Checking the laws now indicates that there are two laws rather than one, and, depending on the group, there will likely be one that will preclude some of your moves.
You now have a new city to place on the map- Cadoan, the aforementioned nu mou city. Once you get there, you'll see some recurring extras- a nu mou Sage, a human Blue Mage and a human Hunter- complaining about the laws. Meanwhile, a nu mou with an Alchemist's model and a unique portrait approaches Marche, saying that there's a way to render the laws ineffective. Meanwhile, the group's conversation turns to Ezel Berbier, a person who can supposedly negate the laws. The nu mou says that it is indeed possible to nullify the laws, and that Ezel's the person who can do so, but he's always being followed, and it's not possible to meet with him, before going off on some business.
The first time you return to Cadoan, you will be thrown into a mission. The nu mou from earlier is being chased by a mob, and it turns out that' he's Ezel, and they're after his bounty. Apparently, business negotiations broke down, when they didn't like his price of 100,000 gil, and they decided to retaliate by turning him in.
You will have to fight them, and they largely consist of those with Advanced Jobs, which can only be unlocked by acquiring abilities for jobs. For example, the Defender requires two Warrior abilities to unlock, while the Illusionist requires five Black Mage and three White Mage abilities. The Vieras have two jobs that also require abilities from advanced jobs, as you need abilities from the Elementalist to unlock the Summoner and Assassin jobs (the latter of which also requires a Sniper ability). But I digress; you'll have to defeat those enemies, which have some fairly useful abilities, such as the Illusionist's ability to strike all enemies.
But you do have help. Ezel can sometimes use an ability that puts all enemies to sleep, if he so desires. You can then choose between leaving an opponent unable to act while you deal with the rest of the enemies, or hitting them with a powerful attack to take advantage of your vastly increased chance to hit a sleeping enemy.
Once all the enemies are defeated, Marche and Ezel formally introduce themselves, and Ezel says that he will have to run, yet again, since he's quite popular. A voice then remarks that Ezel is thought of as "an eccentric loony" among his people, and that person turns out to be Judgemaster Cid (apparently, someone with that name appears in every Final Fantasy game, often an airship pilot or other kind of scientist, and usually on the heroes' side, neither of which seems to be true here).
Marche is quite surprised to recognize Mewt's father as the Judgemaster, especially since Cid showed him how far he'd fallen since his wife's death. Cid either doesn't recognize Marche or simply ignores him, asking to speak with Ezel about his antilaws. Cid halts Ezel's escape with an "advanced law" that will prevent Ezel from doing anything, but Ezel pulls out an antilaw that removes the law and enables him to escape with Marche.
Ezel's quite pleased with himself for his ability to negate the laws that he believes the judges arrogantly impose on people, and offers to let Marche access his secret shop for antilaws. In it, you don't have to pay the exorbitant fee that his would-be clients did, but you have to trade other cards. It's fairly expensive to get a specific card, particularly if the price is up, but it can help you get one that you specifically need.
It's quite nice to be able to cancel out the laws, particularly some of the more annoying ones:
- Fight. Most classes have an ability that's a relatively basic attack, or not too different from the normal one (Air Render, Doubleshot, etc), meaning that it's fairly easy to launch a basic attack on the enemy. However, in one battle, an Animist used Berserk on me, forcing some of my units to break the Fight law.
- Healing. This can be helpful sometimes, in preventing enemies from prolonging the battle by healing themselves (for example, a Soldier running away and using First Aid, or an Animist popping back to full health with Cuisine, which can be quite annoying), but in boss battles, you tend to need healing more than the enemy does.
- Dmg2 Animal: All the Dmg2 laws are annoying, but this is by far the worst. Damaging a monster will get you a yellow card, and killing one will get you a red card, making it impossible to defeat groups solely composed of monsters if you can't negate this law.
The next mission takes you to Aisenfield, where there is a "diamond rain." Naturally, you end up killing some monsters while it's raining, and Marche suspects that it's related to the crystals. There's really not much to say, as this comes off as one of the "filler" plot missions.
Next, Marche goes to Roda Volcano, and finds himself in another totema's palace, and sees butterflies flying around near a crystal. Soon, some smaller crystals appear, all of which comprise the totema Ultima, for the nu mou. There are eight of them, meaning that because there seem to be only twelve people apart from the judge at the time, you can only bring three clanners besides Marche.
Ultima is not exactly like the other boss battles in the game; the objective is to "Destroy all targets!". Each of the crystals has a limited attack radius, even if they have annoying confuse and charm abilities. Normally, the solution is to pick them off one by one, since they have low HP.
But if you brought Montblanc or any other moogle on the mission, and they have 10 JP, you can unleash Famfrit on them, which will likely kill all of them in one turn, which is what I did here.
After defeating Ultima, Marche briefly reflects on this, but is interrupted by Mewt calling out, insisting that his mother is still alive and demanding that whoever is causing him to remember these things stop doing so. Marche then realizes that he's destroying Mewt's own personal dream world, and feels guilty about it.
Next Time: While searching for the third crystal, Marche gets the attention of those who don't want him to succeed.
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