The dwarves are as expected: The Faceless combined with a thick Scottish accent. They refuse to sell us anything or even let us stay at the inn, the heartless little buggers. Let's go see the Elder (who is named Kokkol) and give him Clique's letter.
Having the missive makes all the difference. The dwarven elder now believes in us. But won't fight for us. He is nice enough to tell us a prophecy, however:
When the land waxes dim in midnight's embrace, four Warriors of Light shall bring dawn apace.
Nice prophecy, but we're not the Warriors of Light. He also tells us the Black Knight we saw earlier is probably the ghost of someone killed at Falgabard. This seems to upset Nacht, enough that even Alba notices. Kokkol says the dwarves will now be more civil, but refuses to give us any more help than that.
Guess it's all up to us. Thanks for nothing, dwarf guy.
Falgabard is the only way to go from here, so we head for the Cave of Dread. I'm guessing it's not a nice place to have a picnic. Most of the monsters in here can't be killed by physical attacks. If you try, they just regenerate. But they're all strong against magic, so you have to whittle down their HP with the fighters, then hit them with magic.
Partway through we run into Hecontonchier. He's not a bad boss fight, but he can't be killed with physical attacks, either. Killing him with magic causes him to regenerate fully. As Alba says "Just. Die. Already."
Fortunately for us, the Black Knight from earlier joins the battle. He says he's going to finish what we cannot. Ouch. Finishing off Heconton with one of his Dark Blade attacks kills him for real.
The Dark Knight introduces himself as Graham, and says he's the last survivor of Falgabard, which is really upsetting to Nacht. He volunteers to guide us to the castle.
Exiting the Cave of Dread puts us on Mt. Falgabard (really?). Graham explains that Falgabard is nearly impenetrable since it was built on top of and in the middle of a mountain range. Glaive asks how it got destroyed, then, and Nacht points out the obvious: airships.
Falgabard is a wreck. It's inhabited by ghosts of the slain guards, almost all of whom are pissed at someone named Sigurd for surviving when they did not. It seems that Sigurd and his son were on a mission to the Empire when the attack came. Well, that clears up a bit about Nacht.
Amazingly, the castle is not filled with monsters.
The castle is pretty well picked over; the only treasure left is in chests filled with monsters. When we get to the basement, we find out why - there's a gang of bandits setting up shop here. We beat them within an inch of their lives, and they retreat further down the castle.
In the armory we find the boss of the bandits, who is a tougher fight, but still not very threatening. After beating him, the thieves open up a secret passage and again run for their lives. We get to load up on everything they stole, which includes some very nice stuff.
Graham informs us that the passage leads to Mt. Gulg, which Falgabard was supposed to defend. This passage is full of monsters (surprise), and at the end of it we find three Imperial troops standing over the bodies of our old friends the bandits. Hey, nobody is allowed to beat up the thieves but us! They mistake us for thieves, as well, and attack.
Big mistake on their part. We mop the floor with them.
The thieves quit playing possum and run for the hills. You're welcome, you ingrates.
During this trip, I've managed to get several party members to level 10 in their jobs, which adds a new ability slot. Nice.
Outside the passageway is a chocobo forest, and a ride by chocobo takes us to a fiery cave of a Bonus Dungeon. Must be summon time again!
The cave is full of lava, including floor tiles that will hurt you if you step on them. This dungeon is more puzzle oriented than the others, but there's nothing too challenging here.
As expected, Ifrit is at the bottom, and after beating him we get the Ifrit summon. It's interesting that the Dark and Light Warriors get different sets of summons.
Next time on Dimensions: We take back Mt. Gulg.
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