Arriving in the village of Dali, we head directly to the inn so we can relax and figure out what's going on and where we're going from here. The first thing on Zidane's mind is finding out why Garnet wanted to be kidnapped. Garnet won't spill the beans other than to say it's important that she get to the neighboring nation of Lindblum, and Zidane readily promises to get her there, even though we'll have to make the journey on foot.
Steiner, of course, objects, saying that Zidane can't be trusted after he exposed Garnet to danger in the Evil Forest. Zidane fires back that nothing that happened to Garnet in the forest was his fault, and — oh, wait, he admits that he screwed up in the forest and says he'll do better. Was something lost in translation here? Did a scene get left on the cutting room floor? Nothing that happened in the Evil Forest was Zidane's fault. If anything, Zidane is more responsible for getting Garnet out of there alive than Steiner is, considering that Steiner would have been killed by the hentai monster's Leech Seed without Zidane.
Either way, the argument is diffused for now by Vivi's snoring, so the group calls it a day and hits the sack. When Zidane wakes up, the other three have all cleared out. We catch up with Vivi moping by the windmill after a run in with some of the village kids, though Zidane's first guess is that Vivi met a girl. Zidane fancies himself quite the ladies' man, and tells Vivi to come to him with any girl troubles. After Zidane leaves, one of the village kids runs up and nabs Vivi.
Meanwhile, Garnet has been talking to the locals to learn how to disguise her prim and proper speech patterns, something else Zidane recommended she do in order to better blend in on the road. For obvious reasons, Zidane doesn't bother looking for Steiner, and heads back to the inn. Something strange is going on in the village. All the shops are being tended by children, the farm that used to be outside town has been replaced by odd patterns in the grass, there's machinery big enough for an airship laying around, and Vivi's taking too long to get back.
The two find a hidden manhole inside the village windmill, and follow it down into an underground complex where they overhear some men talking about Alexandria Castle. When the men lead Vivi away, Garnet stops Zidane from simply pummeling them in hopes of finding out what their connection to the castle is. They soon find him sealed up inside a coffin-shaped box and free him. When he confesses that he was too scared to resist the men who did it to him, Zidane tells him that he needs to stand up for himself.
In the same room, there is a door leaking mist from underneath, and a machine spitting out eggs, which Zidane remarks resembles a mist engine. Beyond the door is another machine that appears to be sucking mist in from outside, and pumping it into the other machine. And, where there's mist, there's monsters. Having opened the door, we now start encountering random battles with little bullet-shaped monsters that cast fire and lightning magic, and drain your MP, and tall goblin-things that steal your items and then run away.
Following the eggs down a conveyor belt leads to yet another mist machine that seems to be hatching the eggs, and then the revelation: the eggs contained black mages. Vivi is understandably freaked out, and Garnet's none too pleased to find out that whatever's going on here is presumably happening under her mother's direction. The three hide from some villagers inside another machine, where they end up getting trapped in more of the coffin boxes and added to a shipment being sent to the castle.
Speaking of the castle, Steiner has been trying to arrange transport back to that very place while all this has been going on, and has found out that a cargo ship heading for the castle is arriving in the village right now. He hurries back to town, and arrives in time to inadvertently free the others from their unwitting captors. Steiner lies that the airship is bound for Lindblum, but their boarding is interrupted by the arrival of Black Waltz #2, who keeps bamfing all over the place, and announces that he was sent by the queen to retrieve Garnet. Zidane reveals that he already defeated one of these things back in the Ice Cavern (still not sure why he covered it up in the first place), and #2 boasts that he's vastly superior to #1. You can tell because he has big demon-goat horns.
The Black Waltz attacks, just as happy to kill Steiner as the rest of us in his attempt to retrieve the princess, but goes down pretty easily. His Fira spell hits everyone but Garnet for about 150 damage, but Garnet can heal the entire party back to full with a single Cure spell. Steiner dismisses the Waltz as a liar and a bandit, but Garnet is still concerned that her mother is involved in all of this. In any case, we're given the option to go back to the inn and rest before leaving on the airship. Oddly, we never seem to be charged money for staying at this inn, despite the room having an entire shelf filled with nothing but "how to get rich" books.
Steiner goes ahead to ask the pilot of the ship if we can hitch a ride, and between his sudden change of heart and the implication of her mother in the whole mess, she puts it together that the ship is actually going back to the castle. Zidane had already figured this out and reassures her that he has a plan, but there's no time to explain because the ship starts to leave without them. They make it aboard just in time, Zidane copping an accidental feel of Garnet's royal assets in the process, and discover that the ship is being crewed by black mages. Up until this point the group had thought the black mages being manufactured in the village were just dolls, which was unsettling enough for Vivi by itself. Now that they're moving around it's worse, but not quite for the reason you might expect: none of them are responding to Vivi when he tries to talk to them.
We catch up with Steiner on the top deck, who, once reassured that the princess made it on board, gleefully informs us that the ship is heading for the castle, and we'll be hanged for kidnapping upon arrival. He does decide to be lenient and merely give Zidane a sentence of life imprisonment in thanks for getting the princess aboard, though. His change of heart is short-lived, however, because Zidane just kicked the pilot off the wheel and steered the ship toward Lindblum.
Cue the arrival of Black Waltz #3, quite possibly one of my favorite video game villains of all time. His design is just plain cool: tall, dark, and menacing, with a big pair of blue wings, that awesome signature pointy hat, and electricity crackling in the air around him. He is one scary son of a witch (Wicked of the West, to be precise), ad he loves it. The first thing he does upon landing on the bow of the ship is announce his intention to frag Vivi, and laugh maniacally when the other black mages voicelessly gather around the little guy in defense. Garnet drags Vivi away as the mages start to charge up spells, but the Waltz just blows them away with a wave of his hand and a blast of lightning, leading into one of the most heart-wrenching cinematics in the game.
Throughout the game so far, Vivi's defining characteristics have been loneliness and timidity. He was too frightened to help Zidane and Steiner fight the plant monster that captured Garnet in the Evil Forest, or the villagers who captured him in Dali. He was alone on the streets of Alexandria when we met him, abandoned by his fair-weather friend when they were caught sneaking into the play, and all the kids in the village were avoiding him. The revelation that he might be nothing but a creation of some mist engine almost crushed him, and the sole light of hope in that revelation, the hope that he might find acceptance among these other things that looked like him, was defeated when not one of them even acknowledged his existence aboard the ship. Now, wordlessly, they have come to his defense against a monster far beyond even their collective power, and one that serves the same master they do, at that.
And Black Waltz #3 kills them. Not destroys. Kills. They defied the purpose of their creation in a hopeless effort to protect Vivi. They weren't dolls as everyone else says; they were alive.
The Waltz's magic blows the black mages away, smashing their broken bodies aside and blasting the cargo barrels off the sides of the ship, dropping unawakened black mages to their deaths beneath the mists below. As electricity crackles around him, the Black Waltz descends in front of the pilot's cabin, glaring menacingly at the survivors, and Vivi goes berserk.
Vivi rushes the Black Waltz. Even Steiner's outraged by the brutality of the act, and goes in right behind him. Zidane tells Garnet to take the wheel, and that she can choose to go on to Lindblum, or turn back to Alexandria before he joins the others.
Vivi automatically Trances as soon as the battle starts, allowing him to doublecast his black magic. The narrative flow is somewhat ruined by my need to spend a couple dozen turns spamming Steal on the boss before I actually start attacking him, though. Waltz #3 has the power to back up his earlier boasting, and hurls around magic and melee attacks dealing around 90-100 damage a hit, which means a lot of potion consumption without Garnet in the party.
Defeated, #3 announces that he exists only to kill, and flies away, while Steiner lampshades the recurring villain type. Zidane thinks this was the last one, based on the fact that they're called "Waltzes," and this was the third. The reference here is that waltzes are performed in triple time, which I admit I had to look up to understand.
Zorn and Thorn have been following the airship in their own little plane, and panic when they see #3 coming back toward them, realizing that it's malfunctioning. They abandon ship, and the Waltz takes the pilot chair, repeating "I exist only to kill!" over and over.
Time for the airship chase cinematic. The cargo ship is racing for South Gate, an airship passage between Alexandria and Lindblum, with Waltz #3 hot on their tail in a smaller, faster, more maneuverable ship. He pulls ahead of them as they approach the gate and readies a lightning blast, but Vivi blows him away with a fire spell. The Waltz tumbles back, but rights his ship and catches up in the middle of the tunnel. He prepares another spell, but the arcs of his lightning shock his ship's engine, causing it to explode, and the cargo ship makes it out of the gate just before it closes.
There's no time to rest upon reaching Lindblum, though. The Regency is clearly more technologically advanced than Alexandria, as airships are everywhere, and the castle even has its own interior dock. Garnet announces herself to the guards that meet us as the princess of Alexandria, but they don't believe her given the present company and shabby transport. She shows them her pendant, and they call in the minister, or as Garnet calls him, Uncle Artania. It seems Garnet used to come to Lindblum fairly often as a child, but not since her father's passing.
Artania immediately takes us to see Regent Cid, which involves an elevator ride; another indication of Lindblum's technological superiority. Arriving at the top, we are introduced to Cid, who was Garnet's father's best friend, and a giant bug called an oglop with an even more gigantic mustache. The regent is suffering at the mercy of a magical curse, and his wife has been kidnapped. Zidane can't help but appreciate the skill it must have taken to pull off a stunt like that in the regent's own bedchambers.
Cid is happy to see Garnet and claims to know what's going on and who the rest of us are, but wants to leave business until tomorrow, so the group breaks for lunch. Zidane heads into town to get some chow at a cheap tavern where everybody seems to know him, Lindblum being his hometown for the last few years. Almost as soon as he's in the door he starts trying to pick up the waitress; so much for lamenting the end of his relationship with Garnet. He's interrupted by a rat-woman in a red coat and winged hat at the bar, and after trading a few insults ("Ratchel" being the best), we're prompted to name her, indicating that she'll be a playable character at some point. This is Freya, and she's in town for the upcoming festival. She and Zidane chat for a bit about what she's been up to for the last few years since they last crossed paths.
Getting back to Garnet and Cid, she starts to explain what's going on. Queen Brahne has been acting suspiciously lately, but no one in Alexandria will listen to Garnet's concerns that she may be up to something. She hopes that Cid can talk some sense into her, but Cid isn't so hopeful, which is precisely why he commissioned Tantalus to kidnap Garnet himself. Cid's a well-informed guy, and already knew that something rotten is happening in Alexandria. Not wanting to act directly and risk starting a war, he hired Baku's group to quietly kidnap Garnet in order to keep her safe due to a promise to her father. Of course, performing the kidnapping under cover of a big, flashy performance by a famous troop of actors/thieves based out of Lindblum is only slightly more subtle than leaving a note saying, "Kiss my thorax, Brahne. XOXO, Cid."
Garnet tells Cid about the black mages, but he's unconcerned. Lindblum is the only nation with the technology to build airships; Alexandria just buys them from Lindblum. As long as Lindblum has air superiority, Alexandria won't make a move against them. Well, then why did they need to avoid acting directly to stop Brahne?
Cid also reveals that the infiltration and kidnapping story are just a cover-up. The truth is that Cid had a little fling on the side, and his wife turned him into a bug herself before storming out, taking his latest airship design with her.
Switching back to Zidane, he and Vivi have spent the night at an inn. Zidane plans to go visit the Tantalus headquarters, while Vivi just wants to explore on his own for a while. Zidane, ever on the one mental track, advises him to meet himself a cute girl, and we're given another abrupt Mogster tutorial before finally being allowed to save the game again for the first time since beating the second Waltz.
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