Rescuing Dagger

I started off this part by reviving Quina and making sure s/he had 1 HP. Then I prepared for the upcoming fights against Beatrix and Zorn and Thorn. Instead of removing everything from Quina, I let him keep the Needle Fork and Yellow Scarf. No point in removing those. My fight against Beatrix went very well on the first attempt. I stole the Ice Brand and used Limit Glove to end the battle. I then went through the scenes, did some business with Mognet, and saved on the Red Rose.

The next part is a bit tricky. The fastest you can break out of the cage is in 12 swings or 6 back-and-forth motions. I started out by leaning left, then leaned once on the next 3 swings as well (for a total of 4), twice on the next 4 swings, and 3 times on the last 4 swings. It takes some good timing to do this correctly. It's best to avoid leaning when the cage isn't going anywhere. Wait just a second when there's time, and your lean will add more height on your swing.

As if that weren't enough, you then have to dodge Alexandrian soldiers. I find it best to run right at them, then make a 90 degree turn at the last second to run around them. You have to do this twice to get around the guards as Steiner. Then you have to hope none of the other guards are smart enough to run around their various obstacles and catch Zidane. Once you get past them all, it's pretty easy to run the rest of the way to where Dagger is.

Along the way, make sure to remove Marcus's equipment and prepare Steiner for Zorn and Thorn. I gave Marcus my remaining Broadsword and took off the rest of his equipment. I set up Steiner as instructed in the guide except that I don't see any point in having him keep Counter. Beatrix is never going to target him, so he'll never get a chance to counterattack. I gave him HP+10% instead. Since I stole the Ice Brand from Beatrix, I was able to do this at the same time as removing Marcus's equipment, thus saving time.

With that out of the way, the only thing left in this segment is to battle Zorn and Thorn. This is one of the easiest bosses in the game if you're prepared. The battle went exactly as described in the guide. Everyone but Freya went to critical HP from Vivi's Blizzard, and Zidane stole the Mythril Armor from Thorn and the Partisan from Zorn, both of which Freya will put to good use shortly.

After the battle, I adjusted everyone's equipment to prepare for the next set of battles. I put the best headgear I own on everyone, optimized Freya, gave her a Coral Ring, and activated Man Eater, Cover, Insomniac, and High Tide (just because it was convenient and I had extra Magic Stones). I forgot to move Freya to the front row, so I'll need to do that when I reload.  Finally, I read Mosh's letter and saved with a time of 03:46:13. One of the hardest parts of the whole challenge is coming up next, so here we go!