Final Fantasy V Walkthrough

Written by Djibriel

Contributor

1.22: The Library of the Ancients

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Enemies: Page 32, Page 64, Page 128, Page 256, Ifrit, Byblos

Treasures: Phoenix Down, Armor Ninja Suit, Ether

Blue Magic: Aera, Level 5 Death, Magic Hammer, Moon Flute, Off-Guard

Everything's a mess lately, and the Library of the Ancients is no exception. Cid's grandson, Mid, is missing, which is especially alarming since the books in the dark halls of the Library of the Ancients have been taken over by monsters increasingly often. In past times the Summoned Monster Ifrit would burn books possessed by monsters, but for some reason he threw in the towel as well. Our mission is to find Mid, as nobody else seems to be able to help us out...

On the second floor is a pot containing water from a Spring of Recovery, and all the way upstairs near a furnace lie three books. The left and middle ones are tomes of ancient wisdom (or whatever) while the right book shows you exactly what all this talk of possessed books is all about, throwing you either into:

Page 32, Page 64 (common)
or
Page 32, Page 64, Page 128, Page 256, Page 128, Page 64, Page 32 (rare)

Page 32 looks like a live gargoyle of some sort, and wields the !Blue

Aera spell. It has a Helmet

Green Beret as a rare Steal, so if you have a place for any more of them, try to go for it. Weak to Fire-elemental attacks like all pages. It will use the

Banish spell when Released, allowing it to possibly one-shot the difficult boss at the end.

Page 64 is the most lethal of the four pages as it wields the !Blue spell

Level 5 Death, which immediately kills any character with a level divisible by 5. It can also only be learned when the attack actually works, so if you find yourself at level 16 you won't be able to learn it now. If you have a party of level 15 characters, I suggest you go train outside until one or more (but not all!) of your characters has reached level 16. Take the level 15 character(s) in as Blue Mages and watch them get killed. Win the battle, heal up (or vice versa) and you've gained knowledge over the thing. Page 64 has Accessory

Silver Specs as a rare Steal, which shouldn't excite you anymore.

Page 128 fails to deliver in both !Blue spells and rare Steals, having neither. As a common steal, however, it has an Ether, which is pretty useful to carry around in a game where MP can see depletion. It can use Slimer, which sets Slow and the Sap status. Weak to Fire, blah.

Page 256 is obviously the grandest of pages. Every other turn, it'll use Moon Flute on your party, which anyone equipped to do so will immediately learn. As a Blue spell

Moon Flute targets the own party, but Page 256 turns it against you. As a rare steal, it has a Armor

Ninja Suit, which is equal to the Armor

Mythril Armor in defenses but can also be equipped by Clothes classes, adds a respectable single point to your Agility and isn't nowhere near as heavy. If you were to !Control a Page 256, it can use

Off-Guard, a Blue spell you can learn.

Off-Guard halves the target's Defense and Magic Defense, making upcoming attacks more damaging.

Since you'll only be fighting one enemy at the time, any Berserker would be glad to fight here. The Geomancer's !Gaia ability will often call up Ignus Fatuus, which despite its random nature is Fire-elemental and will often kill a page in a single shot. Setting !Gaia on a Black Mage or Summoner with a Rod

Flame Rod will boost its power even further. Be sure to learn

Moon Flute and

Aera here, they're both grand. Note that when you kill an enemy with a Counter attack or use !Catch to remove it from the battle, no further enemies will be called.

Anyway, heal up at the pot and dive into the twisted maze that is the Library. You can never find what you're looking for in these places, am I right? This one's infested with demons too, so it's double the amount of nasty. As soon as you enter, you find your path blocked, but when you push on you'll see how the bookshelf makes way for you. Here's how to navigate through this room:

Stand in the hole in the bookshelf you can reach.
Pass through the other two holes you can now reach.
Go up the ladder and go as far to the top-right as you can. The bookshelf should move.
Continue as far to the right as possible. More moving should ensue.
Down the ladder.

See the missing stone in the top-right corner? Use the action button to make way into the next room.

Aye-aye-aye, a limited field view! Also, random encounters. Find the Ether in the chest before you exit this room.

In this next room, you need to go down a ladder. There's a chest you can't reach, a door and a ladder. The ladder doesn't seem to go anywhere, so let's try the door. No luck; a rebellious bookshelf refuses to let us pass. The ladder instead! Going up and pressing the action button sends us walking over bookshelves towards a book. Heal up, open the book and meet Ifrit, the demon of fire.

Ifrit Bestiary #253	Type	Level	HP	MP	Gil	EXP	Speed
	None	22	3000	1000	0	0	40
	Strength	Attack Mult.	Magic Atk.	Evasion	Defense	Mag. Def.	Mag. Evade
	29	6	32	20	10	20	32
	Stolen Items			Dropped Items
	Common: Phoenix Down			Common: Flame Scroll
	Command Immunities			Elemental Immunities
	Catch, Control
	Elemental Absorb			Elemental Weakness

	Blue Magic			Status Immunities
	None
	Strategy
	Ifrit will be most damaged, as you would predict, by Ice elemental attacks. Most of Ifrit's attacks are magical, but his physical special can cause Paralyze, so using Flash to reduce its hit rate is not a bad idea.

Ifrit used to burn books with demons in them; he is much feared by all those sealed within the ancient tomes of this Library. But lately, he has become a doormat, and now the Warriors of Light must wade through the evil Pages. Ifrit itself now offers you the use of its powers, but only to those that can avoid being burned to a crisp.

Ifrit knows four different attacks, all of which will look familiar.

Fira is a powerful spell that at normal levels really cripples a single character and at lower levels will kill one. Blaze deals (max HP / 4) like it always does; Ifrit's Special !High Kick will set Paralyze along with dealing damage, so watch out.

The fiery fiend is weak to Ice-elemental attacks. Also Water-elemental ones, but you can't take advantage of that right now. He also has a whole slew of status vulnerabilities, but since he is Heavy some of them will only work for a very short period of time, including Silence, Paralyze and Stop.

Flash sets Darkness for the duration of the battle though, so that really helps stop those !High Kicks of his.

Mystic Knights can choose either

Blizzara or Silence spellblade effects;

Blizzara deals incredible damage obviously (especially paired with Two-handed), but Silence Spellblade effects stop

Fira spells. Both strategies will prove to be incredibly effective. Rod

Frost Rod-boosted

Blizzara spells or Shiva conjuration deals large amounts of damage. If you are having trouble, use !Catch to get a Page 128 on your side, it'll deal over 1000 damage in a single attack.

Confuse isn't worth it, really. It'll make him cast

Firaga on himself, which heals him by quite a lot. Make sure to avoid !Gaia, as the resulting Ignus Fatuus will heal Ifrit. The confusion part will work, but as previously said, he'll start healing like a madman so in all, just no.

After the fight, you'll gain 5 ABP, a Flame Scroll and the power to summon Ifrit. Ifrit is a slightly more powerful and Fire-elemental version of Shiva, basically. If you have any Summoners around, swap the Rod

Frost Rod for a Rod

Flame Rod and start using Ifrit's Hellfire instead.

With Ifrit as an ally, the bookshelf that impeded your progress earlier suddenly remembers he needs to call his mother instead and lets you through. Don't miss the hole you can pass through to obtain a Armor

Ninja Suit; it's awesome for your Clothes class character(s), and is an upgrade from the Armor

Mythril Armor as well.

Continuing will give you another dark room. The right exit will take you nowhere, the left exit will take you almost directly past a chest containing a Phoenix Down before taking you to the large hall. It seems we're almost to the bottom, and still no sign of Mid.

In this next room, the final room, the path is pretty clear; push against the bookshelf to make it move, go stand on the tiny ladder and press the action button to make it move back. Instead of going out of the door, stand on the other tiny ladder and examine the bookshelf; a book will pop out for:

Page 32, Page 64 (common) or Page 32, Page 64, Page 128, Page 256, Page 128, Page 64, Page 32 (rare)

The hole created by your fighting takes you to a Save Point. Heal and Save up and continue. You'll find yourself seeing Mid, who seems unresponsive. Also, a horned demon comes to kill you!

Byblos Bestiary #254	Type	Level	HP	MP	Gil	EXP	Speed
	Magic Beast	24	3600	1000	0	0	40
	Strength	Attack Mult.	Magic Atk.	Evasion	Defense	Mag. Def.	Mag. Evade
	30	15	20	30	10	30	20
	Stolen Items			Dropped Items
	Common: Mallet Rare: Dark Matter			Common: Iron Draft
	Command Immunities			Elemental Immunities
	Catch, Control			None
	Elemental Absorb			Elemental Weakness

	Blue Magic			Status Immunities
	Magic Hammer
	Strategy
	The quickest way to win is to use Death Claw, which can short-circuit the plot sequence after the battle if it sets Paralyze. Without Death Claw, use fire-elemental attacks and watch out for the counterattacks that will begin to appear when he gets under 800HP.

Byblos was once found near the Wind Shrine, some thirty years ago, and was taken to the Library of the Ancients and sealed there after what we can assume was a long battle with Ifrit. He's loose again now, so it's time to stop him.

1st turn:
- Web
- Magic Hammer
- Battle
2nd turn:
- Battle
- Confuse
- Wind Slash
3rd turn:
- Magic Hammer
- Battle
- Web
4th turn:
- Dischord
- Wind Slash
- Battle

Some new attacks here. Web sets Slow, easy as that.

Magic Hammer is a Blue spell that halves the target's MP. Wind Slash is easily Byblos' most dangerous attack; it's a multi-target Wind-elemental attack that can hurt as much as 260 (Clothes characters) to 170 ( Armor

Gaia Gear Magic characters).

When Byblos is hurt to the point of 800 HP or below, he'll start countering your attacks. Any physical attack will be countered with a 33%

Protect spell on Byblos' self, any Magic attack will be countered with a 33% chance of casting the

Toad spell on the caster and any other attack will have a 66% shot at eating a

Drain spell, which is quite nasty.

The two biggest weaknesses Byblos has are the Fire element and the Blue

Death Claw spell, which has about a 40% chance of working every time you try to cast it (success odds depend on the caster's level).

Death Claw will reduce Byblos' HP to a single digit. Note that it also adds Paralyze, so if you kill Byblos when he's Paralyzed you won't get his little goodbye speech. Some other things that work are a Beastmaster Whip's Paralyzing powers (especially in tandem with

Slow, which makes the status last longer) and Releasing a Page 32, a creature that casts

Banish which may instantly kill the thing (though odds are comparable to

Death Claw, and you can Release it only once).

On the Fire-elemental weakness;

Fira is stronger than Ifrit, even if the latter is hyped a little versus Byblos. Two-handed

Fira swords deal incredible amounts of damage but are made less effective by

Protect in the end. You have at least one and possibly more Fire Skill(s); Ninjas can Throw them for great amount of damage, especially when a Magic-boosted action ability such as !Black 1 is set on the Ninja.

You don't really need to learn

Magic Hammer as it's not that good of a spell, but if you want to here it is to learn. You can try to !Steal as well; a Mallet is pretty crappy, but Dark Matter (although useless now) can be an item of great power in the future.

If you've killed Byblos un-Paralyzed, he'll say:

Arrrgh! So, this is the end... but only for me. Very soon, the master's seal will be blown wide open!!!

If the final blow was dealt by Ifrit's Hellfire, he'll say:

Ifrit...! The seal... You've... Very soon, the master's seal will be blown wide open!!!

We've fought against being controlled by the dark nameless entity, and normal monsters so far. However, Byblos is the first powerful demon we face who is actually supporting his 'master'.

When Byblos is ashes to ashes, dust to dust, Mid'll take you out of the Library, only to abandon you in search of his grandfather. Let's follow him; Mid mentioned how he could get the Fire-Powered Ship running again which certainly would be useful for us.

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Caves of Narshe: Final Fantasy V
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