After destroying the antenna to the barrier tower to disable the barrier around Exdeath's castle, we're heading back to the submarine to wait for Xezat who is most likely not going to show up.

Well, Galuf is waiting. Bartz tries to convince him to stop standing by the little cave door by saying that nothing could have survived that blast, but Galuf keeps saying he's going to wait just one more minute. Eventually Bartz, Lenna, and Faris rest in the cabin of the sub and time lapses to a bit later, when Galuf has at least apparently boarded the ship. The other three have a conversation about how it should be easier to find Ghido now, since we're underwater, and his island sunk... because, you know, people don't drown in the water or anything. They just hang out there like it never happened. Even though we had to escape...

Galuf is sitting below in the cabin still during this conversation, though, mourning his boyfriend.

With the submarine, we can now move around in the ocean and find stuff in there. There's really not much down here, though. The map only shows a couple little dots when we look at it underwater. It's pretty easy to find this little underground cave, and we know we're in the right place because it's called "Ghido's Cave." Somehow there's no water on the inside of the cave. Just go with it.

It's getting increasingly difficult to talk about caves especially. Paths. Treasures. Gaia kills everything.

I guess there was this kind of neat "puzzle" where you took a rock out of a treasure chest and put it in other chests, and each chest was like a switch that opened different doors. It was more just something in there to break up the tedium, as it's not like it took any effort whatsoever to figure out what to do or anything, but at least it was something different than a long hallway full of monsters that were crushed by Cave-Ins.

Eventually we see a turtle, which everyone thinks is something bizarre and amazing, and then Bartz just starts abusing it for no reason, like poking it and shaking it and stuff?? Galuf yells at Bartz to stop, and then the turtle talks, shocking everyone except Galuf. Turns out this was the sage Ghido all along.

Ghido does a lot of insulting Bartz, and tells us in a very wordy monologue that Exdeath used to be sealed in a tree in the Forest of Moore, and now he's going back to the forest for some reason. He also tells us that the Forest is sentient and attacks anyone who enters. But that's okay because he gives us a magical stick that makes it not do that. Not kidding.

To get to Moore, we actually have to navigate underwater until we're about under it and then resurface. Then we can just hop out of the sub and enter the town. Mostly people here just talk about the Forest being alive. Nothing too interesting. We also find another "piano." We do get to buy lots of new goodies to wear, though, like Diamond Armlets and Luminous Robes for everyone, and the Chemist Job actually has a lot more available armor types than the other Jobs we have, so we're able to grab some neat stuff like Tiger Mask and Diamond Plate.

But the best part of Moore is the magic shop! We finally get access to the highest-level magic spells that money can buy! For White Magic, we're able to buy Curaga (which restores tons of HP), Reflect (which makes magic targeted at you miss you and instead hit the caster), and Berserk (worthless lol). For time magic, we get Graviga (like Gravity but takes away 75% of the enemy's HP!), Hastega (gives the Haste effect to the entire party all at once!), and Old (makes someone Old...)

But yeah, two spells from each of those schools are very awesome.

There's actually something else cool we can get here, but I forgot about it until later in the game.

We head over to the forest and throw the magical stick in the air, and the Forest realizes we are its friend, and lets us in. I guess tons of monsters also have magical sticks because this place is full of monsters. It's actually pretty tedious getting through here, because their are portions of the screen that are blacked out by 'leaves' or something, but parts that are not, and there's a sort of radius around your character that erases the tree leaf things, and it's all just very disorienting to me and I feel confused and lost the entire time. I mean, I guess that's how it's supposed to make you feel, but I don't like it lmao.

As we're walking around, suddenly the place blows up. Bartz says that Exdeath is setting the Forest on fire (I guess so we know what's going on, as there's no other indication that this is what is happening). We can run around for a bit, and then we fall into a hole opened by the Moogles. We decide to wait out the fire in their little underground hideout. There's a spring down here where we can restore the party for free. Other than that, we just have to literally wait and eventually one of the Moogles starts walking around, which opens up a path they were blocking so we can get out. Square thought that ATB wasn't enough, and wanted to bring the exciting action of Waiting Simulation to the map screen, too.

When we exit, the forest is now all smokey instead of all firey. The fire seems to have open up more places or something. Well, I guess. I really have no idea what's going on in here, but we get to a place we didn't seem to be able to get to before, or maybe that was just beyond the point where the fire started so we only weren't able to get to it because the event stopped us before we could get there.

At the end of our new path, the magical stick opens up yet another path for us, and we find the Guardian Tree, which protects the seal that sealed Exdeath. We go inside of it and find things that are illustratively described to us as "things." And apparently The Things "must be whatever's sealed in here." Except for I thought Exdeath was sealed in here. Why were these things sealed in here...?

The Things move... away from the wall? And go around us? And then we're fighting them. I don't know. Just go with it.

Even the game doesn't know what these things are. And I didn't remember them, either, which was bad.

These things are apparently related to the four Crystals, or maybe they are like... baby Crystals or something. There's one for each of the four elements, though you can't tell which is which just by looking at them. They mostly do some physical attacks, but can use magic, too. But the worst part is that when their HP is low, they will use powerful magic of their element. So if you try to damage them all at once, they will all get low HP at once and dump tons of powerful magic on you. And even just one of the powerful magics could take out some of your party members.

So I ended up dying on this the first time. The second time, I slowly chipped away at each one and prepared for each big hit. There's not much else to say about this battle, really. With this party it was pretty much just a waiting game. Fits the ATB theme just fine.

After the fight, Exdeath thanks us for saving him the trouble of having to break the Crystal seals himself. Apparently those were indeed the Crystals, and now we completely have broken the seal. Even though I thought it already broke. But maybe some baby Crystals were forming or something and creating a new seal? I don't know. This is really the extent to which it explains this.

Oh, and somehow by us fighting them, Exdeath also gained the ability to use their power. For some reason. Go with it.

And this is what it looks like when Exdeath is using the power of the Crystals. Big zappy. Everyone gets knocked against the wall and can't move. We cut to a scene of Krile hanging out with the Wind Drake in its roost, when her pet Moogle appears and tells her that everyone is in the Forest of Moore. Krile hops on the Drake and comes after us. Thankfully she came when she did, because she shoots a little sparkle at Exdeath which like kills him.

But as Krile is checking to make sure her grandpa is OK, Exdeath pops back up and traps her in a weird bubble could thing which he is able to control, making it fly wildly around the room. He flings her into walls over and over until she is very injured.

Galuf gets up and calls out to her when she's fallen to her knees, so Exdeath heads back to the Crystals and starts zapping everyone again. But this time, instead of being stuck against the wall, Galuf starts walking forward despite being hit by big zappy. Exdeath warns him that he will break the precious Crystals if he continues, but he continues anyway, shattering the Crystal that was zapping him.

Once the Crystal is broken, the attacking pushing Galuf back stops. He charges Exdeath head on, and we enter a one-on-one battle. No matter what happens in this fight, you can't lose. Galuf won't get knocked out even at 0 HP. Exdeath asks him why he won't die, and Galuf just responds by saying that he will definitely kill Exdeath. Exdeath says that all the hatred in the world will never be enough to defeat him, but Galuf tells him this isn't hatred or anger. Exdeath asks him what it is supposed to be, then, but Galuf defeats him before answering.

Afterward, both Galuf and Exdeath fall to the ground lifelessly. The three Crystals that were previously attacking Bartz, Faris, and Lenna slowly get sucked into Exdeath's body as he disappears.

The gang runs to Galuf's side, telling him just to hang on while we help him. But Galuf says "S to late fr me," making everyone start to panic. Krile and the others tell him he can't die, but he only responds by telling us to make sure we defeat Exdeath for good.

Bartz, Lenna, and Faris all desperately try using any means they can think of to save Galuf, from Phoenix Downs to White Magic, but nothing seems to work. Galuf starts to slowly fade away, and the game says "Galuf's flame has flickered out."

As Galuf disappears, Krile lunges to where he was and calls out for him. She cries until she is quiet, laying on the ground of the Guardian Tree. The others move back together to give her some space for now.

Even though most of this game has been lighthearted with lots of jokes throughout, this is one of the most emotional scenes in any Final Fantasy title to me. I always am a sucker for these kind of 'valiant act of heroics' type of things, but the party desperate to bring him back, trying anything they can... it really makes this scene for me. You can really feel the impact of the relationship everyone had with Galuf, and you feel just as panicked that he's going away, wanting to deny it, too.

We can try to talk to Krile, but she will just say nothing for a while. We have to go through another Waiting Simulator segment, until Krile finally decides to just pop up, saying that her grandpa is calling her.

She runs outside of the tree, where there's some kind of... circlet or something? on the ground. Galuf's voice comes from it and tells her that the power of the Guardian Tree is allowing him to speak with her one last time. He tells her that instead of crying, she needs to stand up and fight by the side of Bartz, Lenna, and Faris. At first, Krile says she can't and begs him to come back, but he tells her that she knows better than that. After a bit, she says that she understands and picks up the circlet, inheriting Galuf's abilities from her.

The rest of the party emerge from the tree, and Krile tells them that she's decided to join the fight against Exdeath with them. Krile becomes our fourth party member in place of Galuf, inheriting all of his stats and abilities, gameplay-wise, as if she were just Galuf with a different sprite. She even gets his clothes. So from a gameplay perspective, we don't lose anything.

And now that he's taken our most beloved party member from us, we have even more reason to find Exdeath and finally put a stop to him...

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