It’s All Upstairs From Here…Let’s Overanalyze Final Fantasy Legend

Krby has 666 health!

Now I want a remake where they address the multiple worlds and how monsters work and so on.

Sana’s log, day 33-34

We returned first to the undersea town, then to our island turtle, then to the island town to spend some of Sei-Ryu’s riches.


Brda and I were both able to get outfitted in full mithril silver armor, and bring her strength and my agility up to the theoretical human maximums. (Though she believed those limitations were nothing of the sort.)

We eventually made Xavr wait outside, when he started accosting the shopkeepers and demanding they reveal who was supplying their goods and where this town got its food from.


From there, we continued to the old man’s hut.


Sana: Seriously, a riddle? Who the hell are you?

Old man: That would be telling.

Sana: Okay, fine. Xavr, riddles seem your cup of tea.

Xavr: Right. The “what can you get” construction would seem to imply an exchange of value, so we’d want to look at the relative value of those items.


Xavr: Long swords sell for 132 gold, and gold helms for 175.

Sana: Standard healing potions cost 50 gp.

Brda: So we just add them up?


Xavr: And get 989 gp, the exact price of a brand-new Battle Sword.


Sana: Okay, here goes nothing.



Krby: The old man had the blue orb the whole time!

Sana: …you’re Ryu-O, aren’t you? You sent us down to the palace because you knew we’d end up fighting Sei-Ryu. Didn’t you? Did we even need the red orb?

Old man: Of course I did. And you’ll need to combine the magic of the two orbs to create the Blue Sphere. Sei-Ryu and I split the sphere into the two orbs to keep it safe. The Tower is dangerous, and the monsters further up are even more terrifying than the ones here. But then he went mad with power. He banished me, hoarded treasure, and started terrorizing the humans. That’s no way for a king to act. If I didn’t know better, I’d think that some outside influence had corrupted him.

Xavr: Curious.

Brda: And now that he is gone?

Old man: I am once again king. And I will endeavor to repair the damage. You will continue climbing the Tower, then?

Sana: We will.

Old man: Then I wish you the best of luck.



Sana’s log, day 35

We sailed back to the port town, and bid Larry farewell.


We made sure our equipment was duly prepared and we were ready for another long climb.



Xavr was able to use his powers to combine the two orbs into a blue sphere.


Krby: “Broke?”

Xavr: Forgive me, I inhaled some sand. It’s broken.


The door opened to another of the grand staircases we had grown used to, though the walls in this part of the Tower retained the more “organic” stonework we had seen on the Fifth floor.

Ryu-O’s warning that the monsters would be more vicious was entirely accurate. Giant birds swooped down at us, and wooden golems assaulted us with more stealth than their bulk should have allowed. The sixth floor was nondescript, but the creatures made up for the lack of scenery.

Sana’s log, day 36


On the seventh floor, we discovered another door leading outside the Tower.


Apparently on this floor the Tower sat on a small island in the middle of a shallow lake. A thick, impassable ring of trees surrounded the lake, except on one side, where there was a platform lined with strange statues.


Sana: Some previous explorers went crazy and got onto a fish theme?

Xavr: This doesn’t look like the work of a lunatic. The statues are identical…wait, this one has a hidden switch.


Sana: That dispenses a healing potion? How odd. Do any of the others?

Xavr: I’ll check this one.


Krby: How did they fit in there?

Xavr: They were obviously teleported from another location.

Sana: What about this one?


Brda: It speaks!

Sana: Lose track of time? But I’ve been keeping a journal and tracking the days. It doesn’t seem that difficult.

Xavr: Admittedly, without access to the sun, we’ve been forced to tell time based on our circadian rhythms, which can be unreliable, especially during periods of unusual and heavy activity. And if these worlds we visit and, in fact, alternate dimensions, there’s no reason to believe the days or the same length or even that time itself flows at the same rate.

Krby: Time might not even flow in the Tower! Or flow super-fast!

Sana: Really?

Xavr: The possibility exists, though in that case, keeping track of our subjective time is still a valid choice.


I tried to keep more careful track of the time that passed as we scaled the next grand staircase, but as the statue had predicted, I lost track several times.

Sana’s log, day 37


As we traveled the Eighth floor, tragedy struck.


During an encounter with a group of snake-women Krby called “medusas,” Brda was turned to stone by their gaze. Xavr assured me that she could be restored, though no magic he or Krby currently possessed could do so. Our best bet was to continue upwards, and search for a source of such magic in the worlds above. Krby carried Brda at the back of our marching order, so as to keep her safe from chipping or breaking.


As luck would have it, the first thing we encountered was a healing spring. My hopes were quickly dashed, as similar to the others we had found, it only healed mundane wounds. It did nothing to remove stone curses or restore magical abilities.


We climbed the grand staircase to the next floor in silence. I had grown to care for Brda in our time traveling together. What if Xavr was wrong, and she couldn’t be restored?

Sana’s log, days 38 - 39


The Ninth floor was another expanse of large, vine-covered corridors. Monsters continued to assail us, and our party was at three-quarters strength and waning quickly. Morale was low—would we be forced to turn back? Or left unable to turn back?


In desperation, we tried an exterior door in the hopes that it might lead to a settlement, or at least a peace world where we could gather our strength. But the door didn’t leave outside the Tower at all—it lead to an Inn set up by intelligent monsters.


We were able to rest and restore our strength, though it seemed that time would not be enough to break Brda’s curse.


Nor was the House of Life able to assist us: Brda was alive, just locked in a frozen state.


We had expected the bedridden men to be adventurers climbing the Tower, but apparently it was just the opposite: They were refugees from the next floor up, fleeing a tyrant who had conquered that world and killed the leader of the resistance.

Sana: There’s a whole world on the next floor! They’ll have something that can help Brda, I know it!

Xavr: It will be interesting to see if it is a real world connected to a Tower, or another strange “island world” like the Fifth floor appeared to be. Will it also sit on a small disk, I wonder?

Krby: Who cares? It has a tyrant who needs overthrowing, and we already have lots of experience with regicide!

Sana: …really? You’d joke about that?

Krby: Too soon?

Xavr: Too soon.


One man had also heard an interesting rumor: That an archfiend influenced the four other fiends. That would jive with Ryu-O’s theory that something was influencing or controlling Sei-Ryu.


Invigorated, we continued our climb.


On the landing of the next grand staircase, we found a “Psychic Sword” which could apparently channel Xavr’s magic power the same way his spells did. It proved very effective against the monsters we encountered from then on.

Sana’s log, day 40


Clearly something was special about the Tenth floor. We could tell immediately from the change in architecture, which included the mysterious fish statues from several floors below. These had no hidden switches we could find, however.


Once again, a mysterious power locked the door.


Silk hat bishonen—I really should have asked for his name before this; it just seems awkward to ask now—had again beaten us there, most likely while we were recovering in the monster inn. Apparently this world was ruled by Byak-Ko the white tiger, and he was looking to bulk up his army to take out the last dregs of the resistance against him. He apparently had designs on conquest of the other worlds available through the Tower and had monsters in his employ, but he didn’t have the Sphere necessary to open the door. Perhaps getting on his good side would enable us to get ahead of him on that front. He also recommended visiting the apothecary in the nearby town before we did anything else, as they carried items that were promised to remove petrification.


Krby: Does the Tower look different to you guys?

Sana: I’m more concerned about the fact that the ground seems to be made of clouds. Clouds that are apparently solid enough for trees to grow out of.

Xavr: And curiously, if you look down that hole, there doesn’t seem to be any indications of the worlds below, or even that the Tower stretches downward. That lends a lot of credence to my alternate dimension theory. Which would also explain Krby’s concern: The Tower looks different because the exterior in this world is a different structure than the exterior in other worlds.

Sana: And the clouds?

Xavr: …let’s walk quickly.

FFL Mechanics Update – The Ocean World


Here’s Nintendo Power’s map of the Ocean World. It’s only slightly smaller than the Base World, but about the same when you include the undersea area, with around the same number of points of interest.


Money drops from enemies climb steadily as you climb the Tower. In the first world, each monster will leave 40 Gold. In the Tower, expect 120 per monster. Most monsters here leave 240, and a stack of Cactuses in the Undersea Palace will net you a cool 1200 Gold. Granted, weapons and armor are now significantly more expensive, but several important items remain at constant prices throughout the game, including spellbooks and human improvement items.


The location of the floating island is fixed, though I always forget exactly where it is and end up trying every island, every time.


I really don’t understand how this wraparound error for the AIRSEED (which happens twice with the airseed, but never with any other item) got past playtesting.


Nintendo Power claims that there are other answers to the old man’s riddle, but I have never seen them—every time it’s been the same riddle, and the answer has always been the Battle Sword.

Sana’s log, day 41


As expected, there was a town not far from the Tower. (Though I’m not sure what we would have done if there wasn’t—we didn’t have wings, after all.)


Our first stop was the apothecary. Apparently a prick with an enchanted golden needle was all Brda needed to be restored to normal.

Brda: …Where did the snake-women go? And why am I so stiff?

Xavr: You were turned to stone…

Krby: For ONE THOUSAND YEARS!

Xavr: …for the past several days. We have climbed to the tenth floor of the Tower, a world built on solid clouds and ruled by a despot who is also searching for the sphere that unlocks the higher floors of the Tower.

Krby: Right. You really haven’t missed much. But thanks for ruining it for me, Xavr.

Sana: If he hadn’t, I would have. It’s good to have you back, Brda.

Brda: I would say it’s good to be back, but I haven’t been conscious of being away. What’s our next step?

Sana: Apparently Byak-Ko is hiring. We figured we’d ask around for details and check the want ads.

Brda: Devious. All right, then.



The townspeople were able to confirm what we’d already heard about Byak-Ko.



If Byak-Ko was looking for the Sphere, then he obviously had a double interest in finding the Resistance. And it was in our interest to find out what he knew and get out ahead of him.


We also heard a rumor about a secret town that would be worth checking out later.


And we purchased some armor made of dragon scales that promised us protection from elemental attacks.




We were pointed towards the local pub to meet with Byak-Ko’s recruiters. Most of them were friendly.




Of course, every bunch has its bad apples. We beat the snot out of this loudmouth and earned the respect of the other guardsmen, which was enough to get us an offer of employment.


Apparently Byak-Ko didn’t believe in middle managers. We were rushed to a meeting with the big man (tiger) himself, and he set us on the hunt for a woman named Jeanne, apparently a leader of the resistance.


We were encouraged not to hang around the flying castle.


We were also outfitted with a mechanical glider that allowed us to travel between the clouds. Xavr was fascinated with its operation, and with the world around us as we traveled. Apparently the glider was perfectly designed to travel in a nearly-flat environment (such as between the clouds) but couldn’t generate enough lift to get over mountains or even tall trees. The cloud world itself was a disk suspended in the void, similar to the ocean world. Beyond the edge of the cloud islands was an empty void—just nothing. The vast gulf below us seemed endless, and similarly we couldn’t generate enough lift to travel any higher along the Tower’s walls.

Sana’s log, day 42


As we glided around the world, Krby spotted an unusually “fat” island of clouds. It turned out to contain a small town.


One villager had heard a rumor about the sphere that Byak-Ko was looking for, but we didn’t think he was terribly credible. If there was a sacred palace, wouldn’t Byak-Ko have found it already?



Others were able to give us more details on the former resistance leader, Charles, and his two daughters. Presumably Jeanne was one of them, and apparently she and her sister could work together to reveal where the sphere had been hidden.


This town’s biggest attraction was a magic shop, specializing in the spellbooks Xavr could use to such great effect. They offered several more powerful and more expensive spells than we had seen before, though our currently available funds didn’t allow for purchasing them yet.

Xavr then went on another rant about the unsustainable nature of a self-contained world with only two towns, one of which was “hidden” (preventing trade), where there was no arable land and the only water was catchment rainwater, and the only industries seemed to be working for the dictator or scribing spellbooks.


One could even say he made a stink about it.


Having no other useful leads, we took to scouring the cloud islands for anything that looked interesting or unusual. We encountered a number of dangerous monsters, and the glider’s inability to fly significantly higher than the ground meant they were able to board and attack us easily.

Sana’s log, day 43


Finally, we spotted a small hut hidden in a forest.


It seemed like what we were looking for.


But a number of Byak-Ko’s other employees had beaten us there.



The fa�ade of being on their side stopped being useful around this point.


Sana: Are you all right?

Jeanne: Yes…thank you. You don’t actually work for Byak-Ko, do you?

Brda: Not as such.

Xavr: We’re explorers from the Tower. We heard rumors you and your sister knew the secret of the sphere that would unlock it, and generally felt it would be safer in our hands than Byak-Ko’s.

Jeanne: I can hardly see how it wouldn’t be.


Krby: We’re on it!

Sana’s log, day 44


We returned to the floating castle. The only other guardsmen who knew that we weren’t working for the white tiger were the ones we’d killed, so we were able to walk right in.


The castle was enormous, and full of soldiers. I was very thankful for our deception.




The other guards were kind enough to tell us that Byak-Ko kept the key to the prison cell in his private chambers, and as he was apparently out, we were able to retrieve it with minimal fuss.


Everything went perfectly. A little too perfectly, in retrospect.


Mileille was guarded by a number of sabercats, but they were easily dispatched. Between Brda’s incredibly strength and Xavr’s magic power, nothing we’d met so far was much challenge to us.



And then everything went south in a hurry. Turns out that Mileille had already joined Team White Tiger and Byak-Ko had been playing us the whole time. I should have known this was all too easy.

Sana’s log, day 45


Krby: Well, this is another fine mess you’ve gotten us into!

Sana: Me? Why is this my fault? We all thought it was a good idea.

Xavr: I personally blame myself for not seeing the warning signs earlier.

Brda: I blame myself for not splattering Byak-Ko all over the nearest hard surface during our initial meeting.

Krby: I blame Ikea. Goddamn Swedes.

Sana: What?

Xavr: Never mind him, he’s just being random again. We need to figure out our next move.

Sana: Meet up with the resistance again? If we can save Jeanne, we probably stand a better chance against Byak-Ko. She may not have even been captured yet.

Brda: Feh. I say we take the fight directly to him. We have no use for him anymore, now that we know all that he knows.

Xavr: We’re putting the cart before the horse. First we must escape.



Sana: There are gliders upstairs. We just need to get there.
Brda: Stand back.




Brda: Someone Byak-Ko will be sorry he crossed.


Xavr: Is there a sword in this cell? Why would…


Sword: Yes, and I seek revenge against my captors! Take me with you!


Brda: Would you like me to carry the scary talking sword?

Xavr: No, that’s…yes. Actually, yes. I would like you to carry it.


Fighting our way past the guard was easier than I expected. Apparently Byak-Ko had severely underestimated our strength, even though he knew of our past exploits.


Upstairs was a large group of guards, who all piled atop us. Brda insisted that any number of guards was a problem that was easily solved.

Upon reflection, Brda seemed to believe all problems would go away if you beat them to an unrecognizable pulp. Which admittedly was accurate most of the time.


The guards had the key to the jail storehouse, which included the equipment of other prisoners. As the best hope to freeing this world entirely, we felt no qualms about taking them.

The spoils included a laser sword, a gauntlet that increased the wearer’s strength, a spellbook that could instantly kill a target, and a selection of healing potions.


Krby: Gliders!



As jailbreaks go, this one was pretty impressive. Especially the part where we left no guards alive and the rest of the escaped prisoners then torn down the prison following our escape.


We wasted no time in flying to the floating castle. We had no idea where Jeanne had fled to, but Byak-Ko was easy to spot.


The guards knew we were enemies, though. We’d have to fight our way in.

Xavr: Wait…do you feel that?

Sana: Feel what?

Xavr: The fortress is moving!

Brda: Our timing is fortuitous! Byak-Ko is taking us to Jeanne with him!


Sure enough, when we re-boarded the glider, the castle had moved and soldiers were converging on a ring of trees nearby.

Sure enough, we were just in time.





Byak-Ko seemed to think the Spheres had some sort of power in battle. We certainly hadn’t noticed any, either from ours or from him.


In the end, for all of his cleverness, he was weak.




Sana: …

Brda: …

Xavr: …

Krby: …wait, what just happened?


And then, a rumbling began.

Xavr: The rest of Byak-Ko’s soldiers! They’re still outside!

Brda: We shall trounce them!

Sana: Did you see that fortress? There are too many, even for us!

Mileille: Run, then! They still think I’m working with them! I’ll distract them while you escape!


Krby: You don’t have to tell me twice!


We were able to get back to our glider just in time.


Sana: Can we just leave this world this way? It seems like there’s going to be chaos.

Xavr: There’s nothing we can do now, and we’ll be hunted as criminals—Byak-Ko’s men can use us as a common focus and a rallying cry as long as we’re still here. If we flee, his empire will collapse.

Krby: Hope you weren’t tired! We’ve got a lot of climbing to do!

FFL Mechanics Update – The Sky World


Nintendo Power’s annotated map of the Sky World. Again, it’s about the same size as the base world, but in this case there are far fewer locations to visit. This world is definitely the fastest to get through and it’s got a bit of a roller-coaster plot—there’s not getting off once you’re on. I think it’s my favorite, too.

And Xavr’s thoughts on the economic development of this place echo my own: It makes no sense whatsoever. They can’t access other parts of the Tower. There’s no place to grow crops or raise animals. One of the three places we see people living is a military fortress, and another is specifically hidden. I’m good at fanwanking up explanations, but here? I’ve got nothing.


I love this bit with the Revenge Sword. It’s a shame it’s a gimmicky weapon that’s useless in a normal game: Using it puts the character on the defensive, then they deal back twice the damage they took. The problem is pretty obvious, though: Using it means you take damage, whereas using other weapons means you often don’t.

In retrospect, I wish this had been the Xcalbr or at least some other weapon with unlimited uses, so you’d have a reason for it to be particularly special, and to keep it. As it stands, this is a cute bit that never impacts the game again.

Also of note: The jail is one of the few places in the game you can never revisit. If you miss the treasure room, too bad!


The first time I got to this section, I was fooled into fighting my way up the floating castle. But there’s nothing up there—Byak-Ko isn’t in his room, and Mileille’s cell is empty. (Though you can take the WHITKEY again if you want.) I don’t know why it was set up this way, but my best guess is that it’s a giant Kawazu-style trap for the player: All you really need to do is enter and leave, but that means you never have to fight your way through the seven-story fortress, and that goes against everyone’s gaming instincts.


If you lose the glider at any point (and you normally do when you enter town or the Tower), this guy will always reset it to being right outside of the Pub Town. Handy if you need to grind, and I often do. We’re reaching the game’s big difficultly spike.

naw man that would be a psychic butterfly knife.

No place to grow crops? There are trees clearly sprouting from the clouds. There's grass growing inside the villages.

I've never been so disappointed in your economic analyses.

Clearly they have astoundingly advanced hydroponics!

FFL Mechanics Update – Human Pay-to-Play

Hopefully we’ll have the next chapter of Sana’s journal later this week, but for now, I’d like to talk a bit about building up human characters. Humans do not increase their stats naturally, like in later SaGa games; they only increase when you feed them STRONG, AGILITY and HP200 potions. Humans can only gain mana by equipping one rare item, so they’re functionally barred from using spellbooks and p-weapons.

Like I noted in the post about starting out, you want to start with agility. You’ll need both stats eventually, but they cost the same, the early weapons have the same multipliers, and agility means you won’t miss as often. Strength is more useful later on because the high-end weapons all rely on it.

You can build up your humans in the first world, but it’s really not critical. For that matter, you don’t really need to keep your weapons up to date in the first few worlds if you keep spending your money on potions. My party was still equipped with Rapiers and Hammers in the Ocean World, and because my stats were high enough (and I had a spell-casting mutant and a top-level monster on the team), I had no problems at all. Most guides will recommend using Long Swords if you have strength-focused characters, which is fine if you want to splurge. I took Long Swords and Sabers to Sky World, and when those finally ran out I switched to Battle Swords and L-Sabers...after the next Tower climb.

Note that I’m also completely ignoring weapons like bows, guns, and the grenade I found. That’s because they do a fixed amount of damage, and your agility only determines if they hit. If you’re pumping up your stats like you should, even a bottom-tier weapon can do better damage than they can.

As noted before, I spent about three hours grinding in the Base World, which got both Sana and Brda up past 200 HP (after which point, HP200 only gives you 1 HP per use) and Agility above 60. I spent maybe an hour grinding in the Ocean World, and was able to get Sana’s Agility to 98 and Brda’s to 81, and started working on Brda’s strength. After the Ocean Palace, I had enough cash to get them both another 100 hit points and bring Brda’s Strength up to 98.


In the Sky World, my stats looked like this. I also had a ton of money after following the plot. (When a single enemy gives 400 GP, your relative wealth is much easier to increase than in the Base World.)


I then fed Sana 55 Agility potions, bringing her agility up to around 208. This was the sort of damage she was then doing. I fed Brda 55 Strong potions (and a half-dozen Agility potions, while I was there), so her strength would be around 208 as well, plus the bonus for the Giant gloves. Then I did ten minutes of grinding for cash and bought enough HP400 potions to get them up above 400 HP. (It actually took me longer to buy and distribute all the potions than to earn the money.)

Because, you see, while the game will only display up to 99, and that was intended to be the cap (and is for mutants—they stop gaining stats at that point), human stats can actually go as high as 255. And because weapon damage is calculated by a multiplier of your stats, they keep benefitting you the higher they go. This is why I noted that mutants would be the most powerful characters if the game was programmed as intended: If everyone stopped at 99 in their stats, mutants’ ability to gain mana and easily raise their HP above 600 (see below) would win out.


This is the kind of damage the juiced-up characters are doing with relatively lousy weapons. That’s twice what she was doing before the 55 potions, and against an enemy with less than 200 HP.

The one risk is that if you go past 255, they wrap back to 0. But that’s okay, as ~210 in a stat is more than enough to take you through the endgame. (Remember that for the next segment, I’m still having Brda use a Long Sword from the Base World!)

In the next world, we’re going to final HP600 potions on sale for 5,000 GP each. Like the previous types, they’ll increase human hit points 1-20 points until you reach the 600 HP limit. In theory, that 600 limit is where humans are supposed to stop. But if you’ll recall, HP200 only cost 100 GP each and will always increase hit points by 1. If you’re swimming in patience, they’re actually more cost-effective than using HP600s. For that matter, if you’re willing to sit there buying and drinking hundreds of potions, you can raise human hit points to and past the 999 level. Yep, that’s another cap they didn’t implement. (I’ve seen several guesses for where HP will wrap around to 0, but I don’t know of anyone actually making that happen.)

If you’re interested in further details, there is a FAQ on this on GameFAQs.

(Also: I’m hanging my head in shame for my less-than-optimal economic analysis. I promise to do better going forward.)

I totally brought my humans up to 950+ HP using HP200s as soon as I saw the cost for a 600 the first time I played. But I never new that the caps didn't work...

It's the same way in FFL2, which is why monsters aren't as good in that game -- they never exceed 99 in any stat. (Also, you can't get an Anubis in world 1.)

I believe I know the identity of our dear silk-hatted friend!

Some sort of bizarre combination of Uncle Sam and Willy Wonka?

Sana’s log, day 46

We left the cloud world behind us with a few regrets, but at least with some resolve.


As before, the new Sphere was what we needed to break the seal on the door and continue our climb.


That door lead to another of the grand staircases we knew well at this point.


We dubbed this Floor 11, and it was unremarkable, though the strange fish statues were a recurring motif.


Xavr: Hydroponics!

Sana: What?

Xavr: I figured out what I missed in the last world! The trees could grow from the clouds, so there must be some sort of semi-solid core to them, but they’re still clouds made of water vapor, you see? So the clouds themselves are watering the plants. The two towns must have hydroponic farms based on a similar principle that we simply didn’t see in all the rush.

Sana: Wouldn’t we have seen them when we were searching for the resistance base?

Krby: Yeah, this seems a little far-fetched, even for me.

Xavr: No, no, this is obviously what was going on. It makes perfect sense. Yes.


Most of the creatures we encountered were similar, albeit stronger, to the ones we had seen on lower floors. Krby warned us that they were poisonous, but Xavr’s magic and Brda’s superhuman strength ensured we killed them before that became a problem.


Except for these things Krby called “Jelly”. They are the worst. Their unique ability, called “Melt”, cuts right through your armor, dissolves part of your flesh and turns it into more of their bodies, allowing them to regenerate. They come in packs of three, but they’re resistant to weapon attacks and too strong for even Xavr’s mighty magic to fell in a single blow. (And to add insult to injury, they apparently dissolve the spoils of their previous victims, so there’s very little monetary reward for killing them.) They are perhaps the most dangerous creatures we’ve faced, even more so than Medusas.


So Krby decided to eat one and absorb its strength. It bizarrely transformed him into a Fire Flower, a walking and talking burning bush.

Sana’s log, day 47


Up the next grand staircase was Floor 12.


There was an exterior door on this floor, and it lead to a huge cloud, many miles wide.


The strong winds below us around, making it hard to navigate and threatening to send us off the edge.


We found a powerful healing potion in one chest, and saw several others, but we were unable to navigate the winds to reach them. (Krby suggested we ride the wind over one and grab it as we passed. I vetoed that suggestion—whatever it was, it wasn’t worth risking being blown off the clouds for.)


Flying monsters, such as Harpys and Dragons, roamed the cloud. Xavr and Krby argued over the nomenclature of the dragons for a while—apparently dragons were segregated by age category, so the more modern approach was to number them (a dragon in the second age category is a “Dragon 2”) whereas the older method was to refer to each stage by the name, so these would be “Kid Dragons”.


Krby transformed into an Evil Eye, which had multiple magical gaze attacks. One caused paralyze, one caused stone.


He then became a Scylla, which also had a gaze attack, though this one caused confusion.

Sana: Why not call them, I don’t know, “S-Gaze” versus “P-Gaze” or something?

Krby: True experts just know. We just…know.


We returned to the Tower and continued climbing. What was the purpose of the cloud? Who had placed the chests? It was a mystery as much as the fish statues were.


On the landing leading to the next grand staircase, we found a strange, magic-powered SAW. I was wary of it, but Xavr had heard legends about its capabilities, so we stored it for later experimentation.

Sana’s log, day 48


Climbing another staircase brought us to Floor 13. My memories of the entry are incomplete, so I asked Xavr to make this entry for me.

“We had just passed through the portal onto the unfortunately-apt 13th floor when we encountered a group of the previously-mentioned “Jellys”. We attempted to flee, but they caught us from behind and prevented our escape. In the struggle to regroup, Sana was overcome by their dissolving touch.”


“The remaining three of us were able to dispatch the monsters, but then were at a loss. Krby advocated a retreat to the tenth floor to seek healing; Brda suggested pressing forward on the hopes that the 15th floor would follow the pattern of having a larger world outside it. Both, however, would be very dangerous at three-quarters strength.”


“I, however, reminded my companions that Brda was carrying a potion of revival we had liberated from Byak-Ko’s prison, which they had so foolishly forgotten.”


“Duly chastised, they administered the potion and, after I cast a number of Cure spells on the rest of our wounds, we were back on our way at full strength.”

I’ll note that Brda disputes this accounting of events. Vociferously.


The door on this floor led to an enclosed area, about the size of a large town, dry and sandy and inhabited by octopus-creatures.


They were simple creatures, with no knowledge of the world outside their town, and preoccupied with a pressing concern: They were suffering a severe drought.


They apparently were down to a small spring. But there was little we could do, so we noted the location and contemplated trying to send a rescue party if we encountered civilization again.


On the landing of this floor, we found a helmet that offered a more powerful defense than our mithril helms.

Sana’s log, day 49

Floor 14 turned out to be filled with more of the Jelly creatures. I was becoming more and more tense.


Possibly in an effort to keep my spirits up, Krby ate another one, and transformed into a flying fish that could weaken foes with electricity.


This floor also had an exit into a small, town-sized world, though this one was the opposite of the previous: It was flooding!


The people living here were noticeably panicked. They couldn’t stay because they’d drown, but they couldn’t flee into the Tower for fear of the monsters there.


Instead, they’d devolved into finger-pointing and blame games.



Brda: If these people are unable to help themselves, it behooves us to help them.

Xavr: Apparently there was some sort of natural drain in their lake that kept this flood from happening. Curious, though, as it appears they have been living here for some time, but this is the first time this had happened. We should ask them about their local history.

Sana: Or how about we fix the problem and stop them from drowning, then get local color?

Xavr: That is also acceptable.


Sana: This appears to be the drain. It’s draining, just very slowly.


Krby: I’m a fish! I’ll fix it!

All: WAAAAAAHHHHH!

When Krby pulled out the clog, the water suddenly rushed into the hole and we were dragged along with it. It felt like we were falling forever, sliding and zig-zagging through dark tunnels, until…


We washed up in another lake.


Apparently we had fallen into the world outside the Tower a floor below. The octopus inhabitants of that world were giddy with joy, as their drought had ended. I was mostly happy to be alive.


Krby: We did a good deed! Possibly a double-good deed! Double-plus good!

Xavr: Well, we’ll have plenty to talk about on our way back. These two worlds are obviously interconnected, at the very least somehow sharing a water system. It’s obviously impossible for something like this to have arisen naturally—perhaps it was deliberately placed by whoever created the Tower? The octopus creatures appear to subsist on the waste products produced by the humans living above. It’s a perfect symbiosis. Did they happen upon this place? Were they led here? Did they mutate to better fit their surroundings? How long has this been in place?

Sana: I have no idea. Perhaps the inhabitants of the town above can shed some light on the situation, now that they owe us a debt of gratitude.

Sana’s log, day 50


Returning to Floor 14, we returned to the flooded world.


It had changed significantly. The floodwaters were gone, and a field of grasses, bushes and moss was revealed in their wake.


These people were apparently a religious commune who had been living here for generations. They had no records of when they’d come to live here, but they lived simple lives as farmers and revered the “Archfiend”, who was apparently called Ashura. Their legends said that he would conquer the world, and he set forth his fiends to do that.

Sana: Is this the purpose of the Tower, and the monsters that come from it? Is it a vehicle for Ashura and his fiends to conquer our world and the smaller worlds the Tower connects to?

Brda: That fits with Sei-Ryu and Byak-Ko’s behavior, but why would Gen-Bu seal the Tower, then? Why prevent us from entering or monsters from invading?

Krby: Perhaps he was a traitor to the cause, and trying to protect our world?

Xavr: That seems unlikely. Why not warn us of the danger, then? Why wait until we had collected the Sphere when it was clear we were trying to enter the Tower for quite some time?

Sana: I think we’re still missing something important, here.



Apparently the worship of Ashura had so dominated their culture that even games played with children revolved around it.


The sudden outrush of water had revealed a decaying keep, which raised more questions than it answered, but in gratitude for stopping the flood, the people let us take the treasures that had survived inside.


We found several healing potions to replace the stock we’d used, including another revival potion. Brda made sure to keep that safe.


We also found a larger, strong version of the psychic sword Xavr had been using. Apparently these swords had been invented centuries ago by a legendary mutant named Psylocke, and his best theory was that a mutant adventurer had carried this one some time before.


We had learned so much, but still so many questions remained.

Sana’s log, day 51


During the climb to Floor 15, Krby transformed first into the Salamand form he had taken when we left our home world, and then into the form of a Pudding, apparently the stronger version of the Jellys that vexed us so.


The floor itself was unexciting.


The only feature worth noting was what appeared to be a healing fountain, surrounded by spikes. It turned out to be normal water, and bitter at that. A cruel joke!


Before we continued climbing, however, Krby was able to exact a small revenge.


Krby: How do you like it, ya bastard?

Sana’s log, day 52


We had been briefly worried when there was no exit in sight on Floor 15, but then the architecture changed on the 16th floor. Sure enough, a locked door and a larger world outside were waiting for us.


As was silk hat man. Apparently we’d left Byak-Ko’s world in significant disarray, which we knew. Apparently Su-Zaku would be very easy to find, which we did not know—he was terrorizing this world, harassing travelers and attacking towns, and had a force-field that protected him from virtually all injuries. He was going to take his chances with more of the Jellys and attempt to get more information out of the Ashura worshippers, and advised we flee Su-Zaku at the first sight of him.


Krby: Hey, it’s a big world. What are the odds this one fiend will catch up with a small traveling party just after we arrive?


Krby: Oh.

When I was younger and used to play this, I thought the silk hat person was a busty magician chick.