T w e n t y S i d e d

We’re approaching my one-year anniversary with using Linux full time. I’ll probably write a bit more about it then, but I did help a family member get started over the last few weeks. Because they had concerns about certain games not working, the first attempt was adding a Manjaro Linux partition to an existing Windows 11 install. (A recent Windows update had introduced regular freezing issues on their almost-new Asus 2024 TUF Gaming laptop, which was a major instigator of the switch to Linux.) While office apps and some games worked, we quickly found out that gaming installs were weakest on a dual-boot system…or at least on a dual-boot system that didn’t use Linux as the first and primary partition. I.e. if you just shrink the Windows partition and add Linux, a lot of games won’t work. So we wrote down the Bitlocker number for the system and played with installing several different distributions on a full wipe of the hard drive. Drauger was an early favorite but we were scared off by how little support there was; same with Nobara. To be fair, Nobara says right on the webpage “this probably won’t work. Just so you know.” Endeavor was the first to receive a full-partition, and only after that (I only briefly looked at it last year) did we discover that Endeavor is really meant to be “run” through the command line. Which is fine, and I have no doubt works great; but isn’t what we were looking for in a Windows replacement. The eventual and current solution was an afterthought originally: Bazzite. The only extra steps we’ve had to take so far is to add Glorious Eggroll’s custom proton implementation, which fixed one game’s problem with freezing at the first cut-scene. (The game has some lag problems but it’s a recent game with no thought given to Linux implementation, so that doesn’t surprise me.) Most things have worked with default settings. Soon we will experiment with Virtualbox and a Windows Vista installation to facilitate the playing of an old Windows game for which you can’t even get installs at the moment. If we could get the install files I suspect it would work under WINE with no problems, but at the moment all there is is a “as-is pre-installed” copy. Incidentally, my spellchecker wants me to correct “pre-installed” to “pee-installed.” Which it says is a real phrase. I don’t believe that.

I mentioned I was going to grind a bit to afford all the 5th Tier spells:

At level 20 and with 16,000+ Gil I head back to the Black Magic shop (I already bought the White Magic I wanted). There’s a new group Fire spell which should be the third level, and very powerful. There’s also an insta-death spell that I’m betting only works at like, half-levels or something; I need to check. A slow spell to use against enemies is available that may be super-useful against certain enemies, but I haven’t run into them, yet. And there’s a teleport spell that can instantly send you “up” a level in a multi-level dungeon. Super Useful! Unfortunately, I can’t buy it. In fact, all the buy screens will show which of your four characters can use the item you’re looking at, and the teleport spell does not trigger for any of my characters despite being sold in the Black Magic shop. I remember that most characters can “promote” to another class at some point and I’m guessing that’s when the teleport spell will become available. Regardless I don’t add it at this point. I sleep, save, and head to the Earth Cave on the Devil’s Tail peninsula.

We are presented with the familiar “Earth Cave – B1” title when we enter, which means there are multiple floors just as we saw in Marsh Cave. In fact, just as with Marsh Cave, our current objective is at the end of Floor 3. Floors 1 and 2, and most of 3, is just for finding chests. And fighting monsters. More than half of the chests present the “Monsters!” warning when you open them. Thankfully each time it happens it’s a new monster, the Earth Elemental. They hit hard but tend to show up in small numbers…usually one.

One is extremely easy to beat, especially at level 20. I hit hard enough that usually two hits from my high attack party members (the warrior and the thief) delete enough hit points that one of the magicians can whack it with a hammer or a stick and complete the battle. If *two* show up, they’ll probably get a hit or two in first. While the fighter has high defense and can take literally dozens of hits before even thinking about it, the rest of the party can lose up to 1/3 of their HP. It’s usually not a problem, but I’m trying to not use up my magic at the moment. Definitely gonna have to do a supply run before too long.

Before long the party reaches the third floor:

That door just above me in another passage is actually where the current adventure ends. We’re meant to make a big loop to get back around to that location. The Earth Cave has been full of bats (bats go ‘kiiiii….’) and once we reach that room, the way forward is blocked by a bat that does not move.

I suspect something is going on (since the bat doesn’t move), so I go to talk to the bat:

Oh. That’s probably not good. The bat continues to monologue and I suspect this may in fact be the vampire we’ve been sent to kill or otherwise persuade to leave the area. Turns out I’m right.

…although that makes me laugh. The White Mage *literally* has two spells designed to kill the Undead. Plus the Undead usually don’t like fire very much, and the Black Mage has third Tier fire magic. The vampire appears before us. The two fighters prepare to attack, while the White Mage queues up a 5th Tier Undead-frying spell and the Black Mage prepares to hadoken the self-important ****. The Black Mage wins the race.

Turns out the vampire was weak to 300 points of fire damage. Considering I leveled twice on the way to the end of the 3rd Floor and am now Level 22, I’m probably over-leveled a bit, to be honest.

There is a treasure chest in the corner and a door to continue deeper into the cave. However, the door into the cave only leads a short way to a sealed door, and we don’t have the way through yet. The residents of Melmond seem pretty sure that Sadda guy is part of the answer and we can’t go further here, so we know Sadda must be through the other cave entrance opposite the peninsula that we saw earlier. We check the chest and find a Star Ruby. Star Ruby? No one has mentioned a Star Ruby so far. I wonder what it’s for.

Ah. It’s a giant gem, and someone in Melmond mentioned a use for a gem. There’s a giant in a cave that eats rocks but loves gems. I fight my way back to the surface. Despite the cave entrance I want being nearby, I run back to Melmond to rest and recover. A couple of citizens do note that the vampire is dead (I guess it was on TV) but the land didn’t recover. Now, of course, we know what’s going on, the actual solution is to restore/relight/release the Earth Crystal/Orb. That’s what is supposed to fix everything. But while we’re on the subject, why do these people think killing a vampire would cause everything to turn green immediately? I mean, doing whatever we need to do with the Earth Crystal; that’s just magic. It can do whatever it wants. But killing a vampire is just killing a vampire…right?

We head to the other cave, which turns out to be called “Giant’s Cave.” Right. I think we know what’s going on.

The giant eats the Star Ruby and buggers off. After looting a handful of chests we exit the cave through a new set of stairs and find ourselves one mountain range away from the southern tip of the continent. Sure enough there’s another cave on the other side of the mountains. Inside is Sadda. He knows we killed the vampire (like I said, it must have been on TV); and tells us what we already suspect:

He gives us the Earth Rod to open the sealed door and enter THE NEXT floor of the Earth Cave. How many floors does this thing have?

Honestly, I don’t feel like doing another couple of floors of the Earth Cave right now. I fight my way back to Melmond (most of the battles in the overland are down to one-hit-one-kill, especially if I use magic) and rest up. Looks like I’m about to head BACK into the Earth Cave for the final solution.

That’s it for now, see you next week!

Paige Francis He/him