The Ocean Deep
Scouting 2F, we spot 3 rooms with potential goodies, so we head in their direction, fighting various permutations of mostly enemies we've fought before. We're getting into palette-swap territory here, with Sea Scorpions and Sea Trolls having confronted us among others.
Upon further investigation though, it looks like we might not be able to make it to them without climbing up to hopefully drop back down again. This reminds me a little of the Cavern of Ice, so we'll have to be careful not to do anything that incites frustration. Easier said than done.
We end up having to climb up from 2F to 3F then straight to 4F before heading down again. This is going to require some attention to remember our way round. Back on 3F, we only have one way we can go - into a room with couple of chests:
- 1110 gil
- 1450 gil
Rukus and Clair reach Level 39 here, just by way of steady EXP gain from the fights. Some of the enemies pack a wallop, but we're now tough enough to weather them pretty well, it seems. The last two deaths were both status deaths rather than beatings. I doubt that's any relief for Kaili though.
We are at least going the way we'd hoped though, as descending again drops us over to the part of the shrine we'd set out for. We head to the nearest store room which contains:
- 7690 gil (guarded)
- 8135 gil
It's been a while since we've had a guarded chest, and this was guarded by Water Elementals which leads me to think that we're going to fight a Fiend of Water in here. It maybe should have been obvious, but I'm now assuming the Sunken Shrine is the Water Shrine. I'm either slow on the uptake, or still lost.
Heading north to the next storeroom, there's a hooded monster in the vicinity of 4 chests. It's a fairly trivial encounter, leaving us to pick up the spoils of the room:
- a RIbbon
- 9900 gil
- 2750 gil
- 7340 gil
The other Ribbon I think will go to Kaili after their Deaths - I'm not sure if I'm just shifting the problem around here, and Clair's, or more likely Glitz is next, but I think Kaili has enough Defence now that they can afford some other protections.
The north western room in this area has a solitary chest containing:
- a Light Axe (guarded)
It's slightly less effective than the Defender Rukus has but it's apparently good against Undead, so I'll keep that in mind for if that becomes useful.
Finally in the south-west we check the one I nearly missed:
- 5450 gil
- Giant's Gloves (guarded)
- 1385 gil
The Giant's Gloves 'cast Saber when used', which is interesting, I don't know what it means by used, as I'm just equipping them on Rukus, I guess we'll see if he gets stronger and more accurate? I originally assumed with the spell saying it improved the caster, that it must be magic related, but perhaps not. Glitz doesn't have the choice to wear them, so Rukus is a good home.
By this time as well the whole Party's on Level 39, nearly 40 now. They grow up so fast...
We descend to 1F. There's another huge area to explore here - I'm glad I didn't try and tack this onto the Waterfall Cavern part this morning.
That being said - entering the room, using our map scouting I spot the crystal at the far end of this area. I guess we did go the "right" way after all. The rest of the shrines did have the Crystal at the bottom after all.
It appears to be distinctly loot free, so we just head for the Crystal, the whole party gaining Level 40 on the way. We heal up fully outside, then make our way in...