Into the Cave
Survey says Marsh Cave to be precise! There are talking bats in the immediate vicinity which is both interesting and probably means we're in the right place for the plot. The cave branches two ways so I head left first, and see what it has in store.
Lots of EXP it seems, which is nice, a couple of Grey Oozes net the party 510 EXP, which feels high for how weak they were. A group of shadows blind Rukus though, and I realise I didn't stock up on anything for other status ailments. Bit of a rookie move probably as I did spot them in the item shop.
I decide to head on regardless for now, as it seems that unlike poison, darkness clears after battle. On the second level of the dungeon we find a chest with 1180 gil, probably making the journey worth it in its own right. Only to then find another one with 1120! I might be getting lost, but I'm making bank in the process!
On the negative side, there's a lot of poisoning going on here - I've chewed through my stock of antidotes just exploring this apparent dead end... Doubling back, I climb back upstairs and head back to the entrance, to try the other way. Unfortunately Rukus is poisoned again and without a way to heal him, I'm going to tactically try and retreat back to town without him dying.
Through liberal tactical use of healing on the walk back we make it in one piece. We rest up at the Inn, and I realise that doesn't actually cure poison, so we trudge over to the item store, and stock up with some of our winnings, we have just short of 8000 gil from the journey over to the cave and back, so I buy 20 antidotes. Then another 20. What's a couple of grand if it saves us faffing on coming back to town again?
Somewhere in among all of that, we also made it to Level 13, which will hopefully make things that little bit easier - HP levels are ticking over into the 200s, apart from Glitz, who I hope isn't trying to regain the undisputed lead in the KO leaderboard.