The conversation last time took place only between Cid and Hilda, so the group is called into the conference room again for the full version. Besides what was already covered last time, Hilda indicates that there's a connection between Terra and the Shimmering Island, but to make the connection, we first have to go to a place called Ipsen's Castle (which we may recall is the name of the character from the story Zidane told Garnet back in Madain Sari) on the Forgotten Continent. Meanwhile, Cid is directing the final stages of construction on the Hilda Garde 3, and Garnet has disappeared from Lindblum.
Zidane has a good idea where to look for her, though, and heads to the ruins of Alexandria with the Tantalus crew. Garnet is nowhere to be found, but Beatrix is, and she suggests looking for her at Brahne's grave. She dodges Zidane's question about why she hasn't contacted us, particularly Steiner, though. The tip is good, and Zidane finds Garnet alive and talking again. She says that she has no right to rule Alexandria, having failed it so badly, in part because all she could do was try to be what she thought other people wanted her to be. Zidane gives her a garnet gem that he got from Beatrix, and in typical Zidane fashion, tells her a story about how the garnet made a wish, and traveled from person to person until it came to be in her hands. What's important is being honest with herself about what she wants, and working to make it a reality. Garnet thanks him, and borrows the dagger she took her new name from to give herself an Important Haircut in a cinematic that transitions into the launching of the Hilda Garde 3.
I'm of two minds about Garnet getting her voice back this way. On the one hand, I like the subversion of the expected big, climactic moment where she has to say something to save someone's life, or tell Zidane she loves him, or what have you, by having her just coming to terms with her problems in a quiet moment and get it back that way. On the other hand, we just had a perfect moment for one of those big dramatic scenes back in Mount Gulug, when Garnet saw Zorn and Thorn doing the same psuedo-rape ritual on Eiko that they did on her before. I imagine the designers didn't go with that because the were already making Vivi a mandatory party member for that quest, and making Garnet one, too, would have left the player with only one party member of their own selection. Still, I think Garnet's connection to Eiko is at least as important to the narrative as Vivi's to the black mages, and having Garnet get her voice back the way she does is weakened a little bit by not getting her voice back from that event.
Anyway, back to the airship, which apparently picked up Zidane and Garnet off-screen. Man, travel on the Mist Continent has really become a non-issue since we got rid of the mist. Eiko jumps to the conclusion that Garnet cut her hair because Zidane broke her heart, and starts to call him out on it. Is she still trying to score Zidane for herself, or not? She's been zig-zagging on that for a while now. Everyone's happy to learn that Garnet can talk again, and Erin, the airship pilot girl that played cards on Cid's behalf in Treno, takes the ship's helm. Finally, we have total control of the world map! Our prime directive: upgrading the chocobo!
After a couple hours of Hot and Cold (and upgrading the chocobo three times to light blue, red, and dark blue), we get back to business and head for the castle. Zidane asks everyone who's not going in with him to secure the entrance (against what, I don't know), but Amarant pitches a fit before we decide the groups. He's been following Zidane for a while now, but is no closer to understanding him, and decides to take another shot at proving himself superior by going in alone and completing our goal before Zidane's group does.
The castle has an odd design inside and out: it's like someone took two identical castles, turned one of them upside down, glued them both together at the base, and then stuck the pointy bits of one in the ground. The very first treasure chest right inside the door contains a Dagger, the weapon Zidane started the game with, and goddammit I just remembered this place. Ipsen's Castle has a gimmick: our weapons' strengths are inverted here, so our high level weapons are worthless, and the starting weapons are the strongest things we can wield. Fortunately, although we've used a few of them for synthesizing, we haven't actually sold off any of our old gear, so we're spared the need to go searching for a weapon shop that actually still carries that outdated junk before we go any further. I just wish I remembered if the same thing applies to our armor....
On the plus side, this means Garnet is now dealing as much attack damage as Zidane and Freya.
We catch up to Amarant in a room full of glowing green lines that converge on four points on a world map on the wall. Amarant says that by getting here first he's proven himself better than Zidane, and leaves the group. ...crap I didn't remember that. Why do I have a bad feeling that it's permanent?
Each of the converging points is behind a mirror, inscribed with a clue to a location and an element. Looks like we've got ourselves an elemental fiend quartet, another classic Final Fantasy trope. Zidane says they're the same as the ones he saw at Oeilvert, and I have no clue what he's talking about. Before we can leave, though, we're attacked by a Defiler from Starcraft, screaming about interfering with the energy flow to Terra. The boss alternates between an "Open" state where he casts Blizzaga on the party, and a "Curl" state where his physical defense goes up. His attacks are so weak that we never even needed to heal anyone beyond what Auto-Regen took care of, and Fire magic seems to be his weak point.
Further exploring the castle, we find a room with a gigantic sword crackling with electricity and chained to the wall. The only things to interact with are a pair of pots and three tables. Moving the pots around doesn't seem to do anything, but trying to leave the room with one triggers a voice saying they can't be removed without their contents. So we keep shuffling them around the tables for a while aimlessly until the voice says we can gains its power by fighting the flow of time. So, after cycling the pots around the tables counter-clockwise for a bit, suddenly all the electricity from the sword channels into one of them, and we get the "Ancient Aroma" accessory, which teaches Garnet the "Odin's Sword" ability.
...huh.
When we make it back outside, it turns out that Amarant hasn't come back yet, so Zidane goes back in to look for him alone, where we are immediately killed by a flying eyeball that cast Doom before we got a turn. Good thing we'd just saved....
This time, we find Amarant lying injured where he must have fallen from a pit trap. He asks why Zidane came back, unable to fathom what he gains from it. Zidane shrugs it off; Amarant's part of the team, and that's all that matters to him. Amarant's still not entirely satisfied with that answer, but he doesn't push the point any further, and we amscray.
Regrouping outside, we go over what we discovered. Zidane clarifies his earlier comment about "it" being the same as what he saw at Oeilvert as referring to the language the clues were written in. The clues were shaking ground, a tornado, underwater surrounded by earth, and atop a fiery mountain. Zidane's guess is that we'll find some way to break the seal on the Shimmering Island's connection with Terra by visiting these four sites. Futher, something said by the Defiler as it was dying makes him think that all four sites need to be activated simultaneously, so we're splitting up into teams of two. Eiko immediately calls dibs on going with Garnet, and one of the airship's crewmen suggests that he may know where one of the sites is, so it looks like we're on our way.
