With the president abduction being a failure, Rinoa decided they should take over the TV transmission the Galbadians are planning and use it to broadcast Timber’s proclamation of independence. It took the group some time to get access to the tower, but when they finally did; their plans were forced to change. The president’s speech was broadcasted and he announced peace negotiations between the nations, being led by Galbdadia’s new ambassador, a sorceress.
Now, from what I understand, sorceresses are extremely powerful women, born to be conduits for some outside power I don’t fully comprehend yet. They have existed in the past and they usually aimed to rule nations, or even the whole world. Their rule would always be a dark time, full of dark magic, sacrifices, etc.. All in all, it was very obvious Galbadia is using the sorceress as a fear factor, to force the other countries into peace terms they wouldn’t accept otherwise.
Anyway, as this speech was happening, Seifer suddenly barged in, following by Quistis trying to stop him. He took hold of the president and tried to pull him out of the room, threatening his life. As they entered another room, the sorceress suddenly appeared and took Seifer with her. The group managed to get there in person, but it was too late.
With no order and nowhere to go, since they were wanted now, they decided to follow protocol, meaning they need to report to the nearest Garden. This would be Galbadia Garden, so that’s where I went next. Some resistance members helped me avoid Galbadian troops and then I got to a train in the direction of the Garden.
Galbadina Garden seems much less friendly than Balamb.
Timber had random encounters, but sadly, I had to run away from most of them, since they were against soldiers, meaning I couldn’t turn them into cards. Some of the battles were forced, though, so I managed to get a level or two, but nothing major.
When I boarded of the train, I was supposed to go through a forest to reach the Garden. This is where another dream sequence with Laguna happened. This time, they were in a mine infested with Esthar soldiers. From what I understand, Galbadia was at war with Esthar two decades ago and back then, Esthar was run by a sorceress. They did some running around, being their usual useless selves, and then they got ambushed by a bunch of soldiers, getting severely injured and being forced to jump off a cliff.
The group woke up and I could go to the garden now. Before that, I decided to finally train for a bit, using Card to get some AP without gaining levels and learning some item creation abilities that way. I used these to get a bunch of higher level spells and then junctioned them to my characters. Doing all this finally got me to above 1000 health on two of my characters. The third didn’t have HP junction yet, but would get it soon enough.
I entered the garden and reported to the headmaster. The group was also told that Seifer was captured by Galbadians, tried and executed soon after. On the way out, Squall met Raijin and Fujin who wouldn’t accept Seifer was dead and decided to go look for him. They brought new orders for Squall, though.
The group now needs to assassinate the sorceress, so they were joined by a sniper, Irvine, a new playable character. This one is a bit over the top, but all in all, one of the more stable individuals, by Square’s standards. I left the garden and trained some more, but soon I decided to just go to Deling City for the assassination.
