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Chapter 21: Ecks-deff’s Castle!
”Thats new? Thats a new magician?” He points to Krile, of course.
”I want look at her. I want look at her in our team”
”We got the cat now?”
“Yep!”
”I like the cat. It’s good. They’re going to fight bad guys too”
He asks what each job is. I tell him. Magic Knight, Ranger, Samurai.
”Cat on the top!”
“Shall we go Exdeath’s castle?”
”Yes.”
”Fly to Ecks-Deff’s castle!”
”That’s big castle! That’s bad guy castle!”
When I back off to land he thinks that I might be going away and is all ”Nooo! Fly into the castle!” but we just have to hoof it a little.
”They all down! Why they all down?”
ED knocked them down when he went through
”Keep them down”
”New dog bad guy?”
I acknowledge this. He points to the double lizard there.
”Has two heads?”
He is on the ball. Break blade rocks a lot of this. (had har)
The Hellraisers and reflect mages get like no commentary through.
We get to that dead end.
”Why he still hurt”
“It hasn’t been that long. He’s still resting.”
”Grandpa locked?”
“No i think he’s flying.” He thinks he is locked out of the house I think.
”Grandpa flying?”
He mumbles something while pointing and the werewolves. I can’t quite hear him. The way he is moving his fingers he might be counting them but I’m not sure.
”What’s happening? What’s that shaking?”
“We’re getting rid of the illusion!” Also I am super pro at getting empty text boxes I guess. Huh.
I kind of love this part.
”Badguy castle! Castle red?”
Because the 
yaaaay music is so wildly inappropriate for what you have just uncovered. OH BOY A NIGHTMARE WORLD!
The general music changes too, of course.
”What that song?”
“Exdeath’s castle song.” He asks this a lot.
”He not looking at us?” My son points out that the dragon is looking down, not AT us.
For the normal fights I am usually going Break Sword with Lenna, and using normal melee attacks. I keep Learning on Faris when her level is divisible by 2 because I seem to recall the magic dragons have level 2 Old but I never see it.
”We fighting’ in the new castle?” And he notices the new background. Hard to miss it.
I do get Off-Guard, though. I bet I forget it exists.
”They robot bad guy?”
These guys focus fire Krile a few times and I realize I am super low on Phoenix Downs. Time to be real careful with the white mage. I start to Confuse these robo-mages and Bandercouels to head that nonsense off while waiting to stone-stab them.
”Her color?”
“I’ll fix it.” Running low on gold hairpins too. I blew a few on Adamantites, and have like 2 left by the halfway point. I have Esuna access, at least. I hit White lvl4 somewhere along the way.
“The floor is hot!”
I tough it out to get the Hayate Bow for Bartz because it is a really good bow.
Really. Good.
”What that new one?”
“It’s another new dog bad guy.”
It Blasters Krile. 
I’m not great at this game. I trigger an abductor (”He big!”)…
And this jerk. He counters a hit with Moon Flute. No I don’t have Learning on who cares about Moon Flute.
”They have red heads?”
”Keep their red heads on! Red on them!”
Eventually Bartz triggers a Rapid Fire proc on his bow which dunks him.
”Red gone?”
“It’s only for the one fight.”
The AP is actually really adding up by the halfway point save circle. Bartz is almost able to get Equip Bows. Krile is well on her way to White 5 which would be great. Faris got the Samurai evade power, but really nothing is going to replace !Blue I think. Lenna has Spellblade 4 I think off of that. I think that’s break blade level. It’d be competing with Summon though if she is neither Summoner nor M.Knight. Bartz is still subbing Gaia because man I don’t know. I should see if he has any okay passives. Krile has Dance subbed for sometimes-MP-getting.
The dragon room. 
“Okay, there are some big bad guys here alright.”
“They stuck in the wall? Baddguy in the wall! That Ecks-deff castle!”
Insert your bespoke :That's Exdeath: emote I suppose.
”That’s a biiiig dragon! A red dragon!””
“A red dragon alright! He’s a tough bad guy.”
I am popping golem, here. He never casts Atomic Ray at least. Blizzaga sword deals like 4K damage.
”Its a baaad castle.” He sees the summon sphere.
”Get that! Get that! I want to get that!”
“Okay!”
”That’s a bubble!”
“It’s a summoning bubble!”
”Pop it!”
I go across the little maze.
”Pop iiiiit!” He is insistant! Loves bubbles.
“He in a bubble? He so big”
“He is in a bubble that bounces magic spells!”
Standard Carbunkle. By the books. Weather his bounced spells until his form changes and then…
BREAK SWORD!
“The bubble guy is going to help us now!” he seems pleased.
I realize I want all the treasure chests so I had jumped down a hole and slogged it over the floor to get the one in the upper right. He finally did ask after the weird floor tiles. I told him it was a hot floor.
”We’re on the hot floor?”
“It hurts!”
We move on to the next save point which of course is a prelude to…
Oh nothing I guess, never mind.
“It’s empty!”
“It’s Gilgamesh!”
”Gilamess?” It is hard to understand the exact nature of this mispronunciation.
“He took the treasure!”
This makes him keenly interested. Pirates such as Captain Hook taking treasure seems fascinating to him. No, I don’t have Learning on for this fight.
”He make them small?”
“He did!”
”That help make him big?”
“Yeah! And it’ll get the stuff out of his eyes.”
Gilgamesh is all about the maledictions of course. We pop Golem and I put Shell on people, hopefully it helped. At least we have esuna and some eyedrops.
”See! look at his big feet!” He loves those feet.
”He took our treasure?”
“He took it from the chest!” He shakes his head, points at the team.
”Magicians are treasure!”
Aww. Yes. Yes they are.
”He say that?”
What a great line.
”Eight arms!” 
”I like him!”
”Where Ecks-Deff? He there? What that song? HIS SONG?”
“He send him to the Void!”
”Ecks-deff coming?”
”They found Ecks-deff? Ecks-deff!”
OH DANG IT’S ON SON!
”It’s Ecks-deff! Ecks-deff! He’s so biiiig! Ecks-deff! It his song?”
HEY EXDEATH I GOT SOMETHING FOR YOU!
”Whoa!”
5K+ Damage.
”Numbers! They a six!”
“He’ll fall down when they count down to 0!”
We pop Golem. I try to tag him with the ancient sword twice but no dice so I swap to Drain blade. It doesn’t do much. Bartz keeps aiming, the odd Rapid Fire trigger dealing some okay damage. Krile is on healing duty. Sometimes she pops shell. Faris deals damage with 1000 needles or heals with White Wind. We get him down some eventually.
”Who helping us?”
“Carbunkle! It was his bubble that we popped.”
”Bubble helping us?” He likes this. He loves blowing and popping bubbles.
”Why they blue?”
“Carbunkle put bounce bubbles on us!”
”Keep them blue.”
We have to re-up it a few times but I try to maintain it, leaning on Faris’ White Wind when it is up. Not that much gets through between Golem and Reflect. Thank goodness. The damage showing up on blocked vacuum waves is huge.
We bounce a ton of spells at about 700gp a pop. Eventually…
He laughs. ”He fall into pieces!”
“We won, but the crystals are breaking!” Things go red and start shaking apart.
”Castle break? It fall down?”
“What do you think will happen?”
”Fall in the water?”
”Bad guy castle was right there?”
“It’s their castle! It’s their home!”
”Home? They home?”
The session wrap up (well, sessions). He keeps calling this ‘our team’ so clearly he likes it. We’ve kept it for awhile now, and the AP-rich dungeons actually have us along pretty well. Krile now has White 5, which means I should always have Curaga, Blink and Shell. I wouldn’t be surprised if we get to 6 before (if he ever does) get sick of the cat. Faris is almost to equip katanas, though really that is unlikely to trump !Blue. I don’t dare to dream that Bartz stays a ranger for another 350+ AP but being able to see it is nice. Lenna has Break Blade if need be, but it would be hard to compete with her Summoning if her class was swapped.
Next is the World 3 Doldrums, so who knows if he gets sick of them in all the exposition.