- explore maps, find treasures, fight enemies... And then I've already made this same complaint before so I can't even really talk about that! (Except here I am doing it again anyway).

One interesting thing does happen, though, when we first enter. This rock monster called ??? appears and attacks us quickly, but then flees. We get the little victory fanfare and do our victory dance, but we get no EXP or ABP for the battle. After this we just get into regular battles with regular enemies.

There are a lot of undead dragon things around here, and a few other enemies, but none of them matter because they all fall to Cave-In. We even can use Cave-In when we're on the 'outside' grassy areas of the mountain, and not just in the caves! Sometimes on the outside, Gaia will use Earthquake, too, which is another massively-damaging attack, though it doesn't hit flying enemies. There are some birds we run into, but we still get Cave-In enough that it doesn't even matter that we miss them with Earthquake.

Eventually after a lot of running in and out of little caves to climb higher up the mountain, we run into that rock guy again. This time he calls out for help, and there are two undead monsters attacking him. Rocky himself is not undead, though, so we can use our White Magic to target the entire "enemy" party, healing him while damaging the two dragons.

Along with some help from Comet, we take them down easily enough, and our stone friend remains safe. Afterward, he thanks us for the help and decides to join up with the party, in the form of Summon monster, Golem.

... Which of course, we can't use because we don't have any Summoners. But still, it was fun, I guess. At least we had to do something other than Gaia.

When we reach the summit, we find Dragon Grass. Of course it only grows on the very top point. But when Lenna and Faris approach it to gather some, it suddenly grows out of the ground, revealing that it's actually some kind of giant plant monster thing.

We get into a battle with the thing. It's one giant plant monster called Dragon Pod, and it's able to summon some little minions called Dragon Flower. Like almost every other major battle in the game, it's hard to talk about it because we can just use Gaia and destroy them quickly with Earthquake and Cave-In. Even if you destroy the Dragon Pod first (which is likely because it continues to summon Dragon Flowers even after you defeat them all), you still have to clear the field of enemies to win the fight, which is a little annoying.

Afterward, it turns back into regular Dragon Grass somehow and we gather it up and head back to the Castle of Bal.

After returning, though, the guards think we are some kind of monsters pretending to be the king so that we can get inside. I mean, Galuf did tell them not to let anyone inside after we left. So they're just doing their jobs. Galuf decides we have to rely on "Plan B" and jumps into the moat.

I can't remember if I've complained about this yet, so I will go ahead now. One thing that really bothers me in this game is the way you walk in water. If you can even call it "in" water. The water is a backdrop just like the grass and flooring and stuff, so they're just kind of like... in front of it. I can't remember what it was like on the Super Famicom and PlayStation, but I feel like even back then they probably made the bottom half of the character tinted or something to make them look submersed in water...?

But yeah. Looks dumb.

Anyway, we travel around to the back of the castle moat and press a button that lets us go right inside. That... seems like a huge security threat. Why can't the monsters just do that? I mean the button to get in is HUGE, too, so you'd think a monster might jump in and press it out of curiosity.

Though I guess they could also just climb over the walls since this place has no roof or anything.

Upon reaching the inside, Galuf grumbles at the guards a bit for not letting him in, but doesn't really seem too upset with them. Talking to people around, we quickly find out that Krile seems to have fallen ill or something, and is resting in her bed. We head up to talk to her, and she just keeps telling us the "Ghido is calling." Galuf explains to the rest of the crew that Ghido is a sage that's lived for over 700 years and might know how to fight Exdeath. But the only way we can go see him is using a Wind Drake. But that's cool because we just got Dragon Grass.

Galuf asks the group if they are willing to go with him. Like, do you really need to ask that at this point? We abandoned our own world to come follow you around. You think we are just gonna just try to settle down and live in the castle or something?!

When we go to the Wind Drake's roost with the Dragon Grass, it refuses to eat. We theorize that this is because Dragons in this world are afraid of Dragon Grass because it''s also a monster that attacks them. Because a giant beast like a dragon would be afraid of a tiny prey that it would naturally feed on, simply because it fights back.

Lenna's solution is to eat the Dragon Grass herself to show the Drake that it's safe. But of course everyone freaks out because Dragon Grass is poisonous to humans. She falls over, but at least the thing eats the grass in the end...

For some reason Krile knew that this happened and came running up to the roost herself with something for Lenna to drink. Upon drinking it, she's fine, but then we realize that Krile is now pushing herself too hard and making her condition worse. And all of this happened because the Drake decided to push itself for the sake of us, too, hurting itself in the process...

Bartz comments that everyone is always going overboard with everything, and I really have to agree.

But now we finally have a Wind Drake again! We're able to fly all around the world now, but sadly no new places really open up to us. We're able to go to this Surgate Castle place, but they won't let us in. The only other place we can go is the little island with the cave where Ghido is supposedly hanging out.

So we fly there and start to enter the cave, but suddenly there is an earthquake! I've completely lost count but I'm pretty sure we've gone through over a dozen earthquakes at this point.

The island sinks under the water, but we manage to get back to the Wind Drake in time. We cut to a little scene of Exdeath Mwa-ha-ha'ing over it, and then we're just back to the world map again, now with no direction once again. We fly back to Bal to see what Krile has to say, but she just keeps muttering that Ghido is calling. We don't even try to communicate to her that the island sank. I mean, she's in contact with Ghido, right? She can do the whole telepathy thing...

So now we just have to ... figure out where to go, I guess. This seems to be something that occurs in this game maybe a little too often.

And though that makes this a short entry, that will have to wait for next time.

---