Returning to Conde Petie, the dwarves won't let us through to the other side because the Sanctuary is basically their holy honeymoon resort, and only those who have gone through the dwarves' wedding ceremony can go. Zidane's been flirting with Garnet again ever since we saved her from Brahne, so he can hardly let this opportunity slip by, but surprisingly Garnet agrees. The dwarf priest actually voices more objection than she does, saying that the ceremony is only supposed to be for dwarves, but what the heck? They haven't had one in a while, so let's shine up that kirkboat and put Vegas to shame.
Zidane is left speechless for what must be the first time and starts trying to back out, but as the ceremony progresses he starts to think that she must actually be falling for him. This leads to him faceplanting when he goes for the consummating kiss and she's already left the platform. So much for that, stud.
That gets Zidane and Garnet through to the sanctuary, but Vivi and Quina are still up a creek. There's a suggestion that they go through the ceremony, too, but isn't Vivi's life full of enough confusion and misfortune as it is? We decide to figure some out later, and go to make the rounds of the village to show off the happy new fake couple. The guards at the gate just leave when we tell them we're the newlyweds, rather than let us through and, y'know, keep guarding the gate. No sooner have they left the screen, though, than what appears to be a female gnome from World Of Warcraft in a poofy pink and yellow jumpsuit runs out them, chased by accusations of thievery and a tiny moogle. Vivi and Quina snuck through while the guards were distracted, so off we go. In fact, we're now free to come and go from Conde Petie as we please, despite only half of our group having gone through the ceremony. Well, it's not like even the high priest had much regard for the rules.
Just on the other side of the canyon we catch up with the gnome, who is hanging off a cliff by her suspenders and insists that she tastes awful when we approach. Normally this would be a funny misunderstanding, but we do have Quina with us....
The gnome, who is a little girl named Eiko, falls and is caught by Zidane. After a round of introductions, we decide to escort Eiko home. Like Garnet, Eiko is a white mage and summoner, albeit with different summons. Eiko's current eidolon is Fenrir, a white wolf riding a giant earthen statue that punches enemies into orbit. This makes her redundant with Garnet, but I'd still rather have her on the team than Quina. On the other hand, replacing Quina with Eiko means that Zidane is the only physical fighter worth a damn on the team, which means random encounters are either a matter of waiting for Zidane to chew through every enemy on the screen one by one, or letting Vivi blow through his MP like a six pack on his twenty-first birthday. Not that I get to make a decision on the matter, as the game isn't letting me pick my own parties yet.
On the way to Eiko's home, we spot a gigantic tree in the distance, at least as large as Cleyra, if not bigger, which explains all the gigantic roots we've been seeing all over the hills since we got to the Outer Continent. Zidane wonders if it's the Sanctuary, but no time for that, because there's a boss to kill: the Jolly Green Giant's overweight biker-gimp brother. This boss's big power attack is an earthquake that deals hefty damage to the entire party, or it would do that, except that Garnet can now cast Float on the entire party at once, completely neutralizing the attack and turning the fight into another drawn out process of Zidane spamming Steal until he's finally gotten everything off the boss while the rest of the party just does maintenance. This wound up taking so long that for the first time in this playthrough we had to use an Ether, and ultimately used three before the battle ended.
It just sucks all the danger and excitement out of boss fights when we're purposely drawing them out, avoiding actually hurting the boss at all, until we're done looting his junk. It's not bad if we can get everything in the first half a dozen turns or so, but the last and best item on the boss usually takes over 10 turns, and can easily take an eternity, just as it is now. There's nothing fun about sitting back and letting the boss wail on us for a hundred turns until Zidane can get that last goddamn item. The least they could do is make stealing during Trance a guaranteed success! I finally got so fed up with the whole thing that I just let Vivi liquefy the boss with a few Bio spells without ever getting the last item.
When the most challenging thing about a game's boss fights is the test of patience, that's not a good sign.
Zidane and Garnet question Eiko on her ability to summon eidolons, and she replies that everyone in her village could do it. When asked further, though, she changes the subject and tells us that the giant tree is called Iifa, and it is indeed what the dwarves call Sanctuary.
