The Battle with Astos
He starts by casting Death, which is ominous for my goals of a no-death episode, but fortunately he misses Kaili. This time. The next round I try a similar approach, but he drops a Thundara, which hits the whole party for about 80 damage each. This could be nasty, so Clair's going on healing next round, particularly given she whiffed her attack.
Rukus and Kaili continue to attack, while Clair goes for a Heal, and Glitz decides that even if there's just one enemy, he's going to try busting out a Fira, which is effective, doing 81 damage this time. Astos has already cast Haste on himself though, which is ominous for our chances of out stripping his damage output with our healing.
Heal only does 30-ish HP recovery per-person, so I think I'll just keep that going as a baseline for as long as I can in this fight, and the next round is a repeat on our end. He re-hastes himself, which has me worrying if it stacks, but then Rukus hits him for about 30 damage and he just dies... Cool.
We net a haul of 2000 gil and 2250 EXP, which gets all of the party except Kaili up to level 16, Rukus crosses 300HP, making him the clear beefcake of the crew, whereas Glitz only picks up another 2HP, bringing him to 176HP in total. I'm not sure if the HP gains are random or fixed, but either way, he's still gunning for that leaderboard top-spot. I wish he wouldn't.
Astos dissolves into nothingness, leaving behind the crystal eye in his possession. Finally, something I know what to do with - I know a witch who was moaning about needing one of these.