The Mine of Cathuriges is a bit of a step up in difficulty due to the enemies your face and the boss at the end. There are also a couple of simple puzzles that you will need to get past. Start off by heading straight ahead and going left. Here you will find a room with an Orc and a fire demon. Kill them both and grab any items they drop.
Now, head back to where you started and hit the cart to send it down the tracks. Keep hitting it until it crashes into the boxes that block your way and breaks them. Search the room and kill all the monsters and grab all the treasure. Head back to the cart, and step on the top pressure plate to line up the tracks, then hit the cart and send it towards the top of the room.
Keep hitting the card, breaking any boxes in your way with it, and you will come to a new room. Once again, take out any monsters and grab any treasure. This is once again made quite easy thanks to your Mog friend and the minimap.
Once again, step on the northern switch, and be very careful. Getting this wrong will send your cart in the wrong direction, sending you on a massive detour. Stay heading north and you will come to a loading screen. Don’t worry, it is not a boss fight, it will simply lead you into a new room.
This room has a lot of treasure and enemies in them. There is a massive Ogre at the top of the room, so be careful when you fight him. When he dies, he will drop a key that opens a gate in the top right corner of the room. Head through the door and you will arrive at a long, elevated track. Follow this, taking out any enemies on the way.
You will come to a complicated mess of tracks, but there is only really one way through. Make sure you check the first track that leads to the left, even though it looks like it stops at a wall. This is actually a new Moogle Nest, so go inside and get your Moogle Stamp. Just keep making your way to the north, and you will eventually come to a new boss fight, the Orc King
How to fight the Orc King
The Orc King is huge, but also quite fast. The good thing is that he telegraphs most of his attacks. He can smash his weapons into the ground, doing some area of effect damage, and he will also use fire spells, but there take a while to cast.
If you have built a fighter character then the real threat here are the smaller Orcs that he will summon in. He only calls them one at a time, but it can be hard to see them, and their shields can stagger you if you attack them, making it pretty easy to stagger yourself simply because you can’t see the small enemy if he is near the boss. Focus them out, then go back to attacking the boss as much as you can.
Once you keep circling him, keeping your distance from his powerful spells, and healing yourself as you need it, this isn’t so bad. You will need to wait to cast Cure on yourself until the Orc King is casting a fire spell, otherwise, he will rush you and interrupt your casting with a magic attack.
When he gets close to death, he will try to sucker you in by starting to glow. Run away from him, as far as you can get, as his plan is to explode and take you with him. Once he is dead, the dungeon is over and you can get your drop of Myrrh for you chalice, ending the first year.
