In the very first Final Fantasy, Warmech was an enemy that could be randomly encountered on the long sky bridge preceding the fourth elemental fiend, Tiamat. Warmech was the strongest non-boss in the game, as it had a nuclear blast attack that attacked your entire party for a tremendous amount of damage, as well as health regeneration, lots of armor and strong physical damage output.
Subsequently, it rewarded you as if it were one of the elemental fiends if you defeat it, but the existence of Warmech was one-part easter egg, being a high-tech opponent in a world of fantasy, one-part completionist challenge, being such a difficult adversary, and one-part nasty surprise, because encountering one can only happen at a very inopportune time, right before another major boss fight.
It was deduced that the chances of encountering a Warmech on the sky bridge was approximately 3/64; which equates to roughly 5% of the time, but if you’re unlucky like me, you somehow manage to run into Warmech almost every time.
Anyway, there’s a sky bridge in my place of employment.
And there’s a Warmech that patrols it.
It’s called the men’s rest room. And there’s a guy on my floor that occupies it 3/64 of the time, although that’s probably not really that accurate because he’s there more like 33/64 of the time. Probably because I’m unlucky, and have a high chance of encountering Warmechs regardless of the odds.
Seriously, I’m pretty sure this guy has IBS or some other medical condition, which is unfortunate for him, but he should really get it checked out or something, or maybe it’s because his entire office diet consists of nothing but microwaveable biscuit or pizza-like foods. But the fact of the matter is that he still goes to the bathroom to unleash his own nuclear blast capable of overwhelming entire parties, like 4-5 times a day. 4-5 times a day.
I drink a lot of water throughout the day, because water is good for you, it’s good for keeping me alert and awake when I want to avoid more coffee because needing to pee is pretty good at keeping a person awake, and because I sometimes drink out of compulsive boredom. Needless to say, I tend to have to go to the bathroom at a somewhat regular basis when I do this, and it’s borderline alarming just how often I encounter Warmech once I step into the men’s room, which by the way is literally one urinal and one stall; so there’s not a tremendous amount of room for Warmech’s blasts to disperse, unfortunately.
Sure, it’s probably a medical issue because Warmech is a man probably around or at 400 pounds, which I’m not trying to discriminate against, but for the sake of personal comfort, it does become somewhat aggravating when you just want to go to the bathroom to relieve your bladder, and someone is perpetually always there deconstructing the paint on the walls, seemingly all the time.
I have literally approached the men’s room door as slowly and carefully as possible at times as not to make any noise, and pushed the door open just a crack to see if the stall door is closed or not. Because unlike in Final Fantasy, I have somewhat of a tiny window to possibly see if I’ll encounter Warmech or not, and have the option to turn around and try and come back later if I can hold it.
But there are times when I don’t think about it, or I’ve already held it in long enough, and go in with reckless abandon. The random encounter sound blurts out, the screen flashes in preparation for the battle screen, and I’m face to face with a fucking Warmech fight on my hands, where I have to hold my breath, do my business and try to get the fuck out of there as fast as humanly possible.
