Final Fantasy IX Disc 3

Lindblum and Black Mage Village

Rebuilding Lindblum

You’ll wake up as Zidane and you’ll have the wonderful oppertunity to wander around the bedroom and open the chests again. Right from the bed is an . There’s a upstairs. Talk to Mogki (the Moogle) and get a letter for Moodon, then save and head for the Lift. Ride the lift DOWN to the Base Level, and take the right Trolly to the Serpent’s Gate. Explore toward the top of the screen for a , then get back on the trolley and head to the Dragon’s Gate at the other end of the line.

Explore around the corner where you’ve found treasure before and you’ll get a . Get back on the trolley and head up to the upper level. When you get there, head left and go upstairs to the Telescope area and talk to Dagger, come back to the lift area and go forward, then up the stairs and into the Royal Bedchambers.

When you have control again, head down to the next level down and go to the Guest Room and watch more. Eventually, you’ll be turned loose in the city with instructions to find the , , and . Zidane tells you that he thinks Cinna has the .

In an atempt to be subtle, the game cleverly gives you an ATE showing you that the Tantalus folks (including Cinna) are hanging out - I know this will come as a HUGE surprise to everyone - at the Tantalus Hideout! Ride the lift to the Mid Level and take an aircab to the Business District first. Talk to everyone around town and you’ll learn that a collector used to live in a studio in the Theater District. Stop off at the inn, sign the guest book and head upstairs and give Moodon Mogki’s letter.

Go up one screen from the Inn and search the ground on the far left for the Stellazio. See the Stellazio side quest Section for more information. Also, head upstairs in the Card Freak’s house and open the chests there again. Once has an and the other has a . Alice (The lady who owns the Item Shop) has the . Be sure to stop off at the Weapon/Item shops and restock (new weapons are available).

When you’ve got The and all the weapons you want (don’t forget to synth if you need), head to the theater distrct. Head down into the artist’s studio and open the chest in the bottom right corner for another . Talk to the guy, the search in the bottom left corner for the .

Head down the stairway toward Tantalus’ hideout. When you leave the screen, head back and go inside the hideout. Open all the chests again. 4692 Gil, 970 Gil, 1273 Gil. If you’ve done the coffee sidequest, you can see the airship model in the lower left corner of the screen, near the ladder. Now head back to Lindblum Castle and head upstairs and into the royal bedchambers. Watch the ATE about Quina, then head into town and pay his bill so they can re-join the party. If you want to play cards, you can head to the theater district and play the card freak and his new apprentice. When you are ready to move on, take the lift to the base level. Head (right) to the Serpent’s gate and outside, the examine the ladder by the ship to board the Blue Narcissist.

Anchors Away!

While technically your next official destination is Black Mage Village, why not take care of some optional activities that will earn you a lot of great loot? Now that you have a ship, there are many optional things you can do. Seriously - this one vehicle has unlocked a lot of new areas. But first, let’s trade in that , shall we? Or skip to “Back to Black Mage Village” if you are in a rush and want to advance the story.

Optional: Return to Gizamaluke’s Grotto

If you have a , sail around to the southern part of the Mist Continent and head into Gizamaluke’s Grotto. Give it the Moogle there and you’ll receive an (if you’re following along here). While you’re here, you might be tempted to just level up folks like Steiner who probably aren’t at the level that other folks are. But I’d recommend taking on the newly unlocked Chocobo side quests where you’ll acquire a bunch of new gear, then you can level up steiner while other party members also learn some awesome abilities at the same time.

Optional: Lost Continent

Area Enemies & Blue Magic: Around Esto Gaza

Enemy	Eat to learn

See Blue Magic for the full reference.

At this point I usually recommend folks head to the Lost Continent in the north west of the map (it’s covered in Ice; you can’t miss it). Take the quick “Cold Field” chocograph side quest here, and visit the town of Esto Gaza while you are at it. You’ll have to come back here eventually, and you may as well get the weapons and items here that you can’t get before this. I’d also recommend stocking up on a or 20 too, but that’s up to you. While you’re at the shop, walk around the left edge and wrap behind the entire counter until you come out on the right. You can find a here. Leave the village and get back on the ship and head south to…

Optional: Chocobo’s Lagoon (First Visit)

See the Chocobos Overview section for instructions on finding the Lagoon. Get all the chocographs you can - especially the Dawn Lagoon. Head back to the mist continent and get the Dawn Lagoon treasure so you’ll have mountain ability for Choco. Use this to pop over to Treno and particiapte in the auctions there. You can get a now, as well as the . You can also participate in lots of card battles in the stadium now, if you want. Be sure to sell off any Stellazio you’ve picked up. Not to far away from Treno is southgate. If you have a mountain chocobo, you can go OVER the pass to the other side of southgate (where Stiner and Dagger came earlier). You can now open the chest at the top of the ladder and get an elixir card.

Optional: Chocobo’s Forest (Second Visit)

Now that Choco has the mountain ability, return to Chocobo’s Forest and now you can get more Chocographs, as well as some Dead Peppers, if you’re lucky. Track down all the treasure that you can, then head back to…

Optional: Chocobo’s Lagoon (Second Visit)

Now that you should have an Ocean Chocobo, return to the Lagoon and dig up some more Chocographs. Find all the Treasures you can. Don’t forget to check out the Bubbles and Cracks section. By the time you’re finished, you should have been able to find all but three treasures: Dusk Plains, Forgotten Plains and Outer Island, and there are also 2 cracks you cannot get to at this point.

All the stuff you cannot do is on the Forgotten Continent, and you can’t get there until you have an air ship. That will happen soon enough. You could try and get to give you its , but you don’t really need them, and you can come back anytime (I like doing those in order; see the Friendly Monsters Section for more information). Plus, you could just do the chocobo side quests here and get a fairly easily.

Optional: Return to Alexandria (again)

If you head to Alexandria, you should be able to get a few more gems. As soon as you get there, grab the just opposite Lila. On the next screen up is an in the lower left corner. One screen up from that has a in the lower right and 365 Gil in the Upper right. Talk to the girl on this screen for the Alexandria Card. There’s also an in the lower left.

Head up to the moat; the two stashes there have be restocked. The right one has 4832 Gil, the Left one has a . Take the boat across the moat, and the other side has an on the left and a behind the fountain, on the right. In the far back left is a . Thats pretty much all your options for side quests at this time.

The above took me 8 hours, though I came out of it with a great many characters leveled up mightily. I think I spent 4 hours just leveling up - I watch TV and level-up using Picture-in-picture, so I’m distracted While I’m doing it; the superbowl was on and I had fun watching that while leveling up. Anyway, once you’re ready to go, head…

Back to Black Mage Village!

When you’re ready to advance the story, pilot the Blue Narcisist north to the forgotten contient, and head over to Black Mage Village. If you missed the earlier, you can head into the item shop, and hop up on the ladder behind the counter. At the top, examine the bed to jump on it and open the chest.

Follow Vivi to the Graveyard and then head toward the Chocobo stable. When you have control again, leave. Head to the Ship, then east. If you have a mountain chocobo, you can just go straight east. There is a lot of desert on the easternmost edge of the continent, you’re supposed to go there and fall into the quicksand, but… First, make sure you’ve done all the side quests you want to do at this time, and unequip anything important from Eiko, Dagger, and Freya.

Area Enemies & Blue Magic: Desert Palace Quicksand

Enemy	Eat to learn

See Blue Magic for the full reference.

There are four patches of quicksand. The four are more or less in a diamond shape and you want to fall into the northmost one. If you fight when you fall in, you didn’t fall in the right one. When you fall into the right (meaning correct) one, you’ll wake up in…