Ｆｉｎａｌ　Ｆａｎｔａｓｙ　Ｖ

The map shows that they've landed on the western tip of the northeastern continent, about half a world away from the southeastern continent where Exdeath's castle stands or the southwestern continent where the Big Bridge would have taken them. It also shows that the closest location of any interest lies some distance to the east, so let's get moving. The monsters that, of course, attack along the way shouldn't cause too much trouble.

Much like the Water Buzz around Exdeath's castle, you can !Control a Dirl (ディルル) around here, or !Capture and release one, to make it use Fusion.

I wouldn't have picked that spelling, but every single Google result for ルゴル (once I excluded "ff5") pointed to a French distillery of that name, so we'll go with it.

Though a nice enough village, even the locals admit it's in the middle of nowhere.

Fortunately, the shops have good inventory despite that, with the magic shop in particular carrying all level 4 spells for White, Black, and Timespace magic. The weapon and armor shops carry some new equipment, too. Going through a secret passage to talk to the little girl between the two sides of the shop reveals that she's lost her ribbon, but there's nothing to do about that for now, so there's no use worrying about it just yet.

A Kirby enemy shares the name クーザー, and goes by Koozer in the English version. There's also a bicycle parts manufacturer called Koozer. However, that spelling felt too... silly? for something of this significance, so I substituted an 'u' for the 'oo'.

Don't worry if this legendary battle 1000 years ago doesn't sound familiar yet. I'm fairly certain no one has so much as mentioned either the battle or the thousand year timeframe before this point. Naturally, though, it will end up having considerable significance...

There's a piano hidden in a back room in the bar. The Thief's Secret Passages skill makes it easy to find. The party can also hop on the stage to do a silly little dance with silly music and get a token payment for their efforts, for what it's worth. Using the Dancer class doesn't seem to have any effect.

Staying at the inn triggers a scene.

In the middle of the night, Galuf gets up and leaves. Butz wakes up shortly after, notices the empty bed, and, not finding Galuf in the inn, heads outside.

He looks around for a bit, then apparently hears something and heads for the pub. Meanwhile, inside...

So apparently the distillery reference makes sense after all.

Butz walks in.

Butz sits across from him.

Galuf vigorously shakes his head.

Galuf walks over to him, head bowed.

Galuf nods, and the rest of the night passes without further incident.

Appropriately enough, the monster Kuzer (クーザー) may appear near the castle. It uses ???? every turn, and its 5,000 maximum HP is enough to make that quite dangerous as the fight drags on, so be careful. On the other hand, ???? is also in its !Control list, so once it's hurt enough...

Although the townspeople advised against coming here, that just makes us more curious, right? Besides, those sealed weapons sound useful...

Watch out for monsters. The Shield Dragon, which is all that appears here, can cause a lot of trouble and won't go down easily. Either run away, preferably using skills, or give the Beast Tamer's !Control ability to several characters (in case of failure) and make it kill itself with Flame.

Several rooms later lies one with a circular layout and different music. No monsters appear here. Galuf steps out and glances around.

Feel free to examine the twelve weapons. Each starts with the same introduction...

...and, clockwise from the top, the weapons are...

...however, there's nothing more to do here for now.

The map has no other markers on this continent, leaving the party little choice but to continue south and east, eventually coming to a forest in the mountains. Playful music—the same tune as Mog's theme in FFVI, though faster and with more cartoonish instrumentation—plays, and they find a white creature with pink bat wings standing on a tree. Unfortunately, it panics when it notices them, and falls in a hole that opens in the ground nearby.

The others nod, so into the hole we go, entering what looks like an underground river. Strong currents push the party around. However, the path only branches in one place, and converges shortly after that, so the cave doesn't have any maze-like qualities. Note, though, that the menu won't open while in a current.

Blood Slime (ブラッドスライム) gives yet another chance to learn Bloodsuck, using it 67% of the time each turn, or on command when controlled.

Further downstream, the party finds the moogle cornered by a monster.

Fire-based magic works well against the Tyrasaurus (ティラザウルス). Be careful, since it likes to counterattack with a variety of attacks.

One such possibility is the Blue Magic skill ????, a 33% chance when hit physically. It's also frankly unfair for a boss to have this skill.

Or just toss a Phoenix Tail at it. It may miss, but usually you'll get an instant kill. Considering that the game gives you one in a treasure chest just before the battle, it almost seems to want you to do this. Death Claw works, too, and anything that's normally a full heal will have a similar effect.

After the battle, the moogle remains skittish. Lenna tries to talk it down.

The moogle cautiously approaches, then apparently decides it's in no danger, and hops toward the nearby exit.

The moogle hops a few times and goes outside. There, it takes a step into the desert, then turns back and forth as though to warn against doing that. Stepping out of the desert, it runs along a path that avoids the desert areas and leads to a forest some distance to the northeast, where it disappears.

The Sand Crawler (サンドクローラー), a particularly nasty monster, often appears in the deserts around here. It has high defense and triple the hit points of that last boss, can use Maelstrom to knock the entire party down to single-digit health, and prevents you from running away. It doesn't have any unusual items, either, so there's little point in hunting them. If you do end up facing one, your best bet is probably using !Control to neutralize it while you slowly kill it with magic. The Blue Mage's Aqua Breath works especially well if you have it handy. Using Break with !Magic Sword kills it, too, if you have that.

A group of Cactus (カークタース) may appear along with, or if you're lucky, instead of a Sand Crawler. !Control one to get it to use 1000 Needles, if you're willing to risk one or more battles with Sand Crawlers to get the opportunity.

This section of the continent has no random encounters anywhere outside of the desert.

In short, it's generally best to avoid the deserts, like the moogle suggested. And where it vanished into the woods hides...

Incidentally, you can't enter the village until after seeing the moogle go here, even if you know exactly where to look.

Several moogles standing near the entrance panic and scatter as soon as they notice they have visitors. Moogles continue sporadically rushing around in a panic until the party finds one behind a tree that stops with a jolt of recognition after initially spooking.

The moogle nods, then beckons them through a door in a nearby tree. Inside, treasure chests ring the room.

The moogle nods again. The treasures include a Dancing Dagger, which makes a nice weapon for many classes. Outside, half a dozen moogles now mill around, no longer showing any fear. Another hollow tree has a locked chest and a moogle that doesn't react, while the third has...

Putting it on lets us look like a moogle. Going back to the unresponsive moogle gets a response now. Aww, how cute, the creature seems to be smitten with us, and unlocks the chest, which contains an Elf's Manteau. Alas, this love was not to be.

After finding the costume, we can return to the moogle the party rescued, which responds by hopping up on the tree and making some odd noises.

The screen fades out, then shows us Karulu leaving a room in a castle. A moogle rushes out after her.

She nods in understanding, and they continue to a small rooftop where a soldier watches over a wyvern.

The wyvern perks up a bit and makes some rather feeble noises.

Karulu nods, and the wyvern spreads its wings and shouts, knocking the moogle over.

Meanwhile, in the village, the moogles are running back and forth in formation.

One of the moogles gestures.

It nods, and they go back to running. Meanwhile, the wyvern circles around over the forest.

The forest somehow shifts into a pattern resembling a moogle's face. They head for its nose.

Back in the village, a large shadow appears.

The wyvern lands among the moogles, and Karulu hops off.

The moogle that came with her jumps off and hops a few times.

Everyone piles onto that poor wyvern, which manages to take off and fly away regardless. The moogles wave.

There are any number of ways you could interpret バル. Bar is, if nothing else, at least the name of a number of real-world places, including a duchy.

The wyvern lands in a large courtyard. Everyone gets off.

She gets back on and they fly off.

A group of soldiers approaches.

Scene change to the throne room, where Galuf sits on the throne as the soldiers fill him in on recent events.

Butz approaches the throne.

And it makes Butz the only member of the party who isn't royalty. When you think about it, that's a bit ridiculous.

Galuf turns back to the soldiers.

The soldiers file out. Butz still stands dumbfounded.

Butz nods.

Galuf chases Butz around the room for a bit.

呼び捨て, more precisely, is calling someone by their bare name, without any sort of honorific. In Japanese, this isn't normally something you do unless you're on very familiar terms with someone, or just being rude.

Galuf shakes his head vigorously.

Galuf laughs, and the party reforms.