Mission Name	42 - Path of Darkness
Locations	Alzadaal Undersea Ruins
Estimated Time	30 minutes per attempt
Special Items:	Key item: Nyzul Isle Route for each attempt
Difficulty:	Hard. Yep, hard. Brace yo'self.
Medicines Needed:	none
Recomended Jobs:	BLUs are legendary. Other jobs that can solo weak enemies very useful.
Brief synopsis:	Deal with multiple enemies while while watching an NPC's health

Ahhh, now this one is just good old-fashioned fun. This fight will likely challenge your team’s organizational skills as you deal with multiple enemies and an unfortunate losing condition. You have thirty minutes to complete three consecutive battles.

Zone	NPC Name	Location	Other
Alzadaal Undersea Ruins	(blank target)		See note

WARNING: the game says so very clearly, but I’m going to repeat it here. If you get this cutscene you will be UNABLE to enter Salaheem’s Sentinels until you clear mission 42 successfully. You can’t remove this in any way short of beating the mission. So if you want to do an assault rank-up quest or something, do that before getting this cutscene. Naturally people helping with this mission don’t have to get the cutscene and have nothing to worry from failing the mission (other than the whining of their comrades I suppose.)

Once you have that cutscene, proceed to the Runic Seal used for Nyzul Isle missions and enter the battleground. Like mission 31, this is a pseudo-assault where assault gear works.

If you lose this fight, talk to Rodin-Comidin (a taru whom you had a cutscene with in mission 43) for another key item. He will give you one every game day - the first one is a freebie. People helping with this fight don’t need the key item.

The first thing you will notice is that the psychopathic Naja Salaheem herself will be assisting you in this battle. That mace of hers gives her access to all the best club weaponskills. You can cast haste, protect, and shell on her, as well as cure spells. She does decent damage, which is a mixed blessing. Good because it helps you hurt stuff, bad because it draws aggro to her. If she dies you immediately lose the assault, game over, GTFO.


Your main opponent is the blue mage Amnaf. Upon aggroing her, she will spawn four Imperial Gear enemies. These behave like gears found in the Salvage areas. They resist sleep heavily but don’t have too much HP. Amnaf herself can be slept while you handle the gears. The most effective way is to split up, letting anyone reasonably capable at soloing take a gear out as fast as they can to thin the heard. The gears have weak AoE moves but they use them frequently so it’s a good idea to separate the gears.

As soon as the fun begins Naja will pick a totally random target among the four gears and blue mage - pray she doesn’t pick Amnaf and wake her up! Make sure your healers know to that keeping Naja alive is priority one. If any player character dies they can be raised, but if Naja goes down you immediately lose.

Once all four gears are gone deal with Amnaf. She seems to mostly use ToAU beastmen blue magic but is generally simple solo. At 50% she will attempt to warp. If she’s stunned at 50% she will warp as soon as stun wears, but you can do a little more damage to her while she’s unable to defend herself.

Rest as much as you can then head onward to the next room. Naja will wait for you there and won’t engage without you. Amnaf will summon four more Imperial Gears, but these are tripple gears, a distinction that barely matters for the purpose of this BC. They still have basically the same amount of life and roughly the same AoEs so use the exact same strategies as in room 1 to complete this set of gears. Beat on Amnaf some more when the gears are dead and she will warp again at 25%.

At this point I want to do the only gloating I’m going to do in this guide. For whatever reason, this room went very poorly for my party, and just as I finished soloing a gear everyone else was dead. I soloed a gear that was at 50% and killed it, then joined Naja fighting Amnaf and got her down to 25% and she warped, then finished off a gear with Naja’s help that had been bound at 60%, all while 5/6 of my party was dead. Blue mage is an insanely valuable job for this BC since the gears are so weak - two or three physical spells downs one without much issue. I wish I had screenshots of me in action, but I was understandably less focused on taking pictures and more focused on not losing the mission.

Amnaf Blue Mage Moves:

Move	Effect
Various ToAU beastmen BLU magic	Tail Slap, Hysteretic Barrage, etc

Imperial Gear Moves (both sets):

Move	Effect
Artifical Gravity	150-200 damage + VERY STRONG gravity effect
Antigravity	150+200 damage + knockback
Rail Cannon	500+ damage, ignores shadows

Strategy tips:

• Keeping Naja alive is priority one, since its an instant fail if you lose her.
• Five enemies, six members. Figure out who is handling those gears and who is watching Naja before going in.
• Sleep Amnaf until all the gears she spawns are dead. The gears aren't immune to sleep but heavily resist so it's not a viable part of the strategy to sleep them.
  
• Pull the gears apart to prevent their weak but frequent AoEs from tearing up your party.
• Stun Amnaf at 50% if possible so you can damage her lower than that, making damaging her to 25% eaiser in the second room
  

The third and final room is more annoyance than danger. Amnaf has succumbed to the beast within and become a Soulflayer and has restored herself to 100%. She uses Soulflayer moves rather than blue mage ones from this point on including high-level black magic, ice spikes, and mind blast. She also has a hate-reset sleepga. Also, every hit on her will curse the attacker, though it is a relatively weak curse effect.

Amnaf Soulflayer Moves:

Move	Effect
(cursed armor)	Every attack on Amnaf will curse you. This cannot be dispelled.
High-level BLM magic	Aero IV, Blizzaga III, Flood, etc Stun the AoEs if you can
Ice Spikes	Every attack on Amnaf will do minor ice damage May also paralyze you. Dispel the spikes as soon as you can
Tribulation	AoE blind
Immortal Shield	Magic immunity for a time
Sleepga	Sleep status + hate reset Using poison potions a good idea
Mind Blast	Lightning damage + paralyze

Strategy tips:

• Amnaf’s sleepga will hate reset anyone it hits. A poison potion or two for countering sleep is a good idea, even for the mages.
• There are a LOT of status effects in this battle. Don't worry about curse, but paralyze, sleep, and blind should be dealt with.
• Test Immortal Shield with a weak nuke to see when it goes away to avoid wasting MP on large nukes.
  
• Note the 30 minute timer to beat all three parts. Amnaf’s final form will take about five minutes at a safe pace.

Amnaf will bury your party in status effects including curse, sleep, paralyze, and blind, but as long as she doesn’t get off any of her powerful magic it’s a easy completion of the mission compared to the gears. There’s an awkward pause after she goes down, but don’t worry, you did everything right and a cutscene will begin shortly.


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