Dragon Warrior IV Walkthrough by Warren Buck ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ As a preliminary warning, this walkthrough is full of spoilers. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Outline ================================================================================ I. Character Information A. Controlled Characters 1. Ragnar 2. Alena 3. Cristo 4. Brey 5. Taloon 6. Nara 7. Mara 8. Hero B. Uncontrolled Characters 1. Healie 2. Strom 3. Laurent 4. Orin 5. Hector 6. Panon 7. Lucia 8. Doran II. Spells A. Healing Spells 1. Regain HP 2. Removal of Battle Conditions 3. Resurrection B. Ice Spells C. Sapping Spells D. Augmenting Spells E. Confusion Spells F. Transportation Spells G. Magic Protection Spells H. Fire Spells 1. Blaze Spells 2. Fireball Spells 3. Explosion Spells I. Sleep Spells J. Vacuum Spells K. Evasive Spells L. Miscellaneous Spells M. Instant Death Spells N. Lightning Spells O. Transformation Spells P. Enemy Spells III. Learning Spells A. Cristo B. Brey C. Nara D. Mara E. Hero IV. Equipment A. Weapons B. Comments on Weapons C. Armor D. Comments on Armor E. Shields F. Comments on Shields G. Helmets H. Comments on Helmets I. Items J. Comments on Items V. Tips A. Defer Treasure B. Shop Till You Drop C. Casino D. Run to the Next Town E. Free Repel F. Got Brey? G. Seeds, Nuts, and Acorns H. Who Needs Experience? I. On Burning Bridges Behind You J. Two Dews of World Tree VI. Random Cool Fact VII. Walkthrough A. Chapter One 1. Burland 2. Trip to Izmit 3. Izmit 4. Hidden Playground 5. Loch Tower 6. The Battle for the Children 7. Conclusion B. Chapter Two 1. Santeem 2. Surene 3. Tempe 4. Frenor 5. Bazaar 6. Cave South of Frenor 7. Meeting the Kidnappers 8. The King's Voice 9. Birdsong Tower 10. Permission to Venture to Endor 11. Endor 12. Clean Up and Cash In 13. The Tournament 14. Short-Lived Victory C. Chapter Three 1. Lakanaba: First Day 2. Lakanaba: The Routine 3. Lakanaba: Getting Equipment 4. Journey to Bonmalmo 5. Bonmalmo 6. Taking Tov to Foxville 7. The Best Equipment in Lakanaba 8. Love and War 9. Endor 10. Love and Peace 11. Brief Excursion 12. The Silver Statuette 13. Owning a Shop 14. 60000 Gold Pieces 15. Conclusion D. Chapter Four 1. Monbaraba 2. Kievs 3. Preparing for the Run to Haville 4. Haville 5. Cave West of Kievs 6. Keeleon 7. House of Prophecy 8. Aktemto 9. Preparations 10. Vengeance 11. Defeat 12. Escape 13. Exile E. Chapter Five 1. Hometown 2. Woodsman's Shack 3. Branca 4. Endor 5. Cleaning Out the Cave of the Silver Statuette 6. Metal Babble Shields 7. Excursions 8. Cave of Betrayal 9. Crossing the Desert 10. Aneaux 11. Konenber 12. The Great Lighthouse 13. Taloon 14. Riverton 15. Mintos 16. The Shrine East of Mintos 17. Monbaraba 18. Stancia 19. Soretta 20. Cave of the Padequia 21. Revisiting Soretta and Mintos 22. Rosaville 23. Haville 24. Keeleon 25. Kievs 26. Cave West of Kievs 27. Preparations for Battling Keeleon 27. Battling Keeleon 28. Major Clean Up 29. The Shrine of Breaking Waves 30. Santeem and Surene 31. Balzack 32. Visiting Rosa 33. Gardenbur 34. Cave Southeast of Gardenbur 35. Accused of Theft 36. Bakor 37. The Queen's Gifts 38. More Cleaning Up 39. Cascade Cave 40. Royal Crypt 41. Colossus 42. Dire Palace 43. Lightning and Blazemost 44. Aktemto 45. Rosa's Fate 46. Hot Air Balloon 47. Loch Tower 48. Elfville 49. Center Island 50. Gottside 51. Shrine of the Baron's Horn 52. Zenithian Tower 53. Zenithia 54. Final Cave 55. Last Refuge 56. Anderoug 57. Infurnus Shadow 58. Gigademon 59. Radimvice 60. Necrosaro's Palace 61. Preparations for Necrosaro 62. Necrosaro 63. Conclusion VIII. Acknowledgements IX. Additional Stuff ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Character Information ================================================================================ Controlled Characters ================================================================================ Ragnar--This is the main character from Chapter One. He is a soldier of Burland Castle. He gains HP more quickly than any other character in the game, has a high attack power, and can use a large variety of weapons and armor. On the other hand, his agility is usually low, typically the lowest among all of the controlled characters, and, out of all of the controlled characters who cannot use magic, he goes up levels the slowest. The lack of agility can be annoying. After all, you would want one of the strongest members of your party to be able to attack towards the beginning of a round of battle. On the other hand, towards the end of the game, Ragnar's low agility can be a blessing in disguise. If you give him the Staff of Healing, he will use it if anyone needs healed at the end of a round of battle. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alena--This is the main character from Chapter Two. She is the Princess of Santeem Castle. Only Ragnar gains HP more quickly than she does. She also has a high attack power, typically the highest. Alena gains agility and luck very quickly. She usually has the highest agility and luck out of everyone in the party. (Because of her high agility, it is usually a good idea for Alena to carry items such as the Sphere of Silence.) She also goes up levels quickly. Only Taloon is faster. On the other hand, the amount of weapons and armor that she can use is quite meager. The weapons usage is no big deal, as her strength compensates for the fact that she cannot use powerful weapons. (Stilleto Earrings are a great weapon for Alena, despite the fact that they only add 5 to her attack.) The real downfall is that she cannot use very good armor, and her high agility does not seem to compensate for this until about level 40. Despite having the highest agility, Alena typically has one of the lowest defense powers out of all of the members of the party. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cristo--This is another character from Chapter Two. He is the chancellor of Santeem Castle. He can cast spells. His repertoire comes to include almost all of the healing spells, two (out of three) of the resurrection spells, several defensive spells, and some spells that have a chance to instantly kill enemies. Sadly, these last are the only spells that Cristo learns that can kill enemies. With the exception of the Hero, Cristo is the spellcaster who gains HP the quickest and can use the widest variety of weapons and armor. Despite all of these advantages, Cristo may not be the best choice to bring along to battle a boss, especially after he learns the spell Beat. Although the game is rigged so that Beat and Defeat do not work against boss characters, Cristo is oblivious to this and, if allowed, will typically spend about five rounds before being convinced that these spells will not work. Nevertheless, Cristo is a valuable member of the party. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brey--This is yet another character from Chapter Two. He is Alena's tutor. He can cast spells. (Why doesn't he teach Alena these???) His repertoire comes to include the ice spells, the transportation spells, several indirect attack spells, and some miscellaneous spells. Oddly enough, he has pretty high agility. Like the typical RPG wizard with cool attacking spells, he goes up levels slowly, gains HP slowly, and has a low attack power. Moreover, the amount of weapons and armor that Brey can use is very small. Since Brey gets some awesomely powerful attacking spells, the lack of weapons that he can use is no big deal, so long as he does not run out of MP. The painful thing is the lack of armor that he can use. In spite of this shortcoming, Brey is an important member of the party. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Taloon--This is the main character from Chapter Three. He is an underling for an arms merchant in Lakanaba, but he eventually opens his own shop in Endor. He gains levels more quickly than any other character in the game and can use a decent amount of weapons and armor. On the other hand, he tends not to gain much of anything per level on average. Out of all the controlled characters who cannot use magic, he gains HP the slowest and has the least attack power. Taloon exhibits many odd behaviors in Chapter Five. Some of these oddities can come in handy during battles. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nara--This is one of the main characters from Chapter Four. She is a fortuneteller from Monbaraba. She can cast spells. Her repertoire comes to include some basic healing spells, two (out of three) of the resurrection spells, the sleep spells, and the vacuum spells. For a spellcaster, she has a decent attack power and can use a decent amount of weapons and armor. On the other hand, with the exception of Ragnar (usually), she has the lowest agility. The worst things about Nara are that she gains HP the slowest and gains levels the slowest. This makes using her later in the game less and less desirable. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mara--This is one of the main characters from Chapter Four. She is the star dancer from Monbaraba. She can cast spells. Her repertoire comes to include the fire spells, the transportation spells, some indirect attack spells, and some miscellaneous spells. She typically has a high amount of luck. Since she is a dancer, she also has pretty high agility. For a wizard, she goes up levels somewhat quickly and gains HP somewhat quickly. Obviously, though, her attack power leaves something to be desired. The amount of weapons and armor that she can use is somewhat low, but not a big deal. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hero--This character is the star of Chapter Five. The Hero is from the wittily named village of Hometown (sarcasm intended). The Hero can cast spells. The best brief description of the Hero's repertoire is a hodgepodge of spells, along with some of the most kicking spells in the game. (Lightning!!!) The Hero can use more weapons and armor than any other character. Moreover, the Hero is the only character in the game (perhaps I should specify "living character") who can use the Zenithian equipment, which is essential to beating the game. Out of all the spellcasters, the Hero gains HP the quickest and has the highest attack power; the Hero gains HP and strength even faster than Taloon. One disadvantage that the Hero has is that he or she gains levels slowly. Only Nara is slower. This is not too big of a deal, as the Hero has opportunities to gain experience when few or no other characters can. Possibly the most annoying thing about the Hero towards the beginning of the game is that he or she gains MP more slowly than any other spellcaster. Without the use of Mystic Acorns, this can be a problem until about level 25. As if that were not enough, the Hero is the only spellcaster who cannot replenish MP via a Hat of Happiness. (Weep.) In short, make sure to give your Hero lots of Mystic Acorns! ================================================================================ Uncontrolled Characters ================================================================================ Healie--This character is available in Chapter One, but also appears in Chapter Five. He dwells in the well, virtually dead east from the main stairs to the second level basement. This creature is a Healer turned good. Healie is actually slightly superior to Healers in that he has quite a bit more HP and a slightly higher attack power. Despite this superior strength, Healie rarely makes too much of a difference in a battle. His desire to become human and his odd sense of logic make him want to tag along with Ragnar. And a good thing too! Ragnar would be hard pressed to get through Chapter One, especially the last battle of the chapter, without an ally who can cast Heal a few times. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Strom--This character is available in Chapter Three, but also appears in Chapter Five. He hangs out in Endor just south of the House of Healing. He will join Taloon's party for a mere 400 gold pieces. He has a considerable amount of HP and decent attack and defense powers. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Laurent--This character is available in Chapter Three, but also appears in Chapter Five. He hangs out in the inn in Endor. He will join Taloon's party for 600 gold pieces. His HP, attack power, and defense power are mediocre, but he makes up for this with his ability to paralyze enemies with his Venomous Dagger and his ability to use the spells Heal, Sleep, and Firebal. Unfortunately, Laurent tends not to conserve MP. He casts Sleep and Firebal quite frequently. Expect him to cast Heal only once or twice between stays at an inn. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Orin--This character is available in Chapter Four, but also appears in Chapter Five. He likes to stand around in the fourth basement level of the Cave West of Kievs staring towards the Sphere of Silence. You must have Orin join your party in order to complete the game. This is because of his ability to break the locked doors of Keeleon Castle. (Oddly enough, this does not apply to the prison doors, such as in Haville.) He has a considerable amount of HP and great attack and defense powers. He makes a much better punching bag for the enemies than Nara and Mara do. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hector--This character is available in Chapter Five. He lives with his father, who runs the Desert Inn. Hector is somewhat similar to Orin. For instance, you must have Hector join your party in order to complete the game. This is because he insists on tagging along with your party, even though all you really need is his wagon. No big deal. At this stage of the game, there is plenty of room in your party for a punching bag for the enemies. His HP and attack and defense powers are somewhat similar to Orin's, but at this stage of the game are not as impressive. One big difference between Orin and Hector is that Hector can build up power during a turn so that he can hit harder the next turn. Unfortunately, this trait is not very useful. It is usually better for Hector to attack each round. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Panon--This character is available in Chapter Five. He does some stand up comedy in Monbaraba. You must have Panon join your party in order to complete the game. This is because only he can convince the King of Stancia to hand over the Zenithian Helm. With my suggested style of play, though, Panon is not in your party for long. In case you are interested in letting him fight in some battles, he can do a strange dance, he wields a Sword of Lethargy, and he can cast Sleep. This seems strangely opposite from his profession of comedian. Putting audiences to sleep would not be such a good idea. Maybe a Staff of Jubilation would have been more appropriate. Oh well. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lucia--This character is available in Chapter Five. She is trying to collect leaves in the Giant World Tree of Elfville. You must have Lucia join your party in order to complete the game. This is because she is blocking the way to the Zenithian Sword. (Yelling "Get outta my way!" does not seem to work in RPG's.) Actually, she is not too bad of a character. She wields a Staff of Force, has Water Flying Clothes, and can cast Healall, Surround, and Defence. (I wish that she also had a Hat of Happiness.) Moreover, unlike Brey, she will actually cast Defence. She uses Healall quite predictably, but whether she attacks, parries, or casts Surround or Defence is pretty unpredictable. She will stay in your party until you bring her back to Zenithia, which is very much worth the effort because of.... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Doran--This character is available in Chapter Five. He will only join your party after you bring Lucia back to Zenithia and talk to her there. This cute baby dragon struts around naked, but has excellent attack and defense powers nonetheless. Moreover, he has a whopping 258 HP. As if that were not enough, he emits gales of sweet breath that can send all enemies on screen to sleep as well as blizzards that can hit every enemy on screen. This last option, happily, injures Metal Babbles and King Metals! On the downside, Doran does occasionally like to attack corpses, and, if he comes out of the wagon during battle, he suffers from "summoning sickness". ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Spells The spells are ordered in the following manner: The first spell of each starred section appears in the order that members of your party learn it. (Cristo's Heal comes before Brey's Icebolt.) Similarly, if a section has subsections, the first spell of each subsection appears in the order that members of your party learn it. Finally, the spells within each section or subsection appear in the order that members of your party learn it. See the section "Learning Spells" to see who learns what spell at what level. Each spell occurs as follows: The name of the spell and, underneath it, the casting cost are given. Underneath these, one of the words: "battle", "command", or "both". The word "battle" indicates that the spell can only be used during battle. The word "command" indicates that the spell can only be used outside of battle. Finally, the word "both" indicates that the spell can be used at any time, that is, both during and outside of battle. Although these are usually obvious, there are some surprises. For instance, Healusall is a "battle" spell, whereas Return is "both". Note that, with the exception of resurrection spells, all effects of spells that benefit your party can only do so when the designated member(s) is/are alive. ================================================================================ * Healing Spells ================================================================================ Regain HP ================================================================================ Heal 3 MP both This will restore around 40 HP to a designated member of your party. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Healmore 5 MP both This will restore around 90 HP to a designated member of your party. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Healall 7 MP both This will restore all HP to a designated member of your party. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Healus 18 MP both During battle, this will restore around 90 HP to all members of your party who are out of the wagon. Outside of battle, it is even more effective, restoring even more HP to all members of your party. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Healusall 36 MP battle This will restore all HP to all members of your party who are out of the wagon. ================================================================================ Removal of Battle Conditions ================================================================================ Antidote 2 MP command This will remove poison from a designated member of your party. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Numboff 2 MP both This will cure all members of your party (except in battle, when it only works on those who are out of the wagon) of paralysis, except of course for Nara, who must be mobile to cast it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Awake 2 MP battle This will wake up all members of your party who are asleep, except of course for the Hero, who must be awake to cast it. ================================================================================ Resurrection ================================================================================ Vivify 12 MP both When successful, this revives a designated deceased member of your party with half of his/her HP. The manual claims that this has a 50% chance of success, but it seems to be more effective during battle. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Revive 20 MP both This revives a designated deceased member of your party with all of his/her HP. Since it always works and restores more HP, it is well worth the extra 8 MP for Cristo to use this if he has it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Farewell Max MP and remaining HP battle This revives all members of your party out of the wagon and fully restores their HP and MP. ================================================================================ * Ice Spells ================================================================================ Icebolt 2 MP battle This makes an enemy lose up to 15 HP. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Snowstorm 5 MP battle This makes one enemy group lose anywhere from 30 HP to 50 HP. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IceSpears 8 MP battle This makes all enemies on screen lose anywhere from 60 HP to 80 HP. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Blizzard 11 MP battle This makes one enemy group lose anywhere from 90 HP to 110 HP. ================================================================================ * Sapping Spells ================================================================================ Sap 3 MP battle This takes away all defense power of an enemy. A forgotten spell. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Defence 4 MP battle This takes away half of the defense power of an enemy group. A forgotten spell. ================================================================================ * Augmenting Spells ================================================================================ Upper 4 MP battle This increases the defense power of a designated member of your party by his or her prebattle defense power. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Increase 4 MP battle This increases the defense power of all members of your party out of the wagon by half of the respective person's prebattle defense power. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Speedup 3 MP battle This increases the agility of all members of your party out of the wagon by half of the respective person's prebattle agility. Note that this does not increase defense power, but it does allow members of your party to attack more quickly. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bikill 6 MP battle This doubles the attack power of a designated member of your party. This spell is so awesome that Brey often cannot resist the temptation to use it, especially if he is wearing a Hat of Happiness. This spell is most effective when cast on Alena, especially when she is using the Stilleto Earrings. It is even more beneficial if Brey manages to cast it on her before she attacks. (This last event rarely happens, but it does occur.) Wisely, Brey rarely bothers casting this when battling enemies that can emit freezing waves which make the effect of spells wear off. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ironize 2 MP battle This makes a designated member of your party immune from any sort of attack or spell for three rounds. ================================================================================ * Confusion Spells ================================================================================ Surround 4 MP battle This surrounds an enemy group with mirages, making them far less likely to hit members of your party with attacks that are not spells or emissions. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chaos 5 MP battle This causes an enemy to become confused and possibly start attacking itself or its cohorts. ================================================================================ * Transportation Spells ================================================================================ Outside 8 MP command This transports your entire party instantly outside of a cave or tower. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Return 8 MP both Outside of battle, this transports your entire party instantly to a city or town of your choosing to which you have been already, unless there is a ceiling above you or a curse nullifies the spell. During battle, this transports your entire party instantly to a random city or town to which you have been already, unless there is a ceiling above you or a curse nullifies the spell. ================================================================================ * Magic Protection Spells ================================================================================ Bounce 4 MP battle This puts up a wall of white light around the person who cast it so that any subsequent spell cast on the one protected by the wall of light bounces off and influences whoever cast the subsequent spell. Note that even beneficial spells cast by others do not get through; however, a person protected by Bounce can cast spells on himself. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stopspell 3 MP battle This prohibits an enemy group from using spells. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Robmagic 0 MP battle This takes MP from an enemy gives it to the caster. Although this spell is quite nice (I once saw Mara steal MP from a Blizag, a nice way to prevent it from casting Defeat), Mara and Brey rarely use it, and only if they are desperate for MP. By the time that they have Hats of Happiness, this spell becomes obsolete. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fendspell 2 MP battle This puts up a wall of violet light around the designated member of your party so that subsequent spells cast on the one protected by the wall of light do not get through. Note that even beneficial spells cast by others do not get through; however, a person protected by Fendspell can cast spells on himself or herself. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Barrier 6 MP battle This protects your party from spells and emissions; however, it does not protect your party from freezing waves. ================================================================================ * Fire Spells ================================================================================ Blaze Spells ================================================================================ Blaze 2 MP battle This makes an enemy lose up to 15 HP. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Blazemore 4 MP battle This makes an enemy lose anywhere from 70 HP to 90 HP. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Blazemost 10 MP battle This makes an enemy lose anywhere from 180 HP to 200 HP. ================================================================================ Fireball Spells ================================================================================ Firebal 4 MP battle This makes an enemy group lose anywhere from 15 HP to 25 HP. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Firebane 6 MP battle This makes an enemy group lose anywhere from 30 HP to 50 HP. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Firevolt 10 MP battle This makes an enemy group lose anywhere from 90 HP to 120 HP. ================================================================================ Explosion Spells ================================================================================ Bang 5 MP battle This hits all enemies on the screen for anywhere from 15 HP to 25 HP. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boom 8 MP battle This hits all enemies on the screen for anywhere from 50 HP to 70 HP. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Explodet 15 MP battle This hits all enemies on the screen for anywhere from 120 HP to 160 HP. ================================================================================ * Sleep Spells ================================================================================ Sleep 3 MP battle This puts an enemy group to sleep for a while. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sleepmore 3 MP battle This puts an enemy to sleep for a duration longer than the spell Sleep would. ================================================================================ * Vacuum Spells ================================================================================ Infernos 2 MP battle This makes an enemy group lose anywhere from 8 HP to 25 HP. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Infermore 4 MP battle This makes an enemy group lose anywhere from 30 HP to 50 HP. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Infermost 8 MP battle This makes an enemy group lose anywhere from 90 HP to 120 HP. ================================================================================ * Evasive Spells ================================================================================ Expel 3 MP battle This will often make an enemy group disappear. It is most useful early on when the Hero runs into a tough battle before having Nara or Mara join the party. Unfortunately, no gold or experience can be earned from using Expel. So if you are needing gold and the battle is not impossible to win, it might be best to brave it out. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Repel 8 MP command This briefly reduces the enemy encounter rate. This spell is most handy on the way to a difficult encounter and you do not want members of your party losing too much HP or MP on the way. ================================================================================ * Miscellaneous Spells ================================================================================ Day-Night 12 MP command This turns day into night and vice versa. Watching the effect of this spell is quite hypnotic! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stepguard 2 MP command This negates damage from marshes and pain tiles. It loses its effect once you have walked on safe ground for a while. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- X-Ray 3 MP command This reveals a clue regarding the contents of a treasure chest on which the first member of your party is standing. Yellow means that the chest contains gold. Blue means that the chest contains an item. Red means that the chest is a monster. This is probably most useful to avoid Mimics, as your party can easily kill off a Man Eater Treasure Chest by level 17. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chance 20 MP battle The effect of this spell is entirely random and thus should not be used except under the most desperate of circumstances. ================================================================================ * Instant Death Spells ================================================================================ Beat 4 MP battle This causes one enemy to die instantly. It works about half of the time on non-boss enemies. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Defeat 7 MP battle This causes some members of an enemy group to die instantly. It works about a third of the time on non-boss enemies. ================================================================================ * Lightning Spells ================================================================================ Zap 4 MP battle This makes an enemy lose anywhere from 70 HP to 100 HP. By the time this spell is at your disposal, it is virtually useless. The only dangerous enemies who cast Surround that you encounter after learning this spell are Red Dragons, and by the time you encounter them, you should know.... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lightning 15 MP battle This dishes out anywhere from 180 HP to 250 HP of damage to every enemy on screen. Undoubtedly the best spell of the game. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thordain 15 MP each battle This causes an enemy massive pain, as it loses anywhere from 340 HP to 380 HP. Note however that all four members of your party involved in the battle lose 15 MP, and they lose the privilege to attack. (There must be four spellcasters outside of the wagon in order for Thordain to work.) Unfortunately, this spell is rather useless by the time that you learn it, since Lightning and three other attacks can be just as effective, if not more so. ================================================================================ * Transformation Spells ================================================================================ BeDragon 18 MP battle This transforms the caster into a violent fire breathing dragon. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Transform 5 MP battle This transforms the caster into a member of your party. Unless the spell is reverted, after this is cast, the caster has the strength, agility, and defense power of that particular member; moreover, the caster can use that particular member's spells. Unfortunately, the caster *cannot* use his or her own spells unless Transform is reverted. ================================================================================ * Enemy Spells ================================================================================ Sacrifice 1 MP This causes lots of damage at the cost of the caster's life. No member of your party learns this spell: It is available only to enemies. In case you bet on the enemy battles in Endor, it is beneficial to know about this technicality: If two enemies are battling and one of them can cast Sacrifice, the caster does not die until after the damage that it causes is dealt out. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Learning Spells Below is an approximate guide to when members of your party learn spells. Cristo 1 Heal 4 Upper 6 Surround 8 Antidote 12 Stopspell 14 Increase 16 Healmore 18 Beat 21 Vivify 24 Defeat 27 Healall 30 Healus 33 Revive Brey 1 Icebolt 3 Sap 7 Outside 8 Bounce 9 Return 11 Snowstorm 14 Speedup 17 Day-Night 19 Bikill 21 Defence 23 X-Ray 25 Robmagic 27 IceSpears 30 Chaos 32 Blizzard Nara 1 Heal 5 Sleep 8 Infernos 10 Numboff 13 Healmore 16 Sleepmore 20 Vivify 23 Infermore 26 Healall 29 Barrier 32 Infermost 35 Farewell Mara 1 Blaze 3 Sap 7 Firebal 8 Return 9 Outside 11 Bang 14 Firebane 16 Robmagic 19 Blazemore 21 Stepguard 23 Boom 27 Firevolt 30 BeDragon 33 Blazemost 36 Explodet Hero 1 Expel 3 Blaze 5 Healmore 7 Return 9 Firebal 11 Repel 13 Outside 15 Sleepmore 17 Awake 19 Fendspell 21 Ironize 23 Boom 24 Zap 27 Healall 28 Vivify 30 Transform 32 Healusall 34 Lightning 37 Thordain 39 Chance ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Equipment ================================================================================ Weapons The weapons below are listed in order of attack power. In the event of a tie, the weapon that I feel has a better special effect is listed later. Note that the Zenithian Sword is listed twice. This is due to the fact that it changes during the game. If a city is followed by a number in parentheses, this means that that particular weapon is available in that city during the chapter that the number indicates. All weapons that are said to be available in Frenor can only be found there after giving away the Golden Bracelet. A * indicates that the weapon is available in Lakanaba only in Chapter Three and only if Taloon purchases that particular weapon from a customer. See the beginning of Chapter Three for more details. name | buy | sell | AP | equip | purchase/find | special effects ================================================================================ Poison | 1300 | 975 | +0 | Brey, | Haville, Surene(5) | possible Needle | | | | Mara | | instant kill -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cypress | 10 | 7 | +2 |all but| Foxville | Stick | | | |Alena | (as Broad Sword) | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stilleto | | | | Alena,| | Earrings | 7500 | 5625 | +5 | Nara, | Rosaville | double attack | | | | Mara | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Staff of |------| 4500 | +5 |Cristo,| found in | Healmore Healing | | | |Nara | Giant World Tree | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | |all but| Burland, Surene, | Club | 30 | 22 | +7 |Brey & | Lakanaba, Monbaraba,| | | | |Mara | Branca | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | |all but| Burland, Izmit, | Copper | 100 | 75 | +12 |Alena, | Surene, Frenor, | Sword | | | |Brey, &| Lakanaba, Bonmalmo, | | | | |Mara | Monbaraba, Branca | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | | Burland, Izmit, | Thorn | | | |all but| Surene, Tempe, | Whip | 200 | 150 | +14 |Brey | Frenor, Lakanaba, | | | | | | Bonmalmo, Monbaraba,| | | | | | Branca | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | | Izmit, Tempe, | | | | | | Frenor, Bazaar, | Boomerang | 350 | 262 | +18 | all | Lakanaba*, Bonmalmo,| throw | | | | | Monbaraba, Branca, | | | | | | Aneaux | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | | Burland, Izmit, | Chain | | | |all but| Frenor, Bazaar, | Sickle | 550 | 412 | +20 |Brey & | Endor, Lakanaba*, | | | | |Mara | Bonmalmo, Kievs, | | | | | | Haville(4), Aneaux | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Silver | | | | | found in | Tarot |------| 375 | +21 | Nara | Aktemto Mine | Chance Cards | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Iron Fan | 620 | 465 | +22 | Mara | Haville(4), Aneaux | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | |Brey, | Bazaar, Endor, | Venomous | 750 | 562 | +24 |Taloon,| Haville(4), Aneaux, | may cause Dagger | | | |Nara, | Konenber | paralysis to enemy | | | |Mara | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | |Ragnar,| Izmit, Bazaar, | Iron Spear| 880 | 660 | +28 |Cristo,| Endor, Bonmalmo, | | | | |Taloon,| Konenber, Aneaux, | | | | |Hero | Mintos | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Staff of |------|15000 | +29 | Brey, | found in Palace of | Firebane Thunder | | | | Mara | Necrosaro | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Morning | | | |Ragnar,| Bazaar, Endor, | Star | 1250 | 937 | +22 |Cristo,| Haville(4), Aneaux, | | | | |Nara | Konenber, Mintos | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | |Cristo,| | Staff of | 1000C| 67 | +33 |Brey, | Endor Casino | laughter Jubilation| | | |Nara, | | | | | |Mara | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Abacus of | 1600 | 1200 | +35 |Taloon | Endor, Mintos | Expel Virtue | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Staff of | 1M| 3225 | +35 |Cristo,| King collecting | Infermore Punishment| | | |Nara | Small Medals | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Iron Claw | 1500 | 1125 | +38 | Alena | Endor(2) | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Broad | | | |Ragnar,| Bonmalmo, Konenber, | Sword | 2000 | 1500 | +40 |Hero | Mintos, Kievs(5), | | | | | | Surene(5), Stancia | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sword of | | | |Ragnar,| Lakanaba*, Mintos, | Firebal Malice | 3500 | 2625 | +45 |Taloon,| Kievs(5), Stancia | | | | |Hero | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | |Ragnar,| Surene(5), Kievs(5),| Battle Axe| 5500 | 4125 | +50 |Hero | Stancia, Rosaville, | | | | | | Riverton | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | |Cristo,| | Staff of |------| 3500 | +50 |Brey, | found in Royal Crypt| Stopspell, Antimagic | | | |Nara, | | Robmagic | | | |Mara | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | |Cristo,| | Staff of | 2500 | 1875 | +55 |Brey, | Surene(5), Stancia | converts 3MP to +1 Force | | | |Nara, | | attack power | | | |Mara | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fire Claw |------| 7500 | +60 | Alena | found in Gardenbur | Firebane | | | | | | (one enemy) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sword of | 8000 | 6000 | +60 |Ragnar,| Stancia, Rosaville, | Sleepmore Lethargy | | | |Hero | Riverton | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | |Cristo,| found in Santeem | Magma |------|------| +63 |Brey, | after defeating | Bang Staff | | | |Nara, | Balzack | | | | |Mara | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Zenithian | | | | | found in | Sword |------|------| +65 | Hero | Giant World Tree | (as found)| | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Demon |------| 450 | +70 |Ragnar,| found in Colossus | cursed, miss or Hammer | | | |Hero | | terrific blow -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ice Blade |------| 600 | +75 |Ragnar,| found in Lakanaba | Snowstorm | | | |Hero | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dragon |15000 |11250 | +90 |Ragnar,| Rosaville, Riverton | Killer | | | |Hero | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Multi-Edge|------| 2475 | +99 |Ragnar,| found in Endor | cursed, deals back Sword | | | |Hero | | 1/4 of damage -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | |Ragnar,| | heals attacker Sword of | 6M| 7125 |+100 |Taloon,| King collecting | when enemy does Miracles | | | |Cristo,| Small Medals | not die | | | |Hero | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Zenithian | | | | | found in | Sword |------|------|+110 | Hero | Giant World Tree | freezing waves (blessed) | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sword of |------| 150 |+120 |Ragnar,| found in Konenber | Defence, cursed, Decimation| | | |Taloon | | no defense power -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Metal | | | |all but| | Babble |------|------|+130 |Alena, | found in | Sword | | | |Brey, &| Cascade Cave | | | | |Mara | | Comments on Weapons Weapons that are too weak to buy are the Cypress Stick and the Club. Ragnar, Nara, and the Hero start out with Copper Swords, and Cristo starts out with a Club. Alena should get a Thorn Whip in Surene. Brey starts out with a Cypress Stick and cannot use a Club. Taloon could easily get a Thorn Whip before leaving Lakanaba. Finally, Mara cannot use a Club, and the Cypress Stick is not available for purchase in Chapter Four. The only person for whom you should even consider buying a Copper Sword is Cristo. Remember that he can use a Thorn Whip too, so if you would rather save up for that, then do so by all means. It is not worthwhile for Ragnar, Taloon, Nara, Mara, or the Hero to get a Thorn Whip, especially since better weapons are available to them by the time that they can purchase one. Also, note that Ragnar, Nara, and the Hero start with Copper Swords, so the Thorn Whip is only a two point improvement. By the same reasoning, you may want to forego getting Cristo a Thorn Whip also. On the other hand, the Thorn Whip is a decent buy for Alena. The Boomerang is only a good buy for Brey and Mara before they have access to Venomous Daggers and for the Hero before venturing to Endor. All other characters can get at least a Chain Sickle relatively soon after the Boomerang is available. The Chain Sickle is a decent weapon for Ragnar and Taloon before venturing away from their home towns, and it is a must-have for Alena before she reaches Endor. On the other hand by using the strategy "Run To the Next Town", Cristo and Nara should not need to get Chain Sickles. This weapon is also not a good buy for the Hero. Although the Iron Spear is a must-have for Ragnar before entering Loch Tower, it is quite useless otherwise. By the time one is available for Cristo, he can get the much superior Morning Star. By the time that Taloon can get an Iron Spear, he should be close to getting either an Abacus of Virtue or a Sword of Malice. Finally, the Hero can use the Iron Spear tucked away in the Cave of the Silver Statuette until he or she gets a Broad Sword. Ragnar can find a Sword of Malice in Loch Tower, and Taloon can get one fairly early on in Chapter Three in Lakanaba. On the other hand, by the time that the Hero can get a Sword of Malice, the party already has a ship. With Rosaville and Riverton accessible, the Sword of Lethargy and the Dragon Killer are possibilities. With the King collecting Small Medals accessible, the Sword of Miracles is a possibility. The Venomous Dagger is a good idea for Brey and Mara. Unless Taloon is hunting for Metal Slimes, he has better alternatives with the Abacus of Virtue and the Sword of Malice. It is a tough decision whether Nara should have the Venomous Dagger or the Morning Star. I typically opt for the Morning Star. The Morning Star is a must-have for Cristo, and it is a decent weapon for Nara. On the other hand, by the time that Ragnar can get his hands on a Morning Star, he should already have the much superior Sword of Malice. Although the Staff of Jubilation is an improvement over the Venomous Dagger and is as strong as the Morning Star, it may not be worth the patience to get them. The Iron Claw is a must-have for Alena before entering the tournament in Endor. Her only "upgrades" from this are the Fire Claw and the Stilleto Earrings. If Taloon foregoes the option of getting his hands on a Sword of Malice, he better get the Abacus of Virtue. There is no point in buying the Iron Fan. For 130 more gold, Mara can get a stronger weapon that has the possibility of paralyzing enemies. You may want to consider getting Poison Needles, as they occasionally cause instant death. They come in handy in Chapter Four when battling King Slimes and in Chapter Five when battling Metal Slimes and Metal Babbles. The Silver Tarot Cards are pretty worthless as a weapon. Since using them as an item in battle is risky anyways and Nara will not do this during Chapter Five (except in the Try Out setting), it is probably best to sell these. The Hero should not have to buy a Broad Sword since there is one in the Cave of the Silver Statuette. This serves him or her well until getting the boat. By the time that Ragnar can get a Broad Sword, he should already have the much superior Sword of Malice. After getting the boat, there is the possibility of getting a Sword of Lethargy or a Dragon Killer. Although the Dragon Killer is a much stronger weapon, it is also extremely expensive, and the Sword of Lethargy has the added bonus of being able to put enemies to sleep from a regular attack, an attribute that is quite useful against bosses. I personally spring for a Sword of Lethargy. Whichever you choose, it is probably best to just get one. By the time Ragnar is in your party, either Taloon or Cristo should have a Sword of Miracles which either the Hero or Ragnar can borrow. The Staff of Punishment may be a nice option for Cristo and/or Nara, but getting these forces you to wait longer to get the more expensive goodies. I personally forego these staffs at the beginning of Small Medal trading. Speaking of Small Medals, I use them in this manner: a Sword of Miracles for Cristo, a Hat of Happiness for Brey, a Hat of Happiness for Mara, a Sword of Miracles for Taloon, a Hat of Happiness for Nara, purchase Staffs of Punishment with the rest (and sell these staffs to earn lots of gold). Note that Infurnus Shadow yields a Sword of Miracles that Ragnar can use. Although the Stilleto Earrings are a weak weapon, they allow the wearer to attack twice in one round. Since Alena has high natural strength and can land terrific blows somewhat frequently, consider equipping her with these. By the time that her strength reaches 65 (which happens quite soon in Chapter Five), she typically attacks better than Stilleto Earrings than with her most powerful weapon, the Fire Claw. On the other hand, Stilleto Earrings are obviously not a good option for Nara or Mara. The Battle Axe is not a good buy. Although it is slightly more powerful than the Sword of Malice, it is almost twice as expensive and has no special effect. Also, stronger weapons such as the Sword of Lethargy and the Dragon Killer should be available. On the other hand, if a Rhinothrope drops a Battle Axe, I usually give it to Ragnar. Of the cursed equipment, the Sword of Decimation is the only one worth keeping, as it performs the Defence spell when used in battle (without cursing the person using it). None of the cursed equipment is worth equipping. The Magma Staff, besides being necessary to complete the game, is a very handy weapon. It is Brey's and Mara's ultimate weapon. In order to prevent them from fighting over this weapon, it might be a good idea to get one of them the slightly weaker but not very costly Staff of Force. By the time a Staff of Force can be purchased (or a Beleth might drop one), someone should have a Hat of Happiness to compensate for the depletion of MP that the staff causes. You might be wondering, "What about Nara?" Indeed, save for the Metal Babble Sword, the Magma Staff is her ultimate weapon. For this reason, I let Nara have the Metal Babble Sword. My reasoning goes as follows: The Hero will eventually have the Zenithian Sword, a +110 weapon (after visiting Master Dragon), and Ragnar, Taloon, and Cristo will eventually have Swords of Miracles, which are +100 weapons. On the other hand, Nara's next best weapon, the Magma Staff, is a measly +63. Of course, before going into caves and such, members exchange weapons and armor accordingly, so the Metal Babble Sword may not stay in her hands permanently, but I recommend that she have it whenever she comes out of the wagon. The Magma Staff and the Staff of Force make all other staffs that Brey and Mara can use obsolete. On the other hand, the Staff of Antimagic comes in handy as an item, but I usually sell it after getting to Dire Palace. (I like having both the Sphere of Silence and the Staff of Antimagic in Colossus to deal with the dreaded Blizags.) Note also that the Staff of Antimagic has the effect that, if an enemy that can cast spells is hit with it, the enemy loses MP to the person wielding it. The Fire Claw is the most powerful weapon that Alena can equip. Moreover, when used in battle, it hits one enemy for about 25 HP. Despite this, I prefer the Stilleto Earrings. I would like to point out that the selling price of the Fire Claw is the exact same as the purchase price of the Stilleto Earrings. Coincidence? I think not. The Ice Blade is nice. After getting this, the Sword of Lethargy becomes a hand-me-down to Ragnar, and after seeing Master Dragon, the Ice Blade becomes a hand-me-down to Ragnar. I usually do not sell the Ice Blade until after the battle with Radimvice, as it comes in handy for dealing with the Demighouls. Oddly enough, the Staff of Healing does not cause damage to enemies. It should be used, not equipped. I usually let Ragnar carry this. He uses it wisely. Finally, the Zenithian Sword. When I first played this game, I wondered about this item. Even Taloon thought that this sword sucked. I was quite pissed that I actually had to equip it to enter Zenithian Tower. I discovered happily that I could reequip the blessed Ice Blade within the tower. (Now that I know better, the Sword of Miracles is a better choice.) What a surprise that was in store for me upon talking to Master Dragon! This sword is a must-have for dealing with Master Malices as well as Necrosaro himself. ================================================================================ Armor The armor below is listed in order of defense power. If a city is followed by a number in parentheses, this means that that particular armor is available in that city during the chapter that the number indicates. name | buy | sell | DP | equip | purchase/find | special effects ================================================================================ Basic | 10 | 7 | +4 | all | Surene | Clothes | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wayfarer's| 70 | 52 | +7 | all | Surene, Lakanaba, | Clothes | | | | | Monbaraba | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dancer's | 400 | 300 | +8 |Alena, | Gardenbur | Costume | | | |Mara | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | |Alena, | | | | | |Nara, | | Silk Robe | 110 | 82 | +10 |Mara, | Monbaraba | | | | |female | | | | | |Hero | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | |all but| Burland, Surene, | Leather | 180 | 135 | +12 |Nara & | Tempe, Frenor, | Armor | | | |Mara | Bazaar, Lakanaba, | | | | | | Branca | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | |Alena, | | Leather | | | |Nara, | Monbaraba, Kievs, | Dress | 250 | 187 | +14 |Mara, | Haville, Gardenbur | | | | |female | | | | | |Hero | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | |Ragnar,| Burland, Izmit, | Chain | | | |Alena, | Frenor, Bazaar, | Mail | 350 | 262 | +18 |Cristo,| Endor, Lakanaba, | | | | |Taloon,| Branca, Bonmalmo(5) | | | | |Hero | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fur Coat | 600 | 450 | +22 |all but| Haville, | | | | |Brey | Bonmalmo(5), Aneaux | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | |all but| Izmit, Bazaar, | Bronze | 700 | 525 | +25 |Alena, | Endor, Lakanaba, | Armor | | | |Brey, &| Aneaux, Konenber | | | | |Mara | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | |Alena, | Kievs(5), Endor(5), | Cloak of | 3000 | 2250 | +28 |Brey, | Surene(5), | Evasion | | | |Mara | Seaside Village, | | | | | Stancia, Gardenbur | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | |Ragnar,| Izmit, Endor, | Half Plate| 1200 | 900 | +30 |Cristo,| Haville, | Armor | | | |Nara, | Bonmalmo(5), Aneaux,| | | | |Hero | Konenber, Mintos | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Iron Apron| 1500 | 1125 | +32 |Taloon | Endor, Mintos | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Robe of | | | |all but| found in | Serenity |------| 4500 | +33 |Ragnar | Cave of Padequia | | | | |& Hero | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Full Plate| | | |Ragnar,| Mintos, Kievs(5), | Armor | 2300 | 1725 | +35 |Hero | Seaside Village, | | | | | | Rosaville | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | |Cristo,| | Mysterious|------| 5625 | +37 |Brey, | found in | wearer gains MP Bolero | | | |Nara, | Zenithian Tower | when hit by spell | | | |Mara | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sacred | | | |Cristo,| Seaside Village, | reduces damage Robe | 4400 | 3300 | +38 |Nara | Stancia, Rosaville, | from spells and | | | | | Riverton, Gottside | emissions -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | |Alena, | | Pink | | | |Nara, | | Leotard | 6300 | 4725 | +40 |Mara, | Gardenbur | | | | |female | | | | | |Hero | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Water | | | | Brey, | | reduces damage Flying |15000 |11250 | +41 | Nara, | Elfville | from spells and Clothes | | | | Mara | | emissions -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dragon | | | |Ragnar,| Stancia, Rosaville, | reduces damage Mail | 5200 | 3900 | +45 |Hero | Riverton, Gottside | from spells and | | | | | | emissions -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | |Alena, | | Dress of | | | |Nara, | found in Shrine of | occasionally has Radiance |------| 6600 | +45 |Mara, | the Baron's Horn | effect of Bounce | | | |female | and Final Cave | | | | |Hero | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Zombie |------| 625 | +49 |Ragnar,| found in Den of | cursed Mail | | | |Hero | Radimvice | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Swordedge | 9800 | 7350 | +50 |Ragnar,| Endor(5), Gottside | damages attackers Armor | | | |Hero | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Demon |------| 750 | +60 |Ragnar,| found in Final Cave | cursed, no agility Armor | | | |Hero | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Zenithian | | | | | found in Shrine of | reduces damage Armor |------|------| +70 | Hero | Breaking Waves | from spells and | | | | | | emissions -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Metal | | | |all but| | Babble |15000 |11250 | +95 |Alena, | Endor(5) | Armor | | | |Brey, &| | | | | |Mara | | Comments on Armor Ragnar starts out with Leather Armor, so he should not have to get it. Leather Armor is a great buy for Cristo and Brey. Although it is not much better than the Silk Robe, it might be a good idea to get Leather Armor for Alena also, as this augments the power of Cristo's Upper spell. Taloon has much better armor available to him in Lakanaba, so he should bypass the Leather Armor. Finally, the Hero should not have to buy Leather Armor, as a set is available at the Woodsman's Shack. Although Chain Mail may be a decent buy for Ragnar and the Hero, I usually do not bother. On the other hand, Chain Mail is a great buy for Alena, as it is the best armor available to her in Chapter Two. You may also want to consider getting some for Cristo before venturing away from Frenor. Again, Taloon has much better armor available to him in Lakanaba, so he should bypass the Chain Mail. By the time that Ragnar, Nara, and the Hero have access to Bronze Armor, they also have access to Half Plate Armor. On the other hand, Bronze Armor is a terrific upgrade for Cristo before heading to the Birdsong Tower and for Taloon before venturing away from Lakanaba. Ragnar, Cristo, and Nara should all purchase Half Plate Armor, as it is the best armor to which they have access before Chapter Five. The Hero, however, should not have to buy Half Plate Armor. Either Nara can bring an extra set over from Haville or the Hero can find a set in the Cave of the Silver Statuette. Early on, the Half Plate Armor is a must-have for anyone who can equip it. Everyone starts out with at least Basic Clothes. If you find yourself wanting to buy these, give yourself a good smack on the head. The same goes for Wayfarer's Clothes. Venturing away from the starting area requires armor at least as good as the Silk Robe. The Iron Apron is a must-buy for Taloon. Mara starts out with a costly but not very defensive Dancer's Costume. She can sell it for a Leather Dress and have some gold to spare. The option of purchasing a Dancer's Costume comes up later in the game. If you find yourself considering buying the Dancer's Costume, give yourself a good 500 smacks on the head. Alena and Nara start out with Silk Robes. Mara should not need to get a Silk Robe since, as mentioned earlier, she can get a Leather Dress right at the beginning of Chapter Four. As mentioned earlier, Mara can easily get a Leather Dress. Without too much effort, Nara can get a Leather Dress also, but the gold might be better used by saving up for a weapon for Mara. Leather Dresses are not available in Chapter Two, and Alena should have the much superior Chain Mail by the time that she could get a Leather Dress. The Fur Coat for Mara upon reaching Haville is a no brainer. On the other hand, this is not such a good option for Nara. Get her the Half Plate Armor instead. The only other person for whom you should even want to consider getting a Fur Coat is Alena. I opt not to make this upgrade though. You should not have to buy Full Plate Armor. By the time that Hero has access to this, he or she can get Dragon Mail. Keeleon leaves Full Plate Armor behind for Ragnar to use. The Sacred Robe and the Dragon Mail are only worth getting before the Cave of the Padequia. After that, you are ready to get the Magic Key, which will enable you to access the store that sells Metal Babble Armor. Many of the advanced armors are useless. These include the Cloak of Evasion, the Swordedge Armor, and the cursed armors. The Cloak of Evasion offers less defense than the Half Plate Armor and costs almost triple! Given that a Pink Leotard and a Robe of Serenity will soon be available, it is not worth paying all this money. As for the Swordedge Armor and the cursed armors, all of the people that can equip this can also equip the beloved Metal Babble Armor. Instead of shopping for lesser armor (or, even dumber, waiting around for cursed armor), get your butt over to Santeem to hunt for Mystic Dolls and save up some money for Metal Babble Armor! In the Cave of the Padequia, just south of the big door, is the coveted Robe of Serenity. Brey is in dire need of this, as he is still sporting Leather Armor! The king of Endor keeps a Pink Leotard in his dressing room. He claims it is for his daughter, but we all know better. Either Alena or Mara would not mind donning this. Upon reaching Gardenbur, it would be wise to get a Pink Leotard for the other lucky lady. The Zenithian Armor is essential for completing the quest. Although it offers less defense than the Metal Babble Armor, it is more resistant to spells and emissions. For this reason, the Hero should not have a problem sporting the Zenithian Armor instead. The Dress of Radiance can be a blessing and a curse. It can occasionally Bounce back enemy spells, but it can also occasionally Bounce back healing spells during battle. By the time you find a Dress of Radiance, Nara should have Metal Babble Armor. It is up to you whether you want Alena and Mara to upgrade or keep their Pink Leotards. There is a set of Water Flying Clothes hidden away in the Final Cave so, unless Mara foregoes the Dress of Radiance, you do not really need to buy any Water Flying Clothes. If you are tempted to buy Water Flying Clothes for Nara, hit yourself over the head 5000 times. Why pay the same price for armor that is 54 points worse defensively? Poor Brey has a hard time as far as armor goes. If you choose not to buy Water Flying Clothes, then, when you stumble upon the Mysterious Bolero, that will be his best armor for the time being. This has a pretty cool effect: If a spell affects Brey and he lives through it, he will gain MP up to the casting cost of the spell. You might decide that this effect is so cool that you will want to forego upgrading to Water Flying Clothes. On the other hand, if you intend to use Brey when battling Necrosaro, then you will want him to have Water Flying Clothes instead of the Mysterious Bolero. ================================================================================ Shields The shields below are listed in order of defense power. If a city is followed by a number in parentheses, this means that that particular shield is available in that city during the chapter that the number indicates. name | buy | sell | DP | equip | purchase/find | special effects ================================================================================ Leather | | | |all but| Burland, Surene, | Shield | 90 | 67 | +4 |Alena &| Bazaar, Lakanaba, | | | | |Mara | Haville, Branca | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scale | | | |all but| Burland, Izmit, | Shield | 180 | 135 | +7 |Alena &| Bazaar, Endor, | | | | |Mara | Haville, Branca | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | |all but| Izmit, Endor, | Iron | | | |Alena, | Bonmalmo(5), Aneaux,| Shield | 650 | 487 | +12 |Brey, &| Konenber, Mintos, | | | | |Mara | Seaside Village, | | | | | | Stancia, Riverton | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dragon | | | |Ragnar,| | reduces damage Shield | 7100 | 5325 | +30 |Hero | Riverton, Gottside | from spells and | | | | | | emissions -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | |Ragnar,| | Shield of |13000 | 9750 | +40 |Cristo,| Elfville | Healmore Strength | | | |Taloon,| | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mirror | | | |Ragnar,| | returns some Shield |------| 6750 | +45 |Cristo,| found in Final Cave | damage from spells | | | |Hero | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Aeolus' |------| 3525 | +50 |Ragnar,| found in | Expel Shield | | | |Hero | Dire Palace | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Zenithian |------|------| +55 | Hero | found in Gardenbur | Bounce Shield | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Metal | | | |Cristo,| | Babble |50000C|------| +60 |Brey, | Endor Casino | Fendspell Shield | | | |Nara, | | | | | |Mara | | Comments on Shields In Chapters One, Four, and Five, the Leather Shield is not a good buy. If Ragnar, Nara, and the Hero decide to purchase shields in Burland, Haville, and Branca, respectively, then they may as well save up for Scale Shields. In Chapters Two and Three, however, Leather Shields are all the rage. Having them in Chapter Two increases the effect of Cristo's spell Upper. As Taloon can get a lot of gold (relatively speaking) at the beginning of Chapter Three and the Leather Shield is the best shield available to him until he gets to Endor, he may as well get one. If you want Ragnar and the Hero to have shields before heading too far from their homes, then the Scale Shield is the ticket. The Scale Shield is also a must-buy for Cristo and Brey before the excursion to Birdsong Tower. It is also a must-buy for Nara before venturing to Aktemto. The Iron Shield is a must-buy for Ragnar, Taloon, and the Hero. On the other hand, by the time that Cristo and Nara can get Iron Shields, they have access to Metal Babble Shields. If you are planning on getting them Metal Babble Shields anyways, then you should skip getting them Iron Shields. You will need to do a lot of gambling to get Metal Babble Shields, but it is well worth the effort. Towards the beginning of Chapter Five, Nara and Mara are virtually unhittable when they have these equipped. Too bad this is the only shield that Mara can use. On a similar note, I really wish that Alena could use a shield! Brey is her tutor. He should teach her how to use one. The Dragon Shield is not worth buying. One is available in the Cave Southeast of Gardenbur. The Hero can use this until he or she obtains the Zenithian Shield, when the Dragon Shield makes a nice hand-me-down for Ragnar. Once Ragnar gets Aeolus' Shield, the Dragon Shield becomes obsolete. Oddly enough, there is also a Dragon Shield available in the Zenithian Tower, but you should not need it by then. The Zenithian Shield is awesome! If only the Hero could get it earlier to use on Keeleon and Balzack!!! The Shield of Strength is Taloon's best and thus is a must-buy. Although the Mirror Shield is not the best for anyone who can equip it, it is a wonderful thing to have equipped when battling Metal Babbles and King Metals. Just try it and rake in the experience points. ================================================================================ Helmets The helmets below are listed in order of defense power. If a city is followed by a number in parentheses, this means that that particular helmet is available in that city during the chapter that the number indicates. name | buy | sell | DP | equip | purchase/find | special effects ================================================================================ Leather | | | | | Burland, Surene, | Hat | 65 | 48 | +2 | all | Lakanaba, | | | | | | Monbaraba, Branca | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | |all but| Burland, Izmit, | Wooden Hat| 120 | 90 | +6 |Brey & | Frenor, Bazaar, | | | | |Mara | Endor, Branca, | | | | | | Bonmalmo(5), Aneaux | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Feather | | | |Alena, | Kievs, Haville, | Hat | 280 | 210 | +8 |Nara, | Bonmalmo(5), | | | | |Mara | Aneaux, Konenber | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | |Alena, | | Golden | | | |Nara, | Konenber, Mintos, | reduces success Barrette | 540 | 405 | +12 |Mara, | Gardenbur | of Chaos | | | |female | | | | | |Hero | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | |Cristo,| | wearer Hat of | 4M| 11 | +15 |Brey, | King collecting | regains 1 MP Happiness | | | |Nara, | Small Medals | every four steps | | | |Mara | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | |Ragnar,| Mintos, | Iron | 1100 | 825 | +16 |Cristo,| Seaside Village, | Helmet | | | |Taloon,| Stancia, Rosaville, | | | | |Hero | Riverton | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | |Ragnar,| Kievs(5), Surene(5),| Iron Mask | 3500 | 2625 | +25 |Hero | Rosaville, Riverton,| | | | | | Gottside | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Zenithian |------|------| +30 | Hero | found in Stancia | Helm | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Metal | | | |all but| | Babble | 20M|------| +50 |Alena, | King collecting | Helm | | | |Brey, &| Small Medals | | | | |Mara | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mask of |------| 6 |+200 | all | found in | cursed, wearer Corruption| | | | | Cascade Cave | suffers confusion Comments on Helmets Only Cristo, Brey, and Taloon should buy Leather Hats. Ragnar should save up for a Wooden Hat, Alena has a Feather Hat in her room, Nara and Mara should save up for Feather Hats, and the Hero starts out with a Leather Hat. For Cristo and Brey, the Leather Hat enhances the effect of Upper. (Every little bit counts.) For Taloon, the Leather Hat is the best he can buy until venturing to Endor. For Ragnar, Cristo, Taloon, and a male Hero, the Wooden Hat is a must-buy. On the other hand, by the time that Wooden Hats are available for Alena and Nara, they should already have Feather Hats. A female Hero has no problem sporting the Leather Hat until she reaches Konenber, but the upgrade to a Wooden Hat beforehand is not a bad idea. Alena has a Feather Hat in her room. For Nara and Mara, the Feather Hat is a must-buy. The Hero cannot equip the Feather Hat, regardless of gender; however, Celia dropped her hat, and the Hero should take it. Although this Feather Hat smells like Celia, the Hero should sell it and spend the money on stuff that he or she can equip. Upon reaching Konenber, Nara, Mara, and a female Hero should upgrade to Golden Barrettes. Instead of buying another one for Alena though, she can wait for a hand-me-down. In the case of a female Hero, this occurs upon receiving the Zenithian Helm. In the case of a male Hero, Alena will need to wait until Nara or Mara gets a Hat of Happiness. In case you missed this in "Notes on Weapons": I use Small Medals in this manner: a Sword of Miracles for Cristo, a Hat of Happiness for Brey, a Hat of Happiness for Mara, a Sword of Miracles for Taloon, a Hat of Happiness for Nara, purchase Staffs of Punishment with the rest (and sell these staffs to earn lots of gold). I highly doubt that the Metal Babble Helm is worth only having 12 Small Medals left to spend on other goodies. Metal Babbles and King Metals rarely have treasure chests, but when they do, the chests contain Hats of Happiness and Metal Babble Helms, respectively. If you are lucky enough to have this occur in your quest, especially with a King Metal, consider yourself fortunate. You should only have to buy one Iron Helmet. By the time that these are available, the Hero will not have to wait long before receiving the Zenithian Helm. After obtaining the Thief's Key, you can snag an Iron Helmet from the treasure room in Burland. Ragnar, Cristo, and Taloon can trade these around until Ragnar gets his hands on an Iron Mask. Speaking of which, you do not need to buy an Iron Mask. If the Hero does not already have the Zenithian Helm by the time that Iron Masks are available, he or she will get it soon. There is an Iron Mask in the Cave Southeast of Gardenbur that Ragnar can use. I usually venture to Stancia after Brey joins the party. After speaking to the King, I Return to Monbaraba, nag Panon, bring him to Stancia to talk to the King, and get my first piece of Zenithian equipment. Then I am ready for the Cave of the Padequia. The Mask of Corruption is one of those "too good to be true" sort of things. Curiously, in the list of equipment that comes with the game, it mistakenly states that the Mask of Corruption is in the Shrine of Breaking Waves. ================================================================================ Items The items below are listed in the following order: First, items found at virtually any item shop are listed in order of price; next, seeds are listed in the order that they are typically encountered in the game; finally, all other items are listed in the order that they are typically encountered in the game. The addition (battle) indicates that the item can only be used successfully during battle, whereas (command) indicates that the item can only be used successfully outside of battle. With the exception of items that must be used on specific people or things (which are only useful outside of battle), the lack of either of these words indicates that the item can be used successfully at any time. name | buy | sell | purchase/find | effect/description -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Medical | 8 | 6 | virtually any | Heal, can only be used once Herb | | | item shop | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Antidote | 10 | 7 | virtually any | Antidote, can only be used once Herb | | | item shop -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fairy | 20 | 15 | virtually any | Repel, can only be used once Water | | | item shop | (command) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wing of | 25 | 18 | virtually any item | Return, can only be used once Wyvern | | | shop (not Ch. 1) | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Full Moon | 30 | 22 | virtually any item | Numboff (one person only), Herb | | | shop (not Ch. 1) | can only be used once -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Agility |------| 67 | various | raises agility 1 to 3 points, Seed | | | treasure chests | can only be used once -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Strength |------| 90 | various | raises strength 1 to 3 points, Seed | | | treasure chests | can only be used once -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Luck Seed |------| 52 | various | raises luck 1 to 3 points, | | | treasure chests | can only be used once -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Flying |------|------| found in Old Well | use to enter Loch Tower, Shoes | | | | unlimited use -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lifeforce |------| 187 | various | raises max HP 4 to 6 points, Nuts | | | treasure chests | can only be used once -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Golden |------|------| found in Cave | enhances the Evil Force, Bracelet | | | South of Frenor | carried only -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thief's |------|------| given in exchange | opens Thief's Key doors, Key | | | for Golden Bracelet| unlimited use (command) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gum Pod | 8 | 1 | Foxville | useless | | | (as Medical Herb) | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Birdsong |------|------| found in | cures laryngitis, can only be Nectar | | | Birdsong Tower | used on King of Santeem -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Magic | 30C| 22 | Endor Casino | restores 10 MP to 15 MP, Potion | | | | can only be used once -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wizard's | 500C|------| Endor Casino | restores 25 MP to 40 MP, Ring | | | | finite number of uses -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mirror of | 2500C|------| Endor Casino | reverts Transform during battle, Ra | | | | unlimited use (battle) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Meteorite | 4000C|------| Endor Casino | doubles wearer's agility (does Armband | | | | not affect defense), equipped -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lunch |------| 7 | Neta makes this | Heal, can only be used once -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Iron Safe |------|------| found in Cave | prevents loss of gold when you | | | North of Lakanaba | are defeated, carried only -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prince's |------|------| found in Bonmalmo | can only be used on Letter | | | | Princess of Endor -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Royal |------|------| found in Endor | can only be used on Scroll | | | | King of Bonmalmo -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Silver |------|25000 | found in Cave of | a collector's item, carried only Statuette | | | Silver Statuette | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sphere of |------|------| found in Cave | Stopspell, unlimited use (battle) Silence | | | West of Kievs | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lamp of |------|------| found in Cave | changes day to night, Darkness | | | West of Kievs | unlimited use (command) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mystic |------| 412 | various | raises max MP 3 to 5 points, Acorns | | | treasure chests | can only be used once -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gunpowder |------|------| found in | noisemaker, Jar | | | Aktemto Mine | unlimited use (command) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boarding |------|------| found in | for boarding ship from Haville to Pass | | | Keeleon Prison | Endor, carried only -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Symbol of |------|------| found in | makes Hector willing to supply Faith | | | Cave of Betrayal | wagon, carried only -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Small |------|------| hidden across | can trade for weapons and Medal | | | the world | helmets, carried only -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fire of |------|------| found in | can only be used on fire in Serenity | | | Great Lighthouse | Great Lighthouse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scent | 150 | 120 | item shops in | attracts enemies, Pouch | | | Chapter Five | can only be used once (command) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Padequia |------|------| found in Cave of | necessary to grow Padequia plant, Seed | | | the Padequia | carried only -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Padequia |------|------| given in exchange | cures various illnesses, Root | | | for Padequia Seed | can only be used on Cristo -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Magic Key |------|------| found in Cave West | opens Thief's Key and Magic Key | | | of Kievs (Ch. 5) | doors, unlimited use (command) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Flute of | | | found in Santeem | reveals entrance to Saro's Tower, Uncovering|------|------| after defeating | unlimited use (command) | | | Balzack | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Final Key |------|------| found in Gardenbur | opens all doors, unlimited use | | | | (command) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stone of |------|------| found in | can only be used on waterfall in Drought | | | Seaside Village | Cascade Cave -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sandglass | | | found in | reverses time in a battle, of |------|------| Cascade Cave | can only be used once a day Regression| | | | (battle) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Staff of |------|------| found in | transforms party into other life Transform | | | Royal Crypt | forms, unlimited use (command) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gas | | | found in Esturk's | necessary to make a Canister |------|------| Lair after | flying balloon, carried only | | | defeating Esturk | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Leaf of |------|------| found in | Revive, can only be used once World Tree| | | Giant World Tree -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dew of |------|------| found in | Healusall, can only be used once World Tree| | | Giant World Tree | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Baron's |------|------| found in Shrine of | recovers wagon, Horn | | | the Baron's Horn | unlimited use (command) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sage's |------|------| found in | Healus, unlimited use (battle) Stone | | | Necrosaro's Palace | Comments on Items Some specialty chapter items disappear once the chapter is over: the Flying Shoes and the Iron Safe (if you got it in Chapter Three). The Sphere of Silence is lost also. Somehow, Saroknight ended up with it, and you can get it back by killing him. Unfortunately, all of the lost items are actually useful. The Gunpowder Jar and the Boarding Pass, which are useless after Chapter Four, are still around in Chapter Five. I guess that is what the vault is for. Even within Chapter Five, there are many items that are used once and can be put in the vault immediately after using them. These items are the Symbol of Faith, the Flute of Uncovering, the Stone of Drought, the Staff of Transform, and the Gas Canister. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Tips ================================================================================ Defer Treasure ================================================================================ The most important chapter of the game is Chapter Five. Therefore, it stands to reason that, if you can avoid getting a treasure chest or hidden item in a chapter before Chapter Five, it may be wise to do so. There are a few exceptions. An obvious exception is items that are necessary for completing the chapter. These include the Flying Shoes, the Golden Bracelet, the Birdsong Nectar, the Gunpowder Jar, and the Boarding Pass. Another exception is items that help tremendously in completing a chapter. These include the Sword of Malice, the Silver Statuette, and the Sphere of Silence. Yet another exception is Chapter Two. This is explained later in "Casino" tips. There are only a couple of other exceptions. The Iron Safe only works properly in Chapter Three, but it takes up an item slot, making it difficult for Taloon to pick up items from enemies and get money out of them. The last exception is the Lamp of Darkness. It really makes no difference if you get it in Chapter Four or hold off. If you are really anxious to talk to people in Chapter Four at night, then take it by all means. ================================================================================ Shop Till You Drop ================================================================================ Again to make Chapter Five easier, at the end of all of the other chapters, buy items in such a manner that you have the least amount of gold left over. The gold that you have at the end of a chapter is lost in Chapter Five, but the items and Casino coins are not. One of the most beneficial things that can be done is for Taloon to carry seven Swords of Malice. See the end of Chapter Three for more details. ================================================================================ Casino ================================================================================ Casino coins are cheapest in Chapter Two, only ten gold each. For this reason, I use the following strategy: At the end of Chapter Two, collect all of the hidden items in towns and caves, sell them, and use them to buy as many coins as possible. Note that I do this "clean up" *after* purchasing Alena's Iron Claw and Cristo's Half Plate Armor. Doing these things in this order forces you to maximize the experience that the characters in Chapter Two earn by first saving up gold to buy the Iron Claw and Half Plate Armor, *then* venturing back into the Cave South of Frenor and the Birdsong Tower in order to get all of the treasure chests. (Note that having the Iron Claw and the Half Plate Armor in these places makes the battles easier.) ================================================================================ Run to the Next Town ================================================================================ This strategy is most helpful in Chapters Two and Four, in which the quality of weapons and armor differ vastly between certain towns and a member of the party can use the spell Return. In Chapter Two, before going into the Cave South of Frenor, I build up experience around Frenor until Brey learns Return, then I make a run for Bazaar. While near there, I save up lots of gold battling the enemies near Bazaar and use Return when Cristo's and/or Brey's MP is running low. Then I upgrade all of the weapons and armor that I can in Bazaar. After that, I finally go into the Cave South of Frenor. I use a similar strategy in Chapter Four, making a run for Haville before entering the Cave West of Kievs. These runs make the caves a lot easier, not only because of the more advanced equipment, but also because the characters will have gone up at least two levels in the process. This strategy is not at all applicable to Chapter One for many reasons: Ragnar cannot cast Return, no Wings of Wyvern are for sale, and Ragnar must necessarily enter the first cave before getting to Izmit. This strategy could also be used in Chapter Three, but since I usually do not bother with the Iron Safe in Chapter Three and Taloon can access a Sword of Malice and Bronze Armor in Lakanaba (excellent equipment for the very beginning of a chapter, and more than sufficient to deal with anything in the Cave North of Lakanaba), it seems rather pointless to make a run to Endor to get an Abacus of Virtue, an Iron Apron, an Iron Shield, and a Wooden Hat before venturing into the Cave North of Lakanaba. On the other hand, I do use a variant of this strategy in Chapter Five: Immediately after getting the ship, I head straight to Riverton to get a Sword of Lethargy, Dragon Mail, and a Sacred Robe before going to Mintos. ================================================================================ Free Repel ================================================================================ Once the Hero learns Repel, he or she can essentially cast it for free as far as MP goes. Just before reaching a place where your party can rest (most likely the Woodsman's Shack), cast Repel, then enter the place and rest. When you leave, Repel will still be in effect for the same duration as it would otherwise, and the Hero's MP (and HP) will be replenished along with everyone else's HP and MP. ================================================================================ Got Brey? ================================================================================ On first arriving in Mintos, you should easily figure out that Cristo is ill and that Alena has taken off in search of the Padequia Seed. You may even figure this out without talking to either Cristo or Brey (even without reading this). On the other hand, it is worthwhile to go into the inn, talk to Brey, and let him know of your intentions to help out *before* looking for the Padequia Seed. By doing this, he will join the party immediately. This is beneficial for a couple of reasons. First of all, out of all of the characters from Chapter Two, Brey gains levels the slowest. By having him join your party before any of the other members, he will gain experience while Alena and Cristo are not. This helps to prevent him from lagging behind in levels. Another good reason to have him join you is that he comes in handy in the Cave of the Padequia. His Snowstorm works wonders on many of the enemies in there and, as he typically has higher MP than either the Hero or Mara at this stage of the game, it is more likely that he will have enough MP left over when you find the Padequia Seed to cast Outside and Return. ================================================================================ Seeds, Nuts, and Acorns ================================================================================ For each type of seed, acorn, and nut, it is most effective to use all of one type on one particular person. Doing this will make that person a powerhouse in that particular area. Below are how I use them, along with my justification. Agility Seed--Ragnar: Throughout the game, he has very low agility and gains agility very slowly. Also, towards the beginning of Chapter Five, he has a pretty low defense. Even after using a lot of Agility Seeds on Ragnar, he may attack close to last during every round, but he will be more likely to attack before most of the enemies. Strength Seed--Alena: When she is equipped with the Stilleto Earrings, every increase of strength is doubly nice. Also, the higher Alena's strength is, the more effective her terrific blows will be. Luck Seed--Alena: Similar reasoning as before. The higher Alena's luck is, the more often she will land terrific blows. This is most effective when she is equipped with the Stilleto Earrings, as she may yield terrific blows twice in one round, at least against enemies who can withstand a terrific blow from Alena. Lifeforce Nuts--This is probably the major exception to the rule given just above. I usually give most of these to Brey, as Blizzard is quite effective on Necrosaro in the final battle, and it is nice for Brey to be able to stay alive to cast this. Sometimes I give some to Nara, and very rarely, I will give some to Cristo, Taloon, and Mara as I see fit. Mystic Acorns--The Hero: This is the only spellcaster who cannot replenish MP by means of a Hat of Happiness. Thus, it stands to reason that, if you want him or her to be able to cast lots of spells, then he or she should be made to have lots of MP. Also, as mentioned in the character descriptions, the Hero does not really gain MP very quickly, so these help out. For those of you who do not find this "unethical", you can take advantage of the save state to get the maximum out of all of these items. Before using these items, save. If you use the item and do not get the maximum value, simply reset and try again. If you do get the maximum value, be sure to save again. The maximum value is 3 for seeds, 6 for the Lifeforce Nuts, and 5 for the Mystic Acorns. ================================================================================ Who Needs Experience? ================================================================================ When venturing into the Cave Southeast of Gardenbur and the extended Aktemto Mine, it makes sense to take your strongest characters, as a tough battle awaits you at the end. On the other hand, in many other situations (the Cave of the Padequia, the Cascade Cave, the Royal Crypt, Colossus, the Giant World Tree, and the Zenithian Tower), it makes sense to take the members of your party that need experience the most. For example, I rarely take Taloon in any of these places, as he gains levels very quickly; on the other hand, I usually take the Hero and Nara into these places. A similar strategy can be used when considering who to take to clear out treasure left over in previous caves and towers. ================================================================================ On Burning Bridges Behind You ================================================================================ There are many peculiar items in the game of which there is only one (or, in the case of the Dress of Radiance, two). Before selling these, be sure to consider whether you will not want to have the item again. If you are not hurting for gold or think the item is cool but do not want to lug it around for the time being, put it in the vault. Otherwise, sell the item. Items like this include the Staff of Healing, the Silver Tarot Cards, the Staff of Thunder, the Staff of Antimagic, the Fire Claw, the Demon Hammer, the Ice Blade, the Multi-Edge Sword, the Sword of Decimation, the Robe of Serenity, the Mysterious Bolero, the Dress of Radiance, the Zombie Mail, the Demon Armor, the Mirror Shield, Aeolus' Shield, and the Mask of Corruption. (Note that such items that cannot be sold, such as the Magma Staff, are not included in this list.) ================================================================================ Two Dews of World Tree ================================================================================ Using the Dew of World Tree performs a Healusall spell. Having one is nice, but having two is much better. In order to get two, you must leave the Dew of World Tree that is in the Giant World Tree alone until after talking with the green devil in Zenithia. If you talk to him while you do not have any Dew of World Tree, he will given you some. After that, you can get the Dew of World Tree hidden in the World Tree and have two of them. Note that, if you choose to have Alena and/or Mara equip the Dress of Radiance, the Dew of World Tree will always heal them/her, whereas an actual Healusall spell may Bounce. This makes Dews of World Tree even more important. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Random Cool Fact ================================================================================ In navigating the world of Dragon Warrior IV, it is clear that this world is not spherical. There is no "North Pole" or "South Pole" like in our world. The only type of surface that allows for navigation as in Dragon Warrior IV is a torus. (For those of you unfamiliar with topology, a torus looks like a donut, specifically, the type with a hole in it.) ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Walkthrough ================================================================================ Chapter One ================================================================================ This chapter is pretty easy. In this chapter, you control Ragnar, who consistently has high strength and high HP. Also, this chapter is much shorter than the others: There are only two towns and three dungeon-like places. On the other hand, by the end of this chapter, you should be familiar with the game and how it works. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Burland This chapter starts out with the King of Burland debriefing his soldiers about the disappearance of children in the town of Izmit, which is no too far north of Burland. If you talk to the King after this debriefing, he essentially says that Ragnar is the only hope for finding the children and returning them safely. As if you needed this extra pressure! You may have noticed that there is a treasure room on the first floor on the west side of the castle. Unfortunately, the door is locked. Even if it were unlocked, there are tons of pain tiles between the door and the treasure. This is very unfortunate, as the contents of all of these treasure chests would help Ragnar out a lot. Oh well. This chapter is easy enough even without these items. There is not too much to find out from the people in the castle. In case you need it, there is a Medical Herb on the first floor in the southeast room in the chest of drawers that is second from the right. I usually leave it for later. On the other hand, a lot of the people outside of the castle have valuable information. One of the soldiers informs you of the reason that Ragnar starts out with equipment that is not the highest quality. (Actually, the equipment that Ragnar starts out with is not too shabby and is pretty close to sufficient for venturing away from Burland.) You will also be told to be sure to equip weapons and armor after buying it. There is a difference between carrying a piece of equipment around and using it during a battle! You will also get other information about how the game works. Finally, you will hear a lot about Flora and Alex, and you may even talk to Flora herself. Just to the south of the castle on the east side of the road is an item shop. Further south is the inn. On the extreme west side of town to the north of the main road is the House of Healing. The building just east of the House of Healing is the weapon shop. On the extreme east side of town directly east from the weapon shop is the armor shop. You can go into the armor shopkeeper's house and talk to him, but he essentially tells you that, to buy something, you need to talk to him from across the booth. (He runs to the booth as Ragnar stands on the other side of it.) On the other hand, it is worthwhile to talk to other people in the shopkeeper's house. Now to venture outside of Burland. Do not go too far from Burland initially, as Ragnar is kind of weak to start out. The enemies in this area are: Slime Stag Beetle Giant Worm Diverat (rarely) Babble Note that I list enemies in a certain order. The ones towards the top are either easiest to kill and/or have the least fearful (if any) special effects such as spells and emissions. The ones towards the bottom are either toughest to kill and/or have the most fearful (if any) special effects. Most of the enemies listed above are pretty straightforward. There are a couple of notes to make about them. Diverats will occasionally call for other Diverats as reinforcements. The main reason that Ragnar should not venture too far is that Babbles can poison him. If Ragnar does get poisoned and he has enough HP to get back to Burland with some HP to spare, head back to Burland and have the shaman at the House of Healing Detoxicate Ragnar. This only costs 5 gold, which is much cheaper than the 10 gold that it costs for the Antidote Herb. Once Ragnar gets pretty powerful (about level 5), Slimes and Stag Beetles may develop a tendency to run away. Make sure to kill Stag Beetles off first as they yield more gold than Slimes. To start off, Ragnar should save up 120 gold pieces so that he can purchase the Wooden Hat. This is the best helmet that is available to him in Chapter One. You will notice that, if Ragnar walks around for a while outside of Burland, it will change from day to night. You may want to go back into Burland at night, as some of the people will have different things to say. Be sure to stay at the inn as necessary. It is also probably a good idea to stay at the inn before ending a session. That way, Ragnar will always start off a session of play with maximum HP. Note that staying at the inn changes night to day, but it does not change day to night. Once Ragnar has a Wooden Hat, he should be somewhere around level 3. It is probably a good idea to get him up to level 5. If you choose not to upgrade any of his other equipment, you may want to get him to level 6 for that extra boost of strength. I usually upgrade his weapon to the Chain Sickle, which is the best weapon available to him in Burland. I usually do not bother with any other upgrades, although the Scale Shield is not a bad idea. Below are the only upgrades that I would recommend for Ragnar along with the amount of gold that is needed to make the upgrade. Note that this gold amount includes selling his old equipment if applicable. Chain Sickle 475 Chain Mail 215 Scale Shield 180 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Trip to Izmit Before venturing to Izmit, Ragnar should be at level 5 at least and have a Wooden Hat equipped. He should also have a Medical Herb and an Antidote Herb. If enemies have not left these behind for Ragnar (only Babbles leave behind Antidote Herbs), then Ragnar needs to buy these before heading off to Izmit. The enemies in the Cave Between Burland and Izmit are: Slime Stag Beetle Giant Worm Diverat Babble Healer Fortunately in this cave, typically, Healers travel alone. If Ragnar's attack power is not high enough, he may have a tough time killing these, as they will cast Heal for a long time, thus negating any damage that Ragnar has done. The way through the cave is simple enough. There are a couple of treasure chests in here. If you hug the wall on the right, you will come to a treasure chest with a Medical Herb. I inevitably leave this one behind. If you hug the left wall instead, you will come to a dead end with no treasure chest to reward your effort. If, instead of the previous options, you turn right at the first opportunity, then go straight at the second place to turn, you will arrive at a lake in the middle of the cave. You should also see a fellow soldier strolling around. He says different things depending on how many times you have traversed this cave. Eventually, it will be clear that he is lost. Feel free to laugh at him. Back to getting through the cave. Upon arriving at the lake, you can go either way. No matter what, you will stumble across a treasure chest containing 40 gold pieces. For reasons to be explained later, I do not open this treasure chest. Instead, I proceed north to the exit. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Izmit That was easy enough. Upon arriving on this side of the cave, you may notice a tower surrounded by water. You have no way of getting to that tower now. The only place you can go right now is the town of Izmit, which is northeast of the cave. On the way to Izmit though, you may encounter more enemies. The enemies in this area are: Slime Stag Beetle Giant Worm Diverat Babble Healer (rarely) Demon Stump Note that, if Ragnar's attack power is not high enough, he may have some trouble killing Demon Stumps. They have higher HP, attack power, and defense power than any other enemy that Ragnar has encountered thus far, and they can use Medical Herbs indefinitely. Demon Stumps are most commonly found in the large forest southeast of Izmit. Luckily, Healers still travel alone here. Directly west of the main entrance to Izmit is an item shop, and directly east is an inn. In the room just east of the inn, there is a room with some chests of drawers. The one on the right contains a Medical Herb. I usually do not bother getting it right now, though. You will notice that the inn is slightly more expensive here. Obviously, though, if you are hurting for HP, it is probably not worth braving the walk back to Burland to save two gold pieces, so you may as well utilize the inn here. The building that takes up most of the west side of town is a school. It is interesting to note that Izmit has the only school in the entire world. Apparently, there is no demand for public schooling anywhere else. (Brey is Alena's tutor and, in Chapter Five, you may come across the tutor of the King of Santeem.) On the extreme north side of town in order from west to east are a weapon shop, an armor shop, stairs to the prison, and a House of Healing. Upon talking to the people here, you will get more information about the children's disappearance. A fellow soldier will tell you that he finds the western tower suspicious. (Duh!) Finally, you will hear a lot about the man in the prison. The blue person just east of the inn (who seems to have some voyeur tendencies) will tell you that he thinks the prisoner is from Burland. In order to complete Chapter One, you have to activate certain "triggers". The first trigger is activated upon going to Izmit at night and talking to the kid running around in the school's sandbox. He lets you know that the prisoner's name is Alex. Gasp! Flora might want to know about this! Head back to Burland and talk to Flora. She will want you to take her to Izmit. On the way over, she will not help you attack but, fortunately, enemies will not be able to hit her. The second trigger is activated upon taking Flora to the prison. After reuniting these lovers, Alex gives you some valuable information about the Hidden Playground. You may have walked across the square four steps to the south and four steps to the east of the village signpost before, but, as the triggers were not activated, nothing happened. Of course, you will have to go to the Hidden Playground, but first you need to upgrade your equipment. You should definitely get the Iron Shield. Also, if you did not get a Chain Sickle in Burland, you should save up for a better weapon, preferably an Iron Spear. If you already have a Chain Sickle, upgrading is not absolutely necessary, but it cannot hurt. Oddly enough, the Leather Armor (or Chain Mail if you upgraded in Burland) is still sufficient, but you can upgrade to Half Plate Armor if you want. Below are the only upgrades that I would recommend for Ragnar along with the amount of gold that is needed to make the upgrade. Note that this gold amount includes selling his old equipment if applicable. from Copper Sword to Iron Spear 805 from Chain Sickle to Iron Spear 468 from Leather Armor to Half Plate Armor 1065 from Chain Mail to Half Plate Armor 938 from no shield to Iron Shield 650 from Scale Shield to Iron Shield 515 Note that, after upgrading to an Iron Shield, Ragnar has enough defense power to avoid being hit by Babbles the majority of the time. Since these are the only enemies in Chapter One that can poison, Ragnar probably does not need Antidote Herbs any more. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hidden Playground Note that you cannot stand on the village signpost. Thus, while standing directly below the signpost, Ragnar must walk *three* steps south and four steps east to access the Hidden Playground. Dead ahead is the Old Well. This is the only well in the game that anyone can hop into. Ragnar can and should hop into the Old Well. A mysterious voice guides you through the cave. When it says, "Come this way..." that means that it wants you to turn. Note that the way out is to go straight at the point where the voice first speaks. Note also that, as long as Ragnar is going where the voice is telling him, enemies will not attack him. There are a lot of unrewarding dead ends. The first "rewarding" dead end is when Ragnar is heading east for the first time. If, instead of obeying the voice and turning south, Ragnar can head east instead. This path is long, has no forks, and, at its end, has a treasure chest containing a Medical Herb which is not worth the effort to get. Obey the voice and go south instead. Note that Healie is in the Old Well. It is easiest to give directions to Healie at this stage. After going down the stairs, head straight east. Note that this involves disobeying the voice. This means that there will be enemies. The enemies that are down here are: Healer Demon Stump (rarely) Lethal Gopher Sizarmage Note that Healers finally travel with other creatures. Thus, if Ragnar's attack power is too low to kill a Lethal Gopher or Sizarmage in one blow and a Healer is travelling with them, it would be wise to take out the Healer(s) first. Otherwise, it is best to take out the stronger enemies first to avoid getting hit by them, then take out the Healer(s). Sizarmage can cast Blaze. Fortunately, they can only cast it once. If Ragnar is running low on HP and he encounters *one* Sizarmage (possibly accompanied by different enemies), he can Parry to reduce the effect of Blaze. (This is kind of pointless against two Sizarmages, as the effect of two parried Blaze spells is similar to the effect of one unparried Blaze spell, so Ragnar may as well try to either kill one of the Sizarmages off or run away.) Hopefully, in such situations, Ragnar has a Medical Herb he can use or he is near either Healie or the enemy-free zone. If Ragnar's HP is too low, forego getting Healie for the time being. Instead, get the Flying Shoes (as described later) and head out. The path heading straight east is somewhat long, has no forks, and, as promised, has Healie at the end. Hooray! Talk to him and let him join you. The little ditty that plays is quite long and will get old after a while. Trust me. *Important notes on Healie: He can only cast Heal during battle and, if both Ragnar and Healie are hurting, he will bravely Heal Ragnar, even if this most likely means certain death for him. For these reasons, it is still a good idea for Ragnar to carry at least one Medical Herb. After getting Healie (hopefully), head back to the place where the voice told you, "Not that way..." Head north. At the first fork, keep going straight. Going either west or east takes you to stairs to the third level which has nothing but enemies in it. At the second fork, head west. In case you are curious, to the east is a treasure chest with 600 gold pieces. Although this would help Ragnar upgrade more quickly, he needs to build up as much experience as possible, so he may as well save up gold by fighting enemies. After heading west, there are no forks, and you will eventually see a treasure chest containing the Flying Shoes. The music that plays upon opening this treasure chest signifies that this item is important, if not necessary, for completing the game. In this case, the Flying Shoes are necessary. Ragnar is not yet ready to use the Flying Shoes yet. For one thing, they will not work in the Old Well. Head back to the place that the voice says "If you go that way, you will go back." Continue forward and jump down the weird-shaped hole. After going up the stairs, you will be in a room with some jars. The jar on the bottom left and the jar on the very right are empty. The other two accessible jars contain, in order from left to right, an Agility Seed and yet another Medical Herb. After exiting this room, you will find that you are back on the same level as before you jumped into the well. Be careful not to walk through the dark swamp area, as you lose 1 HP per step. Instead, leave this area and head back to Izmit so that you can stay at the inn and save. Oddly enough, none of the shopkeepers will sell Healie anything. If only he could sue for discrimination against monsters... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loch Tower Using the Flying Shoes anywhere where there is not a ceiling above you takes you to the top of Loch Tower. (Note that you can get back down by jumping off. There is no wall on the south side of the first floor.) This floor is ideal for fighting enemies in order to save up both experience points and gold to fully upgrade Ragnar's equipment. You should already have the Iron Shield and Wooden Hat, but you may have to save up for an Iron Spear and/or Half Plate Armor. Below is the amount of gold that is needed to make these upgrades. Note that this gold amount includes selling Ragnar's old equipment. from Chain Sickle to Iron Spear 468 from Leather Armor to Half Plate Armor 1065 from Chain Mail to Half Plate Armor 938 Enemies on the top two floors are: Healer Lethal Gopher Ducksbill Lilypa Ozwarg Most likely, Ragnar cannot kill an Ozwarg in one hit yet. Keep this in mind when Ozwargs and Healers appear together. On the other hand, he should be able to kill anything else up here in one hit. Ducksbills can cast Sap, which can deplete all of the defense power of one person. Fortunately, they only have enough MP to cast this once. If Ducksbills are in a battle, it is top priority to kill them, as the effect of Sap can be nasty. Lilypas can cast Upper, which increases its or one of its cohorts' defense power by its natural amount. Fortunately, they only have enough MP to cast this once. Feel free to laugh if a Lilypa casts Upper on a Healer or a Lethal Gopher, as Ragnar should still be able to kill it in one hit. The most annoying thing about Lilypas is when they travel in pairs and they cast Upper on one Lilypa. In this scenario, that Lilypa can become hard to hit, and it might be a good idea to run away. Ozwargs can cast Icebolt. Fortunately, they only have enough MP to cast this once. Out of all magic users in Chapter One, Ozwargs are the ones who most often try to cast spells when they do not have enough MP. Healie typically parries during battles with Ozwargs until after Icebolt cannot be cast anymore. Except in extreme situations, Ragnar has no need to parry. After making the suggested upgrades and getting up to at least level 9, Ragnar is ready to go through the tower. With one exception, Ragnar should *not* get treasure chests from here. He has to carry his weapon, armor, shield, and helmet, as well as his Flying Shoes. He should also be carrying a Medical Herb. This takes up six item slots. He will also need to carry the item in the exceptional treasure chest. This means that, at most, Ragnar will only have room to carry one more item. Also, Ragnar should not really need gold. Thus, directions to any treasure chest other than the exceptional one will be in parentheses. Unfortunately, you will not be able to get back into this tower until much later in the game. On the other hand, be assured that you will be able to get back in here and plunder to your heart's content. The Loch Tower is different from all other towers in that you start at the top and are trying to get to the bottom. This is the exact opposite of all other towers. On the top floor, the stairs are near the north side of the tower. On the next floor, head south. (Heading north and following the path leads to a Wing of Wyvern.) You will see a fellow soldier. Feel free to talk to him. It is indeed a good thing that you got Healie instead of this dude! Keep heading east until you are forced to turn north. Go down this set of stairs. There is more variety among the enemies in the next two floors. The new enemies are: Pixie Giant Bantam Pixies can cast Speedup, which increases the agility of every enemy by half of its natural agility. They are relatively harmless and typically take Ragnar two hits to kill at this point. Giant Bantams, on the other hand, are a pain. Among all enemies in the main part of the tower, they have the highest attack power, the highest defense power, and the most HP. To make matters worse, their attack can induce sleep on the victim. This effect is at its worst when Ragnar is hit. At this point, you cannot run away. In fact, you cannot do much of anything until Ragnar wakes up. Fortunately though, Giant Bantams do not cast spells. After going down the aforementioned stairs, go west until you see two pillars. (Going north leads to a set of stairs that take you to a room with a treasure chest containing a Strength Seed. Going through the yellow door leads to a treasure chest containing 640 gold pieces.) Go in between them and follow the path until you see a set of stairs to go down. (You will pass a treasure chest containing a Scale Shield.) You are now on the ground floor, which is the lowest floor on which enemies pop up randomly. Directly south is a set of stairs that takes you to a basement. This basement has a healing tile that replenishes the HP and MP of all members of your party that are alive. Keep this in mind if you have a tough battle from here on out. Now for the exceptional treasure chest. From either staircase, head north to the yellow door. Open it and head west. (Heading east instead leads to a treasure chest containing a Luck Seed.) You will come to a treasure chest that contains a Sword of Malice. Equip this bad boy and watch Ragnar's attack power go up. Now Ragnar should be able to kill any enemy in the main part of the tower in one hit. Moreover, not only is the Sword of Malice a really strong weapon, it also has the effect of Firebal when used as an item in battle. Unfortunately, Ozwargs and Giant Bantams are somewhat resistant to Firebal. On the other hand, it is the only way in Chapter One that Ragnar can hit more than one enemy in a round of battle. Now that you got the Sword of Malice, you are ready for the final battle. Go towards the stairs to the healing tile. From here, head west. Following the path, you will eventually stumble upon a fallen comrade and a set of stairs. The final battle of this chapter takes place in this other basement. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Battle for the Children Fortunately, there are no random encounters with monsters down here. Instead, there are only two monsters. Upon approaching them, a little boy runs up to you begging for help. Well, this is what you came here for after all! The purple monster does nothing but diss on Ragnar's profession. Boo hiss! The final battle does not start until you talk to the orange monster. Of the two monsters, the Giant Eyeball is the weakest. If he is low on hit points, he may changes expression, in which case he can attack twice in a round, and his chance of landing terrible blows goes way up. In this state, he can put a major hurting on Healie. Saro's Shadow can cast Blaze and Firebal as well as emit fireballs. Oddly enough, Ragnar and Healie are in the same "enemy group" according to Saro's Shadow's perspective. Although it takes longer to kill Saro's Shadow, I recommend killing him off first, as Giant Eyeball will not cause much damage and it is much easier to deal with a Giant Eyeball that has changed expression without Saro's Shadow still alive. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Conclusion Once Ragnar emerges victoriously from the final battle, all of the enemies are gone. If Healie died, he will be revived with full HP and MP. Also, all of Ragnar's HP will be restored. The children will happily join you, and you can escort them out of the tower. Even if you did not talk to the fallen comrade, Ragnar will somehow remember his final words. Weird! Anyways, Ragnar definitely becomes concerned about this Hero. Exiting the tower from the ground floor is not sufficient for getting the children back home. You must jump from a higher level. Apparently, none of these four creatures is afraid of heights! You do not need to talk to the other soldier on the second to highest floor, but there is no harm in it either. He will run back to Burland to inform the King of all that Ragnar has done. For some entertainment, you can head to Burland and talk to the people there (most notably the King) while the children are tagging along with you. While you are in Izmit, you should spend all your gold. If you are close to buying an expensive item but are just shy by a few gold pieces, you can go back and get Medical Herbs to sell or other unopened treasure chests as necessary. For example, if you have 840 gold pieces at this point, you can go back and open the treasure chest in the Cave Between Burland and Izmit that contains 40 gold pieces. Then, you can go back to Izmit and buy an Iron Spear. Note that the item shop here is not selling anything at this time, so if you have item slots open and only a little bit of gold left, you can head back to Burland to finish up the shopping spree. Chapter One ends once Ragnar has dropped the children off in Izmit and returned to Burland to talk to the King. He congratulates Ragnar, surprises him with a mission to protect the Hero, and gives Ragnar 3000 experience points. This is much needed, as Ragnar is the last character acquired in Chapter Five and thus will have less opportunities to earn experience points than any of the other characters. Anyways, after receiving these experience points, Ragnar and Healie leave the castle together. ================================================================================ Chapter Two ================================================================================ This chapter is the longest of the first four chapters. It is also the only chapter with the distinction that there are no uncontrolled characters in it. In this chapter, you initially start out controlling Alena, but you gain control of Cristo and Brey early on. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Santeem Princess Alena wants to leave the castle, but her overprotective father will not hear of it. If you go upstairs immediately after talking to the king, you will find that a man is repairing the wall in Alena's room. By the way, in the chest of drawers that is second from the left is a Feather Hat. Alena may as well take it. Of course, Alena wants to get out. Hopefully, it is obvious that you need to get rid of that guy in Alena's room. How to do this? Simple: Talk to everybody in the castle. (At any rate, almost everybody. There are certain people that you can skip talking to and the guy will leave, but it will not hurt to talk to everybody.) Some of the most notable people to talk to are: Brey--As Alena's tutor, he assumes responsibility for her tomboyishness. Cristo--He obviously has a thing for Alena. How sweet... shaman--Ominous clouds are approaching from the east. That cannot be good news. soldiers guarding entrance--Unfortunately, the king has more authority than the princess. After the guy leaves Alena's room, she should search the wall repaired with wood. The architect dude must have a head made of wood too: If Alena can kick through a stone wall, then of course she can kick through a wooden wall. In case you have not done so already, get the Feather Hat out of one of the chest of drawers in Alena's room before making the escape. Alena will not get very far before Cristo and Brey come out of Santeem and accompany her. If you choose to go back to Santeem, you can talk to the King, who will realize that it is useless to try to keep Alena in the castle. With that, Alena et al can begin their adventure. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Surene Just so that you know, there is a big battle that will take place in the next town, which is called Tempe. This is the only opportunity that you will have to upgrade equipment before that battle. Also, you should not head to Tempe until Cristo knows the spell Upper. (This normally happens at level 4.) Also, Surene has the cheapest inn in Chapter Two: 2 gold pieces per person. The enemies in this area are: Kaskos Hopper Red Slime Prank Gopher Elerat Giant Worm Troglodyte The most notable things about these enemies are that Elerats occasionally leave a Leather Hat behind and that Troglodytes yield the most gold and can call for other Troglodytes as reinforcements. Brey's attack power is atrocious and, as he cannot get a better weapon, the only hope that he has to improve this is by gaining strength from levelling up. On the other hand, Icebolt is very effective. With the possible exception of Troglodytes, it will kill any enemy in one hit. Alena and Cristo, on the other hand, can hit enemies in this area quite easily. As their weapons are upgraded, their ability to kill enemies goes up. Now for upgrading equipment. Note that you start this chapter with 100 gold. If you are content with Cristo having a Copper Sword, you can get that right away. Otherwise, your first order of business is to save up for a Thorn Whip for Cristo. (The Thorn Whip costs 200 gold.) In either case, you should not sell Cristo's Club. Instead, give it to Alena once Cristo's weapon is upgraded. The next order of business is saving up for a Thorn Whip for Alena. (She cannot use a Copper Sword.) Note that the Club sells for 22 gold, so you only need to save up 178 gold. Once weapons are upgraded, it is time to start upgrading armor. With weapons upgraded, it is easier to kill enemies in order to earn the gold needed to buy all of this armor. Below are the suggested upgrades in the order that I recommend they be done. Note that the gold amounts include selling old equipment if applicable. Leather Armor for Brey 173 Leather Armor for Cristo 128 Leather Shield for Cristo 90 Leather Shield for Brey 90 Leather Armor for Alena 98 Leather Hat for Cristo 65 Leather Hat for Brey 65 Note that, if Elerats drop a Leather Hat, you will not have to buy these. That is why I suggest buying them last. I would be very surprised if Cristo does not know the spell Upper by the time that you have made all of these upgrades. In any case, make sure that he has this spell before leaving the vicinity of Surene. As for the people in Surene, the most notable is Marone, the poet and singer. There are many parts of Surene that you cannot access yet. Do not worry too much about this. After upgrading equipment, levelling up, and exploring Surene to your heart's content, you can venture to Tempe, which is north and east of Surene. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tempe On the way to Tempe, you may encounter the following enemies: Kaskos Hopper Red Slime (rarely) Prank Gopher Elerat (rarely) Giant Worm Troglodyte (rarely) Minon Rabidhound Tempe has two distinctive features. One is that, when you leave the town, you will appear on the world map one square off of the town, not directly on it as usual. For instance, if you leave Tempe by heading west, you will be one square to the west of Tempe on the world map. This feature is in place so that you cannot head north before the big battle. Another distinctive feature is that you cannot save your progress at the House of Healing. This feature is somewhat of a pain. Upon reaching Tempe, you will find that the people have to offer girls to the monster. In order to progress, you have to defeat this monster. Talk to the man in the house at the southeast corner of town. Inform him that you are strong enough to defeat the monster. He will advise that you go see the shaman. The shaman is currently blocking the path north. As soon as you agree to be offered to the monster, two men will come with the offering litter. After you get in the litter, they will take you to the north side of town, and the battle will begin. The monster, a Chameleon Humanoid (the only one in the game) comes with two Rabidhounds, one on each side of him. During the first few rounds of battle, Cristo should be using Upper on everyone in turn (and using Heal if necessary), and Alena and Brey should be going after the Rabidhounds. (Brey should be using Icebolt of course.) The Rabidhounds should not cause too many problems, but the Chameleon Humanoid's attacks can induce sleep, and he can cast Heal. Once the Rabidhounds are defeated, Brey should use Sap on the Chameleon Humanoid. (Icebolt rarely works on the Chameleon Humanoid.) After that, the battle is easily won. After the battle, the Chameleon Humanoid leaves behind Lifeforce Nuts. Moreover, there are more Lifeforce Nuts on the square where the litter was. Get these at the first opportunity. The town of Tempe becomes much more cheerful after the battle. The old man in the house on the east side of the town will inform you of a fighting tournament in Endor. He will also tell you that the travel door is southwest of Tempe. This is actually incorrect. (You should know this, because you just came from southwest of Tempe!) The travel door to Endor is southeast of Tempe. Also, the shop in Tempe has reopened. You definitely want to get a Boomerang for Brey. You can upgrade Alena's and Cristo's weapons to Boomerangs also, but this is not absolutely necessary. A man on the north side of Tempe will give you directions to Frenor, which is the next town. Before venturing too far north of Tempe, you may want to go back to Surene and save your progress. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frenor The enemies near Frenor are: Troglodyte Healer (only when summoned by Carnivore Plants) Blazeghost Carnivore Plant Demon Toadstool Brahmird Blazeghosts are the most troublesome enemy in this area. If you attack them (not using spells), you may not hit them. If there is a large group of them, you may want everyone to parry. Keep track of which ones have cast Blaze. (They can only cast it once.) Icebolt is a sure way to hit them. Make sure that Brey has plenty of HP and MP in case you run into a lot of Blazeghosts. Demon Toadstools can poison you. If you are not near a town, make sure that you have Antidote Herbs and/or Cristo knows the spell Antidote and has enough MP to cast it. Brahmirds very rarely try a body attack. This can cause a lot of damage. On the other hand, they may be asleep towards the beginning of a battle. They can still attack while asleep by rolling over, but the damage that this causes is not much different than a normal attack when they are awake. You may notice a town east of Frenor across the sea. This is Lakanaba, the starting point of Chapter Three. You will not be able to get to Lakanaba in Chapter Two, so do not worry too much about it. Upon entering Frenor, you may notice a woman dressed in orange walking quickly away from you. If you catch up to her and talk to you, she will tell you that the princess of Santeem is in town and she wants to go see her. Hmm, that is rather odd since Alena is the princess of Santeem. If you follow her to the inn, you will notice that most of the town is agog about the princess' visit. The innkeeper will not even let you stay at the inn! If you actually go into the inn, you will see two men abduct the "princess". There is no use following them as you cannot catch up with them. After the abduction, a few things change. First of all, the innkeeper will finally let you stay at his inn. Also, the kid running around in the southeast part of town tells you about a ransom note that the kidnappers left. Note that you do *not* have to bring the Golden Bracelet the night after hearing about the note: Any night will do. Speaking of the southeast part of town, it might be a good idea to talk about the shops. One of the shops in Frenor, the weapon shop, is not open yet. The other shop, which sells armor and items, is distinctive in that, at this stage of the game, it is also open at night. You should make a couple of upgrades here. Below are the upgrades that I recommend. Note that the gold amounts include selling old equipment. Chain Mail for Alena 215 Wooden Hat for Cristo 72 Cristo will be upgrading to Bronze Armor in Bazaar, so I usually do not bother getting him Chain Mail. If you follow the path that runs north of the inn, you will see a graveyard and a set of stairs. If you go up the stairs, there will be a man there who can give you some information about the Golden Bracelet. Most importantly, it is in the cave just south of Frenor. The last notable aspect of this town is the House of Healing. Fortunately, you can save at this one. Also, note that the shaman is always working in the garden and runs up to greet you when you reach his booth. Remember the square that he is on, because, in Chapter Five, if you come to Frenor at night, there will be Mystic Acorns on that square. (There is nothing there in Chapter Two. Apparently, Mystic Acorns take some time to grow.) Build up some experience around town until Brey learns the spell Return. Once he knows that spell, it is time to make a run for Bazaar. (See "Run To the Next Town" in the Tips section.) Head south from Frenor and bypass the cave for the time being. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bazaar After crossing the forest, you may encounter these enemies: Brahmird Somnabeetle Thevro Sand Master Crested Viper Kordra Orc Armor Scorpion Somnabeetles can cast the spells Sleep and Sleepmore. If Brey has plenty of HP and MP and the Somnabeetles are not travelling with very strong companions, you might want to consider using Bounce. That way, at least Brey will not fall asleep during these battles, and the Somnabeetles might fall asleep themselves. Thevros can emit fireballs that hit everyone for about 7 HP. For this reason, Brey should *never* cast Bounce while a Thevro is alive during battle, as you will want Cristo's Heal spell to get through. Sand Masters generally travel in large clusters. They can be annoying for many reasons. First of all, they have relatively high agility so, at this stage of the game, they will often get to attack first. Also, they have relatively high strength. One other thing that they can do is a "strange dance", which will reduce Cristo's or Brey's MP by one or two points. On the other hand, their defense is low, so they are pretty easy to kill. Also, they yield lots of experience and gold. You may be tempted to have Cristo cast Surround, but this is double-edged, as this only encourages the Sand Masters to do their strange dances and drain MP. Crested Vipers can cast Defence. If Brey's agility, HP, and MP are sufficiently high, you may want to consider using Bounce. When Defence is bounced back onto a Crested Viper, it has a high probability of working. In any case, Brey's defense is pretty low and he rarely can afford to lose what defense he has. If a member of the party is affected by Defence, consider parrying. Finally, Crested Vipers can poison people. Kordras are very powerful. They have high strength and defense, and they can land terrible blows. At this stage of the game, you can probably only handle battling one at a time. Brey should *never* cast Bounce while a Kordra is alive during battle, as you will want Cristo's Heal spell to get through. If his HP and MP are high, have Brey use Icebolt. Otherwise, you may want to consider having Brey parry while Alena and Cristo take on the Kordra. Orcs can cast Surround. Despite this, Brey should not use Bounce against Orcs unless some other spell casting enemy is in the battle. The reason for this is that Brey is the only one who can hit enemies consistently even if he is affected by Surround: Brey has the spell Icebolt. If Cristo is affected by Surround, you may want to consider having him return the favor. Cristo should wait until he is affected though, as you will want him to cause as much damage as possible before being affected by Surround. Finally, if Alena and Cristo are influenced by Surround, you may want to consider having them parry. Armor Scorpions are very powerful. They have high strength and defense, and they can land terrible blows. At this stage of the game, you can probably only handle battling one at a time. Fortunately, in this area, they tend to travel alone. Brey's Icebolt is effective against Armor Scorpions. Once you reach the southern coastline, you may notice a shrine to the east. This is the travel door to Endor that the old man in Tempe was talking about. It is useless going to the shrine just now. A soldier there blocks the way and tells you that, by the king's orders, he cannot let you go to Endor. Thus, you should head west instead. Bazaar is the green patch in the middle of the tiny desert. Once you have reached Bazaar, you will want to upgrade equipment. The first upgrade that I recommend is getting a Venomous Dagger for Brey. If either Alena or Cristo is using a weapon other than a Boomerang, Brey should give his Boomerang to that person (preferably Cristo), and the person who receives the Boomerang can sell his or her old weapon. Following is the amount of gold needed to do this, which includes selling old equipment: selling a Copper Sword and buying a Venomous Dagger 675 selling a Thorn Whip and buying a Venomous Dagger 600 Once Brey has a Venomous Dagger, he has the possibility of paralyzing enemies when he attacks. Thus, you may want to consider having Brey attack normally instead of using Icebolt. Two definite scenarios in which you will still prefer to use Icebolt are when Brey is battling Blazeghosts and when an Orc has cast Surround on Brey. On the other hand, if there is one enemy left in a battle (other than a Blazeghost) and it is paralyzed, *no one* should have to use any MP. Just regular attack until it is dead. Below are other upgrades that I recommend (in order by person and equipment type). Note that the gold amounts include selling old equipment. Alena from Thorn Whip to Chain Sickle 400 Alena from Boomerang to Chain Sickle 288 Cristo from Boomerang to Morning Star 988 Cristo from Leather Armor to Bronze Armor 565 Cristo from Chain Mail to Bronze Armor 438 Cristo from Leather Shield to Scale Shield 113 Brey from Leather Shield to Scale Shield 113 Making all of these upgrades will cost at least 2540 gold pieces (and at most 2854). Regardless of what strategy you use to save up this gold, it is much better to buy equipment as soon as you are able to make the upgrade instead of making all of the upgrades at once. This makes battles easier and gets you used to how each new piece of equipment influences a person's performance during a battle. There are two strategies for saving up gold to buy all of this cool equipment. The quickest, albeit riskiest, strategy is to battle enemies near Bazaar. Be sure that Brey's MP does not drop below 8. That way, if a battle gets tough, Brey can get everyone to safety by casting Return. If Cristo's or Brey's MP is running low, have Brey use Return to Santeem, stay at the inn in Surene (*much* cheaper than staying at Bazaar), save at the House of Healing, and Return to Bazaar. The safer, slower strategy is to battle enemies near Frenor, using Return to get to Bazaar and upgrade when you have enough gold. By the time that all of the suggested upgrades are made, Brey will hopefully have learned the spell Snowstorm. Once he learns it, at this stage of the game, this is the "I'm pissed at this enemy group and I want it to die" spell. Of course, knowing this spell totally changes battle strategy. You can finally handle battling multiple Kordras. Obviously, if Brey learns Snowstorm before all of the upgrades are made, you most likely should battle enemies near Bazaar. Now to actually describe Bazaar. Bazaar is distinctive in that, when you cast Return (or use a Wing of Wyvern) to get to Bazaar, you will be one square east instead of one square south. (Obviously, the oasis makes the one square south thing impossible.) In the town, there are two jars that you can search. One has a Strength Seed and the other has the Gum Pod. Since Bazaar only exists in Chapter Two, you may as well get these items now. You can either have one of your characters use the Strength Seed or you can save it for Chapter Five. The Gum Pod is useful for a laugh later in the game. Sell it only if you are in dire need of the one gold piece you will get for it. Discard it if you have too many items, as the Gum Pod is indeed the most useless item in the game. On the west side of town there is a soldier from Santeem. You must talk to him at some point to activate a trigger. He demands that you go back to Santeem to see the king. If you do so, you will find out that the king has lost his voice. That serves him right for forbidding Alena to go to Endor! Anyways, this is obviously a problem that you need to fix. In order to make any further progress, you need to go to the Cave South of Frenor. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cave South of Frenor After making the suggested upgrades in Bazaar, this cave will be ridiculously easy. This is even more blatant if Brey has Snowstorm. Be careful not to go overboard with Brey's magic, though. In case of emergency, make sure he has at least 16 MP so that you can use Outside and Return. These are the enemies that lurk on the first level of the cave: Troglodyte Blazeghost Demon Toadstool Brahmird Somnabeetle Thevro Vampire Bat Crested Viper The only new enemy here is the Vampire Bat. At this point of the game, they are nothing special. They sometimes are confused and will attack themselves and their comrades, which makes the battle that much easier. Blazeghosts may appear in very large groups, but Snowstorm is guaranteed to wipe them all out. Directions to any treasure chest that does not contain the Golden Bracelet will be in parentheses. At the first two forks, head west. (Going south at the first fork leads to a treasure chest containing a Wing of Wyvern, and going north at the second fork leads to a treasure chest containing 360 gold.) You will come to a platform surrounded by pillars. There is a little path just north of the platform that you should take. (The treasure chest on top of the platform contains an Agility Seed.) Follow the path to the stairs. These are the enemies that lurk on the second level of the cave: Somnabeetle Thevro Vampire Bat Crested Viper Ozwarg Orc Ozwargs are new to Chapter Two. They are impervious to ice spells. If Brey is running low on HP, have him parry instead of using Bounce unless spell casting enemies besides Ozwargs are present. At the first fork, going west leads to a dead end. Head east instead. At the next room, head south. (Going west leads to a treasure chest containing a Magic Potion.) There will be lots of rocks that you need to maneuver around. After negotiating this path, you will come to a treasure chest containing the Golden Bracelet. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Meeting the Kidnappers Walk around near Frenor until nightfall, then head for Frenor's graveyard. The kidnappers will demand the Golden Bracelet. These guys do not understand the meaning of the word "No". In order to make progress, you must say "Yes". Once they have the Golden Bracelet, they will leave. The "princess" informs you that her name is May and that she is just an actress. After she explains her little ruse, her companions will come. Before she leaves with them, she will give you the Thief's Key. Remember all of those yellow doors you could not open? Well now you can open them! After May and her companions leave, the weapon shop will reopen, but you no longer need it, as you should have upgraded weapons in Bazaar. Also, the armor and item shop is now closed at night. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The King's Voice If you had no guide through this game, you could still figure out what you need to do next by talking to various people. Thus, the following is not absolutely necessary to do, but I will still discuss it for the sake of completeness. If you have talked to the soldier in Bazaar, then the king has lost his voice. The counsel (the person meandering around in the throne room) suggests that you talk to Goz, who lives in the back shed, about a remedy. To get to Goz, you need to jump out of Alena's room, and you need to have the Thief's Key. Goz suggests that you talk to Marone. (If you talk to Goz when the king has a voice, he will tell you that the king moans at night.) In case you do not recall, Marone is the poet/singer who lives in Surene. If you talk to him, he informs you that he lost his voice but was cured by Birdsong Nectar that he purchased at an item shop in Bazaar. If you talk to the keeper of Bazaar's item shop at night, he will tell you that he no longer sells Birdsong Nectar, but that it can be found in a tower far west of Bazaar. With that, it is time to head off to Birdsong Tower. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Birdsong Tower Birdsong Tower is west of Bazaar. Feel free to be liberal with MP on the way here, as the Birdsong Tower has an inn built in! When you enter the tower, you will notice a dude running around like mad. He will tell you that there is no way in unless you have a Thief's Key. Fortunately, you do have one. You may encounter these enemies on the first two floors: Crested Viper Orc Grislysaber Flythrope Poison Lizard Spectet Razor Wind Grislysabers can be annoying. They are somewhat resistant to Snowstorm. If they are on guard, another Grislysaber will be summoned which can attack that round. Thus, an innocent looking battle with one Grislysaber can quickly turn into an ugly affair with five Grislysabers. Finally, Grislysabers can land terrible blows. Flythropes can cast Stopspell. By themselves, they are not dangerous, but when combined with other enemies, losing the ability to cast Heal and Snowstorm can make the battle much more difficult. Poison Lizards can emit poison gas and thus can poison everyone in one round of battle. Other than that, they are not too bad. Spectets can cast Bounce, so beware of using spells like Surround and Snowstorm on them. Spectets can also cast Ironize. This only makes the battle last longer. If they use Ironize, kill off everything else and wait for the effect to wear off. Also, Spectets can give a hideous, shrieking roar, causing members of the party to tremble in fear. Razor Winds can cast Infernos. They have enough MP to cast this twice. They are extremely susceptible to Snowstorm. Directions to treasure chests will be given in parentheses. If you want to stay at the inn, head straight north and go downstairs. There are no enemies in the basement, and the inn is down here. If you have a rough battle and you are not too far from this inn, consider coming back. In a typical battle in this tower, you typically earn at least the amount of gold it costs to stay at the inn, so gold should not be a concern. To go upstairs, from the entrance, follow the path that leads northwest. You will come to a big yellow door. This is the door that requires the Thief's Key. Open the door and head to the stairs, which are on the east side of the room. There are a lot of dead ends on the second floor. Get out of the big room through the eastern opening. (If instead, you go to the west wall, head south, and follow the path, you will come to a set of stairs leading to a treasure room. The treasure chest on the left contains a Strength Seed, and the one on the right contains 1200 gold.) Immediately after going through the eastern opening, head south. Once you hit the wall, head west a little bit, then south, and follow the path to the set of stairs. Make sure everyone has at least 33 HP before going up these stairs. You may encounter these enemies on the next two floors: Flythrope Poison Lizard Razor Wind Pteranodon Butterfly Dragon Pteranodons can cast Firebal. They have enough MP to cast this twice. They are susceptible to Snowstorm, but it may not kill them outright. Butterfly Dragons are the biggest pain in this entire tower. They can emit fireballs and they can cast Heal. Snowstorm usually hits them, but even if it does, it does not necessarily kill them. Because of the presence of Pteranodons and Butterfly Dragons, no member of your party should have less than 33 HP at any time while on the third and fourth floors. If you are near the beginning of the third floor and Cristo's MP is running low, consider jumping off and making way for an inn (either in the basement of the tower or back in a town). If Cristo knows Stopspell and has enough MP, it might come in handy, especially to use on Razor Winds and Pteranodons. It is most certainly not useful on Butterfly Dragons: You would rather have them casting Heal than emitting fireballs. Once you have gone upstairs, head slightly north, then west until you hit the wall. (Heading straight north then taking the western fork leads to a treasure chest containing a Wing of Wyvern.) Once you hit the wall, head north and negotiate carefully around the big hole. At the end of the path is a set of stairs. There is not much further to go! Once you are on the fourth floor, feel free to let loose with MP. This floor is short and, once you make it to the top, you will not need to use Outside to leave. Head south, then west, then north to the final set of stairs. On the fifth floor, there are no enemies. Instead, there are elves walking around. Once you get close to them, they will leave hurriedly. One of them will drop the "medicine" (Birdsong Nectar). Search on the southwest corner of the sand for it. Since there is no ceiling above you, Return (or a Wing of Wyvern) will work. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Permission to Venture to Endor If you have not done so already, talk to the soldier in Bazaar. Once you are back in Santeem, use the Birdsong Nectar on the king. He will regain his voice. He will tell you about his nightmare: An evil creature was destroying everything in sight. He will finally give Alena to venture wherever she pleases. If you talk to him again, he will tell you that he had other nightmares besides the one he told you about, but he cannot remember them. With that, you want to head to the shrine that is at the southeast corner of the island. The quickest way there is to Return to Bazaar and head east. Once you go into the blue ball, a psychedelic effect takes place, and the party is whisked to the shrine on the other side of the channel of water. There is an inn here in case you need it. If you come here during the day, there is a knuckleheaded merchant who tells you that he cannot find the travel door. If you come here at night, Ragnar is here. He tells you about his journey to find the hero, but thinks that you will not understand. That seems rather pompous. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Endor From the shrine, head southeast along the light green path to get to Endor. You may encounter the following enemies on your way: Healer Armor Scorpion Razor Wind Rogue Knight Skeleton Metal Slime Healers in this area invariably travel with Rogue Knights. Armor Scorpions travel in large groups in this area, but Snowstorm is very effective. It may not kill them off, but it usually kills at least half of the enemy group. Rogue Knights have high strength and defense, and they can land terrible blows. They can also recruit Healers. Snowstorm will usually hit Rogue Knights, but it most certainly will not kill them outright. If Healers are travelling with Rogue Knights, kill off the Healers first. If Brey cannot kill a Healer in one hit yet, he can Snowstorm the Healers (only effective if there is more than two), Snowstorm the Rogue Knights (only effective if there is more than one), or attack the Rogue Knight and hope that that paralyzes it. Skeletons can cast Defence. They have enough MP to cast this twice, and they almost always cast it on the first and third rounds of battle. (If the battle lasts longer than this, they may try to cast it again.) Worst of all, they are somewhat immune to Snowstorm. Nevertheless, Brey should not use Bounce against them, as his defense power is not very high and the Skeletons can hurt Brey a lot even if Defence does not get through. You may want to consider having Cristo use Stopspell. Skeletons may leave an Iron Claw behind. If they do, this will save you the trouble of buying one for Alena. Metal Slimes are immune to all spells and can cast Blaze. They yield 1350 experience points, a hefty amount at this stage of the game. If you land a terrific blow on one of these, consider yourself lucky. If Brey manages to paralyze a Metal Slime, it cannot run away, and you are guaranteed to kill it eventually. If you kill a Metal Slime and it leaves behind a treasure chest, consider yourself very fortunate: The treasure chest should contain a Golden Barrette. This comes in handy for Alena as it provides more defense than the Feather Hat. Moreover, a Golden Barrette cannot be purchased in Chapter Two, so this is the only way to get one now. In case you are curious, the two bridges near Endor are broken. They remain broken through all of Chapter Two. Upon reaching Endor, there is an armor shop near the entrance. Cristo can upgrade his armor here. If you have 675 gold, you can sell Cristo's Bronze Armor and buy him Half Plate Armor. You can also get him an Iron Shield (the upgrade costs 515 gold), but this is not absolutely necessary. To the west of the armor shop is an inn, an eatery, and the casino. You will be going to the casino later, so remember where it is. To the east of the armor shop is a building that you cannot get into yet. This is very unfortunate, as you could improve everyone's armor if you had access to the shop in there. Just to the north of all of these buildings is a road that runs west and east. To the west is a weapon shop (you do not need to buy anything here), a House of Healing, and a closed down shop. To the east is an item shop and a house owned by a rich family. Further north is the castle. You may notice the sign in front of the castle that tells about the tournament. Alena can upgrade her weapon in Endor, but the shop that sells the Iron Claw is in the Coliseum. You cannot access the shop until Alena has permission to fight in the tournament. You need to go into the castle and talk to the king. Before entering the castle, you may have noticed two small doors. You will need to go through one of these to access the Coliseum. Not only is the tournament in session, but the king and princess of Endor desperately want Alena to win the tournament. The king foolheartedly stated that, if the winner of the tournament is a male, he will earn the princess' hand in marriage. It seems that a man named Necrosaro may win the tournament, and the princess is not happy about this. Just so that you know, it is essential that, for Chapter Three, the princess not be married. Alena better win that tournament! There are some Lifeforce Nuts hidden in Endor. I usually save these for Chapter Five, but in case you want them now, go in the left door leading into the castle. About halfway down the path, head west. Walk south along the border to a set of stairs. The treasure chest contains Lifeforce Nuts. The Coliseum is on the very north edge of town. Talk to the soldier on the left. If you have the king's permission, he will step aside. In this room, there is a shop at the northwest corner. This is where you can buy an Iron Claw. Upgrading from a Chain Sickle costs 1088 gold. Note that you can also buy Medical Herbs here; you can also get them at the item shop in the main part of town. Now that you have upgraded your equipment as much as it can be, it is time to clean up. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Clean Up and Cash In Since this is the chapter in which casino coins only cost 10 gold, now is the time to get the gold to buy these. Get all of the treasure chests in the Cave South of Frenor and the Birdsong Tower with the possible exception of those containing seeds. (Now that your equipment is upgraded, the tower should be easier.) Also, there are some goodies in Santeem. In the room just north of where Cristo and the shaman were at the beginning of the chapter, in the chest of drawers to the left of the star, there is some Fairy Water. In Goz's room, in the chest of drawers on the left, there is a Wing of Wyvern. Sell all superfluous items (not including Medical Herbs). If you do not already have four Medical Herbs, be sure to do so. After that, go to the casino in Endor and buy as many coins as you can. It may not be a bad idea to get a Metal Babble Shield now. Saving up coins via gambling takes a lot of patience, but it is doable. If it helps, you can sell Brey's Scale Shield, as Brey will end up with this Metal Babble Shield. Do not bother getting a Metal Babble Shield for Cristo yet. The reason why will be given in Chapter Five. Make sure to leave some casino coins left over so that gambling can be resumed in later chapters. (Even better, get all 200000 casino coins now, but only purchase one Metal Babble Shield. This way, you get all of your gambling over with right away.) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Tournament Before entering the tournament, make sure that Alena is carrying her equipment (Iron Claw, Chain Mail, and Feather Hat or, if you were extremely fortunate, Golden Barrette) as well as four Medical Herbs and the Metal Babble Shield. Although Alena cannot equip shields, this shield has the effect of Fendspell, which is quite useful in one of the battles. Also, get informed about how much experience she needs to get to the next level. If she does not need much more experience, you may as well get her levelled up before the tournament. To enter the tournament, go to the room where you bought the Iron Claw and go up the stairs. Immediately after going up the stairs, the tournament will start. The first enemy is Hun. He has no special features, and he is easy to defeat. Between battles, you will have an opportunity to use Medical Herbs if you would like. Also, the next three enemies leave Medical Herbs behind, so you may as well have a spot open for it. The second enemy is Roric. He has a Boomerang. He also is on guard sometimes, which is really dumb on his part, as this gives you a free shot at him. The third enemy is Vivian. In case the wand is not a sufficient enough clue, this is the battle in which you want to use the Metal Babble Shield. Vivian can cast Icebolt, Firebal, and Healmore. After using the Metal Babble Shield, Icebolt and Firebal are ineffective, but Vivian will cast them anyways and waste MP. Her regular attack is pathetic and, like Roric, she occasionally is on guard. If your HP is not too low, you may not want to use any Medical Herbs after fighting Vivian, as you will most likely use one during the next battle. The fourth enemy is Sampson. He is about even with Alena as far as strength and defense are concerned. He may use Medical Herbs during battle. Alena may need to use Medical Herbs during this battle also. The fifth (and final) enemy is Linguar. He can be annoying, as he creates three mirages each round. When you hit a mirage, the real Linguar will stick out his tongue. What a punk! Two or three direct hits (or one terrific blow) on Linguar will do him in, so keep plugging away. One piece of advice: Refrain from attacking the copy in the same position or using simple patterns for choosing which copy to attack, as the artificial intelligence seems to pick up on this and put the real Linguar so that the pattern avoids having him get hit. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Short-Lived Victory After defeating Linguar, you are not given a chance to use Medical Herbs. Instead, the king calls for the final enemy, Necrosaro. A soldier goes to look for him and reports that Necrosaro is nowhere to be found. Not surprisingly, the king leaps at the opportunity to declare Alena the winner of the tournament. After the tournament, you are immediately whisked away to the throne room. The king suggests that Alena go home and talk to her father. Beware that Return will now not work in Endor! In order to get back to Santeem, you have to physically walk out of Endor. Upon leaving the castle, a soldier runs up to Alena and orders her to go home immediately, then he vanishes! Something weird is going on here. There are no enemies. If you really want to, you can walk back to Santeem. For those who are not interested in the scenic route, use Return once you are outside of Endor. Alena was all anxious to tell her father about the tournament but, when she gets back to Santeem, she discovers that no one is there! Cristo and Brey have little things to say on the upper floors. You need to go on the second floor and exit the castle before the chapter ends. ================================================================================ Chapter Three ================================================================================ This chapter is very distinctive in many ways. The amount of fighting that takes place during this chapter is very minimal, but this chapter can be very tedious. Oddly enough though, this is my favorite chapter. The top priority in this chapter is saving up gold. In this chapter, the character that you control is Taloon. He is a merchant and thus can appraise items. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lakanaba: First Day This chapter starts out with Taloon being awakened by his wife Neta. She tells him that he is late for work and gives him Lunch. After this episode, head downstairs. In one of the jars downstairs, there is a Medical Herb. I usually do not bother getting it at this point, as it is important to leave as many item slots open as possible. Your next stop should be the item shop, which is just north of Taloon's house. You definitely should sell your Lunch, as you do not need it unless you are leaving town (which you will not be doing for a while), and you need all the gold that you can get. You can also sell the Basic Clothes. There is no point in keeping them as you need much better armor to leave town. Also, I find it amusing that Taloon can streak all across Lakanaba and no one seems to notice or care. I guess the townspeople are used to Taloon's antics. Your next stop should be Tom's house, which is just north of the item shop. Tom will tell you about his missing son and ask you to push him to the House of Healing. The shortest path to the House of Healing is across the bridge to the west of the item shop, then north from the flower bed. For those of you who have had the pleasure of playing Adventures of Lolo, think of Tom as a heavy emerald chest. Unlike Adventures of Lolo, if you push Tom into a corner, if you push on him towards a boundary, he will come out of the corner. Sometimes, people (most often Taloon's son and the nurse) get in the way along the narrow parts. With time and patience, you will get Tom to the House of Healing and earn anywhere from 2 to 12 gold pieces. The buildings on the west side of town from north to south are the armor shop, the inn, and the weapon shop. Conveniently, the weapon shop is straight west from Taloon's house. Taloon's boss is waiting outside of the store. He grabs Taloon and positions him behind the booth. He mentions that Taloon earns money on a commission basis. In case you want to know, the commission rate is approximately 6%. On this first day of work, stay behind the booth and say "Yes" to everything. Once Taloon has sold at least 1670 gold pieces worth of weapons, his boss will come upstairs and pay him at least 100 gold pieces. After that, Taloon will be just outside of the store and it will be night. By the way, the only time that you can talk to the armor shopkeeper outside of work is at night. He lives above his store. To finish off the day, Taloon needs to go back home and talk to Neta. Taloon will go to bed and the next day will start. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lakanaba: The Routine After the first day, most days in Lakanaba are very similar. The day will start with Neta giving Taloon a Lunch. The routine consists of: selling the Lunch pushing Tom to the House of Healing going to work, staying behind the booth, and saying "Yes" until nightfall going home and talking to Neta -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lakanaba: Getting Equipment You may have noticed that people sell Taloon weapons at the shop. Fortunately, Taloon's commission does not go down when he buys weapons from customers. If the weapon that Taloon buys is a Club, a Copper Sword, or a Thorn Whip, then it is really of no consequence, although it is good business policy not to piss off the customers, so you may as well buy these. On the other hand, if the weapon that Taloon buys is a Boomerang, a Chain Sickle, or a Sword of Malice, this gets added to the list of weapons to sell, and Taloon will make the commission off of this item if it is sold. True to a real shop of this type, these new weapons disappear if a customer buys the last one in stock. (Untrue to a real shop of this type though, the new weapon will still be there if Taloon buys it, and Clubs, Copper Swords, and Thorn Whips never go out of stock.) Taloon's first objective is to save up 550 gold pieces. Once Taloon has this much gold, as soon as a customer sells him a Chain Sickle, immediately go downstairs and talk to the boss. He will pay Taloon for the day (the amount will be less than 100 gold pieces) and customers will stop coming into the shop. It will not be night, but Taloon should still go home and talk to Neta. On the next day, sell the Lunch and push Tom as usual, but when Taloon goes to the weapon shop, talk to his boss across the booth. The Chain Sickle will be in the list of weapons to buy. Buy it. After that, Taloon can work at the shop just like a usual day. Of course, you can do the above to get a Boomerang by only saving up 350 gold pieces. If you are not patient enough to earn the extra 200 gold, this is fine, as the Boomerang is only weaker by 2 points. You can also do the above to get a Sword of Malice, but even I am not patient enough to save up 3500 gold pieces for this. Anyways, you want a Sword of Malice left over in the shop when Taloon leaves town. Taloon's second objective is to save up 180 gold pieces. This will only take two days at most. This is to ensure that Taloon can at least get the Leather Armor before leaving Lakanaba. Taloon's third objective is to work at the weapon shop until someone sells him a Sword of Malice. This may take a while. As soon as someone sells Taloon a Sword of Malice, stop working by talking to his boss. You will never have to work again after this. Yay! The monotony is over! After Taloon leaves work on this day, talk to Neta. On the next day, bypass selling the Lunch for the time being; however, push Tom to the House of Healing as usual. Now go to the armor shop and try to determine what equipment you need to get. If you are just shy of buying something, it will help to sell the Lunch, but do not sell it unless you absolutely need to. For instance, if Taloon has 693 gold, he can sell the Lunch for 7 gold and buy the Bronze Armor. You want to keep the Lunch if you can because it works like a Medical Herb. The best scenario is Taloon having at least 855 gold at this point. Then he can afford to get the best armor, shield, and helmet that he can have before leaving town. These are the Bronze Armor, the Leather Shield, and the Leather Hat. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Journey to Bonmalmo Be sure to equip everything and save your quest before leaving Lakanaba. The enemies near Lakanaba are: Slime Stag Beetle Prank Gopher Giant Worm Babble (rarely) One thing that you may notice right away is that enemies tend to leave treasure chests behind much more often. And a good thing too! Since this chapter is all about gold, it definitely helps for Taloon to get lots of free items. Also, the contents of these treasure chests does not follow the usual pattern. (For example, in any other chapter, if a Stag Beetle leaves behind a treasure chest, it will contain a Medical Herb.) If an enemy drops an Iron Spear, a Scale Shield, or a Wooden Hat, this is a definite upgrade. If you are sufficiently close to Lakanaba when an enemy drops an Iron Spear, head back to Lakanaba and sell off the Chain Sickle (or the Boomerang if you chose to get that instead). As for shields and helmets, do not bother doing this. You can get more gold for armor by selling it in Bonmalmo. You may have heard about the Iron Safe in the Cave North of Lakanaba. Do *not* get the Iron Safe. It is pointless. It takes up an item slot, and Taloon cannot afford this. It is true that the Iron Safe prevents Taloon from losing gold when he is defeated, but there are only two points of this chapter when it is crucial that Taloon should not die. If all else fails, take advantage of the save state so that Taloon never dies. Leave the item slot open for other items for Taloon to carry. Since you need not get the Iron Safe, you need not go in the Cave North of Lakanaba at all. So where should you go? Obviously you need to head east of Lakanaba, as every other route is blocked by the sea. From there, head south along the light green path. Once the light green path narrows, you will notice a town just to the east. This is Foxville. You need not go there right now. If you are sufficiently curious and choose to enter Foxville, be sure not to buy anything from the shops. The enemies in between Foxville and Bonmalmo are: Slime (rarely) Stag Beetle Prank Gopher Giant Worm Babble Healer Demon Stump Even here, if Taloon has at least a Boomerang, he will usually be able to kill any enemy with one blow. (Demon Stumps are a major exception.) After the light green area widens out again, you may notice a broken bridge to the south. During Chapter Two, you were on the other side of this bridge. If you head east instead, you will arrive at the castle town of Bonmalmo. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bonmalmo Immediately upon entering town, there is an item shop to the east. You will frequently be shopping here. If you still have the Lunch, go to the item shop and sell it. If you do not have a Wing of Wyvern (an enemy might have dropped one on the way here), buy one at this item shop now. In the southeast corner of town is an armor shop. They are out of stock right now. This is actually a good thing, as you will realize shortly. In this area, there is a man walking around who will tell you that he thinks one of the men in prison is from Lakanaba. To the north of the armor shop is the weapon shop. You do not need to get anything here right now. On the other hand, note the path that leads above the weapon shop. The weapon shop is distinctive in that it is open at night. To the west of the item shop is the inn. This is an expensive inn, and you should not need to stay here. A man in the inn will tell you about foxes who live nearby who like to trick people. If you head east within the first wall of the castle, you will come to the House of Healing. The main part of the castle is within the second wall. Straight north is the throne room. If you talk to the king, he will tell you that he wants da Gardi to fix the bridge to Endor. On the southwest corner of the castle is a man who will buy armor (this includes shields and helmets) for a hefty price. You will most likely be coming here often to exploit this. Occasionally, he will offer more gold for armor than what you can buy it for. You can barter with him by saying "No" if the price he is offering is not high enough. Below is a list of armor that either you can buy in Lakanaba or that enemies might have dropped, along with a price that the man will buy the armor for: Basic Clothes 12 Wayfarer's Clothes 80 Silk Robe 125 Leather Armor 220 Chain Mail 400 Bronze Armor 800 Half Plate Armor 1400 Leather Shield 105 Scale Shield 220 Leather Hat 75 Wooden Hat 140 To optimize gold, never accept anything less than the amounts given above. At this point, sell off all of your armor. (Taloon just loves to streak!) This includes improvements (Scale Shield and Wooden Hat). The reason for this is you want as much gold as possible right now and, anywhere north of the bridge, Taloon is virtually invincible if he is wearing Bronze Armor. The room just north of the man desperate for armor is the prince's room. Be sure to talk to the prince. He will ask you to meet him behind the weapon shop at night. Do not worry about this right now, but be sure to remember it. The lady in the room above is very pompous and disses on Taloon's profession. Not to worry. She will get what is coming to her. There is a hallway just east of the prince's room. If you follow the path, you will come to some stairs behind the throne room. This leads to the prison. In the prison, avoid the guards. You need to talk to the man in the cell to the east. He tells you that he is Tom's son. He asks you to get him a Wing of Wyvern. If you took my advice earlier, you should already have one. If you give it to him, he will be able to use it and make a jail break. Taloon cannot afford to go streaking outside of town. Buy a Wing of Wyvern at the item shop and use it to get back to Lakanaba. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Taking Tov to Foxville Note that Taloon cannot stay at the inn in Lakanaba. Even if he could, you would not want to. Go talk to Neta instead. This works like staying at an inn, except that it is free! Even better, it comes with a free Lunch! If you talk to Tom, he will let you know how excited he is to have his son home. You can still push him to the House of Healing to earn some gold. Go north of Tom's house to talk to Tom's son. He will lend you his dog, whose name is Tov. You need to take Tov to Foxville. Be sure to buy armor and save before leaving Lakanaba. Recall that Foxville is the town that you saw on the way to Bonmalmo. Go there. Heading east or west in Foxville is an infinite loop. You need to head north along one of the paths. Once the trees clear out, Tov will take off running. You can either follow him or catch up to him later. The shop is a ripoff. If you buy a Medical Herb, you will actually get a Gum Pod. The Broad Sword for 10 gold is too good to be true. You actually get a Cypress Stick. On the other hand, you can sell items here and not get ripped off. The purple dude is da Gardi. He tells you that he wants to stay in this town forever. Tov took off on the sand path leading north. The only way out of this town is to talk to the man next to Tov. The town will disappear, and the man will resume his true form, which is a fox. He begs for forgiveness and, to show his appreciation, he will give Taloon the Full Plate Armor. After he leaves, da Gardi will appear and realize that he has a job to do. With that, he takes off. Foxville is the first town to which you cannot use Return (or a Wing of Wyvern) to get back to. This poses no problem, as there is not much here anymore. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Best Equipment in Lakanaba From Foxville, head to Bonmalmo. Some of the people here will say different things, either because da Gardi has been back to Bonmalmo or because Tom's son made a jail break. Sell off all of your armor to the desperate old man. You should be able to get at least 2800 gold for the Full Plate Armor. At the item shop, sell the Lunch if you still have it, buy a Wing of Wyvern if you need it, and use it to get back to Lakanaba. Go home, return Tov to his owner, and talk to Neta. On arriving back in Lakanaba, you should have at least 3500 gold pieces. This means that you can buy a Sword of Malice outright. Selling your old weapon should give you enough gold to get the Leather Armor. Most likely, you should have enough to get the Bronze Armor, a Leather Shield, and a Leather Hat. If not, keep buying armor in Lakanaba, walking to Bonmalmo, selling off armor, and using a Wing of Wyvern to get back to Lakanaba until you have enough gold to get all of this equipment. Having a Sword of Malice at this stage of the game is excellent. If there is more than one enemy in an enemy group, be sure to use the Sword of Malice in order to kill them all off before they run away! Also, once Taloon has the best armor he can get, he is virtually invincible from enemies north of the bridge. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Love and War Once Taloon is equipped with the Sword of Malice, the Bronze Armor, the Leather Shield, and the Leather Hat, head back to Bonmalmo. Even though da Gardi has been back to Bonmalmo, the bridge is still not fixed. The trigger to get the bridge fixed is to talk to the king of Bonmalmo. He will tell you that the bridge is fixed and that he is ready to invade Endor. After talking to the king, walk around near Bonmalmo. Night should fall pretty soon. (The shortest path from Lakanaba to Bonmalmo is almost a full day's journey.) Once night falls, go back into Bonmalmo. The first thing that you should notice is that the purple conceited woman is running around like crazy. She is looking for the prince. As if you would tell her where he is! The prince is north of the weapon shop. You need to talk to him. He will give you a letter to give to the princess of Endor. With that, you can cross the bridge and head south to Endor. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Endor Once you cross the bridge and head a little south, you may encounter the following enemies: Healer Lethal Gopher Carnivore Plant Demon Stump Lilypa Ducksbill Blazeghost You will most likely have encountered all of these enemies in previous chapters. Using the Sword of Malice (for the effect of Firebal) is effective against all of these enemies. Oddly enough, this includes Blazeghosts. I guess this is due to the adage "Fight fire with fire". In fact, using the Sword of Malice on Blazeghosts is ideal, as this prevents new Blazeghosts from spawning. Using the Sword of Malice also comes in handy for killing Lilypas with a high defense power due to multiple Uppers. If you left Bonmalmo at night, it most likely will still be night when you reach Endor. In any case, once you have entered Endor, head back to Bonmalmo. Wait for daytime, sell off your armor, and use a Wing of Wyvern to get back to Endor. You may notice that the bridge just to the east of Endor is also fixed. Apparently, da Gardi was overambitious and fixed both bridges. At the armor shop near the entrance of Endor, Taloon can get an Iron Apron for 1500 gold and an Iron Shield for 650 gold. At the item shop in Endor, Taloon can get a Wooden Hat for 120 gold. This is the best armor that Taloon can get in this chapter. Since Taloon has access to new armor, you should know how much you can get out of the old man in Bonmalmo for these items: Iron Apron 1800 Iron Shield 750 Keep going back and forth between Endor and Bonmalmo (walk to Bonmalmo and use a Wing of Wyvern to get back to Endor) selling armor until Taloon can purchase his best equipment. If night falls, you may want to stay at an inn to change it to daytime. Note that the inn in Endor is cheaper. A lot of things have changed in Endor since the end of Chapter Two. First of all, the casino is closed. If you go there, you will notice Ragnar walking around. He tells you that he came to Endor because he thought that the hero would be fighting in the tournament. Upstairs in the inn, there are two people. The merchant will mention the Silver Statuette. The purple dude is Laurent. You are not quite ready to have him join your party yet. To the east of the item shop, the man in the house will tell you that he desperately wants the Silver Statuette. You may want to keep the weapon shop in mind. Taloon can equip the Venomous Dagger and the Abacus of Virtue. In fact, the Abacus of Virtue would be the best weapon for Taloon in Chapter Three if it were not for the trick in Lakanaba of getting a Sword of Malice. Getting an Abacus of Virtue for Taloon is somewhat pointless, but there is a slight chance that, at some point, you may be interested in getting him a Venomous Dagger. The building southwest of the weapon shop is the closed down shop. The old man wants to sell the shop and retire, but Taloon has neither permission to own a shop nor 35000 gold to buy the shop. In between the House of Healing and the closed down shop is a guard. His name is Strom. You are not quite ready to have him join your party yet. The sign (in front of the castle) that announced the tournament now declares that Alena won the tournament. The Coliseum is blocked off by guards. Now that the tournament is over, the Coliseum is closed. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Love and Peace You should have the Prince's Letter. In the castle in Endor, go to the throne room and use it while you are standing in front of the princess. She will beckon her father. He will come over and give you a letter to take to the king of Bonmalmo. If you talk to him immediately afterwards, the king of Endor will tell you that he wants to prevent the war and, if Taloon delivers the message, the king will grant him permission to own a shop. Obviously, Taloon needs to head to Bonmalmo and use the Royal Scroll while standing in front of the king. He is struck by the news and promises to dispatch a messenger to call off the preparation for war. If you talk to him afterwards, he will comment on his son being the next king of Endor and laugh maniacally. Of course, while Taloon is here in Bonmalmo, he may as well sell off his armor to the desperate old man. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brief Excursion For the sake of completeness, I will discuss events that take place at the travel door to Santeem. There is a nurse there who tells you about the Zenithian Sword. If you cross to the other side, the guard will come and bar your way, informing you that no outsiders are allowed to cross over. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Silver Statuette Now that a letter is no longer taking up one of Taloon's slots, he is about ready to nab the Silver Statuette. It is hidden away in the aptly named Cave of the Silver Statuette. It is possible for Taloon to get the Silver Statuette all by himself, but the journey is much easier with companions. Save up 1000 gold pieces and have Strom and Laurent join your party. Oddly enough, if for some reason, you still have Tov with you, Strom and Laurent will not join your party. The most unfortunate thing about Chapter Three in my opinion is that Strom and Laurent are unwilling to hold any items. Actually, it is possible to complete Chapter Three without getting the Silver Statuette, but it takes a lot of patience. Getting the Silver Statuette is beneficial though, since it gives Taloon a chance to earn lots of experience points. Before heading off to the cave, be sure that you have a Lunch or a Medical Herb. Also, you may want to get some Fairy Water and use it right when you leave Endor. Having less battles (hopefully none) on the way to the cave will enable Laurent to save his MP for the cave. You will not need a Wing of Wyvern. An Antidote Herb may come in handy, but Taloon will acquire a lot of items in the cave and may not have room for it. To reach the Cave of the Silver Statuette, you need to cross the bridge east of Endor and head north. The first cave that you will see is the Cave Between Endor and Branca. You need not go in there right now. Instead, keep heading north. The Cave of the Silver Statuette is the one surrounded by swamp. If you only walk through one square of swamp, the last person in the party will not take damage. The enemies in the first two levels are: Elefrover Sand Master Ducksbill Vampire Bat Giant Bantam Metal Slime The only new enemy is the Elefrover. They have no real special features. They will have a tough time hitting Taloon because of his high quality armor. Recall that Giant Bantams are somewhat resistant to Firebal. Taking on Metal Slimes can be risky in that Laurent can waste a lot of MP when battling them. You may want to consider running away. On the other hand, if Laurent's MP is already low (or you think you can afford to have him waste MP) and everyone's HP is high enough to withstand a few Blazes, go ahead and try battling Metal Slimes. Recall that Laurent is equipped with a Venomous Dagger and thus can paralyze enemies. If you are desperate for experience, you can get Taloon a Venomous Dagger and come in this cave to hunt for Metal Slimes. You might notice that Taloon's level will go up like mad in this cave (even without defeating Metal Slimes). During one of my quests, Taloon entered this cave at level 3 and came out at level 10. In this cave, there are only two treasure chests that Taloon should open. First of all, Taloon can only carry so many items. Secondly, even if Taloon could make it out of this cave with all of the loot in here, most everything in here is much more useful in Chapter Five. I will not even bother revealing the contents of the treasure chests that I do not think should be opened at this time. From the entrance, follow the path. Do not bother taking the stairs. Instead, get on the boat and follow the path to the hole. Go down the hole. This actually takes you to the third level. The enemies in the bottom two levels are: Elefrover Sand Master Ducksbill Vampire Bat Flythrope Poison Lizard Metal Slime Hopefully, if you encounter Flythropes, they will cast Stopspell successfully on Laurent. He will not try to cast spells in this case. Kill Poison Lizards as soon as possible. If someone gets poisoned and you do not have any Herbs or Lunches, the only way to recover HP is for Laurent to use Heal during battle. Note that a person who is poisoned does not lose HP while in a boat. After going down the hole, follow the path. (Note that this requires getting off of the ship.) You will notice a treasure chest slightly to the left at the first fork. This contains a Wing of Wyvern. This treasure chest is inaccessible in Chapter Five, so you may as well get it now. From here, head east as far as you can, then head south. Go up the stairs. On the second level, follow the path. You will notice many treasure chests, but you cannot get to them because of the water. You will also notice a set of stairs that you cannot get to. These stairs lead to the first floor. (You passed them just before getting into the ship.) At the end of the path, head east along the north wall. You should see a button. Stand on it. The game will ask you if you want to push the button. Say "Yes". The ground will rumble. Head back to the stairs that you came up (at the southeast corner). Bypass all treasure chests on this level. On the third level, get in the ship and head straight north to the wall. Head west and go through the second opening on the north side. Get off the ship and head down the stairs. The fourth floor is straightforward. Before opening the treasure chest, check your items. Most likely, they will be full. If your items are full and you have a Lunch or a Medical Herb, use it on someone who has lost HP. (Actually, you may as well use any Lunches and Medical Herbs that you have, as you are more than halfway done with this cave, and this will make room to pick up items that enemies leave behind.) This treasure chest contains the beloved Silver Statuette. Go back up the stairs. On the third floor, head to the southeast corner. On the second floor, head slightly north, then straight west. On the first floor, follow the path. If you still have the Wing of Wyvern, you can go ahead and use it. Otherwise, you have to make the long walk to Endor. This time, everyone will receive 1 point of damage for crossing the swamp. Deliver the Silver Statuette to the rich man in Endor. He will offer you 25000 gold pieces for it. Take it! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Owning a Shop Taloon should have quite a bit of gold now. On top of the 25000 gold pieces, he has whatever gold he accumulated, plus he may have picked up some interesting items to sell. On the other hand, Taloon needs to have 35000 to buy the shop. The quickest way to earn the remaining part is to exploit the armor shortage in Bonmalmo. Be careful, as this is obviously one of the points at which you do not want Taloon to die. Most likely, in the process of saving up the remaining money, five days will pass, and Strom and Laurent will leave. This is no big deal. You do not really need them after the Cave of the Silver Statuette. If Taloon has not talked to the king of Endor after delivering the letter, then technically, he does not have permission to own a shop. Be sure to talk to the king of Endor at the first opportunity. After obtaining permission to own a shop and saving up 35000 gold pieces, Taloon should talk to the old man who owns the closed down shop. Upon buying the shop, Taloon can call for his family, and they will instantly move into the new house in Endor. Now that Taloon owns a shop, the old man who is desperate for armor in Bonmalmo is obsolete. Neta can usually sell armor at the shop for much more than the old man would pay for it. In order to receive the proceeds from the store, Taloon has to talk to Neta inside the shop, stay the night, then talk to her from across the booth. She will not be offended if you sell the Lunch that she gives you. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 60000 Gold Pieces You might be wondering when the chapter ends. There is one more task that Taloon has to complete. Remember the wide cave on the way to the Cave of the Silver Statuette? Go in there and talk to the old man. He wants to build a cave to Branca, and he needs 60000 gold pieces to do it. Taloon is the lucky guy who has to save up 60000 gold pieces. Actually, this is not nearly as hard as saving up the 35000 gold pieces for the shop. First of all, Taloon owns a shop and can sell anything there for a nice mark up. Actually, the price that Neta quotes to sell items for is a minimum: She may sell the item for more than she says. Second of all, the king of Endor offers Taloon 60000 gold pieces in exchange for delivering seven Broad Swords and seven sets of Half Plate Armor. This means that Taloon only has to save up at most 22400 gold pieces. To make matters even better, enemies to the east of the bridge tend to drop sets of Half Plate Armor and Broad Swords somewhat often. In case you need to buy this equipment, Half Plate Armor is for sale at the armor shop in Endor, and Broad Swords are for sale at the weapon shop in Bonmalmo. Luckily, the weapon shop in Bonmalmo is open at night, as it is a long trek from Endor to Bonmalmo. You need to deliver the Broad Swords and Half Plate Armor to the people in the main part of the castle on the first floor in the northeast corner. Once the order is filled, Taloon will receive 60000 gold pieces. Of course, this is another part of the chapter in which you absolutely do not want Taloon to die. Do not deliver the 60000 gold pieces right away. Instead, there is something useful that Taloon can do to make gold matters easier in Chapter Five. First, go to the store and have Neta sell *all* of Taloon's items. Next, buy a Wing of Wyvern and use it to go to Lakanaba. Swords of Malice should still be for sale at the weapon shop. Buy seven of them. Then go to the item shop to get a Wing of Wyvern. Use it to get back to Endor. Taloon should have one item slot left. Buy items at the weapon and armor shops and deliver them to Neta. Be sure to spend the night in order to receive the proceeds. Keep buying stuff in Endor and having Neta sell it until you have saved up 61500 gold pieces. Finally, buy an Iron Apron and deliver the gold. (Taloon's level should be high enough at this point that the Iron Apron is all that he needs to have equipped to avoid being hit too hard by enemies in the area.) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Conclusion After delivering the gold pieces to the old man in the cave, go out, immediately go back in and talk to the old man again. He will tell you that he will send Neta a message once the cave is complete. Go back home and talk to Neta. She suggests going to the casino (which has reopened) to relax. Take her advice. If you did not save up all of the coins that you will need during Chapter Two, you can do so now. Also, you can purchase coins now at the hefty cost of 200 gold pieces each. In any case, once you talk to Neta after visiting the casino, she will have received a message. Chapter Three is very distinct in that there are still enemies around at the end of the chapter. The chapter ends once Taloon passes through the cave and comes out the other side. ================================================================================ Chapter Four ================================================================================ The music in this chapter is very distinctive. The battle music is different. One odd fact about this chapter is that it is the only one in which Ragnar does not make an appearance. More importantly, this chapter is somewhat backwards from the others. In previous chapters (notably one and three), you controlled a strong character with no magic power and sought out uncontrolled characters with magic power. In this chapter, you control characters that are somewhat weak but have magic power, and you are seeking out an uncontrolled character who is strong but has no magic power. In this chapter, you control Nara and Mara, two sisters who are seeking revenge for their father's murder. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Monbaraba This chapter starts out with Mara giving a dancing performance. The opening music is also the battle music for this chapter. After receiving applause, Mara goes backstage to talk to her sister Nara. She asks Mara if she saw Balzack. Once Mara realizes what Nara is talking about, she says she did not see him. The stage manager pays Mara 100 gold pieces for her performance. After that, Nara and Mara stay in a bedroom adjacent to the entrance to the stage. In the room just south of the bedroom, one of the jars contains a Medical Herb. I usually do not bother getting it now though. From this room, if you head west, you will be right above the stage. If you go back to the room behind the stage and search the second chest of drawers from the left, you will find a Strength Seed. Again, I usually do not bother getting it now. Further south of the bedroom is a shop that is never open. The shopkeeper is gone during the day and is sleeping at night. The House of Healing and the inn are south of the stage entrance. A girl named Lynn is hiding to the east of the inn. You can only talk to her at night. On the west side of town is the eatery and Pufpuf rooms, both of which are only open at night. To the north of the eatery are the shops. While speaking of the shops, I may as well discuss upgrades that should be made right now. Mara currently has a Dancer's Costume. Although this is very expensive, it does not offer very good protection. Sell it for 300 gold. Mara needs some sort of armor though, so get her the Leather Dress for 250 gold. This should leave you with 150 gold pieces. I suggest saving up for a Boomerang for Mara, as she does not have a weapon and her regular attack is virtually worthless right now. Now that Mara has a Leather Dress and you have explored Monbaraba during the daytime, it is time to go outside of town. The enemies near Monbaraba are: Kaskos Hopper Red Slime Monjar Troglodyte Monjars are the only new enemy here. They tend to run away fairly often. Since they yield 8 gold and Nara sometimes cannot kill them with one hit, you may want Mara to cast Blaze on these. As mentioned before, Mara's regular attack really blows. She can hit Red Slimes for 1 HP more than half the time, but that is about it. Her Blaze spell, on the other hand, works wonders. You should highly consider using Blaze on Troglodytes, as these enemies are the only type that Nara cannot kill in one hit at this point (except for a terrific blow). After talking to everyone in Monbaraba during the day and at night, you will have learned some interesting things. First of all, Nara and Mara are originally from a town called Kievs, which is north of Monbaraba. Secondly, the castle of Keeleon is summoning girls, and they never come back from the castle. Once Mara finally has a weapon, you should consider getting Nara a Leather Dress. The upgrade from a Silk Robe is 168 gold. All other upgrades can wait until Nara and Mara reach Kievs. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kievs To get to Kievs, head straight north from Monbaraba. Once you see the sign, you are almost to Kievs. The enemies near Kievs are: Kaskos Hopper Red Slime Monjar Troglodyte Angel Head Rabidhound Angel Heads are the only new enemy here. Their attack can poison a member of your party. If one is travelling alone, Nara and Mara can usually kill it with regular attacks. Otherwise, Mara's Blaze works well against these. In this area, Rabidhounds seem to always travel with three Kaskos Hoppers. Kill the Rabidhound off first (two rounds of regular attack), then go after the Kaskos Hoppers. The good news about Kievs is that the innkeeper allows Nara and Mara to stay at the inn for free. Thus, feel free to be very liberal with MP when battling enemies near Kievs. On the other hand, there is no House of Healing in Kievs. You will need to go back to Monbaraba to visit a House of Healing. You will definitely want to get Feather Hats for both Nara and Mara. You might also want to consider getting Nara a Chain Sickle. Upgrading to this from the Copper Sword costs 475 gold. This upgrade is not absolutely necessary though. The townspeople are glad to see Nara and Mara again. The townspeople will give you some information about Edgar, who was Nara's and Mara's father, and his pupils Balzack and Orin. Towards the northeast corner of Kievs is Edgar's house. There are some Lifeforce Nuts in one of the jars in the house, but I usually save them for later. Downstairs is an empty treasure chest. If you go down here at night, you can talk to a Slime, who will tell you that Orin used to break locks and that he is most likely hiding in the Cave West of Kievs. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Preparing for the Run to Haville After buying Feather Hats for both Nara and Mara, I like to prepare them to make it to Haville. Before making the run, Mara needs to know the spell Return (at which point she will know Firebal), and it is nice if Nara knows the spell Infernos. I do not go in the Cave West of Kievs at this point, nor do I stray too far from Kievs, but I do go across the bridge just north of Kievs and stay relatively close to the bridge. There are some enemies on the other side of the bridge that yield more gold and experience. The enemies on the other side of the bridge are: Kaskos Hopper Red Slime Monjar Troglodyte Angel Head Rabidhound Minon Sizarmage Demon Toadstool Just so that you know, Rabidhounds are immune to Firebal. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Haville Before making the run to Haville, make sure that you have pretty close to 675 gold. From Kievs, head slightly east, then go north. You will come across a castle. This is Keeleon. It does not hurt to go in here right now. Actually, it is somewhat helpful, as Mara will be able to use Return to get here in the future. On the other hand, there is not much that you can do here in Keeleon, as the doors are locked. Moreover, you should know from Chapter Two that not even a Thief's Key would open these doors. From Keeleon, head straight north. Haville is not too far from Keeleon. The enemies on the northeast part of this continent are: Slime Lava Doll Infurnus Beetle Xemime Magemonja Liclick King Slime King Slimes do not appear at the outset of a battle. They have to be formed. If you come across a set of Slimes and Nara and Mara cannot kill one of them with one hit, then these are the type that will form a King Slime. If your HP and MP are too low, run. Otherwise, take on the King Slime, as it yields a lot of gold and experience for this stage of the game. Mara's Sap is very effective, but she will have to be quick about using it, as King Slime knows Fendspell. Beware that King Slimes can try a body attack that will cause a lot of damage. If whoever it tries a body attack on does not have near her maximum HP, this will most likely kill her. Once Mara gets a Venomous Dagger or a Poison Needle, King Slimes become easier to handle. On the other hand, if Mara has a Venomous Dagger, make sure that she parries against Slimes, as King Slimes will not form if one of the Slimes is paralyzed. Lava Dolls can cast Upper. If an enemy's defense power gets too high from multiple Uppers, keep in mind that Sap can undo all of this. Also, Upper does not increase an enemy's defense against spells such as Blaze, Firebal, and Infernos. Infurnus Beetles can emit fireballs, but are pretty harmless otherwise. The most gold that you can earn in one battle at this point in the game is by battling six Xemimes. Fortunately, Xemimes are not dangerous enemies. They can do a strange dance and make Nara or Mara lose MP. They also know the spell Heal. To wipe them out quickly, either Nara can use Infernos or Mara can use Firebal. There is no sense in using both, as one of these will kill most of the Xemimes in one round, and whoever did not cast a spell should be able to kill off one of the survivors if there are any. Magemonjas are very dangerous enemies at this point. They can cast Icebolt, they have a pretty strong regular attack, and they have a lot of HP. If there is more than one Magemonja in a group, Mara should almost certainly use Firebal and, if Nara knows Infernos and has plenty of MP, she should cast it. Liclicks are also very dangerous enemies at this point. They can cast Surround, they have a strong regular attack, and they have even more HP than Magemonjas. Firebal and Infernos work well on Liclicks. Keep in mind that they are very susceptible to Sleep as well. After making it to Haville, you should upgrade equipment right away. The weapon shop is in the southwest corner of town. You can get either a Venomous Dagger or a Poison Needle for Mara, and you can get either a Venomous Dagger or a Morning Star for Nara. I usually opt for the Venomous Dagger for Mara and the Morning Star for Nara. If you also want the Venomous Dagger for Mara, then this is the first upgrade that you will want to make. If Nara is still using a Copper Sword, you will want to give Mara's Boomerang to her and sell the Copper Sword. Otherwise, you can sell the Boomerang. Following is the amount of gold needed to do this, which includes selling old equipment: selling a Copper Sword and buying a Venomous Dagger 675 selling a Boomerang and buying a Venomous Dagger 488 Below are other upgrades that I recommend (in order by person and equipment type). Note that the gold amounts include selling old equipment if applicable. Nara from Boomerang to Morning Star 988 Nara from Chain Sickle to Morning Star 838 Nara from no shield to Scale Shield 180 Mara from Leather Dress to Fur Coat 413 Nara from Leather Dress to Half Plate Armor 1013 Note that the armor shop is in the northeast corner of town. One exception to the above order is getting the Scale Shield. Since this upgrade is so easy to make, I may do it before upgrading Nara's weapon. Below are some other weapon upgrades that are not bad ideas: selling Nara's Copper Sword and buying Mara a Poison Needle 1225 Mara from Boomerang to Poison Needle 1038 Nara from Boomerang to Venomous Dagger 488 Nara from Chain Sickle to Venomous Dagger 338 Making all of the upgrades that I prefer (not the four possible weapon upgrades just above) will cost at least 2932 gold pieces (and at most 3269). Regardless of what strategy you use to save up this gold, it is much better to buy equipment as soon as you are able to make the upgrade instead of making all of the upgrades at once. This makes battles easier and gets you used to how each new piece of equipment influences a person's performance during a battle. Just like in Chapter Two, there are two strategies for saving up gold to buy all of this cool equipment. The quickest, albeit riskiest, strategy is to battle enemies near Haville. Be sure that Mara's MP does not drop below 8. That way, if a battle gets tough, Mara can get everyone to safety by casting Return. If Nara's or Mara's MP is running low, have Mara use Return to Kievs, stay at the inn there, Return to Haville, and save at the House of Healing. The safer, slower strategy is to battle enemies near Kievs, using Return to get to Haville and upgrade when you have enough gold. Now to actually describe Haville. There is a prison just to the south of the armor shop. One of the prisoners will tell you that he got thrown in jail just for making a loud noise near the council. In the northwest corner of town is the House of Healing and a port. Ships depart from Haville to Endor. There is an inn close to the center of town. Nearby is an eatery that only opens at night. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cave West of Kievs After upgrading equipment at Haville, the Cave West of Kievs will be very easy. There are some enemies on the way to the cave as well as inside the cave itself who can poison you, but with your armor upgraded, it is highly improbable that they will be able to hit you, let alone poison you. Thus, do not bother with Antidote Herbs. As the name suggests, you will have to head west from Kievs to get to the cave. You will have to cross two bridges. These are the enemies that you may encounter on the first two levels of the cave: Troglodyte Lava Doll Sizarmage Demon Toadstool Xemime Directions to any treasure chest that does not contain the Sphere of Silence or the Lamp of Darkness will be in parentheses, as you should leave these for later. From the entrance, follow the path. At the first fork, heading north is a dead end. A man will occasionally walk out from there. He says that he came here from Monbaraba. This is the shopkeeper who is never there during the day. He is looking for the Sphere of Silence too, but he cannot figure out how to get downstairs. At the next fork, head east. (Going north leads to a treasure chest containing a Wing of Wyvern.) Follow the path until you come to a dead end. Step on the yellow square. This is an elevator! No wonder the shopkeeper could not figure out how to go downstairs: You use elevators for the most part. On the second floor, follow the path. You should come to a lake. The Sphere of Silence is quite far from here and having Orin in your party makes this trek easier. To get to Orin, head west from the lake and go down the elevator. This elevator goes directly to the fourth floor. These are the enemies that you may encounter on the bottom two levels of the cave: Troglodyte Lava Doll Sizarmage Blazeghost Demon Toadstool Xemime Magemonja There is nothing new here. The "Fight fire with fire" adage still works here: Firebal will hit Blazeghosts. They are also vulnerable to Infernos. Once you are on the fourth floor, head straight east until you hit the wall, then head straight south until you come to the water's edge, and follow the path west. You will cross a treasure chest. It contains the Lamp of Darkness. You can get it if you want. The man waiting near the treasure chest is Orin. He will join your party. Go to Tactics to change the order of you party. Put Orin in front, as he has lots of HP and decent defense. After getting Orin, head back to the lake on the second floor and head south. At the next fork, head east. (Going west leads to a treasure chest containing 240 gold.) At the next fork, head south. (Going east leads to a treasure chest containing Lifeforce Nuts.) You will come to an elevator. The path on the third floor is straightforward. You will come to another elevator. Here, part of the wall moves as you go up and down the elevator. After going down, head north through the gap, then head west along the water's edge. You will come to a treasure chest that contains the Sphere of Silence. Nara should carry this. Now that you have Orin and the Sphere of Silence, it is time to get out of here. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Keeleon Orin can break the locks on the doors of Keeleon castle. Now you can get in here and talk to people. You will not be able to get to the throne room yet. Talking to various people will give you lots of clues how to get to the throne room. Essentially, you have to scare the counsel (whose room is at the southeast corner of the first floor). You can do this by making a loud noise just outside of his room. For some odd reason, Nara, Mara, and Orin simply cannot make enough noise on their own. You have to go get a noisemaker. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- House of Prophecy The House of Prophecy is the shrine just west of Haville. You need not go in here but, for the sake of completeness, I will describe what happens there. Essentially, the prophetess there tells you that you are destined to fail for the time being, but when the hero emerges, your true quest will begin. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Aktemto The only part of the continent that you have not been to yet is the northwest part. The enemies here are: Slime Brahmird Magemonja Liclick Dark Doriard Zappersaber Viceter Weretiger King Slime Dark Doriards can cast Sleepmore and they can do a strange dance. Zappersabers can paralyze a person. It is helpful if Nara knows the spell Numboff. Viceters are very annoying. They have high strength and defense, and they call for reinforcements all the time. Use Infernos and Firebal on these guys to kill them as quickly as possible. Weretigers have high strength and HP, and they can give a hideous, shrieking roar which may cause members of the party to tremble in fear. Aktemto is the only city on the northwest part of this continent. It used to be a mining community, but poisonous gas started coming out of the mine, and monsters live in there now. Instead of the normal cheerful town music, a dirge plays in the background. There is an inn at the southeast corner of town. You will want as much MP as possible for the mine, so if you are ready to enter the mine (Mara should know the spell Bang), you may as well stay here instead of going to Kievs, staying at the inn there for free, then using Return to get back to Aktemto. Just north of the inn is a House of Healing. The shaman only feels well enough to work during the day. On the southwest corner of town, a sick old man will tell you about gunpowder manufacturing: The current government forbids it. There is some gunpowder in the mine though. You might want to check out the northwest part of town after getting the Gunpowder Jar out of the mine. One of the corpses has a letter. A later part of the game will make more sense if you read the letter. It is a letter from the dead man's children saying that they are looking forward to visiting him. The stairs leading down go to the mine. At night, two balls of fire hover near the stairs and say something to the effect of, "A curse on those who disturb our domain. Crackle, crackle." The enemies in the mine are: Rogue Wisper Liclick Vampdog Viceter Weretiger Baby Salamand Vileplant Mad Clown Garcoil Rooster Metal Scorpion Most of these enemies are very tough. If there are lots of enemies and more than one enemy group, Mara should almost always use Bang. She only needs to have 8 MP at the end of the cave, since after using Outside, you can go back into Aktemto and stay at the inn if necessary. Rogue Wispers very rarely attack. They are often flustered. Sometimes, they may enter battle confused, making matters easier. There is a danger with Rogue Wispers though: If they are not confused or paralyzed and they are left alive too long, they will jerk away, which kills them, but causes about 20 HP of damage to everyone in your party. Vampdogs can cast Sleep and can induce sleep via their attack. Baby Salamands can emit fireballs, and they run away fairly often. If there are more than two of them, consider using Firebal (or Bang) and Infernos. Vileplants can cast Stopspell. If you want to cast spells in a battle in which Vileplants are present, you need to do so in early rounds. Mad Clowns can cast Firebal. They only have enough MP to cast it once though. Garcoil Roosters are very strong. If there are more than two of them, consider using Firebal (or Bang) and Infernos. Metal Scorpions can attack twice in one round and can inflict terrible blows. They can also be on guard, which is not often a good thing, as they can attack then be on guard in one round, making them very tough to kill. Although people speak of a poisonous gas in the mine, your party seems to be immune to it. Pretty weird. Immediately east of the entrance is a small room. The treasure chest contains some Mystic Acorns. I generally save these for Chapter Five. Instead of going in this room, head north. At the first fork, head east, as the other way is a dead end. At the next fork, you can head north to get the Silver Tarot Cards (which Nara can use during battle) or you can head east to reach the ladder for the second floor. If you are sufficiently curious about the Silver Tarot Cards, you should get them now, as Nara will not use them during Chapter Five except in Try Out mode. I usually do not get them now. On the second floor, head north, then east, then north, then east to reach the ladder to the third floor. All other paths on the second floor are dead ends. The third floor is a small room. You can talk to the miners who are working on the north wall. They will tell you that the treasure chest contains the Gunpowder Jar and that, since it is damp, all that it will be good for is making a loud noise. Well, that is all you need it for. Get the Gunpowder Jar and get out. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Preparations If you do not have 1200 gold yet, save up for that amount so that you can get an extra set of Half Plate Armor. This is to give to the hero in Chapter Five. If you have more than 1200 gold, buy the most expensive items you can hold. Keep in mind that you need one item slot free, as you will be getting one more item before the chapter is over. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Vengeance Save your progress somewhere, Return to Kievs, stay at the inn there, then Return to Keeleon. Go to the southeast corner on the first floor and use the Gunpowder Jar just to the left of the counsel's room. He will run off. Follow him, but keep some distance. After heading north, he will turn west. At some point, the north wall will open, the council will pass through, and the wall will seal again. Maybe you should check this part of the wall out! There is a button there. If you push it, the wall will open again. Make sure that Nara is carrying the Sphere of Silence. Talk to the dude on the throne. This is Balzack. During the first round of battle, have Nara use the Sphere of Silence on Balzack, and have Mara cast Sap on Balzack. (This is why you want Nara to carry the Sphere of Silence: so that you can do both of these things in one round.) Both the Sphere of Silence and Sap will always work on Balzack. He may occasionally still try to cast his spells (Firebal and Healall), but they will not work. He can still emit fireballs, but this does not cause nearly as much damage as Firebal. Mara cannot paralyze Balzack, but she still may as well attack normally, as that hurts Balzack just as much as her spells do. Nara of course needs to play healer. If Mara is low on HP, she can parry until Nara uses Heal on her. Balzack is pretty easy to kill after using the Sphere of Silence and Sap on him. He yields no gold, but he does yield a lot of experience. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Defeat Once Balzack dies, a new creature will appear. His name is Keeleon. He says that Balzack is a failure and revives him. Balzack begs Keeleon not to tell Necrosaro about his defeat. Keeleon decides to take on your party. The game is rigged so that you cannot kill Keeleon. He will defeat you. This is why I suggested that you buy equipment before coming to Keeleon. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Escape After Keeleon kills you, you will be in the prison of Keeleon castle. The old man has dug an escape route and he has a Boarding Pass hidden within the route, but he is too weak to escape. Go through the escape route, getting the Boarding Pass along the way. Once you go upstairs, the guards will announce a jailbreak and come after you. Orin takes on all of the guards and begs for Nara and Mara to leave him. If you leave Keeleon and come back, Orin will be in front of the large doors lying on the ground. He says that he cannot accompany you anymore and suggests that you leave this continent and build up strength. After that, he appears to be a corpse, and the same music that plays in Aktemto begins. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Exile There are no enemies anymore. You need to go to Haville and get on the ship. In order to make the ship leave, you have to talk to everyone, then you have to tell the captain that you are ready to sail. If you read the letter that was with the corpse in Aktemto, Pipin and her sister are the children of the man who had the letter. Once the journey begins, the music changes. This is the music that always plays when you are on a ship on the world map. It is a 6/8 version of the music from the original Dragon Warrior. The game shows the ship sailing to Endor and Nara and Mara getting off the ship to enter Endor. ================================================================================ Chapter Five ================================================================================ If you have gotten this far, you are about halfway done with the game (as far as time expenditure is concerned). On the other hand, a lot of the plotline remains, and the most important character of the game is about to emerge. In order to avoid having to say "he or she", "him or her", and "his or her" all the time when talking about the hero, I will assume that the hero is male. To me, a male hero makes more sense for the storyline, as there is a definite love angle with Celia. Actually, at one point in the game, having a female hero is definitely advantageous, but there is not a clear love angle with Celia. (You can assume such exists if you like though.) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hometown Chapter Five starts in a tiny town north of Branca. This town is referred to as Hometown. At the very outset of the chapter, the hero's mother makes a Lunch for him to deliver to his father, who is on the very north side of town. On the way over, you may as well talk to people here. You cannot leave Hometown at this point. Celia is lying in the flower bed. Be sure to note the square where she is, as you should search here later. For some entertainment, use the Lunch before talking to the hero's father. This adds an extra line in his little speech. The old man on the east side of town will not teach the hero Zap, even if he used his father's Lunch. This is quite unfortunate, as Zap would very much come in handy at this point of the game! Once the hero asks his mother for Lunch, the town will come under attack. The townspeople will take the hero to the cellar. On the way there, your "father" gives you the crushing news that the people that he thought were his parents really are not. After reaching the cellar, the blue soldier will tell the hero that he has the potential to destroy any evil being, but as he is still weak, the hero needs to stay hidden. Once the blue soldier leaves, the battle will begin. The hero is not able to move, but he can tell from the sound effects that the townspeople are getting slaughtered. After a while, Celia will come down to see the hero. In an effort to fool the enemies, she uses Transform and goes out to fight the monsters. After the monsters have slaughtered everyone (including Celia, how sad), the hero will hear them tell Necrosaro that they have destroyed him. In answer to this, Necrosaro will compliment them and command them to go back to their home base. Now that the battle is over, the hero can move again. The northwest jar in the cellar contains a Medical Herb. You might want to get it now. Once the hero comes out of the cellar, he will see how much destruction the monsters have done. Appropriately, the dirge music that played in Aktemto plays now. Be careful not to walk through swampy area, as the hero needs to keep his HP up. Not much remains of the flower bed. The center squares of it have turned to sand. Celia was laying where the southeast corner of the sand is now. If you search on this square, you will find Celia's Feather Hat. The hero cannot equip this, even if you chose a female hero. There is nothing more to do here, so go ahead and leave town. Just so that you know, Return will never take you to Hometown. This is of no consequence, as there is nothing for you here. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Woodsman's Shack From Hometown, head directly south. You will eventually come to what looks like a shrine. This is referred to as the Woodsman's Shack; however, I may refer to it as Grandpa's House. You might encounter some enemies on the way here from Hometown. It might be wise either to use Expel or run, as the hero's armor is horrid at this point of the game, and he is not strong enough to kill many of the enemies in the area in one hit. When you first talk to the man at the shack, he tells you to leave and go to the castle (he is referring to Branca), but as you turn to walk away, he tells you to search the jars and take what is in them. The middle jar contains a Medical Herb. If you got the one in Hometown and have not used it yet, you do not really need to get the one here, as you really only need to carry at most one Medical Herb at this stage of the game. Remember that it is here though. You will be coming back here often. The other two jars contain Leather Armor and 50 gold pieces. Make sure to equip the Leather Armor before leaving. Note that there is a grave northwest of the house. You will find out who is buried here shortly. If you come back here later, you can rest here for free. Thus, very rarely will you need to stay at an inn. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Branca Now that the hero has decent armor, he can handle battling enemies now. The enemies in this large area from the Cave Between Endor and Branca to about five steps east of Branca are: Slime Kaskos Hopper Stag Beetle Red Slime Elerat Giant Worm Monjar Babble Blazeghost Because of the Babbles, you may want the Hero to carry an Antidote Herb. Beware of Blazeghosts! You have no real good way to kill them and/or ensure that they do not multiply. Taking on multiple Blazeghosts at this point in the game is very dangerous! Since the hero is by himself, he cannot parry. Before describing Branca, equipment needs to be discussed. Since the hero cannot equip the Feather Hat, he should sell it. Also, he should sell the Basic Clothes now that he has the much superior Leather Armor. The 210 gold for the Feather Hat, the 7 gold for the Basic Clothes, and the 50 gold from Grandpa's House means that the hero should have at least 267 gold right now. There are two good options open for improving equipment: Option 1: Improve attack power. The hero only needs to save up 8 more gold pieces for a total of 275 gold. Then he can sell the Copper Sword and buy a Boomerang. Option 2: Improve defense power. Right now, the hero can add the most defense points by selling the Leather Hat and buying the Scale Shield and the Wooden Hat. This option leaves the hero with at least 15 gold to spare. There is no good compromise between the above two options. It is not worth it to get a Thorn Whip, as it is only two points better than the Copper Sword, and you will barely notice the difference. I always go with Option 1 because, when the hero gets to Endor, his defense power will go up once he receives equipment from Nara and Mara. When you enter Branca, you may notice a group of four people heading out. The first person will offer to let you join their party, but it is full. The next person tells about how the hero was destroyed, but insists that he and his cohorts can save the world. The next person says, "We have nothing to fear." The last person has ulterior motives: He is only tagging along for the money! Upon entering Branca, the weapon shop and armor shop are immediately to the west, and the inn and item shop are immediately to the east. Heading straight north leads to the castle. A lot of people in Branca seem to have some knowledge of the legend of the hero. Some people think that one of the hero's parents died. You may also hear about Taloon passing through Branca as well as that, in a town called Konenber, ships can be bought. The throne room is in the castle upstairs. The king of Branca will give you his blessing to battle against evil. On the first floor to the castle, to the northeast, there are two girls who claim that they are imitating Mara's dancing. They are doing a horrible job! If you come to Branca at night, there will be an old man who walks to the lake. Once he gets there, if you talk to him, he will tell you about a man who met a beautiful woman in the forest. The man was struck by lightning, but his father, who is a woodsman, still lives in the woods. The old man does not tell you this, but the man and the beautiful woman are your parents, and the woodsman is the man who you met in the shack on the way to Branca, your grandpa. Anyways, there is not much else here. It is time to head to Endor. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Endor The Cave Between Endor and Branca is southwest of Branca. There are no enemies in this cave. Occasionally, upon entering this cave, you may be told that you are the hundredth person to cross through this cave and thus receive 2000 casino coins. Do not count on this to happen though. The enemies on the other side of the cave are: Giant Worm Diverat Monjar Babble Blazeghost The vicinity of Endor holds the distinction that it is the only area in which the enemies get weaker from chapter to chapter. When you reach Endor, it will most likely be night. You can get Nara and Mara at night, but you will want it to be daytime so that the shops will be open. Go ahead and stay at the inn here. It is much cheaper to stay at the inn before getting Nara and Mara. (They join you with full HP and MP.) Next, you will want to get Nara. She is near the House of Healing talking to Strom. She offers to tell the hero's fortune for 10 gold pieces. Do not worry if you do not have the 10 gold pieces to offer, as she will tell his fortune anyways so long as you say "Yes". She realizes that this character is the hero and joins him. She then tells him that Mara is most likely in the casino. (If you talk to Mara before getting Nara, she will say that she is trying to earn back the money she lost from gambling.) When you take Nara to Mara, she scolds her for gambling away all of the money she earns. Mara then inquires who is this person with Nara. She tells her that it is the hero, and Mara joins the party. At this point, I suggest that you do not get Metal Babble Shields. If you do, enemies tend to realize that Nara's and Mara's defense power is very high and thus hit the hero instead. Hopefully, Nara and Mara have a set of Half Plate Armor from Chapter Four to give to the hero. Selling off the hero's Leather Armor will give him enough money to get a Wooden Hat, which is the best that he can get for a long time. Taloon's store is no longer a store in Chapter Five. As Neta is not receiving stock from Taloon, she decided to use the facility as a vault. Go ahead and store the Gunpowder Jar and the Boarding Pass here, as you will not be needing these items anymore. Also, if you have the Lamp of Darkness, you may want to store that to open up an item slot. Remember that you can store gold here for free. You most likely will not want to do so now, but this option can be useful later. If you talk to Neta from inside the shop, she will tell you that she is concerned for Taloon. The main thing going on in Endor is the marriage of Prince Reed to Princess Mia. The sign outside the castle announces this. The wedding is taking place in the Coliseum. You cannot enter the area where Alena bought the Iron Claw, but you can see the wedding by going up the stairs to the right. The kings of Endor and Bonmalmo are sitting next to each other watching the wedding. (Which one is which beats me: They look exactly alike!) This is ironic since the king of Bonmalmo wanted to wage war against Endor in Chapter Three. Finally, you should sell off any extra items that Nara and Mara have. If you have enough gold, you might be able to get an Iron Shield for the hero. You definitely do not want to get an Iron Shield for Nara. You should not upgrade the hero's weapon. He will find a very good weapon shortly. Before leaving Endor, you may need to rearrange the order of the party. Usually, at this point in the game, the hero has the least HP and strength. In that case, put Nara in front, then Mara, then the hero. If the hero has more HP or strength than Mara, put him in between Nara and Mara. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cleaning Out the Cave of the Silver Statuette The enemies on the way to the Cave of the Silver Statuette are: Giant Worm Diverat Monjar Lethal Gopher Carnivore Plant Blazeghost Sizarmage Ducksbill All but three of the remaining treasure chests in the Cave of the Silver Statuette contain items that you can sell for lots of gold. The other three contain 760 gold, a Medical Herb, and a Broad Sword. Now is the time to go there and plunder all of this! On the way to the cave, you may want the hero to parry during battles with Blazeghosts. Nara and Mara have a much better chance of killing them. If all else fails, set the tactics to Offensive so that Nara and Mara will use Infernos and Firebal, respectively. The enemies are the same in here as they were in Chapter Three. Reminiscent of Chapter Three, the hero's level will go up like mad. Some things are much better in here than they were in Chapter Three. First of all, Nara can use Heal outside of battle. Also, Nara and Mara are not nearly as wasteful with their MP as Laurent was. Finally, if you come across a Metal Slime, you can set the tactics to Use No MP. (Mara will try to use Sap otherwise, even though it never works.) The ship that was on the first floor is no longer there. Take the stairs instead. The treasure chest that you see upon reaching the second floor contains a Morning Star. Just a little further east, you will come to a place where you can go either north or south. At this point, going north leads to a treasure chest containing 670 gold, and going south leads to a treasure chest containing a Medical Herb. You may want Mara to carry this Medical Herb. She will use it during battle if necessary. Just to the east of the treasure chest containing the gold is a passageway heading north. Go up here. At the end, there is a treasure chest containing an Iron Spear. The hero should equip this for the time being. There are no more treasure chests here, so head to the third floor. The stairs are in the southeast corner. On the third floor, there is no point to going in the northeast room, as the man there has removed the contents of the treasure chests. In the room directly south of the stairs leading to the fourth floor is a treasure chest containing a Broad Sword. The hero should equip this. At this point, the hero should be in front. Finally, the room in the northwest corner has a treasure chest containing a set of Half Plate Armor. If the hero does not have Half Plate Armor already, equip this. If you are sufficiently patient, you should not need to use Outside. Now that the hero has a Broad Sword, the enemies down here are relatively harmless, and you may as well stay down here as long as possible to earn as much experience as you can. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Metal Babble Shields The first thing that you should do after leaving the cave is head back to Endor. Make sure to sell all of the equipment from the cave that you do not need as well as the hero's old weapon (either a Copper Sword or a Boomerang). The gold that you receive from selling all of this plus the amount of gold you got from fighting enemies in the cave should be quite a lot at this point of the game, at least 2000. It might be wise to store some of this in the vault. Now that you have been to the cave and the hero is much stronger, it is time to get Metal Babble Shields. Get three of them. Even though the hero cannot equip this shield, it is a good idea for him to carry one, as it has the effect of Fendspell. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Excursions There are a few more things that you could do right now. For the sake of completeness, I will describe these excursions. You can go to the travel door to Santeem. The guard has come over from the other side. He says that Alena told him about Necrosaro. You can also go to Bonmalmo. There are different enemies near here. They include: Lethal Gopher Carnivore Plant Poison Arrop Sizarmage Ducksbill Rabidhound Magemonja The only new enemy here is the Poison Arrop. As their name indicates, they can poison via an attack. A few things are different about Bonmalmo. First of all, the armor shop has opened. There is nothing here that you should need though. Secondly, the king is gone. He is at the wedding in Endor. Also, the old man in the castle is no longer desperate for armor. He explains that they can import armor from Endor. (Oddly enough though, the armor shop sells Fur Coats and Feather Hats, which are not available in Endor!) Finally, the jail guards no longer kick you out if they see you there. You can go to Foxville and Lakanaba. There are different enemies near Foxville and anywhere north of Foxville. They include: Poison Arrop Rabidhound Pixie Ozwarg Magemonja Metal Slime Foxville is still desolate. On the other hand, some things have changed in Lakanaba. Tov is guarding Taloon's old house. Just so that you know, Tov will not move unless Taloon is in town. Tom's son is working at the weapon shop now. Unfortunately, you cannot buy a Sword of Malice here. You cannot use Return to either Foxville or Lakanaba. The last is unfortunate, as you will want to come back to Lakanaba later. You could go into the Cave North of Lakanaba, but I generally do not do this until later in the game. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cave of Betrayal Now that everything else has been eliminated, it is pretty clear where you need to go in order to progress in the game: You must head east from Branca. It is helpful if the hero knows Firebal before heading east of Branca. The enemies that are east of Branca and north of the desert include: Lilypa Pixie Sand Master Thevro Mandrake Giant Bantam Mad Clown Giant Eyeball The only new enemies here are Mandrakes. They can emit gales of sweet breath which can put people to sleep. They can also give hideous, shrieking roars. Finally, they can deliver terrible blows. Remember that Giant Bantams are resistant to Firebal and that Giant Eyeballs can be dangerous once they change expression. The shrine just north of the gap in the mountains is the Desert Inn. There are only three people here. The purple dude is Hector. He refuses to give you his wagon on the grounds that he cannot trust people anymore. The innkeeper is Hector's father. He tells about an incident in which Hector and a friend went to an eastern cave and only Hector came back terribly wounded. The person staying at the inn informs you that you must have a wagon to cross the desert. The treasure chest contains a Lunch. Because you cannot open the door right now, you can only access it by means of the broken wall. On the other hand, I usually leave this alone for now. Similar to Tempe, when you exit the Desert Inn, you will be one square north of it. This prevents you from crossing the desert for the time being. The only option left open to you is to check out this eastern cave. This is the Cave of Betrayal. You should not enter this cave if the hero has less than 19 MP. Note that Outside does not work in here. On the other hand, enemies do not pop up in this cave at random. Upon entering the cave, have Nara cast Heal on the hero until his HP is maxed out. The hero will be facing some battles alone in this cave. The Cave of Betrayal has stone doors which crumbles when three (or four) people push against it. Once you go so far along the path, Nara and Mara will fall through a hole, and a stone door appears in the way. The hero has no choice but to go down the stairs. After the hero goes downstairs, he will see Nara and Mara running away. Since you need them in your party to get out, you have to follow them. They will stop at the end of the corridor. When you talk to them, you will find out that they are actually Liclicks! Unfortunately, they are not in the same enemy group. If you did as I suggested and gave the hero a Metal Babble Shield, matters are easy. Use the Metal Babble Shield right away so that Surround cannot get through. After that, you should only need to hit each Liclick twice. After battling the Liclicks, the hero will fall through a hole to a deeper basement. In this room, it appears as if two devils are chasing after Nara and Mara in circles. If you talk to the devils, they will say that they will eat Nara and Mara, then you next. If you talk to Nara or Mara or try to go up the stairs, they will talk to you and another battle will ensue. The enemies will be two Vampire Bats and two Tricksy Urchins. (This is the only battle in which Tricksy Urchins appear, which is a shame, because they yield quite a bit of experience points.) Just so that you know, none of these enemies can cast spells, so do not bother with the Metal Babble Shield. The Tricksy Urchins are stronger, so kill them off first. I suggest that, during the first round, you regular attack a Tricksy Urchin. If this was not a terrific blow, it will most likely still be alive. In this case, use Firebal during the next round. This will kill off the Tricksy Urchin that you hit last round and injure the other one. Thus, unless you need to cast Healmore, you should be able to kill off the Tricksy Urchins after three rounds of battle. After that, killing off the Vampire Bats is a breeze. This is the last battle that takes place in this cave. Once all of the enemies are defeated, it is time to hunt for Nara and Mara. You must go upstairs from this basement and down the other set of stairs in the next room. Nara and Mara will slowly walk away from you. You have to talk to them. Nara thinks that you are an imposter and is ready to fight you this time. Mara stops her because she thinks you are really the hero. Nara asks you if she (Nara) was the one that you met at the casino. The correct answer is "No". Mara was the one at the casino. After answering that, Nara and Mara will rejoin you. Go up the stairs on the right side of the room. This leads to the same floor on which you fought the Liclicks. You need to go upstairs from here. You should now be on the first floor now. You could leave, but notice that there is more to the cave. There is a stone door flush even with the south wall, and you have not been that way yet. Go there and follow the path. You will eventually come to a room that has a lot of stone doors. There is a treasure chest hidden somewhere within these stone doors. It contains the Symbol of Faith. Since Outside does not work in here, you will need to walk out of here. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Crossing the Desert Now that you have the Symbol of Faith, Hector will now let you have the wagon if you talk to him. He will also join your party. Before you venture into the desert, Return to Endor and leave the Symbol of Faith at the vault, as you do not need it anymore. Then go stay at Grandpa's House, head back to the Desert Inn, and cross the desert. If you talk to the people at the Desert Inn with Hector in your party, they will say different things. Hector's father is glad that Hector is willing to venture out again. The merchant tells you that Konenber is far south of here. The enemies in the desert include: Healer Sand Master Thevro Mandrake Dark Doriard Giant Eyeball Arrop Crested Viper Rogue Knight Barrenth Razor Wind Pteranodon Metal Slime Typically, a modified name indicates a stronger enemy. For example, Red Slimes and Metal Slimes are stronger than Slimes. This is not the case with Poison Arrops and Arrops: Arrops are stronger. They have a similar annoying trait as Grislysabers: If one is on guard, another Arrop will appear and be able to attack that round. Also, their attack can induce sleep. Do not be deceived by the fact that Barrenths look like Linguar. Barrenths are very straightforward. They only have a regular attack, and there are no Barrenth mirages. Beware that Razor Winds are virtually immune to Firebal. On the other hand, Infernos works on them fairly often, and they are very vulnerable to Sleep. Crested Vipers, Rogue Knights, Razor Winds, and Pteranodons are very dangerous when they attack in large groups. Of these, Crested Vipers are by far the easiest to battle because they will have a hard time hitting you until they use Defence. Try to kill them off in one round. Possibly the worst combination is Crested Vipers and Rogue Knights, since Rogue Knights can hit people influenced by Defence really hard. Now that you have a wagon, you can use it to your advantage. For example, if you are fighting a large group of Razor Winds, you can have Mara go into the wagon and set the tactics to Offensive. That way, Mara does not waste MP casting Firebal on them, and Nara will cast Sleep or Infernos. Also, if a person gets hit really hard during battle, you can put him or her in the wagon before more damage is sustained. People in the wagon earn experience for battles also, so it does not hurt to use it in this manner. There are a lot of enemies in the desert, but the distance you need to travel through the desert is relatively short. Head southeast and look for the opening through the southern range of mountains. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Aneaux The town of Aneaux is not far from the desert. And a good thing too! Everyone's MP is probably on the low end after battling enemies in the desert. The enemies on the remainder of this continent that you can access from here on foot are: Healer Sand Master Thevro Flythrope Arrop Rogue Knight Razor Wind Pteranodon Weretiger Garcoil Rooster Metal Slime It should be noted that, in this area, Metal Slimes only appear with Arrops. If you come to Aneaux during the day, there will be a man who is willing to give you a tour of town. He is also an innkeeper. This town has two inns, and his is more expensive. From various people, you will hear about Ruvas' Armor. The nurse tells you about the legend of Ruvas: In a great battle, he fought bravely against many monsters and died simultaneously with the last monster. The armor on display is not all that, though. There is a soldier on the northeast side of town who will tell you of his suspicions that the armor displayed as Ruvas' Armor is a fake. If you come here at night and go to the graveyard, which is on the northwest side of town, Ruvas' ghost will appear and inform you that someone stole his armor. If you search on the square where Ruvas appeared, you will find a Strength Seed. There is a House of Healing upstairs from the armor display. Once you have explored Aneaux to your heart's content, either stay at an inn here (preferably the cheaper one) or Return to Branca to stay at Grandpa's House, then Return to Aneaux. Once that is done, you are ready to head off to Konenber. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Konenber If, from Aneaux, you head slightly west then far south, you will reach Konenber. This is the last town that you can reach without possessing a ship. It has been a long time since you have had an opportunity to upgrade your equipment. Fortunately, you have one now. Nara and Mara can get Golden Barrettes here. Moreover, this is the part of the game that is slightly easier if the hero is female, as she can also equip a Golden Barrette. You should have plenty of gold to make all of these upgrades. The cost to do these is given below: from Feather Hat to Golden Barrette 330 from Wooden Hat to Golden Barrette (for female hero) 450 Upon entering Konenber, the big building to the south houses an eatery, an inn, and a shop that used to have maps of the world. If you go upstairs in the inn at night, you may be able to talk to a fire that will tell you that, if you try to sail away from here, your ship will sink. Immediately to the north of Konenber's entrance is an item shop. On the west side of Konenber is a ship. You should go on this ship and look around. In one of the chest of drawers in the basement is a Small Medal. Just east of here are four shops, only two of which, the weapon shop and the armor shop, are open. North of this row of shops is a wharf. It is only open during the day. You should go in here and search the ship. In one of the chest of drawers in the basement is a Small Medal. If you do not want to carry around these two Small Medals, you can put them in Neta's vault. Finally, just east of the wharf is a House of Healing. It is only open during the day, as the shaman likes to flirt with this one girl at night. You will receive a lot of news in Konenber. First of all, the ship being built in the wharf belongs to Taloon. He wants to sail, but eerie lights are eminating from the Great Lighthouse to the east, making the water rough. Taloon went to the lighthouse to try to kill the monsters there and make the lighthouse normal again. You will also hear that Alena, Cristo, and Brey left on the last ship to leave Konenber. They were heading to a town called Mintos. You will hear one final bit of information at night. There is a man near the four shops. If you talk to him, he will run away and hide in a corner of the House of Healing. If you talk to him again, he will inform you that you can trade Small Medals for items. Before heading off to the Great Lighthouse to help out Taloon, the hero should know the spell Repel and Mara should know the spell Firebane. If you are really ambitious, you can wait until the hero and Nara know Sleepmore, but this is overkill. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Great Lighthouse Before venturing to the Great Lighthouse, you may want to use Repel. You may want to read the section of Tips titled Free Repel. Also, you should set the tactics to Save MP. The enemies on the first two floors of the Great Lighthouse include: Healer Rogue Wisper Thevro Kordra Grislysaber Mad Clown Rogue Knight Metal Slime Rogue Wispers are a joke! Feel free to breathe a sigh of relief when a battle consists of only these. Remember that Kordras, Grislysabers, and Rogue Knights can occasionally land terrible blows. With the exception of the Fire of Serenity, I tend to save the treasure chests in here until later. I will still give directions to them though. On the first floor, there appears to be a large wall in the center. On the other hand, you can go inside of it near the northern tip. Approach it from the west or the east. This room has two treasure chests. The one on the left has a Luck Seed, and the one on the right has 400 gold. Taloon is waiting at the northern part of the first floor. He will tell you that the Fire of Serenity is hidden somewhere in the lighthouse and that, if it is thrown into the evil fire, it will make the lighthouse function normally. He begs you to take on the task for him. He does not understand the word "No". Once you tell him "Yes", he leaves to wait for you in Konenber. There is no need to go to the northwest or northeast corners of the second floor. Heading towards the southeast corner leads to a treasure chest containing a Strength Seed. Heading towards the southwest corner leads to a set of stairs. Following the path on the third floor leads to a treasure chest containing a Magic Potion. To make progress, you need to head south from the stairs leading up from the first floor. The enemies on the third and fourth floors of the Great Lighthouse include: Healer Rogue Wisper Vileplant Rogue Knight Pteranodon Weretiger Skeleton Metal Slime Recall that Vileplants can cast Stopspell. Pteranodons tend to travel in groups of four. Keep your HP up for this type of battle. Skeletons tend to travel in pairs. Almost always, you can kill off one of them in one round of battle. It is possible to kill off both in one round without using magic. Make sure not to fall down the hole. The passage right leads to a devil who tells you of his ambitions to ambush Taloon. He realizes that Taloon is not coming and casts Return. He then bumps his head and becomes unconscious. Following the main path leads you along the south and east edges of the third floor. At the first fork, heading north leads to a treasure chest containing a Full Moon Herb. At the next fork, there is nothing to the north. The stairs to the fourth floor are in between the two statues. If instead, you continue on the path and head south, you will come across two treasure chests. The one on the right contains a Boomerang. The one on the left is a Man Eater Chest. On the fourth floor, head straight south. The treasure chest contains the Fire of Serenity. The two staircases further south of here are dead ends. Go up the staircase near the northeast corner instead. There are no random battles on the fifth floor. Use Heal or Healmore as necessary so that everyone's HP is relatively high. Be sure to set the tactics to Offensive. You should notice the monsters dancing around the fire. If you head close to them, they will notice your presence and threaten to throw your party into the fire as kindling. With that, a big battle begins. The enemies are two Flamers, one on each side of the Lighthouse Bengal. (This is the only Lighthouse Bengal in the game.) Flamers can cast Firebal, emit fireballs, and have a pretty strong regular attack. They are resistant to fire spells, but are extremely susceptible to Infernos and Sleep (and Sleepmore). The Lighthouse Bengal can cast Heal, and it can give a hideous, shrieking roar. Fire spells almost always work against it, and Sleep is pretty effective also. This is battle is the main reason that I suggest that the hero carry a Metal Babble Shield. (He could have borrowed one from Nara or Mara for the Cave of Betrayal.) The only danger is that Nara may try to cast Healmore on the hero, in which case it will not get through. The pros outweigh the cons though, since Firebal will not get through. You will need to keep an eye on Nara's, Mara's, and your own HP. Use Healmore as necessary. Nara will cast Sleep a lot during this battle. If she casts Sleep on a Flamer successfully, be sure to attack the Flamer that is still awake. You want to kill the Flamers off as soon as possible, as the Lighthouse Bengal cannot damage multiple enemies of your party in one round. If all enemies are asleep and Nara has enough MP, she will use Infernos, which almost always works on any enemy here. Mara will cast Bang a lot during this battle. It will almost always hit the Lighthouse Bengal, and quite often, it will hit one of the Flamers. Once there is only one enemy left, she will use Firebane instead. This works wonders on the Lighthouse Bengal, but it is not so effective on Flamers. This is another reason to kill off the Flamers first. After annihilating these creatures, use the Fire of Serenity on the fire. Afterwards, the lighthouse will look less sinister. Since you are on the top floor, you can just use Return to get out of here. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Taloon Taloon will be waiting for you in Konenber in front of the wharf. (You may notice that the ship on the very west side of town is now gone.) You need a ship in order to continue on your journey, so you have to talk to him. He insists on joining your party. Once you tell him that he can tag along, he will take you into the wharf, and everyone will leave on the ship. This includes the horse, Primrose, which is odd because she never came into town. Once you are out of Konenber, Taloon suggests heading south to Konenber, as he has heard about a man living there named Howden who owns a Treasure Map. You have a lot of stuff to do before heading to Mintos though. The first thing that you should do is Return to Endor. You will need a lot of gold, so empty out any gold that you put in Neta's vault. If you bring Taloon out of the wagon and talk to Neta from inside the shop, she will say something different from normal. Hopefully, Taloon had seven Swords of Malice at the end of Chapter Three. He should keep one for himself, and he should give one to the hero. Of the five remaining Swords of Malice, you may want to keep one or two of these. Even though everyone who can equip a Sword of Malice has one, anyone can use this item during battle for the effect of Firebal. It is pointless for Mara and Brey to have these swords, as they have plenty of MP and can cast the spells Firebane and Snowstorm, respectively, both of which are more powerful than Firebal. Nara can use an extra one for now so that she does not have to cast Infernos, thus preserving her MP. Once you get Cristo, he could use one of the extras, as he has no offensive spells. Taloon should get an Iron Shield. The hero can sell off his Broad Sword since Taloon is giving him a Sword of Malice. This yields more than enough gold to purchase an Iron Shield. On the other hand, he need not get a Wooden Hat at this stage, as he will soon be upgrading to an Iron Helmet. Selling the hero's Broad Sword and three of Taloon's Swords of Malice as well as buying an Iron Shield for Taloon should leave you with a net gain of 8725 gold. In saving up gold, you may decide to sail in the water. Note that only four members of your party can be out of the wagon at once. At this point, I typically have the hero, Hector, Taloon, and Nara out of the wagon. The enemies are the same everywhere in the water. They include: Guzzle Ray Runamok Albacore Man O' War Bangler Plesiosaur Sealthrope Guzzle Rays can call for reinforcements. They may do this even if there is no more room for more enemies, in which case no more will come. Runamok Albacores are quite wimpy enemies, but they sometimes land terrible blows for 30 HP. They may leave behind an Iron Helmet. At this point in the game, either Taloon or the hero can use them. Man O' War can paralyze via their regular attack. Banglers can cast Surround. If Hector is affected, he is pretty useless in battle. Plesiosaurs can emit fireballs. They are somewhat resistant to Firebal. Sealthropes have a lot of HP (about 150), and they may inflict terrible blows, but they are relatively harmless otherwise. Moreover, they always travel alone. Since you no longer control Taloon, he is able to do some pretty odd things during battle: Taloon may be dazed during battle. He cannot attack that round. Taloon may say, "Everyone calm down!" Enemies may withdraw from battle when he does this. In that case, you will earn no experience points for the enemies that left, but you will receive their gold. Taloon may do a strange dance. Occasionally, he may do this with enemies that do not have MP, which is not effective. Otherwise, the enemy will lose MP. If the enemies have a treasure chest, Taloon may nab it before the battle is over. Taloon may build up power. If he attacks the next round, he will have double the strength. Taloon may suddenly shout. This can cause enemies to freeze in fear. Taloon may throw sand into enemies' eyes. This works like Surround except that it can work on *every* enemy in a battle, not just one enemy group. Taloon may sing a lullaby. This works like Sleep except that it can work on *every* enemy in a battle, not just one enemy group. Taloon may wave a finger around in a circle. If an enemy is watching, it will become confused. This only works on one enemy at a time. If an enemy attacks a member of your party who is low on HP, Taloon may jump in front and take the blow from him or her. Unfortunately, Taloon does this even if his own HP is running low. The following are Taloon's best antics in my opinion: If an enemy casts a spell, Taloon may put his hand over the enemy's mouth so that the spell will not take effect. Taloon may call for reinforcements. In this case, merchants will attack at most three times during that round at the same strength that Taloon currently has. Moreover, if Taloon has a Sword of Miracles equipped, his wounds will heal from the merchants' attacks. After helping out, the merchants vanish. Taloon may trip. This always results in a terrific blow. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Riverton From Konenber, head straight south. At the first island that you reach, stay on the ship and head to its western tip. From there, head straight south again. You will come to another island that has mostly mountains along its coast. Head west until you see a river. Go south into the river, then take the eastern fork. Although you cannot see it, Riverton is on this fork of the river. On the north side of town on the west bank, there is a weapon shop. I recommend buying a Sword of Lethargy for the hero. You should not sell his Sword of Malice, as having one will save him HP due to not having to cast Firebal. You should not use the Sword of Lethargy as an item during battle, as attacking with it can induce sleep while causing damage. Just south of the weapon shop is a shop in which the shopkeeper is desperate for a gas lighter than air. In the middle of town, there is an island. At the very southern tip, there is a Small Medal. Also, the man on this island tells you something important: The ruler of evil stole the essential component for making hot air balloons, and he suggests that this component was buried along with him. But wait a second, is not Necrosaro the ruler of evil? Is he dead already? Hmm... On the south side of town on the east bank, there is an armor shop. I recommend the following upgrades. Note that the gold amounts include selling old equipment if applicable. Hero from Half Plate Armor to Dragon Mail 4300 Nara from Half Plate Armor to Sacred Robe 3500 Taloon from no helmet to Iron Helmet 1100 Note that, including the Sword of Lethargy, you will be spending 16900 gold here. (That goes up to 23900 gold if you choose to get the Dragon Killer for the hero instead.) If you do not have 16900 gold saved up, you should at any rate be very close since, with the exceptions of buying Golden Barrettes in Konenber (which is not very costly) and getting equipment for Taloon (which should have actually been a gain of gold due to selling off Swords of Malice), you have not had to upgrade equipment since before heading to the Cave of Betrayal. The Dragon Shield is a ripoff. It costs more gold than the Dragon Mail and offers less protection. I usually do not bother getting one. Also note that the hero need not upgrade his helmet, as he will soon obtain the Zenithian Helm. One lady on the east bank talks about a statue that walks. This is Colossus. You are nowhere near ready to go in here yet and, even if you were, you are not capable of going in it yet. As there is nothing more for you to do on this island now, you need to leave Riverton by going north. This is because Riverton works like Tempe and the Desert Inn in that, when you exit, you are one square off of it. Just so that you know, Riverton is unique in that, when you Return there, your party will be diagonally southwest of the city. The reason is obvious: The squares to the north and south of Riverton are water, the squares to the east and west are mountains, and this particular square is the closest square to Riverton that is neither water nor mountain. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mintos It is easiest to give directions from Konenber to Mintos. From Konenber, head straight south. You will reach the island that you went around before. Instead of heading west along the coastline, head east instead. When the coastline turns and heads back west, head off the ship. Mintos is slightly southeast of here. The enemies on this island are: Healer (only when summoned by Conjurer) Thevro (only when summoned by Conjurer) Vampdog Viceter Demonite Mage Toadstool Conjurer (rarely) Bisonhawk Skeleton Infurnus Knight (rarely) Metal Scorpion Conjurers can cast Infernos and summon Healers and Thevros. They are very easy to kill though. Demonites can cast Sacrifice, Defeat, and Explodet, but they start out every battle with no MP and no way to obtain MP. They can, however, emit freezing winds. Mage Toadstools can cast Heal and Icebolt. They are extremely susceptible to fire spells. Bisonhawks can cast Sap. Other than that, they are pretty straightforward. Infurnus Knights can deliver terrible blows. They are extremely susceptible to spells, and will quite often fall asleep when attacked with a Sword of Lethargy. Along the west side of Mintos are the shops. You should not need to get anything here, as the equipment here is not as good as what you got in Riverton. Just west of the shops is what appears to be an outdoors lecture hall. The old man furthest to the east is Howden. When you talk to him, he will ask you if you are inquiring if he is an expert on the seas. If you say "No", he will ask you to take a quiz. You should say "Yes" to this. After passing the quiz (an extremely easy matter), you will receive the Treasure Map. Pretty much the only thing this is useful for is finding Stancia. There is also a well near the shops. Search the ground to the west of the well to find a Small Medal. In a house on the east side of town, two children are doing chores. One of them tells you that he was deathly ill, but his grandpa brought him a Padequia Root, and he was cured completely. Note that the interior of this house looks exactly like Taloon's old house in Lakanaba. This seems to be the most common style of house in the world. Various other people in town will tell you about a chancellor who came down with an illness that a Padequia Root can cure. The chancellor is Cristo. At the northeast corner of town is a House of Healing. At the northern part of town is Howden's Inn. This is the only inn with castle doors. It is also the largest inn in the world. In one of the rooms, Cristo is writhing in pain due to an illness, and Brey tells you about Alena's quest to look for the Padequia Root. He asks if you would be willing to help out. If you say "Yes", he will join your party right away. The game is rigged so that Brey will not be carrying the Thief's Key. In order to get the Thief's Key, you need Alena and Cristo to join your party. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Shrine East of Mintos There is a shrine directly to the east of Mintos. All you really need to come here for right now is a Small Medal. Follow the border around to the north side of the shrine. Search on the ground in between the two travel doors as far south as you can go. The merchant here will inform you that Soretta is to the far south. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Monbaraba It is beneficial at this stage of the game to do things slightly out of order. Instead of heading to Soretta, go to Monbaraba. The continent that Monbaraba is on is to the west of the island where Riverton is. Recall that Monbaraba is the southernmost city on the continent. The enemies on this continent are: Somnabeetle Butterfly Dragon (only when summoned by Dragonpup) Mystic Doll Bisonhawk Dragonpup Infurnus Knight Bisonbear Phantom Knight Phantom Messenger Somnabeetles can be rather annoying when grouped with some of the stronger enemies in this area, but are laughably easy to deal with when they are the only enemy present. Mystic Dolls can do a strange dance and can cast Defence and Chaos. They rarely attack normally, but when they do, it can cause paralysis. On the plus side, Mystic Dolls are very easy to kill, they may enter battle paralyzed, and they yield a lot of gold. In fact, the most gold that you can get in one battle in which enemies do not call for reinforcements is a battle with six Mystic Dolls (1800 gold). Dragonpups may attack twice in one round. They can summon Butterfly Dragons, which will get to attack during the round that it is summoned. (Remember that Butterfly Dragons can emit fireballs and cast Heal.) Bisonbears can take a deep breath, in which case their attack the next round will be doubly as powerful. Phantom Knights can cast Healmore. They are very strong compared to your party at this point of the game, so kill them off quickly. Phantom Messengers are the most feared enemy in this area. They can cast Sap and, worst of all, they can cast Beat. Also, they can summon Phantom Knights. Fortunately, Phantom Messengers almost always travel alone in this area. You are essentially coming to Monbaraba so that you can use Return to get back here later. On the other hand, there are some points of interest here. A guard on the west side of town will ask you if you saw a mountainous island to the east of here. You did. He will tell you that no one who goes there ever comes back out. This is untrue: You did! You have been to Riverton. The shopkeeper who owns the shop on the east side of town is still away. Is he still searching for the Sphere of Silence??? You may find out. No dancer is nearly as good as Mara. Luckily for her boss, a jester named Panon is in town. Tickets to his comedy routine sell out every night that he performs. Recall that there are a Strength Seed and a Medical Herb hidden in this town. At night, you can go to the Pufpuf rooms, which are upstairs from the eatery on the west side of town. If a female goes alone, she will be told that it is undesirable to work there. If a male goes alone, he will get Pufpuf. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stancia Now that you can use Return to get to Monbaraba, you are about ready to head to Stancia. It is on the northwest corner of the map. Before heading towards Stancia, you will want all of your characters who can cast spells to have a lot of MP, and you will want to use Repel before heading there. Stancia is quite difficult to access. There is only one path to it. Once you are near Stancia, look for an island consisting only of mountains. It is one of the eastern islands in this group. Sail against the northern edge. Eventually, to the north, you will be able to walk on some brown hills. This is where you want to get off. Before doing so, have the hero, Nara, Mara, and Brey out of the wagon and set the tactics to Offensive. The enemies in this area are: Bisonbear Lethal Armor Bengal Rhinothrope Flamer Chillanodon Bomb Crag Lethal Armors can cast Sleepmore. They are extremely susceptible to spells. Bengals can cast Stopspell. If this is successful against Nara, Mara, and/or Brey, consider getting Taloon and/or Hector out of the wagon. Rhinothropes only have regular attack, and they always travel alone. When they leave a treasure chest behind, it will contain a Battle Axe. Pretty sweet! If Ragnar is still carrying a Sword of Malice, he can use the Battle Axe instead. Otherwise, you can earn a hefty amount of gold by selling this bad boy. Recall that Flamers are not very susceptible to fire spells. In a battle with just Flamers, you may want to trade Mara for Taloon or Hector. Taloon has the advantage of occasionally blocking a Firebal spell, but he has the disadvantage of sometimes trying to use the Sword of Malice. Also recall that Flamers are extremely susceptible to Sleep. Attacking with the Sword of Lethargy works wonders on Flamers. Chillanodons can appear in groups of four, in which case they can cause a lot of damage. They can land terrible blows, and they can emit freezing winds and blizzards. Just so that you know, they are immune to ice spells. On the other hand, they are extremely vulnerable to fire spells and Sleep. In a battle with just Chillanodons, you may want to trade Brey for Taloon. Bomb Crags always start out battles asleep. When they wake up, they may have to assess the situation for one or two rounds. After that, beware, as they can cast Sacrifice. Kill them off as quickly as possible. This is not an easy matter though, as they have around 300 HP! Stancia resembles Venice in that you have to negotiate around town in a boat. You have to talk to the man just north of the entrance in order to get him out of the way so that you can reach the boat. There are many shops here, but you should not have to get anything. Although the Staff of Force is for sale here, I do not recommend getting any at this point as they drain MP. You might notice that one weapon shop is only open at night. Different weapons are available there than at the weapon shop that is open during the day, but this is of no consequence. Many people in Stancia are knowledgeable about the legend of Master Dragon and the Zenithian equipment. Someone may tell you that the Zenithian Helm is an heirloom of the king of Stancia. You may also hear that the Zenithian Shield was in Burland at one time. Most importantly, you will hear that the king of Stancia will reward anyone who makes him laugh. Pretty weird. Before heading into the castle, go into the house at the northeast corner of town. One of the jars upstairs (in the house whose interior looks exactly like Taloon's old house) contains a Small Medal. Once you reach the castle, head to one of the side doors first. One of the chest of drawers against the north wall of the castle contains a Small Medal. After exploring the northern part of the castle, go back outside and enter the center door. One of the people here has been to Monbaraba and is pretty sure that Panon can make the king laugh. Before heading back to Monbaraba, try to make the king laugh yourself. It does not matter who in your party tries to make the king laugh: Everyone will fail. Immediately after this failure, use Return (it will work since the king is on the top floor of the castle) to Monbaraba and talk to Panon. He will join your party. Use Return to get back to Stancia. Put Panon in front before entering Stancia. Take him straight to the king and have him talk to him. Panon will not even try to make the king laugh, but he will convince him to give you the Zenithian Helm. If the hero still has a Wooden Hat, it can be sold. If the hero has a Golden Barrette, Iron Helmet, or (for some odd reason) an Iron Mask, keep it, as Alena, Cristo, and Ragnar, respectively, can use these helmets. If you talk to the king after he gives you the Zenithian Helm, he will tell you that he is keeping the edict in place. Once you leave Stancia, Panon will leave your party. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Soretta Now that the hero has the Zenithian Helm, it is time to head to Soretta. It is on the southeast edge of the island that Mintos is on. An easy way to get there is to head west from Monbaraba. Immediately upon entering Soretta, a House of Healing is to the north, and an inn is to the south. There is also an item shop straight east on the very eastern edge of town. Soretta has been devastated due to the extinction of the Padequia. Even the king has to work in the fields! He tells you that, in case of emergency, a Padequia Seed was kept in the nearby cave, but no one in town can retrieve it because of the monsters in there. It is clear that you need to go to the cave and get the seed. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cave of the Padequia The Cave of the Padequia is not far southwest of Soretta. Only the people who go in the cave will gain experience. Thus, Hector should not go in, so that four members of your party can gain experience instead of three. Mara probably has the highest level out of everybody, but Taloon goes up levels quite quickly. Thus, I usually take the hero, Nara, Mara, and Brey into the cave. If you are concerned about preserving MP, you can have Taloon lend his Sword of Malice to someone. The enemies in the cave are: Healer (only when summoned by Conjurer) Thevro (only when summoned by Conjurer) Vampdog Mage Toadstool Iceloth Conjurer Infurnus Knight Iceloths can emit freezing winds. They are resistant to ice spells, but they are quite vulnerable to Sleep, and fire spells usually work on them. Iceloths are indigenous to the Cave of the Padequia. Be sure to watch Brey's HP while in this cave. Also, watch MP. If the hero and Nara run too low on MP, they will not be able to cast healing spells. If the hero, Mara, and Brey run too low on MP, you may not be able to cast Outside. This last scenario rarely, if ever, happens. In any case, if Mara does not yet have Robmagic, she will get it soon. Mara and Brey may use their Metal Babble Shields when battling Vampdogs. Pretty weird. Mara and Brey will rarely try to hit an Infurnus Knight with their weapons. If the option Use No MP is not selected, they will often use Blaze and Icebolt if only one Infurnus Knight is present. This is the first cave with movement tiles. They have arrows on them. When you step on them, they will force you to go in the direction that it is pointing. These always come in long sequences so that you will go on many at once. The game is rigged so that you never have a battle immediately after being moved by a movement tile. Out of the many treasure chests down here, I only recommend getting three of them right now, but I will tell you what is in each of them. The first floor is very straightforward. The treasure chest in the room surrounded by movement tiles contains an Agility Seed. I do not bother getting it at this stage. Instead, follow the path to the first set of stairs. The second floor is very large. From the stairs, you want to head northwest. You will encounter another party of four people walking around down here. Two of them you saw in Branca. (Maybe the other two got killed in battle?) The last one is none other than Alena. She says something different depending on whether Brey is in the party or not. After going northwest of the stairs, you will come to two rows of movement tiles, both of which go up. If you go on the left set and walk next to the other row of movement tiles, you will come to a treasure chest containing Mystic Acorns. Instead of getting these, I step on the left row, then once it ends, I step on the right row. This takes you a long way, to the very northeast corner of the second floor. You will have to go south. There are two sets of movement tiles here. If you go on the set on the right, you will see the stairs going down, but you will be forced to bypass them, and you will end up near the stairs leading to the first floor. Take the set on the left instead. After that, you will want to go northwest, being sure not to step on any more movement tiles for the time being. You will eventually be right next to the long row of movement tiles that took you to the northeast corner of the room. Keep heading west until you get to the blue door. Open it and go south. There is a treasure chest containing the Robe of Serenity. Since Brey is most likely wearing Leather Armor still, he should equip the robe. The quickest way to the Padequia Seed from here is to head back north. You can step onto the large set of moving tiles again, but if you walk east right below them, you will eventually come to a treasure chest containing 800 gold pieces. In any case, you need to head back to the northeast corner of the second floor and step on the left set of movement tiles again. This time, head east and follow the path to the stairs. This part of the third floor is small but complex. (There is another part of the third floor that has nothing in it.) The treasure chest near the west wall is a Man Eater Chest. The one near the center of the room contains the Padequia Seed. Your first objective is to get to the northeast corner of the room. Once you have done that, avoid the set of movement tiles against the north wall, as they will take you back near the stairs. Instead, use the other movement tiles in turn until you are on the west side of the room. From here, you can more easily reason out which movement tile you need to step on to get to the treasure chest. If you decide to walk out of this cave instead of use Outside, you will notice that the other party is gone. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Revisiting Soretta and Mintos Now that you have the Padequia Seed, take it back to Soretta and bring it to the king. Apparently, Padequia grows instantaneously. The king will then give you the Padequia Root. Go to Mintos and use this on Cristo. Alena is upset that she came back empty-handed, but she is glad that you were successful. Once Cristo recovers and Alena realizes that you are also looking for Necrosaro, they will join your party. If someone from Chapter Two still has the Gum Pod, have them give it to Taloon so that he can appraise it. I find this very humorous. If you followed my recommendations from earlier, the hero should have a Metal Babble Shield that he can give to Cristo. If you decided to keep a Sword of Malice for Cristo, you can give that to him now. If you have a spare Iron Helmet, you can give that to him, too. If the hero is female, you should have a Golden Barrette to give to Alena. Otherwise, that improvement can wait. Once you leave the room that Alena and Cristo were in, a man will run up to you and tell you that Ragnar was once at this inn and was heading for Keeleon. Unfortunately, at this point, Hector will leave your party. It would be nice if he stayed in your party until after you venture into the Cave West of Kievs. If you go back to the inn in Mintos, Hector will be working there. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rosaville One order of business that you should take care of now is getting Alena a set of Stilleto Earrings. The only place you can buy these is in Rosaville. Since they cost 7500 gold and Alena has an Iron Claw that sells for 1125 gold, you will need 6375 gold to make this upgrade. To get to Rosaville, sail to the Great Lighthouse, then sail east near the coast. You should come to a river. Go upstream until the water widens out. Rosaville will be slightly to the east, right on the water's edge. When you enter Rosaville, you will immediately see an old man who is trying to run three shops and a House of Healing all at the same time. He is constantly running amuck among these four booths. The weapon shop is at the eastern booth. There is no harm in exploring the rest of Rosaville now. To the west of the shops is an inn. There is a soldier who is hunting for an elf who sheds Ruby Teardrops. To the north of the inn is Saro's Tower. (Some people in this town know that this is Saro's home town.) On the first floor, there are some animals who are able to talk due to the Secret of Evolution. In the basement, a dwarf will tell you that something special is hidden in the tower. You will also be able to see a passage, but you have no way of accessing it right now. Just outside of the tower, a boy will tell you that a beautiful woman looks out of the top of the tower at night. At night, you will see her there. You will be coming back to Rosaville again, but there is not much else that you can do here now. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Haville To avoid battling too many enemies on the continent where Keeleon is, it is best to go to Haville first, as it is right on the coast. The weapon shop is no longer open. Instead, the shopkeeper will tell you that Magic Keys exist. He does not have one, but he tells you that alchemists can make one easily. He suggests that you visit Kievs. (Perhaps Orin was not really breaking locks! He might have tricked you into thinking he was breaking the locks but was secretly using a Magic Key!) One of the prisoners informs you that Ragnar was in town. Another asks if the House of Prophecy is still on the shore. By the way, if you go to the House of Prophecy, the prophetess will tell you that Ragnar was there and that the seven lights around you are growing strong. There is not much else to do in Haville. It is time to head south to Keeleon. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Keeleon Although you cannot do much in Keeleon now, you may as well stop there, as it is on your way and you will be able to Return here. There is a purple man near the entrance: This is Healie! He informs you that Ragnar needs to be rescued and that you can sneak in if you have a Magic Key. He suggests that you go to Haville to find out more, but you have already been there. The guard tells you that they arrested a trespasser and that he will probably be killed for his transgressions. When Nara and Mara escaped from Keeleon, there were stairs directly north of where the purple man is standing. If you search near these stairs, you will be able to go down them. If you go back through the escape route to the prison, you will find that the guard is not doing much, and the old man that gave you the Boarding Pass is dead. How sad. There is nothing more to do here yet. Since the shopkeeper in Haville suggested that you go to Kievs, that is where you should go. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kievs One of the most unfortunate things about Chapter Five is that you cannot Return to Kievs. Many people in Kievs say different things depending on whether you take Nara and/or Mara into town or not. The most important difference is that, if you bring Nara or Mara into town, the innkeeper will let you stay for free, but he will charge you otherwise. Staying at the inn is a merchant who says he was in Bazaar. You can buy things from him (he has various weapons and armor), but you really do not need anything from him. If you talk to the Slime that appears in Edgar's house, it will tell you that Orin had a secret laboratory in the Cave West of Kievs, and that a Magic Key should be there. (This is even more suspicious: Why would Orin have a Magic Key in his laboratory yet make the effort to break locks?) Definitely utilize the free inn here before heading west to the cave. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cave West of Kievs The enemies in here have changed drastically. They are: Somnabeetle Butterfly Dragon (only when summoned by Dragonpup) Bisonhawk Dragonpup Infurnus Knight Bisonbear Flamer Phantom Knight Phantom Messenger Fortunately, you can bring the wagon into this cave. The people that I typically have outside the wagon are the hero, Alena, Taloon, and Nara. When large enemy groups of Flamers attack, I switch out Taloon for Brey. Only in extremely odd circumstances do I put Cristo or Mara outside of the wagon. Since Cristo does not see very much (if any) battle action in here, feel free to have him use Heal between battles if necessary. Since the enemies are rather tough in here, it is probably best to head straight for the secret laboratory, which is near where you found Orin. Along the way, you may come across the shopkeeper from Monbaraba. He knows that, to access the secret laboratory, you need to push a button at the bottom of a treasure chest. The treasure chest he is referring to is the one that contains the Lamp of Darkness. If you did not get the Lamp of Darkness, you must get it now. Once you reach that treasure chest and search, you will be asked if you want to push the button at the bottom of the treasure chest. Of course you do! There are no enemies in the secret laboratory. You need a Thief's Key to get into the laboratory. There is a Small Medal in one of the jars. The treasure chest contains the Magic Key. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Preparations for Battling Keeleon After leaving the cave, the first thing that you should do is go back to Endor. If it is not night, you can make it night by using the Lamp of Darkness. In Endor's castle, a guard paces back and forth at night. You will need to sneak past him to go upstairs. The king's chamber is accessed by going up the stairs on the northwest corner of the second floor. During the day, a cleaning lady blocks the door, but since it is night, you can get in. The married couple is asleep, and the king is pacing around in a room to the right. The treasure chests in that room contain a Pink Leotard and a Feather Hat. There is also a Small Medal in one of the chest of drawers. While you are in the castle, go back to the first floor and stand directly north of the stairs leading to the basement. You also need to be facing north. There is a Magic Key door here that you cannot see. If you select Door in the menu, the door will open, and you can pass through. Climb up the stairs. At the very top is a place that you can jump down. You will land on top of the building in the town that you could not get into earlier. Go downstairs, ignore the shopkeeper, and go down to the first floor. Hidden here are the Multi-Edge Sword and a Strength Seed. Go back up to the second floor and jump off. Now that you know that that shop is open at night, go around front and enter it through the door. You can sell the Feather Hat and the Multi-Edge Sword that you found here in Endor. You can also sell Alena's Chain Mail. Whether Alena gets the Pink Leotard or Mara gets the Pink Leotard and hands her Fur Coat down to Alena is up to you. I usually give Alena the Pink Leotard and have Mara keep the Fur Coat. The main reason I make this choice is that Mara has a Metal Babble Shield, whereas Alena cannot equip any shield. Thus, Mara's defense should be higher than Alena's. If you have enough gold, you can get some Metal Babble Armor. Below are the order in which I suggest that you get them. Note that the gold amounts include selling old equipment. Cristo from Half Plate Armor to Metal Babble Armor 14100 Taloon from Iron Apron to Metal Babble Armor 13875 Nara from Sacred Robe to Metal Babble Armor 11700 If you cannot make all of these upgrades right now, do not worry about it. In fact, they are not absolutely necessary at this time. You also need to come back to Endor during the day. Go to the vault and store the Thief's Key and the Lamp of Darkness. As of now, you should have nine Small Medals. It would be nice if you had one more. The easiest one to get right now is in Seaside Village. To get there, Return to Haville, sail near Aktemto, and follow the islands north, staying on the east side of them. You will come to a fairly large island that has a forest on its south side. Sail along its east coast. There will be an indentation. Seaside Village is on the north bank. In the center of town is a cannon. If you search to the south of it, you will find a Small Medal. (The game may not register that the Small Medal is there at night.) Note that you cannot use Return to get back to Seaside Village. Now that you have ten Small Medals, it is time to see the king who collects Small Medals. The easiest way to get there is to Return to Soretta, get in the ship, and head south. You will need to maneuver around a large peninsula to get to the island where the king who collects Small Medals is. Head straight north to get to the throne room. You should get a Sword of Miracles for Cristo and a Hat of Happiness for Brey. This means that you can sell Cristo's Morning Star and Brey's lousy Leather Hat. There is a soldier here who tells you that he suspects that the Zenithian Armor is in the cave near here. He is correct. The cave to the north that is accessible only by ship is the Shrine of Breaking Waves. There is a travel door here also. It takes you to the shrine east of Mintos. It is not of much use right now, as you cannot open the door to get out into the other shrine. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Battling Keeleon The people that I recommend for battling Keeleon are the hero, Alena, Cristo, and Mara. First of all, it is mandatory that the hero be in the battle. You will not be allowed to battle Keeleon otherwise. It makes sense that you will want either Alena or Taloon. The reasons that I prefer Alena are that she can attack twice and that some of Taloon's antics simply waste an attack. It also makes sense that you will want either Cristo or Nara. Nara tends to cast Sleep and Sleepmore, which rarely work. She also casts Infernos, as her regular attack does little damage to him. On the other hand, Cristo will cast Stopspell and Surround (unless he has already learned Beat, which hopefully has not happened yet), which do not always work, but when they do, they help out a lot. Also, since Cristo can equip a Sword of Miracles, his attack will cause a decent amount of damage. Finally, it makes sense that you will want either Mara or Brey. Mara's spells seem to be more effective against Keeleon than Brey's spells. Before the battle, the people that are going into battle should borrow the best equipment that they can: If either Taloon or Nara have Metal Babble Armor, they can lend it to the hero. Either Alena or Mara will have a Fur Coat. That person can borrow Brey's Robe of Serenity. If Alena does not have a Golden Barrette, she can borrow Nara's. If Cristo does not have Metal Babble Armor, he can borrow Nara's Sacred Robe. If Cristo does not have an Iron Helmet, he can borrow Taloon's. Mara can borrow Brey's Hat of Happiness. Go into Keeleon castle and head towards the button that you pushed in Chapter Four. Two soldiers will be escorting Ragnar to the king's chamber. As you draw near, he will wipe them out. If you did not bring the hero, Ragnar will demand to see him. Otherwise, Ragnar will break into the king's chamber. Soldiers will storm in, but Ragnar will take care of them. There is no way out of here except to battle Keeleon. Keeleon can attack twice per round about half of the time. He can cast Firebal and emit freezing winds. Although the spells Sleep and Sleepmore are not very effective against him, he has about a 30% chance of falling asleep when hit by a Sword of Lethargy. Keeleon always leaves Full Plate Armor behind. Ragnar can use this. After the battle, make sure to switch the equipment back. You do not want someone coming out of the wagon with no armor on! Also after the battle, you will see that Ragnar has vanquished the guards, and he will be blocking the exit. Once you talk to him, he will join your party. Before leaving Keeleon, you should talk to the counsel, whose room is on the southeast corner of the first floor. He informs you that Balzack has taken up residence in Santeem. What a creep! There is not much else to do in Keeleon. It is time to leave. Upon leaving Keeleon, you will notice that the music has changed. Also, you can hear music from previous chapters by putting a person from that chapter in the front position. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Major Clean Up Now that Ragnar is in your party, you can clean out all of the caves and towers that you have already been to. You can also pick up items left in towns. Here is a rundown of where items can be obtained and what should be there if you did not get the items already. Kievs---------------------------Lifeforce Nuts Monbaraba-----------------------Medical Herb Strength Seed Aktemto Mine--------------------Mystic Acorns Silver Tarot Cards Endor---------------------------Lifeforce Nuts Tempe---------------------------Lifeforce Nuts Frenor--------------------------Mystic Acorns Lakanaba------------------------Medical Herb (Taloon must be out of the wagon.) Izmit---------------------------Medical Herb Hidden Playground---------------Medical Herb Agility Seed Old Well------------------------Medical Herb 600 gold Cave Between Burland and Izmit--Medical Herb 40 gold Hometown------------------------Medical Herb Grandpa's House-----------------Medical Herb Desert Inn----------------------Lunch Aneaux--------------------------Strength Seed Great Lighthouse----------------Luck Seed 400 gold Magic Potion Strength Seed Full Moon Herb Boomerang Cave of the Padequia------------Agility Seed Mystic Acorns 800 gold To find out where these items are located, you will need to read a previous section about that location. (In the case of Endor, look at Chapter Two.) The enemies near Tempe are: Curer Ouphnest Mystic Doll Bengal Phantom Knight (only when summoned by Phantom Messenger) Flamer Phantom Messenger Curers can cast Healall. Their regular attack is nothing to fear. Ouphnests can paralyze players either by their regular attack or by emitting scorching breath. They can also cast Upper. This can be annoying, as they have pretty high defense as it is and are resistant to many spells. Their regular attack can cause a terrible blow, but this happens very rarely. On the bright side, they do not have very much HP, they may be on guard or assessing the situation, they may enter battle asleep, and they easily fall asleep when attacked with a Sword of Lethargy. Since Bengals have quite a bit of HP, kill Curers that are travelling with them first if there are any. The enemies near Frenor correspond to the enemies near Lakanaba. There are some interesting notes about Frenor. First of all, you cannot use Return to get here. Also, Orin escaped here with a girl from Keeleon. He will tell Nara and/or Mara about Balzack's connection with Necrosaro. You may want to stay at the inn in Izmit. The dream that you have there is crucial to the storyline. If you explored Rosaville thoroughly, you should be able to tell that this is where your dream takes place. Whenever only four people can enter a cave or tower, I take the hero, Ragnar, Nara, and Brey, as their levels are usually the lowest at this point in the game. Note that I left the Cave North of Lakanaba, the castle town of Burland, and the Cave West of Kievs off of this list. I left the Cave North of Lakanaba out because, if you followed my suggestions, you have not been here yet. This cave is pretty straightforward though. The enemies down here are laughably easy at this stage of the game. They are: Slime Stag Beetle Prank Gopher Giant Worm Babble The first floor presents no difficulties. On the second floor, to speed things up, you can push the button on the gray stone to let the water carry you down to the next floor. This part of the third floor presents no difficulties either. On this part of second floor, do not push the button yet. Instead, head west and pick up the Chain Sickle. The Iron Safe is here, but there is no point in getting it, as it does not function properly in Chapter Five. In case you want to get it, here are the details: Push the button on the gray stone wall that you passed up to get the Chain Sickle. This time, it is necessary to push the button to make progress. On this part of the third floor, head northwest and go downstairs. There is a trick to this next room. Bypass the first set of stairs. When you head far south enough, the boulder will come loose. It will not run you over, and you will want it to be following you pretty closely. Head south, then east, then south, then west, then north. Once you turn north and your party is out of the way, the boulder will roll south instead and fill a hole in the ground. Go over the boulder and go down the stairs. You can push the rocks if you want, but it is not necessary. The treasure chest contains the Iron Safe. Once you step off of it, a stone door will appear. (Apparently, the first person in your party weighs more than everyone else.) You can get out of here either by using one of the rocks or by casting Outside. I left Burland out because now you can get into the treasure room. Of course, there is a Medical Herb on the first floor of the castle in one of the eastern rooms. If Mara does not have Stepguard, then before going to the treasure room in Burland, be sure that only one member of the party ventures into town, as there are pain tiles in the treasure room. That way, you only have one member of the party to heal. Anyways, the treasure chests yield some gold, an Agility Seed, a Strength Seed, a set of Lifeforce Nuts, and an Iron Helmet. The enemies near Izmit and Burland are: Phantom Knight Tyranosaur Skullknight Archbison Savnuck Beleth Phantom Knights should be much easier to handle than they were when you first encountered them. Tyranosaurs are straightforward, as they only have a normal attack. Skullknights can cast Healmore, but they only have enough MP to cast it once. They can also summon Phantom Knights. Archbisons can emit scorching breath. Hopefully, Nara does not get paralyzed. If she does, she cannot use Numboff. Savnucks can cast Infermore, and they can emit poisonous gas. Beleths can cast Firebane and Bounce. They are extremely susceptible to Sleep and Sleepmore. If they leave a treasure chest behind, it will contain a Staff of Force. Pretty sweet! If you talk to the counsel in Burland, he will let you know that you need the Magma Staff to get to Gardenbur. If you talk to the king of Burland, he will inform you that his grandfather gave the Zenithian Shield to the queen of Gardenbur. He is unsure why his grandfather did this, but I have an idea: He wanted to get in the queen of Gardenbur's pants. Finally, I left the Cave West of Kievs out as I think it should be done last. This gives your characters as much time as possible to level up, making the enemies down here easier to defeat. The loot down here consists of a Wing of Wyvern, a set of Lifeforce Nuts, and 240 gold. If you want to, you can go to the House of Prophecy. Now that you have Ragnar, the prophetess will tell you something different. She will try to reveal the name of the ruler of evil, but she will mysteriously vanish. Since she manages to get out "Es...", you know that the ruler of evil is *not* Necrosaro. After selling Ragnar's extra items from Chapter One, cleaning out these caves and towers, and selling superfluous items (not Medical Herbs or the Lunch), you should have quite a bit of gold. You will hopefully be able to upgrade some people's armor to Metal Babble Armor. Below are the order in which I suggest that you get them. Note that the gold amounts include selling old equipment. Cristo from Half Plate Armor to Metal Babble Armor 14100 Taloon from Iron Apron to Metal Babble Armor 13875 Nara from Sacred Robe to Metal Babble Armor 11700 Ragnar from Full Plate Armor to Metal Babble Armor 13275 The hero should not need Metal Babble Armor, as he will soon obtain the Zenithian Armor. This is also why I suggest the upgrade for Ragnar last: Once the hero has the Zenithian Armor, he can give his Dragon Mail to Ragnar. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Shrine of Breaking Waves Although the enemies in the Shrine of Breaking Waves are extremely tough at this point in the game, you ought to be able to sneak through there and nab all of the treasure chests either now or very soon. I usually wait until most of the characters have reached level 21. I also wait until at least two of my characters have obtained Metal Babble Armor. The quickest way to get to the Shrine of Breaking Waves is to Return to Soretta, get in the ship, head south, and go around the peninsula. The enemies in here are: Karon Fury Face Maskan Podokesaur (rarely) Necrodain Plesiodon Dragon Rider Snowjive Karons are relatively tame. Their most harmful attack is swinging the Staff of Thunder. They can also cast Vivify. For this reason, they often travel in pairs. Fury Faces are one of few types of enemies that do not have a regular attack. Instead, they attack by means of emissions. They only cause damage directly by emitting fireballs and freezing winds. They can also emit poison gas, gales of sweet breath, and gales of scorching breath. They may also assess the situation. They are somewhat resistant to spells. Maskans can be a pain. They can cast Infermore and can jerk away. The most annoying aspect of them is when they call for reinforcements. Typically, many Maskans will come and fill up whatever room is left for them. Maskans are immune from fire spells but are vulnerable to ice spells. Podokesaurs can cast Healus. They only have enough MP to cast this twice. They also may attack twice during a round. Necrodains have high HP, strength, and defense. They also carry Swords of Lethargy. Plesiodons are indigenous to this cave. They have a lot of HP, around 300. On the bright side, they are very vulnerable to Sleep and Sleepmore. Dragon Riders always attack twice. Moreover, one of their attacks almost always is emitting scorching gas. Blazemore often works against these. Snowjives are easily the most dangerous enemy here. They can cast Blizzard. At this stage of the game, your characters will have trouble handling three Blizzards. On the bright side, Snowjives do not have very much HP. Also, the spells Sleep, Stopspell, and Firebane are helpful against these. Because of the presence of Dragon Riders and Snowjives, you should not be roaming around this cave with someone outside of the wagon having less than 100 HP. This cave is odd in that, when you are in the ship, you can use the wagon, but if you leave the ship, the wagon will not come out with you. Therefore, when you disembark, make sure you have the four people you like best outside of the wagon and swap items to make these four characters as good as possible. You should only have to disembark twice in the cave. Upon entering the cave, head as far east as you can. Once you reach the southeast corner, you will be forced to head north. Look for the fourth gap between stone pillars. Get out of the ship here and head west. You will come to a treasure chest containing a Small Medal. Head back to the ship and head north. Once you reach the northeast corner, you will be forced to head west. As soon as you can, head south. In this room, you can get through by means of either the middle fork or the eastern fork. After heading west out of this room, you need to sail south. You should see some stairs shortly after heading south. There is not much further to go in this cave, but be aware that the remainder of this journey is here on foot. You may want to leave Cristo and Nara behind so that their MP does not go down from battle, which enables them to have as much MP to cast Healmore between battles as possible. I usually take the hero, Ragnar, Alena, and Taloon, but Mara may be a good option. Since you will not be using anyone in the wagon, make sure to switch out equipment. For example, if you are leaving Cristo behind but are taking Ragnar, Cristo can lend Ragnar his Sword of Miracles, Metal Babble Armor, and Iron Helmet if necessary. After going downstairs, head northwest. The treasure chest on the right contains the Zenithian Armor, and the one on the left contains a Small Medal. Immediately after opening both of these, switch the equipment back. After that, you can use Outside to get out of here. Sometimes, a fluke occurs in which the wagon does not come out of the cave with you. If the hero does not have 8 MP, go back in and switch the characters so that either Mara or Brey is out of the wagon, then exit again. (Brey is probably the best bet as he probably did not see very much battle action in the cave.) Use Return to get the wagon back. If you do not have four sets of Metal Babble Armor, be sure to give Ragnar the hero's set of Dragon Mail. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Santeem and Surene Your next stop should be Santeem. There are monsters living in here now. (This is the case even before Balzack takes up residence here.) The enemies near Santeem and Surene are the same as those near Tempe. The enemies in Santeem are: Curer Ouphnest Mystic Doll Bengal Rhinothrope Phantom Knight (only when summoned by Phantom Messenger) Savnuck Phantom Messenger If you need to save up gold, Santeem is a pretty good place to do it, as Mystic Dolls appear regularly here. The only danger is if a Phantom Messenger successfully casts Beat. If you want to wander around in Santeem, I suggest not leaving the first floor for now. A fire is guarding the door that you could open with your Magic Key. If you choose to talk to the devil in the kitchen, he will attack you. It is a Minidemon. It knows Blazemore and can emit freezing winds. It may not be worth battling him at this stage. Not much has changed in the parts of Surene that you have been to before. If you talk to Marone at night, the dirge music that you first heard in Aktemto will play. For some entertainment, talk to the people upstairs in the inn at night. One person there tries to sing, and it sounds like the ditty that plays when a member of your party is cursed (or, even worse, when a quest is lost from the game). Now that you have a Magic Key, you can explore the eastern part of Surene. You will come across a shop. The only thing you might want to get here is a Staff of Force. I hold off on this for the time being, as a Beleth may leave one behind. This shop is also open at night. The tutor of the king of Santeem lives in the southeast corner of town. He tells about a sign that the king wanted put up for Alena. This is the sign to the north of the castle. You can get to it by going around the castle on the east side. As interesting as this part of the story is, the sign itself does not help you out very much, as you should have already gone to Stancia. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Balzack You might be wondering why I wanted you to save up all of those Medical Herbs from the major clean up. One of the reasons for this is the upcoming battle with Balzack. By now, the hero should know Fendspell, Cristo (and possibly Nara) should know Vivify, and Mara should know Blazemore. The people that I recommend go into battle against Balzack are the hero, Ragnar, Cristo, and Mara. Alena might be a good alternative to go in place of Ragnar, but Ragnar's HP and defense are higher than Alena's, which is why I generally take him. I bring Cristo instead of Nara because Cristo's HP and strength are higher than Nara's. Cristo may waste a few rounds of battle trying to cast Beat and Stopspell, but once he starts attacking, he can put a major hurting on Balzack since he is equipped with a Sword of Miracles. Nara will waste rounds of battle also by casting Sleepmore and possibly Sleep, but once she stops, she will use Infernos, which barely hurts Balzack. I take Mara instead of Brey because Balzack is impervious to ice spells and Mara's HP is usually higher than Brey's at this point. This gives another reason to leave Alena behind: Mara can use the Pink Leotard. Speaking of which, be sure to give the people going into battle the best equipment. Ragnar should get Metal Babble Armor and an Iron Helmet from Taloon if he does not have these things already. Also, Mara can borrow Brey's Hat of Happiness. Be sure that everyone going into battle is carrying plenty of Medical Herbs. On the way to Balzack, use the tactics option Use No MP so that Cristo and Mara have their maximum MP for the battle with Balzack. The creep Balzack is actually sitting on Alena's throne!!! Balzack always attacks twice. He can cast Snowstorm, and he can emit freezing winds. His agility is very low, so he usually attacks at the end of every round of battle. There are plenty of strategies for battling Balzack. One is to make him fall asleep right away by attacking him with the Sword of Lethargy. While he is asleep, the hero can use Healmore and Fendspell as necessary. Another strategy is to use Fendspell while Balzack is awake. (Cristo and Mara will not use their Metal Babble Shields.) I cast this on Cristo first, as he will be able to use Healmore on himself if necessary. When the next chance to cast Fendspell arises, I cast it on Mara, as her HP is low, and preventing her from being hit by Snowstorm is useful. At the next opportunity, I cast Fendspell on the hero. I rarely bother using Fendspell on Ragnar, as his HP and defense are high, and Cristo will use Healmore on him as necessary. The hero can still use Healmore on himself, but he can only heal other people affected by Fendspell by means of Medical Herbs. Once you have cast Fendspell on everyone that you want to, during rounds where the hero does not need to use Healmore or Medical Herbs, the hero can attack Balzack. (By the way, it is not a good idea to give the Sword of Lethargy to Ragnar, as he tends to use it as an item instead of attacking with it. It rarely, if ever, works against Balzack when used as an item.) Once Balzack bites the dust, the devils will appear and say a little something about the Secret of Evolution. One will tell you about the necessity of the Golden Bracelet. Too bad Alena got this out of the Cave South of Frenor! The bracelet eventually ends up in the hands of Necrosaro. As one of the devils says, it amplifies the evil force. After all three devils have said their speeches, they disappear along with Balzack's corpse. Now that Balzack is gone, so is that annoying fire that was guarding the Magic Key door. Go there and plunder. Hidden here are a Strength Seed, the Magma Staff, and the Flute of Uncovering. If you want, you can talk to the cat and the Slime who is with the cat. To get to them, you have to go to Alena's bedroom and jump off. (This should bring back good memories.) The Slime will interpret for the cat, whose name is Meena. Again, what you now hear should not be news to you: The king of Santeem has the power to predict the future. If you talked to everyone in Surene, you should already know this. In any case, there is not much more to do here in Santeem except for battle enemies. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Visiting Rosa Again, I digress from the actual chronology of the story in order to make parts of the game easier. At this point, I go to Rosaville to battle Saroknight and obtain the Sphere of Silence. Since Saroknight has the Sphere of Silence, the people that I recommend are the hero, Ragnar, Alena, and Taloon. Cristo is an alternative to consider though, as he may cast Increase before Saroknight uses the Sphere of Silence. In any case, make sure to trade out equipment and Medical Herbs. (Someone should be using Cristo's Sword of Miracles.) Also, the Magma Staff might come in handy. Now that you have the Flute of Uncovering, you can go to Rosaville and use it near Saro's Tower. This is how to access the secret passage. After going up many flights of stairs, you will encounter Saroknight. If you talk to him, a battle will begin. As mentioned, Saroknight has the Sphere of Silence. He can also summon Chillanodons. Chillanodons can emit freezing winds and blizzards, and they can deliver terrible blows. Since Alena can attack twice in a round, she can usually kill off a Chillanodon in one round of battle, so they will rarely get a chance to attack. The Magma Staff comes in handy in case of emergency, as using it during battle will hit every enemy on screen. Alena should not be carrying it though, as you will want her to use her regular attack. Saroknight will use the Sphere of Silence during the second or third round of battle. He may also use it later, not realizing that your other characters do not cast spells. Saroknight will occasionally fall asleep if attacked with a Sword of Lethargy. He may also fall asleep if it is used during battle, but attacking is a safer bet. For this reason, Ragnar should not have the Sword of Lethargy. After defeating Saroknight, you will get the Sphere of Silence back. This comes in handy very much, as it has a higher probability of working than Stopspell does. Now that Saroknight is out of the way, you can proceed south. If you talk to Rosa, she will tell you about Saro's ambitions. She does not want him to succeed, even if someone has to kill him. A Slime is meandering around here too. It will tell you that the Staff of Transform is hidden in the Royal Crypt that is south of Endor, and that you will need it to sneak into "the monsters' castle", which is Dire Palace. Now that this battle is over, Medical Herbs and Lunches are obsolete. Go ahead and sell them off while you are here in Rosaville. Also, at this point, I usually let Nara carry the Magma Staff. In any case, you can sell off Nara's, Mara's, or Brey's old weapon. (Cristo has a Sword of Miracles and thus does not need the Magma Staff.) Make sure to switch the equipment back to normal. At this point, you can put the Flute of Uncovering if the vault if you would like. If you are sufficiently curious about an upcoming part of the storyline, you will need to use the Flute of Uncovering again, but it is not absolutely necessary. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gardenbur You cannot make much more progress without getting the Final Key. (The only thing you could do is go into the Cascade Cave and get the Sandglass of Regression, but I leave this for later.) To get this key, you must go to Gardenbur. The easiest way to get to Gardenbur is to Return to Burland. From there, get on the ship and head east until you reach a lake. From there, disembark and head south. The enemies in this area are: Phantom Knight (only when summoned by Skullknight) Tyranosaur Skullknight Great Ohrus (rarely) Archbison Beleth Hambalba (rarely) Mantam Chillanodon Metal Babble Great Ohruses can attack twice. They are extremely susceptible to sleep. Hambalbas can emit fireballs, and their regular attack can cause paralysis. Mantams are easily the most annoying enemy in this area. They can be on guard, which summons another Mantam that gets to attack that round. Also, if there is more than one Mantam, they can go on blazing rages. It is possible that three blazing rages take place during one round of battle. This can cause a lot of damage. Thus, a battle that starts with one Mantam can quickly turn into a nightmare. Killing them off first is top priority. Metal Babbles can cast Blaze and Firebal. They frequently run away. Since their agility is pretty high and you do not have the Metal Babble Sword yet, the only person who has much of a chance of killing these at this point is Alena. As you head south from the lake, the mountains will force you to go east, then north through a narrow valley. There will be a solitary mountain blocking your passage north. This is the mountain that you need to use the Magma Staff on. Gardenbur is not far northeast of here. If you reach Gardenbur at night, the guards will not let you into the castle. The spell Day-Night does not work while you are in Gardenbur. Make sure that it is daytime before trying to enter Gardenbur. Upon entering the castle, immediately to the east are a shop and an inn. Immediately to the west is a kitchen. The jar furthest to the right in the kitchen contains a Small Medal. Just north of the kitchen is a House of Healing. Just north of the shop is a bedroom. Be sure not to talk to the purple man there yet. On the very north side of the first floor of the castle is a long hallway. The stairs to the left lead to a prison. The stairs to the right lead to the Zenithian Shield. You cannot get it right now as you cannot unlock the door. The stairs to the second floor are immediately to the north of the castle's entrance. There is a third basement. To access it, go upstairs to the second floor, then immediately go back down. While you are standing on the stairs on the first floor, head north. At the end of this hidden hallway is another set of stairs. The treasure chest in this basement contains a Fire Claw. Upon leaving this basement, you will be forced to go to the second floor. On the second floor, the southern room is a library. A woman there is studying the legends of the hero, Master Dragon, and the ruler of evil. The western room is the queen's dressing room. The eastern room is the queen's bedroom. The rightmost chest of drawers in this room contains an Agility Seed. Finally, the northern part of the floor is the throne room. For the most part, people are happy that a passage is now open and that Gardenbur is no longer in isolation, but the queen is very unhappy about this. Other than that, there is no real information to obtain here at the moment. If Alena's strength is more than 65 (which should be the case at this point), you will not want the Fire Claw. If you can get the shopkeeper's attention (sometimes she moronically steps away from the booth), sell her the Fire Claw. This will give you more than enough gold to get a Pink Leotard. Now both Alena and Mara can have Pink Leotards. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cave Southeast of Gardenbur The Cave Southeast of Gardenbur is one of the rare places that you can and should clean out *before* completing the main objective in here, which in this case is to find and defeat the purple man that you saw in Gardenbur. If you have not talked to him yet, then he will not be here yet, but this is of no concern right now. The people most fitted to take on the purple man are the hero, Alena, Nara, and Mara. For this reason, the people that I take into the cave to clean it out are the hero (you want him to have as much experience as possible, and you should want to control some aspect of battles), Ragnar, Cristo, and Brey. As Taloon's level is probably higher than everyone else's, I do not take him in this cave at all. Be sure that Brey has the Magma Staff and the Hat of Happiness before venturing down here. Random battles with enemies are somewhat rare down here. The enemies in here are: Phantom Knight (only when summoned by Skullknight) Tyranosaur Skullknight Great Ohrus Beleth Hambalba Dragonit Mantam Chillanodon Dragonits can emit scorching gas. They are somewhat resistant to fire spells but are extremely susceptible to ice spells and sleep. This cave is distinctive in that it has a lot of ladders and varying layers. I find it amusing that your characters are able to leap out of towers yet cannot jump down to the next level in this cave. At the first fork, head west. You should go down a ladder. At the next fork, head east. You will come to a treasure chest that contains a Small Medal. Go back to the most recent fork and head west. You will be forced to travel against the north wall. At the next fork, head south. Bypass the ladders for now. You will come to a treasure chest containing an Agility Seed. Go back to the ladders and go up. At the next fork, head east. Go down the ladder. The ladder to get up onto the platform is on the south side. The treasure chest on this platform contains 1200 gold pieces. Go back to the previous fork and head south instead. The path here will force you to go down some ladders and ends at a set of stairs. On the second floor, take the ladder on the left. On this level, head west, then south, then slightly east. Go up the ladder. Slightly to the north is a treasure chest containing a Strength Seed. Head east and go down the ladder. Stay against the east wall until you see a ladder going up. Go up this ladder and head west. Go up another ladder, head west, and go down the ladder here. On this level, if you head north, you will come to a treasure chest containing a Dragon Shield. The hero should equip this. There is one last treasure chest to the south. It contains an Iron Mask. Ragnar should equip this. Now that you have plundered this cave, it is time to leave. Once you are outside of the cave, make sure to switch the equipment back. Now that you have four Small Medals (two from the Shrine of Breaking Waves, one from Gardenbur, and one from the most recent cave), you can visit the king and get a Hat of Happiness for Mara. If Alena does not have a Golden Barrette, Mara can give hers to Alena. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Accused of Theft You cannot make any more progress in this game unless you talk to the purple man in the bedroom on the first floor of Gardenbur. He suggests that you search the chests of drawers, then leaves. Not long afterwards, the prophetess will come in and accuse you of stealing her precious Bronze Amulet. She will call for a guard, who will put your party in jail. After a while, you will be taken to see the queen. The queen holds a trial regarding the accusation. The game forces you to answer the queen's questions in a manner such that you assert your innocence. After the trial, the queen states that she must keep one of the members of your party in jail, and she orders you to find the thief. At this point, the second person in your party will be put in jail. The jailkeeper informs you that you have to talk to her to change the hostage. Since Taloon most likely has the highest level right now, put him in jail instead. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bakor The real thief, whose name is Bakor (those of you who have played Dragon Warrior III may be pleased about having a thief whose name is Bakor in this game), is hiding out in the Cave Southeast of Gardenbur. I suggest the hero, Alena, Nara, and Mara venture in here and find him. The hero may as well use Cristo's Sword of Miracles. (You may still want to have the hero bring the Sword of Lethargy down here, but make sure to equip the Sword of Miracles.) Brey should lend his Hat of Happiness to Nara. Also, Nara is the only person who needs Metal Babble Armor, so make sure that she has some equipped. Finally, make sure that you bring the Sphere of Silence down here. While you are in this cave, you should set the tactics to Offensive since Nara and Mara will replenish their MP as they walk. Also, there is no reason that anyone should enter battle without their maximum HP. Have Nara use Heal or Healmore between battles as appropriate. To get to Bakor's lair, head to the second floor, maneuver to the platform where you found the Strength Seed, then go down the ladder on the right. Head to the southeast corner of this floor. From there, head west. Go up the ladder, head further west, then go down the ladder here. Follow this path until you reach a set of stairs. There are no random battles on the third floor. Thus, Nara should use Heal or Healmore so that everyone has maximum HP, then you should walk around until Nara and Mara have their maximum MP. Once you have done all this, make sure that the hero has the Sphere of Silence. After that, talk to Bakor. He will be asleep, but you will now know for a fact that he is the thief, as he has the Bronze Amulet. After making this discovery, he will awake and try to run away. Head him off by going to the hallway at the southern part of the room. If you talk to him again, a battle will ensue. Bakor knows the spells Snowstorm and Increase. Since Increase is a pain, use the Sphere of Silence on him. (This is main reason why I battle Saroknight before going to Gardenbur.) Note that the Sphere of Silence may not work the first time. Keep using it until it works. Bakor can also build up strength. Alena's double attack and Mara's Blazemore are very effective against him. On the other hand, Nara's Sleepmore does not often work. She will eventually catch onto this and either regular attack or use Infernos. (If she has Infermore, she will use it instead of either of the other options.) In order to prevent her from wasting MP on casting sleep spells, the hero can attack Bakor while equipped with the Sword of Lethargy. Although Bakor has a lot of hit points, this battle is very easy once you have used the Sphere of Silence. Once you have defeated Bakor, he will beg for mercy. A guard from Gardenbur will come and whisk him away. If Mara does not have 16 MP at the end of this battle, have her walk around until she does, then use Outside and Return to Gardenbur. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Queen's Gifts The first thing that you should do upon reaching Gardenbur is talk to the queen. She will give you the Final Key so that you can get Taloon out of jail. She also tells you about the Zenithian Shield and says that you can have it. Finally, she suggests that you visit Rosaville. If you talk to the guard near the queen, she says that she was sure of your innocence from the look in your eyes. I find this ironic, as you stole the Fire Claw from the basement, a Small Medal from the kitchen, and an Agility Seed from the queen's bedroom! Go down to the basement where the Zenithian Shield is and get it. The hero can give his Dragon Shield to Ragnar. Go to the other basement and get Taloon out of jail. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- More Cleaning Up Before you leave Gardenbur, make sure to switch equipment around. The first thing that you should do is go to Endor and put the Magic Key in the vault. The next place that you should go is Lakanaba. Tom's son has married the nurse, bought Taloon's house from Neta (She is a very efficient businesswoman!), and is working at the weapon shop where Taloon used to work. Downstairs from the weapon shop are some treasure chests. They contain an Ice Blade, a Strength Seed, and a Chain Sickle. The hero can equip the Ice Blade and hand down the Sword of Lethargy to Ragnar. You can sell Ragnar's old weapon and the Chain Sickle while you are here at a weapon shop. By now, you should have enough gold so that everyone (except the hero) who can equip the Metal Babble Armor has a set. The cost of getting these for Cristo, Taloon, and Nara has been given twice before. If Ragnar does not have Metal Babble Armor, he should have Dragon Mail, in which case you need 11100 gold to upgrade his armor. After that, if you do not have a Staff of Force already, you should get one. You can buy one in Surene or Stancia. You only need one. For now, Brey should carry it. Upgrading from a Venomous Dagger costs 1938 gold. To summarize, this is the equipment that everyone should have at this point: Hero Ice Blade Zenithian Armor Zenithian Shield Zenithian Helm Ragnar Sword of Lethargy Metal Babble Armor Dragon Shield Iron Mask Alena Stilleto Earrings Pink Leotard (no shield) Golden Barrette Cristo Sword of Miracles Metal Babble Armor Metal Babble Shield Iron Helmet Nara Magma Staff Metal Babble Armor Metal Babble Shield Golden Barrette Taloon Sword of Malice Metal Babble Armor Iron Shield Iron Helmet Mara Venomous Dagger (or Poison Needle if you prefer it) Pink Leotard Metal Babble Shield Hat of Happiness Brey Staff of Force Robe of Serenity Metal Babble Shield Hat of Happiness There are three more towns you should go to: Branca, Konenber, and Haville. In Branca on the west side of the first floor of the castle, there is a treasure room. The plunder here consists of a measly 120 gold, a set of Mystic Acorns, and a Small Medal. In Konenber upstairs from the inn is a treasure chest. It contains the Sword of Decimation. Only Ragnar and Taloon can equip it, but they should not do so, as it is cursed. Instead, let the hero carry it. If you use it during battle, it has the effect of Defence. Funnily enough, if you come here at night, the fire appears and still insists that your ship will sink if you try to leave. He is behind the times. In Haville, go to the prison. The jars in the west most and east most cells contain Small Medals. After walking out of Haville, get in the ship and head straight north. Slightly to the east will be an island with some brown hills on it. Go to the center of this island. There will be an old man and a Linguar-like creature there. The old man will tell you that the ruler of evil used to live somewhere near here. One of the jars in this house contains a Small Medal. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cascade Cave Your next stop should be Seaside Village. You cannot Return there, but it is not too far north of Aktemto. While you are here, you may want to talk to the people here. They will tell you about the Stone of Drought, the Sandglass of Regression, and the Metal Babble Sword. The last two items are hidden in the Cascade Cave, and you need the Stone of Drought to progress far enough into the cave and get these items. The location of the Stone of Drought is easy to see at night. If it is not night, Brey can use Day-Night. Just east of the inn, you should see a square of sand that is not underwater. This is where the Stone of Drought is. Remember where that square is. Have Brey cast Day-Night again, and search on that square. Now that you have the Stone of Drought, you are ready for the Cascade Cave. The easiest way to get there is to Return to Santeem, head west until you hit a large continent, follow the coastline south until it indents far to the west, and get out. The enemies in this area are: Phantom Knight (only when summoned by Skullknight) Tyranosaur Skullknight Beleth (rarely) Hambalba Chillanodon After disembarking, head northwest. You should see a lake. Go south of the lake. You will eventually see a cave whose entrance juts into the lake. This is Cascade Cave. I generally take the hero, Ragnar, Nara, and Brey into this cave since they normally have the lowest level and Nara's and Brey's spells are effective in the cave. If this is the choice that you want to go with, make sure that Ragnar borrows the Sword of Miracles and that Nara and Brey both have Hats of Happiness. The hero should carry the Sword of Decimation. Other items that you will need are the Stone of Drought, the Final Key, and the Sphere of Silence. The enemies in the first two levels of the cave are: Doolsnake Tentagor (rarely) Hemasword Minidemon Balakooda Maelstrom Doolsnakes can cast Stopspell. They are pretty wimpy enemies at this point of the game. Doolsnakes are indigenous to Cascade Cave. Tentagors can attack twice. They have a lot of HP. Those are their only special features. Tentagors are indigenous to Cascade Cave. Hemaswords can cast Robmagic and Upper. They can also deliver terrible blows. They are somewhat resistant to fire spells and ice spells. Minidemons can cast Blazemore and can emit freezing winds. They are somewhat vulnerable to fire spells, but are very vulnerable to ice spells and vacuum spells. Balakoodas can cast Blazemore and Increase. They are somewhat vulnerable to fire spells and vacuum spells, but are very vulnerable to ice spells. If necessary, use the Sword of Decimation to lower enemies' defense power if it has gotten too high from multiple Increases. Balakoodas are indigenous to Cascade Cave. Maelstroms can cast Snowstorm. They have a relatively high defense power. They are impervious to ice spells, but are quite vulnerable to most other spells. Maelstroms are indigenous to Cascade Cave. I find it odd that most of the enemies down here are more vulnerable to ice spells than fire spells despite the fact that the climate in this cave is cold. This also means that using the hero's Ice Blade as an item is often a good idea. If Nara gets injured during a battle, she should always use Heal or Healmore afterwards so that she is at her maximum HP. She can afford to be pretty liberal with her Heal and Healmore spells since she has a Hat of Happiness. It is crucial that Nara not die as only she can both use healing spells and replenish her MP. The first floor of this cave is straightforward. Use the Stone of Drought on the discolored portion of the waterfall. A passage will appear. Go into it. The treasure chest here contains the Sandglass of Regression. The hero should carry this. Be sure to use it if a battle goes ill. On the second floor, at the first fork, head west. At the second fork, head north. You will come to a treasure chest that contains a Small Medal. After getting this, you need to get to the west most part of the floor. From there, head north and follow the path until you reach a set of stairs. The enemies in the last two levels of the cave are: Doolsnake Tentagor Hemasword Minidemon Balakooda Raygarth Maelstrom Raygarths can emit scorching breath, causing paralysis. They generally travel in groups of three. Raygarths are indigenous to Cascade Cave. If you go straight south, you will come to a treasure chest that contains the Mask of Corruption. This may not be worth the effort to get. Head east at the first fork instead. At the next fork, head south to get to a treasure chest containing 1040 gold. Get this and go back north. At the next fork, going south is a dead end. Head east instead. You should be at the east most part of the floor. From there, head south and follow the path until you reach a set of stairs. The fourth floor is straightforward. The treasure chest here contains the Metal Babble Sword. It is not far southwest of the stairs. Upon leaving the cave, be sure to switch the equipment back. Now that Nara has the Metal Babble Sword, she can give the Magma Staff to Brey, who can give the Staff of Force to Mara. This means that you can sell Mara's old weapon. You can now stick the Stone of Drought in the vault, as you will never need it again. Even if you choose to come back to Cascade Cave, the passage through the waterfall will still be open. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Royal Crypt The Slime in Rosaville suggested that you visit the Royal Crypt. Now is a good time to do so. I usually take the hero, Ragnar, Cristo, and Nara into the crypt. Depending on levels, Alena might be a good alternative to Ragnar. Also, if Brey's or Mara's level is lower than Cristo's or Nara's at this point, consider taking Brey or Mara instead of one of the healers. On the other hand, Cristo's spells Stopspell and Defeat come in handy, as does Nara's Numboff. Also, with the hero, Cristo, and Nara going into the crypt, you should have no problem making sure that everyone's HP is sufficiently high. The downside is that the hero may have to cast Outside, but you will only need to do this in dire circumstances. The Royal Crypt is on the southern edge of a peninsula that juts out to the south and slightly to the west of Endor. It is fortunate that the crypt is also not far from Branca, as you can stay at Grandpa's House and sail to the crypt from there. In any event, make sure that the hero has the Sword of Lethargy equipped (if Ragnar is going down, switch weapons with him so that he is carrying the Ice Blade), and make sure that someone else has the Metal Babble Sword equipped. Also, make sure that the hero is carrying the Sphere of Silence. Finally, make sure to switch out helmets so that your two spellcasters (excluding the hero) who are going into the cave have Hats of Happiness equipped. This is a loss of one defense point for Cristo, but the effects of the Hat of Happiness far outweigh this minor loss of defense. The enemies in the crypt are: Hemasword Tyranobat Bebanbar Hambalba Dragonit Metal Babble Tyranobats can give hideous, shrieking roars. They are indigenous to the Royal Crypt. Bebanbars can cast Firebane and Robmagic. They start battles with only enough MP to cast Firebane once. They can also emit gales of sweet breath. They can attack twice per round. (Generally, if, during their first attack, they try to cast Firebane and do not have enough MP for it, they will not be able to attack again that round.) Hambalbas are the reason that Nara's Numboff comes in handy. Cristo's Defeat seems to work rather frequently on multiple Dragonits. When Metal Babbles attack, be sure to set the tactics to Use No MP. You want Cristo and Nara (especially Nara, since she should be carrying the Metal Babble Sword, which is guaranteed to hit them for 2 HP) to use their weapons to attack. If someone else besides the hero is carrying the Sphere of Silence, they may try to use it when you encounter multiple Metal Babbles. This is why I usually have the hero carry it. If Ragnar has the Sword of Lethargy, he will use it as an item, which never works on Metal Babbles. On the other hand, if a Metal Babble is hit for 1 HP with a Sword of Lethargy, it may fall asleep, which has the benefit of preventing it from running away for at least one round! The first floor is straightforward. Moreover, during battles here, everyone (including the people in the wagon) earns experience. None of the people outside of the wagon need to carry the Final Key. Upon entering the second floor, you should see the treasure chest that contains the Staff of Transform. This will be the last treasure chest that you can access in the crypt though. Head straight north to the movement tiles. People who have Hats of Happiness equipped love long sequences of movement tiles, as going on these enables them to get back lots of MP! On the other hand, the logic behind putting movement tiles in a crypt beats me. Anyways, after going on the set of movement tiles, you should see a set of stairs. Go down these. On first entering the third floor, the shortest path to the fourth floor is to step on the southern set of movement tiles and go down the stairs. On first entering the fourth floor, you will eventually be forced to step on the long sequence of movement tiles, so you may as well do so right away. The treasure chest that you see immediately after the movement tiles contains the Staff of Antimagic. Just like the Sphere of Silence, the hero should carry this. From the treasure chest containing the Staff of Antimagic, head west. You will eventually be forced to go south. At the first fork, head east. Follow the path while avoiding the movement tiles. You will come to a treasure chest containing a Small Medal. Head back to the fork and head south. You will eventually be forced to head east past the stairs that you came down, then forced to head north. At the next fork, take the one on the right. Go up the stairs here. Upon reaching the third floor again, follow the path. At the first fork, going north leads to a healing tile that can only be used once per visit to the Royal Crypt. Use it if necessary. Head south. Be sure to go around the movement tiles and keep heading south. Eventually, you will be forced to go southwest. Go up the stairs at the end of this path. After going up the stairs, you will be at the stairs that you saw while going along the first set of movement tiles. Go on the path, being extra careful not to step on the movement tiles, as you will have to go through the third and fourth floors again otherwise! You will be forced to go slightly north, then west for a long way, then south for a long way, then east. After heading east, you will see some movement tiles. Do not go on these, as they will take you away from the Staff of Transform, and you will have to go through the entire Royal Crypt again! Instead, head as far south as possible, then head east. At the northeast corner of this last room is the treasure chest containing the Staff of Transform. You could use Outside to get out of here, but since you are so near the entrance, you may as well walk out. Go on the set of movement tiles so that you can reach the stairs. After coming out of the Royal Crypt, be sure to switch equipment back to normal. If you followed my recommendations for Small Medals, you should have six right now (one from Branca, two from Haville, one from the island with the old man, one from Cascade Cave, and one from the Royal Crypt). Visit the king and get a Sword of Miracles for Taloon. After that, you can finally get rid of his Sword of Malice that he has had since near the beginning of Chapter Three! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Colossus Now that you have the Staff of Transform, you have to get to Dire Palace to activate a trigger. In order to get there, you have to go on the statue called Colossus. To get there, Return to Riverton, get in the ship, and head south to the source of the river. You will have to disembark here. The shrine of Colossus is not far south of here. You may encounter enemies on land during this short trek. The enemies on this island are: Mighty Healer Chaos Hopper Karon Maskan Minidemon Podokesaur (only when summoned by Ryvern) Leaonar Ryvern Necrodain Dragon Rider Rhinoband Mighty Healers have about double the HP of Curers, but because they can only cast Healmore, they are easier to deal with than Curers are. Chaos Hoppers, as their name indicates, can cast Chaos. They always attack twice. On the other hand, their attack is pathetic, their defense is low, and they often assess the situation. If a member of your party is affected by Chaos, you may want to consider running away or, if the wagon is available, switching that person for someone else. Leaonars always attack twice each round. They can build up strength. Ryverns can summon Podokesaurs. They can also poison via their regular attack. They are incredibly resistant to most spells. The spells that have the best chance of hitting Ryverns are ice spells and vacuum spells. Rhinobands are easily the most difficult enemy in this area. They can cast Upper and Defence, and they have a lot of HP and MP. They usually attack twice each round. You should take the hero, a non-spellcaster, a healer, and a wizard into Colossus. Alena has an edge over Ragnar and Taloon because of her agility, making her able to use a Sphere of Silence or Staff of Antimagic early on in a battle. This ability comes in most handy in Colossus. Among the healers, Cristo has the desirable abilities of casting Antidote and Stopspell, but Nara can cast Numboff. (There are enemies in Colossus who can cause members of your party to become poisoned and/or paralyzed, but paralysis is a much more annoying condition than poison at this stage.) Also, Nara is probably at a lower level than Cristo right now. Either of the wizards, Mara and Brey, is a good choice. Bring the one whose level is lowest. Make sure to trade out equipment so that the wizard has the Magma Staff equipped and the healer and wizard have Hats of Happiness equipped. If you are not bringing both Cristo and Taloon, the hero (and Ragnar if you choose to bring him) can use a Sword of Miracles. As mentioned, you will want both the Sphere of Silence and the Staff of Antimagic. The wizard should carry one of these. If Alena is coming, she should get the other one. Otherwise, give it to the hero. You do not need to take the Final Key or the Staff of Transform in here. There is a shaman near the entrance to Colossus. He will tell you that the great ones carry teardrops in their hands. This is actually a prophecy: Colossus is the great one, and the members of your party are the teardrops! If you do not get what I am talking about, you soon will. Anyways, you can now head to Colossus. There are no enemies along the ladder leading to Colossus. In case you need to know, Outside does not work while you are in Colossus. The enemies throughout most of Colossus are: Karon Minidemon Jumbat Bebanbar Leaonar Rhinoband Blizag Jumbats can cast Sleep and can deliver terrible blows. They are indigenous to Colossus. Blizags are one of the few enemies that do not have a regular attack. They can emit freezing winds, and they can cast Beat and Defeat. The fact that they can (and often do) cast these two spells makes them, in my opinion, one of the most fearful enemies in the game. Fortunately, they are very easy to kill via regular attacks. (They are resistant to most spells.) If you choose to have the hero use the Zenithian Shield or you have Cristo with you, you may discover that Blizags cannot take a dose of their own medicine. Fortunately, Blizags are indigenous to Colossus. Because of Jumbats and Bebanbars, the hero's spell Awake may come in handy. Upon entering Colossus, heading straight north takes you to a set of stairs leading to the basement. Further north on the other side of the wall is a treasure chest containing a Small Medal. You can and should nab this Small Medal before heading downstairs. In the basement, if you head west, you will come to a large room, which corresponds to the right foot of Colossus. At the southeast corner of this room is a treasure chest containing 640 gold. The stairs that you need to go up are near the northeast corner of this floor. Now that you are back on the first floor, head northwest to reach the stairs to the second floor. Follow the path through the rooms on the second floor. At the first fork, heading west is a dead end. Go east. At the next fork, heading east and following the path leads to a treasure chest containing an Agility Seed. Head back to the most recent fork, head south, and follow the path to the next set of stairs. On the third floor, there is a big room with many doorways. Most of the paths in here are dead ends. Ignore the room for now and head for the southeast corner of the floor, which is east of where you start on this floor. Take the stairs near there. There are not many places that you can go on the fourth floor. There is an exit to the south. Once you take this, you will be on the Colossus' left hand. There is a treasure chest here that contains the Demon Hammer. After getting this, go back down to the third floor. From the southeast corner of the third floor, head north, then slightly west. This is where you need to enter the middle room. From here on in Colossus, you may encounter Dragon Riders and Snowjives. Once you have entered the middle room on the third floor, head west. The stairs to the fourth floor are near the north wall. The enemies in the remainder of Colossus are: Karon (rarely) Fury Face Podokesaur Necrodain Dragon Rider Rhinoband (rarely) Snowjive Blizag On this section of the fourth floor, head south. You will see a staircase surrounded by a pink floor. Head towards these. You may see a treasure chest to the north of these stairs. Do not open it, as it is a Mimic. On the fifth floor, all you can do (besides going back, which I do not recommend) is jump out of one of the two holes. You want to jump out the one on the left, which is furthest from where you start on this floor. Once you jump off, you will notice that you fall out of Colossus' right eye and land on its right hand. The prophecy has been fulfilled! The remainder of Colossus is very straightforward. Once you are on Colossus' right hand, you have no choice but to head into the doorway to the north. Follow the path to the stairway to the fifth floor. You should end up in a tiny room. The stairs leading to the sixth floor are not very far away. There are no enemies on the sixth floor. If you like (I always do this unless Cristo is not present and someone is poisoned), you can have your healer heal everyone so that everyone is at their maximum HP, then walk around so that your healer and wizard get back up their maximum MP. You should notice some levers in the tiny room against the southern wall. As you walk up to these, the game will ask you if you want to pull the lever. You should say "Yes". Colossus will then walk across the lake. (One oddity of the game is that members of your party who are poisoned will lose HP as Colossus walks.) From here, the only way out is to jump out of one of Colossus' ears. After jumping out, immediately go back into the shrine on this side of the lake. You will notice a travel door. If you go in this, you will end up at the same travel door, but with the difference that the wagon will be with you! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dire Palace After coming back out of the shrine, head slightly east, then follow the brown hills north. Once the brown hills end, there should be a narrow passage through the mountains to the east. Go through it. Dire Palace is not too far southeast of here. In Dire Palace, if you talk to the monsters here while you do not look like monsters yourselves, they will attack you. Following is what enemy each creature corresponds to: appearance | enemy ---------------------------- tiger | Bengal orange and brown| Leaonar knight | Rhinoband skeleton | Necrodain devil | Minidemon purple witch | Impostor The only one of these that you have had no chance of encountering yet is Impostor. They know the spell Transform. During the first round of battle, they either assess the situation or use Transform. Whenever they leave a treasure chest behind, it always contains a virtually worthless Mirror of Ra. I generally battle Impostors here since defeating one by itself is very easy and they yield quite a bit of gold and experience. The first order of business is to collect all of the loot here. First, go down into the basement. (The stairs are up and to the left of the castle entrance.) Down here is a kitchen. One of the jars here contains a Small Medal. Next, go back up to the first floor, then head to the right and go up the stairs. On the second floor, go down the stairs near the northwest corner of the throne room. You will end up in a dark hallway. When you come out, head west. There will be one point where it looks like you will exit Dire Palace, but you will not. Head north along the grass, then go downstairs. In this basement are four treasure chests. The bottom two are Mimics. The top ones contain Aeolus' Shield and a Small Medal. After getting these, go back to the dark hallway and from there up to the throne room. Head south along the hallway next to the throne room. There will be a place where you can jump off. After doing so, you will need to get on the other side of the pain tiles, so Stepguard is appropriate. On the east side is a set of stairs going down. Search in front of the tombstone, and you will find a set of Lifeforce Nuts. Now to talk to the monsters here. Unless you want to battle them, you need to look like monsters. You may need to use the Staff of Transform multiple times before assuming an acceptable monster form. The devil on the first floor of the castle tells you that people used to fly around in hot air balloons. The knight on the first floor tells you about a meeting that Necrosaro is holding. Surprise surprise, you are able to spy on this meeting. The meeting will take place in the room furthest southwest on the second floor. In fact, you must attend this meeting in order to trigger an event. Once Necrosaro appears, he mentions that Esturk, the ruler of evil, has been found in Aktemto! He orders the monsters to go to Aktemto, then leaves by chanting Return. At this point, there are new monsters in the basement, and there is an extra monster in the room on the second floor that you have not been to yet. First, go to the basement. The monsters here have slightly humorous things to say. Also, there is a slightly macabre tone here. Human stew is being served, and there are three humans imprisoned in cells further to the east. The most macabre thing of all is that the humans make no effort to run away if you open their cells. What they say to you depends on whether you look like a human or not. There is an escape route. If you follow it, you will emerge near the castle entrance. There is a man just standing there. Why a man would just be standing just outside of a castle filled with monsters bewilders me. Anyways, he is there in case you have not gotten the Staff of Transform yet. He may suggest that you get it. Now to go back to the kitchen. There are some stairs going up. The room you come to is empty, but you can go upstairs again to reach a room with two monsters in it. One of them will tell you about a celestial master who imprisoned Esturk deep underground. Another reveals part of a dream that the king of Santeem had. From his dream, he realized that men would cause Esturk to be discovered and come back to life, and he tried to stop the excavation at Aktemto. The monster suggests that this is why the evil force came and took over the castle. Unless you want to battle some more monsters in Dire Palace, there is nothing more to do here. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lightning and Blazemost Fortunately, the monsters are pretty dumb and will not get to Esturk before you, no matter what you do. To make the battle against Esturk easier, you may as well build up your characters' levels. The best place to do this is on the top floor of the Royal Crypt, as Metal Babbles appear here more frequently than anywhere else you can go right now. (Recall that everyone earns experience for battles that take place on the top floor of the Royal Crypt.) If Mara has not yet learned BeDragon, you want the hero, Ragnar, Alena, and Taloon in here. Have Cristo lend the hero his Sword of Miracles, and have the hero carry the Sword of Lethargy. In battle with Metal Babbles, the hero can equip the Sword of Lethargy during battle and attack with it in hopes of putting one to sleep. Nara should lend the Metal Babble Sword to Ragnar. It is a bad idea to give the Metal Babble Sword to Taloon, as he may not attack with it due to his battle antics. Once Mara learns BeDragon, you will want to take her into the Royal Crypt to battle. (Brey should lend her the Magma Staff.) Of course, with Mara coming out, you will have to put one person back in. The best options are Ragnar and Taloon. If you choose to keep Taloon out and put Ragnar back in the wagon, make sure to give the hero the Metal Babble Sword, as he can use it instead of the Sword of Lethargy to hit Metal Babbles. Now, whenever you battle a group of Metal Babbles, Mara will use BeDragon and emit violent blazes, which will hit each Metal Babble for 1 HP. As the title of this section indicates, you want to build up enough experience until the hero has learned Lightning and Mara has learned Blazemost. With these two spells in your arsenal, Esturk is actually laughably easy to defeat. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Aktemto I recommend taking the hero, Cristo, and Mara to the battle against Esturk. Whether Ragnar or Alena should accompany these three is up to you. Make sure to switch out equipment appropriately. Most importantly, no one who is going into Aktemto should carry the Sword of Lethargy. The enemies in the first part of the cave are the same as in Chapter Four. They will be easy to kill. You need to head for the third floor where you found the Gunpowder Jar. See Chapter Four for more details. The enemies in the remaining portion are: Mighty Healer Chaos Hopper Maskan Podokesaur Ryvern Necrodain Eigerhorn Dragon Rider Mighty Healers are the only new enemy here. They can cast Healusall. They are the only type of enemy that can cast this spell. Mighty Healers are indigenous to this area. Feel free to be liberal with MP, even the hero's, as there is a healing tile that you will pass by. Head north from the ladder. At the first fork, head west and go around the lake. The tiger near the lake will not attack you if you talk to him while looking like humans. He tells you that he is lost. At the next fork, head east. You should see a devil there. He will tell you that he is trying to find Esturk. Head north, then east to the ladder downstairs. Upon entering the fourth floor, head northeast. At the first fork, if you head east and search at the square that is furthest east, you will find a Small Medal. To get to Esturk, head west. From here, head north for the most part. (You will be forced to go east at times.) Once you go through the passageway past the miner, Outside will not work. Once you go through the passageway, the cave opens up greatly. The tiny building near here has no enemies in it and has a healing tile in it. You can use the tile once per time you enter the building. If you have a battle in which members of your party lose a lot of HP or MP and you are still close to this building, you may as well go back and replenish again. You may want to set the tactics to Save MP after passing up this building. Esturk's Lair is far east of here. The entrance is on the south side. Upon entering, you will be in the courtyard. There is not much here. Head north into the main part of the building. There are tons of treasure chests in the rooms coming off of the hallway. I like to pass these ones up for now so that I have to come back down here again (bringing Nara and Brey instead in an attempt to build up their experience). The treasure chest closest to the entrance contains a Small Medal. The one in the room just west of this is a Mimic. You will see some stairs in the room west of the Mimic, but you cannot get there right now because of the wall. These are the stairs that you are shooting for. In the room next to this, there is a treasure chest containing 2480 gold. The two treasure chests in the other room contain a Strength Seed and an Agility Seed. The stairs that you must take are south of here. On the second level of Esturk's Lair, you have to head north, then east. The set of stairs going up here is a dead end. Go south instead and take the stairs going down. In this part of the first floor, there is a room with two treasure chests. The one on the left contains a Small Medal. I open that one on the way back from defeating Esturk. The one on the right is a Mimic. A skeleton is guarding another treasure chest. He will not leave until Esturk is defeated. From this area, you want to head northwest. You should come to a narrow hallway. After going down the hall, you will eventually come to the stairs that you saw the first time you came in from the courtyard. The portion of the second floor is tiny and straightforward. Head upstairs to the third floor. On the third floor, you will notice a knight and two tigers who prevent further progress. You have to talk to them. They tell you that Esturk is reviving and ask you to leave. You must say "No", in which case they will battle you. Even though three monsters are shown, you only have to battle two monsters. They are a Rhinoking and a Bengal. Rhinokings know the spell Bounce, and they can attack twice in a round. They are very strong and have about 200 HP. Due to Bengal's Stopspell and Rhinoking's Bounce, using magic in this battle is not a good idea. Besides, you want to save your MP for Esturk. By the time the hero attacks, the Bengal will probably have been killed, so have him attack the Rhinoking. After defeating these monsters, an easy matter, Esturk is not too far north. You may notice that he is not moving. As you step up to him, the battle begins. The battle here is completely different than most others. First of all, the battle music is totally different. It sounds more like impending doom. Also, to make room for Esturk, the last line of everyone's battle information, which contains the person's level or battle condition (poisoned, etc.), is chopped off. Esturk starts the battle asleep. He might not wake up before the battle is over! Between Lightning, Blazemost, and other attacks, Esturk will lose about 500 HP per round. The battle should be over after two or three rounds! In case you are curious, Esturk behaves in the following manner: When he is asleep, he emits lights that hit everyone for about 60 HP. When he is awake, he always attacks twice. He can emit blizzards, and he can take a deep breath, causing his next attack to cause double the damage. (This means that, if someone puts him to sleep right after he has taken a deep breath, the lights will cause double the normal damage! This is why you do not want to bring either Nara or the Sword of Lethargy to the battle with Esturk.) He can also emit freezing waves, after which the effects of spells such as Upper, Increase, Transform, and BeDragon wear off. Although his attacks while he is awake are powerful, he is more harmless while awake in that, with the exception of emitting blizzards (which do not hurt nearly as badly as the lights he emits while asleep), he can only hurt at most two people per round. Once Esturk is destroyed and you turn to leave, Necrosaro and some monsters will approach on the floor with pain tiles. He notices that Esturk is dead and wonders if you are the hero. Another monster comes to deliver some bad news to Necrosaro: Rosa has been kidnapped! With that, Necrosaro and the monsters leave. In most games of this nature, once the ruler of evil is defeated, the game is over. Such is clearly not the case here, as it is evident that you must defeat Necrosaro. You have to walk out of this portion of the mine. (Enemies will still attack you.) Be sure to get the treasure chests furthest away from the entrance: the one containing a Small Medal that is right next to the Mimic and the one that the skeleton was guarding. This last treasure chest contains the Gas Canister. This proves that the man in Riverton was right. Speaking of Riverton, you have to take the Gas Canister to the item shop there. After exiting Esturk's Lair, you can go into the small building to the healing tile if you want. Not too far from here is the exit, taking you back to the main part of the mine. In this area, Outside does work. If you have been following my recommendations for Small Medals, you should have five Small Medals. This means that you have more than enough to get one last Hat of Happiness, which is for Nara. I generally purchase Staffs of Punishment with all of the remaining Small Medals in the game. Sometimes I sell them, sometimes I have people carry them around, but in any case, there is not much else you can do with the rest of the Small Medals. If you wanted to, you could get a Hat of Happiness for Cristo and/or a Sword of Miracles for Ragnar, but I do not recommend these upgrades. Cristo's Iron Helmet offers 1 point more defense than a Hat of Happiness, so it seems illogical to downgrade. Also, as you will most likely not have Cristo, Nara, Mara, and Brey all out of the wagon simultaneously, Cristo can always borrow a Hat of Happiness if necessary. Ragnar will eventually get a Sword of Miracles, at which point a fourth Sword of Miracles is useless. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rosa's Fate Now that Rosa has been kidnapped, there are a few things that have changed. To complete the game, you do not have to explore all of these things, but this, in my opinion, is one of the most compelling parts of the storyline. If you go back to Dire Palace and use the Staff of Transform as before, the monsters will tell you that no one has returned from Aktemto. Some of them know that Rosa has been kidnapped. If you go to Rosaville, Rosa will no longer be in Saro's Tower. (Duh!) If you go into the secret chamber of Saro's Tower (you will need the Flute of Uncovering for this), you can go talk to the Slime. Even if you did not defeat Saroknight, he will be gone. If you chose not to battle Saroknight, you lost your opportunity to obtain the Sphere of Silence. Anyways, the Slime will tell you that some humans abducted Rosa and took her towards Izmit. Izmit! That is the place where you had that strange dream! Now that Rosa has been kidnapped, the dream that you have at the inn has changed drastically. This is the only way to see what definitely happened to Rosa. In the dream, three men are deliberately injuring Rosa so that she will shed Ruby Teardrops. Necrosaro comes and witnesses what the humans are doing. He instantly kills off each of Rosa's attackers. (They got what they deserved.) An injured and tearful Rosa begs Necrosaro to give up his obsession of destroying humans, then sadly, she passes away. Necrosaro of course is devastated, but he does not heed Rosa's words. He vows to wipe out the human race. His anger and rage cause the entire screen to turn red and black. I like the parallels of the hero seeking to avenge Celia's death and Necrosaro seeking to avenge Rosa's death. The big difference is that the hero carries this out in a reasonable way, only killing those who wish to do him harm. Necrosaro, on the other hand, chooses to take his anger out on those who have done him no harm. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hot Air Balloon To make any more progress, you have to take the Gas Canister to Riverton, more specifically, to the item shop just south of the weapon shop. The shopkeeper will ask to look at the canister. If you let him do so, he will ask to borrow it. You need to do this. He will ask you to come back later. Go stay at Grandpa's house and come back. The shopkeeper will give you back the Gas Canister, and he also gives you a hot air balloon. If you talk to the shopkeeper again, he will tell you that he is happy that he can make and sell hot air balloons. To get to your hot air balloon, head south out of Riverton. Your balloon is to the west. To get into the balloon, step on the bottom part and press the A button. To land, press A again. You cannot land on water, mountains, swamps, caves, towns, castles, and those weird black things surrounded by water (for example, the things near Stancia that made it such a pain to get to). You no longer need the Gas Canister and the Flute of Uncovering. Also, unless you want to have some fun talking to people in towns while looking like monsters, you do not need the Staff of Transform. Put these in the vault. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loch Tower Now that you have a hot air balloon, you can finally access Loch Tower, which is the only place you have not cleaned out yet. Take whoever you like into the tower, as it is laughably easy at this point. The loot in Loch Tower consists of: Luck Seed Scale Shield 640 gold Strength Seed Wing of Wyvern For directions to these items, see the section on Loch Tower in Chapter One. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elfville Another place that you are not able to access until getting the hot air balloon is the place on the Treasure Map where the X is. This is Elfville. This is the next place that you should go. The enemies near Elfville are laughably easy also. They are: Somnabeetle Vampdog Viceter Demonite Mage Toadstool Bisonhawk Infurnus Knight Metal Scorpion Upon entering Elfville, dead ahead is the World Tree, and slightly to the left is an inn. Unlike other inns, this inn only restores the HP and MP of those who are outside the wagon. It is also one of the most expensive inns in the game. To the left of the World Tree, people will tell you about the World Tree. There are monsters in the World Tree, and you can take the leaves of the World Tree. It turns out that a Leaf of World Tree will revive a deceased member of your party, but your party can only have one at a time. To the right of the World Tree are some elves and a shop. The elves will tell you that they hear someone calling from the World Tree. The person is saying to come up in groups of three. The shop has some unique items: the Shield of Strength and Water Flying Clothes. You definitely should get a Shield of Strength for Taloon. If you do not want to use the Dresses of Radiance later on in the game, you should get a set of Water Flying Clothes for either Mara or Brey. Since you have not had to buy equipment since upgrading to Metal Babble Armor and/or a Staff of Force, you should have plenty of gold saved up. Moreover, this is the last time that you will need to buy equipment! There is nothing more to do here except to go into the World Tree. I usually take the hero, Ragnar, and Cristo. Cristo's spells Antidote, Stopspell, Defeat, Healall, and Healus come very much in handy! The enemies on the first two levels of the World Tree are: Chaos Hopper Podokesaur (only when summoned by Green Dragon) Red Cyclone Snowjive Green Dragon Eigerhorn Red Cyclones can cast Infermore and Infermost, but they have low HP (less than 100) and are extremely susceptible to Defeat. Red Cyclones are indigenous to the World Tree. Green Dragons can emit poison gas and can summon Podokesaurs. They are quite susceptible to Defeat. Green Dragons are indigenous to the World Tree. From the entrance into the World Tree, head northwest, go up the stairs, and follow the path. You will eventually come to a branch. If you search while standing on the green portion, you will get a Leaf of World Tree. Only the hero will use this properly during battle, so he should carry it. There is also a treasure chest on this branch. It contains the Staff of Healing. If you brought the people that I suggested, Ragnar should carry this, so that everyone has a way of healing others during battle. To make progress in the World Tree, you will need to go back towards the entrance. From nearby the entrance, head east, then north to reach the ladder. On this part of the second floor, head east, then south. Follow the path onto the branch and back inside the tree trunk. There is a ladder nearby. The enemies on the top three levels of the World Tree are: Chaos Hopper Red Cyclone Ogre Snowjive Green Dragon Eigerhorn Infurnus Sentinel Ogres only have a regular attack, but they may inflict a terrible blow. They are extremely susceptible to Sleep. Infurnus Sentinels can cast Blazemore and Fendspell. They are also extremely susceptible to Sleep. Upon reaching the third floor, head northeast and go around the trunk clockwise. You will eventually reach a place where you can go back into the trunk. This is where the next ladder is. On the fourth floor, go outside of the trunk and head counterclockwise. At the first fork (about 10:00), go on the path that is furthest from the trunk. At the second fork (about 6:00), stay near the trunk, heading northeast. The ladder is on this branch towards the east. On the fifth floor, go one square north, head straight west to the edge, then head straight south. Follow the branch to the center of the tree. You need to talk to the person standing there. This is Lucia, a Zenithian who was injured by monsters. She cannot join your party unless there is room for her. (She will not head out to the wagon like everyone else.) You have to let her join your party, as she is standing in the way of the treasure chest that contains the Zenithian Sword. After Lucia joins your party, head southeast. On this area of leaves, you will find the treasure chest containing the Zenithian Sword. At this point in the game, the Zenithian Sword is a pretty wimpy weapon. The hero should keep the Ice Blade equipped for now. If you have Taloon appraise the Zenithian Sword at this point in the game, he will be disappointed! After leaving the World Tree, I generally put the Treasure Map in the vault. You can keep it out though in case you are curious about other features of the map. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Center Island When you acquired Lucia, she told you that, to access Zenithia, you have to go into the Zenithian Tower. It is on what I like to call Center Island. This island does not appear on the Treasure Map. Center Island is only accessible via balloon. The island can be hard to find. Here are four easy ways to get to it: 1. From Konenber, head straight west. 2. From the Branca side of the Cave Between Endor and Branca, head straight south. 3. From the mouth of the river that Riverton is on, head straight north. 4. From the peninsula northeast of Haville, head straight east. Upon landing on Center Island, it expands. This is the only spot that the balloon can land on this island. To get around here, you have to walk. The enemies on Center Island are: Ogre Ferocial Noctabat Rhinoking (rarely) Infurnus Sentinel Wilymage King Metal Ferocials always attack twice. They can give hideous, shrieking roars. Noctabats can emit gales of sweet breath. They can also emit eerie mists, which nullify spells. Wilymages can cast Firevolt, emit gales of scorching breath, and use Leaves of World Tree. Unlike your party, Wilymages can carry many Leaves of World Tree. Wilymages generally travel in pairs, which can be annoying. King Metals can cast Firebane. They yield the most experience when defeated. Hopefully, someone lands a terrific blow before it runs away. If King Metals leave a treasure chest behind, it will contain a Metal Babble Helm! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gottside The only city on Center Island is Gottside. It is northeast of where the balloon lands. Gottside is the only city in which day and night both occur, yet most people do not say anything different regardless of the time. (Only the innkeeper's and shaman's speeches are slightly modified.) Upon entering the town, the House of Healing is to the north, and the inn is slightly to the southwest. To the north of the House of Healing are some stairs going down. Down here in one of the chests of drawers is a Small Medal. There is not much else of note here in Gottside. A man near the entrance will inform you that Gottside is the closest town to Zenithia, but that the cave just to the west of town is suspicious. Some people will tell you about the prophecy of Esturk's demise. Others will tell you that there is not a similar prophecy about Necrosaro, who they consider to be the next Esturk. Finally, there is a Zenithian who orders the hero to go see Master Dragon. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shrine of the Baron's Horn Before heading to Zenithia, you may as well go to the Shrine of the Baron's Horn. It is in the desert which is southeast of Gottside. There are no enemies in this shrine, but Outside does not work in here. From the entrance, head straight and fall down the hole. On the next floor, head south and go downstairs. This leads to a room with a treasure chest containing the Baron's Horn. This item is useful for recovering the wagon at a later point in the game. There is also a Dress of Radiance hidden in this shrine. To get it, go back upstairs, go north, and jump down the hole. From here, take the elevator. You should end up back on the first floor. This time, take the stairs. This part of the second floor is straightforward. On the third floor, you should notice that, where the elevator was, there are stairs leading down. If you go down these and head north, you will come to a treasure chest containing a Dress of Radiance. If you want to use Dresses of Radiance, let Alena have this one. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Zenithian Tower In order to get to Zenithia, you must enter Zenithian Tower. It is to the south and slightly to the west of Gottside. In order for your party to be able to enter the tower, the hero must be in the party, and he must have all of the Zenithian equipment equipped. The hero can and should carry another weapon besides the currently pathetic Zenithian Sword since, as soon as your party enters the tower, the hero can equip anything he wants. It is somewhat pointless to bring Lucia into the tower. The only other recommendation that I have is that you bring a nonspellcaster, a healer, and a wizard. Be advised though that people with HP lower than 150 may have trouble staying alive in this tower. Also, you should be aware that some enemies in this tower can paralyze via their regular attack. I always clear out all the treasure chests in Zenithian Tower as I go through it. The main reason for this is so that I do not have to come back to clean up. Most of the treasure chests are not too far out of the way from the path through. Enemies only dwell inside of the tower. If you are walking in a part of the tower that is exposed from above, you will not encounter any enemies. For this reason, feel free to have the people with Hats of Happiness equipped be liberal with MP. The enemies in the lower levels of Zenithian Tower are: Ferocial Noctabat Beastan Beastans can deliver terrible blows relatively often. For this reason, it is important to kill them as soon as possible. Beastans are indigenous to Zenithian Tower. If you go left upon entering Zenithian Tower, you will encounter several dead ends, and you may stumble upon a treasure chest containing a Magic Potion. To get to the main part of the tower, head right upon entering. After going up the stairs to the right of the entrance, you will be in an enemy-free zone. The door that is closest to these stairs leads to a room that has a treasure chest containing Mystic Acorns. After getting these, head back out, climb up the ladders, and go through the door here. In this room, the stairs directly to the east lead to a dead end, the stairs directly to the west lead to a treasure chest containing a Small Medal, and the stairs to the far north lead to the main part of the tower. After emerging into enemy-free zone again, you will come to a doorway. This is a taunting dead end, as you will be able to see the last large room in the tower from the end of it. Go down the stairs instead. The enemies in this section of Zenithian Tower are: Rogue Wisper (only when summoned by Master Necrodain) Ferocial Noctabat Flamadogs (rarely) Pit Viper Beastan Master Necrodain (rarely) Flamadogs can emit scorching gas. Pit Vipers are often on guard, and their attack can cause paralysis. Pit Vipers are indigenous to Zenithian Tower. Master Necrodains can cast Defeat, and they can summon Rogue Wispers. Feel free to laugh hysterically when Master Necrodains summon wimpy Rogue Wispers. Master Necrodains are indigenous to Zenithian Tower. After heading downstairs, you will be in a room with a narrow pathway. If you want the Mysterious Bolero, you will need to head out the door, go down the ladder and down the stairs, head east through the room, and go up the stairs here. After getting the Mysterious Bolero, you will need to go back to the doorway. The stairs past the doorway lead to the last part of the tower. After going up the stairs and up the ladder, you will come to a small room. Head up the stairs and up the ladder. This next room is the largest room in the tower. There are some new enemies here. The enemies here include: Curer (only when summoned by Bharack) Bharack Pit Viper Demighoul Bharacks can summon Curers and other Bharacks. They are fairly immune to most spells. Demighouls can cause paralysis. Reminiscent of Blazeghosts, they can be tough to hit using regular attacks. When they are in large groups, I highly recommend using spells to kill them off. If you head east upon entering the large room, you will come to a treasure chest containing a Dragon Shield. To get through the tower, you will need to head west from the entrance of the large room and head north around the red carpet until you come to a passage south onto the red carpet. Go onto the red carpet and head east. Eventually, the red carpet will end, and there will be a passage south. Head south and follow the path until you come to a set of stairs. In the next room, head north and go upstairs. This is the roof of Zenithian Tower. Not only are there no enemies up here, the music has changed drastically. There is a platform north of the stairs. As soon as you step on it, a cloud will descend and hover near the platform. Your party will automatically go into the cloud. After that, the cloud rises high up to a much larger cloud. Your party will automatically head onto the large cloud. The castle that is up here is Zenithia. You can use Return to get to Zenithia, so you should not need to go into Zenithian Tower ever again. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Zenithia While you are here in Zenithia, you may as well drop Lucia off. Enter Zenithia, then promptly exit again. The wagon will be with you! Switch the party out so that the hero and Lucia are out of the wagon. Your party cannot enter Zenithia unless the hero is out of the wagon. Upon reentering Zenithia, Lucia will run off. The first place that you should go is in the door to the west (where Lucia ran off to). After entering, you should be in a long hallway. Go into the room furthest to the west. There is a devil in this room, which is apparently a greenhouse. If you do not have any Dew of World Tree, he will give you some. Make sure to go back to the World Tree at some point to get another Dew of World Tree. You should also go into the room just east of the greenhouse. There is a Small Medal in one of the chests of drawers in here. Also, if you talk to the Zenithian in this room, you will hear something suggestive: This Zenithian seems to be the hero's mother! Back in the hallway, there is a set of stairs. Go down these. Lucia is in this room. If you talk to her, she will show her appreciation by letting Doran join your party. You should note the doorway leading out of this room. If you decide to go out here and wander around, you should see a hole in the cloud. The Zenithian out here explains that this was caused by the evil undulation. You should not go down here just yet. Instead, head back to the room where you got Doran, go upstairs, and go out either of the doorways on the south side of the hallway. On the upper level of the castle, there are three rooms. In case you are curious, there are three elves in the western room, two of which you encountered in the Birdsong Tower in Chapter Two. They are still pretty antisocial. The most important thing to do in Zenithia is to talk to Master Dragon. He is in the throne room, which is reached by going through the double doors. Master Dragon will tell you about Necrosaro's plan and how even he is not powerful enough to stop him. On the other hand, he admits that humans may be capable of stopping him, and is intrigued by the fact that the hero is half Zenithian and half human. He gives the hero 10000 experience points and blesses the Zenithian Sword. Finally, he tells you to go, being sure to mention that the Zenithian Sword will be a "tremendous help". Master Dragon is not kidding: The Zenithian Sword is now tremendously helpful. If you have Taloon appraise it, he will agree that this sword is awesome now. Moreover, Taloon will observe that the sword has an effect when used as an item in battle. Just so that you know, its effect is that it causes the effects of spells such as Upper, Increase, Bounce, Fendspell, and Transform to wear off. As an added bonus, it is now a +110 weapon. Have the hero equip this bad boy and hand the Ice Blade down to Ragnar. It is up to you whether to keep the Sword of Lethargy for the odd battle (in which case the hero should carry it) or sell it. I usually sell it. Just to recap, following is the equipment that each member of your party should have at this point: Hero Zenithian Sword Zenithian Armor Zenithian Shield Zenithian Helm Ragnar Ice Blade Metal Babble Armor Aeolus' Shield Iron Mask Alena Stilleto Earrings Pink Leotard/Dress of Radiance (no shield) Golden Barrette Cristo Sword of Miracles Metal Babble Armor Metal Babble Shield Iron Helmet Nara Metal Babble Sword Metal Babble Armor Metal Babble Shield Hat of Happiness Taloon Sword of Miracles Metal Babble Armor Shield of Strength Iron Helmet Mara Staff of Force Pink Leotard/Water Flying Clothes Metal Babble Shield Hat of Happiness Brey Magma Staff Mysterious Bolero/Water Flying Clothes Metal Babble Shield Hat of Happiness Ragnar is the only person who definitely has an upgrade coming, as you will get another Sword of Miracles. The only other possible upgrades are Mara's armor (Water Flying Clothes or Dress of Radiance, whichever you prefer) and Brey's armor (Water Flying Clothes). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Final Cave To get to the Final Cave, you will need to jump through the hole in the cloud in Zenithia. I always clear out all the treasure chests in the Final Cave as I go through it. The main reason for this is so that I do not have to come back to clean up. None of the treasure chests are far out of the way from the path through. Moreover, treasure chests abound in this cave, and the path is very long, so it would take a lot of time to traverse this cave twice. Typically, when I play this game, my characters level up in this cave like mad. Hopefully, the same happens for you. You might not want Alena to carry the Sphere of Silence. She will try to use it often, and it rarely works. The enemies in the first part of the Final Cave include: Curer Bellzabble Bharack Fairy Dragon Impostor Demighoul Bull Basher Red Dragon (rarely) Ogrebasher Master Malice Bellzabbles rarely cause any damage. They can only cause damage by delivering terrible blows for 40 HP. Nevertheless, you should kill them as early as possible during battle because they can cast Farewell. They are indigenous to the Final Cave. Fairy Dragons can cast Chaos and emit gales of sweet breath. This is the enemy that yields the most gold: 390. They are indigenous to the Final Cave. Impostors tend to appear in groups of four. Demighouls are as annoying as ever. If you need to use magic to get rid of these, I recommend Brey, as you will want Mara to have as much MP for later on in this cave. Bull Bashers can cast Blizzard and Revive. They are indigenous to the Final Cave. Red Dragons can cast Surround and Infermost. They can also emit scorching gas. They are indigenous to the Final Cave. Ogrebashers usually miss, but when they do hit, it is always a terrible blow for somewhere around 105 HP. They are indigenous to the Final Cave. Master Malice always travels alone in the Final Cave. It is the only enemy that has a well defined attacking pattern. This is what Master Malice does in successive rounds: casts Explodet casts Fendspell casts Upper emits freezing waves casts Blazemost attacks This pattern repeats until the battle is over. Since Master Malice usually attacks before the hero, it might be a good idea to use the Zenithian Sword during the third round of battle. That way, the effects of Fendspell and Upper will wear off as soon as possible after Master Malice casts Upper. Typically, you will kill Master Malice before he can cast Upper a second time. The game is rigged so that the Sphere of Silence never works on Master Malice. Upon entering the Final Cave, head straight north. Past the door is a treasure chest containing a Dress of Radiance. Go back to where the door was and head west. From here, head north. This long hallway will turn west, then south. At the first fork, going west and negotiating the movement tiles (an easy matter) will get you to a treasure chest containing a Small Medal. There is more to this room, but you cannot access it yet. Go back to the fork and head south. The long hallway will turn east, then north, then west, then south. At this fork, there is no reason to head south. Head west instead. At the first fork in this area, to the west is a treasure chest containing a Staff of Jubilation. Transfer this to someone who is in the wagon who you plan on keeping in the wagon, as members of you party tend to want to use it inappropriately during battle. Go back to the fork and head south. I do not bother with the treasure chest in the swamp as it is a Mimic. Head west, then north to reach the stairs. This is the room where the Small Medal was. Be careful not to fall down the hole. Head south and stay against the west wall. You will eventually be forced to go on a set of movement tiles. When you emerge, you will see a treasure chest to the left. It contains Demon Armor. From the treasure chest, head east. You should go on the set of movement tiles that point to the east and are directly above another set of movement tiles. There is a set of stairs to the north. Once you go downstairs, you will be in a small room that has four treasure chests. They contain 3280 gold, an Agility Seed, a Strength Seed, and Lifeforce Nuts. From this room, head downstairs. After going down these stairs, you should be in a room with lots of water, and you should be able to get onto a ship. Go on the ship and head to the northwest corner of the room. There is a treasure chest here which contains a set of Lifeforce Nuts. Get back on the ship, go back to the island where the ship was originally, then head straight east. You should come to a tiny green island with stairs leading down. Do not head down these stairs just yet. Instead, head directly south from the stairs on this island. Disembark and continue heading straight south. The treasure chest here contains Water Flying Clothes. Be very careful where you step here. If you accidentally touch a movement tile, you could be forced away from the ship and have to walk all the way around the room to get back to it. Now that you got the Water Flying Clothes, head north and go down the stairs. After going down these stairs, the path is very straightforward. Head north, then west, then south to another set of stairs. From here, go north and through the double doors. The enemies in this part of the cave are: Slime Curer (only when summoned by Bharack) Bharack (rarely) Big Sloth Bull Basher Spite Spirit Red Dragon Metal Babble King Metal Slimes are decoys. They only appear with Metal Babbles and King Metals. Members of your party will tend to kill off Slimes before any other enemy. Big Sloths are relatively harmless. They are often dazed, and they can do strange dances. They are most dangerous when you have caused them lots of damage without killing them. At that point, they get serious, and are capable of casting Blazemost, Infermost, Firevolt, and Blizzard. They may run away when serious. They are quite susceptible to sleep. Spite Spirits rarely attack regularly, but their attack can cause paralysis. They can cast Stopspell and Sleepmore. They can also emit shrieking roars as well as nullify spells. They can also call for other Spite Spirits as reinforcements. Spells usually Bounce off of Spite Spirits, so kill them using regular attacks. Since there are Metal Babbles and King Metals in this area, I advise having Alena and Doran out of the wagon as well as having Mara come out of the wagon whenever you have a battle with these creatures. Moreover, once you get the Mirror Shield (coming up soon), you can have the hero, Ragnar, or Cristo equip the Metal Babble Sword and the Mirror Shield and keep that person out of the wagon for these types of battles. This part of the Final Cave is actually a tower. Follow the path until you come to a big hole. Jump down it. The treasure chest here contains the Mirror Shield. You will want to keep the Mirror Shield until everyone's level is as high as you want it to be. You will have to jump down from here as well. In this room, go back upstairs. (The stairs going up are on the south side.) The other treasure chest in this area contains a set of Lifeforce Nuts. Go back down (either via stairs or jumping). From here, go downstairs. (The stairs going down are on the north side.) This is the very bottom of the tower. Keep heading south. You will eventually come out of the tower and emerge into the dark world. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Last Refuge Once you are in the dark world, you will see a shrine to the west. This is Last Refuge. You can Return here, which means that you never have to go through the Final Cave ever again. At the Last Refuge, a Zenithian is disguised as a flame. She can record your quest on the Imperial Scrolls of Honor as well as replenish your HP and MP. She will also inform you that you cannot enter Necrosaro's Palace until you have broken the barriers surrounding it. To break the barriers, you will need to defeat the four bosses that live at the four corners of the dark world. I recommend using Repel before walking to the shrines where they live and, after defeating each one, using Return to get back to the Last Refuge as quickly as possible. Return does not work within the four shrines, but it does work immediately after you leave each shrine. In this area, it is always night. (Duh!) The enemies here include: Lethal Armor Leaping Maskan Impostor Swinger Great Ridon Ryvernlord Guardian Recall that Lethal Armors can cast Sleepmore. Other than that, they are harmless. Leaping Maskans are similar to regular Maskans, yet are somehow even more annoying. Swingers can deliver terrible blows. Great Ridons can emit violent blazes. Ryvernlord have a lot of HP and occasionally run away. Unlike Ryverns, they are quite susceptible to many spells. Guardians are easily the toughest enemy that appears on a regular basis. They always attack twice, and they can emit blizzards and gales of sweet breath. Spells rarely work on Guardians. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anderoug The easiest of the four bosses to kill is Anderoug. He is in the southeast shrine. I recommend using the hero, Mara, Brey, and Doran, as this combination can kill Anderoug the quickest. There are actually three Anderougs, each of which is an enemy group of its own. He can emit scorching breath and, if an Anderoug dies, he can summon another one. If Lightning, IceSpears, Explodet, and Doran's blizzard emission occur and are all successful, Anderoug may bite the dust after one round! Oddly enough, Chaos can work on Anderoug also. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Infurnus Shadow Infurnus Shadow always leaves a Sword of Miracles behind. Ragnar is itching for this sword, so you may as well get it now. Infurnus Shadow is in the northwest shrine. I recommend using the hero, Ragnar, Alena, and either Doran or Taloon, depending on who has more HP. Infurnus Shadow may attack twice in one round. He can emit blizzards, violent blazes, and shrieking roars, and he can cast Explodet. Even after getting the Sword of Miracles, you will want to keep the Ice Blade for a little while longer. On the other hand, everyone should now have the best equipment they can get: Hero Zenithian Sword Zenithian Armor Zenithian Shield Zenithian Helm Ragnar Sword of Miracles Metal Babble Armor Aeolus' Shield Iron Mask Alena Stilleto Earrings Pink Leotard/Dress of Radiance (no shield) Golden Barrette Cristo Sword of Miracles Metal Babble Armor Metal Babble Shield Iron Helmet Nara Metal Babble Sword Metal Babble Armor Metal Babble Shield Hat of Happiness Taloon Sword of Miracles Metal Babble Armor Shield of Strength Iron Helmet Mara Staff of Force Water Flying Clothes/Dress of Radiance Metal Babble Shield Hat of Happiness Brey Magma Staff Water Flying Clothes Metal Babble Shield Hat of Happiness -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gigademon Of the two remaining bosses, Gigademon is the easiest. I recommend using the hero, Ragnar, Alena, and either Doran or Taloon, depending on who has more HP. There is a Small Medal hidden in his lair. Upon entering, go into the swamp and walk around the building. The Small Medal is at the end of the path, near the northwest corner of the building. Gigademon is a prankster. To get to him, you need to head west from the entrance through the green path. You will be forced to go down a totally unnecessary set of stairs. Go back up, head further south, then go downstairs. In this room, bumping into a clay doll will cause you to go back upstairs. They will mimic you movement. Use this fact and the stones to your advantage to maneuver around them. Cast Stepguard before going into the narrow hallway. When you reach Gigademon, he claims to have a reward for you. Whether you fall for this practical joke or not makes no difference. The battle will ensue no matter what. Gigademon always attacks twice. He can cast Defence, and he is often on guard. I recommend that the hero use the Zenithian Shield during the first round of battle. Note that the hero can use the Zenithian Sword to make the effect of Defence wear off of one of his allies! It may take a long time to kill Gigademon, but the outcome is inevitable. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Radimvice By far the toughest of the four bosses is Radimvice. I save her until last to let everyone get as much experience (and hopefully level up) before this battle. I recommend using the hero, Ragnar, Cristo, and Nara. Also, I suggest that Ragnar carry (but not equip) the Ice Blade, Cristo equip the Mirror Shield, and Nara carry (but not equip) the Magma Staff. On the second floor, go up the stairs at the northeast corner. This leads to a treasure chest containing Zombie Mail. Go back to the second floor and go up the stairs at the southwest corner. Radimvice is on the third floor. Radimvice first looks like a shaman, but in the middle of her speech, she transforms. She tells how evil will reign in Necrosaro's soul, and she informs you that she was the one who ordered Rosa's abduction. Gasp!!! If Necrosaro knew about this, your party would not have to bother killing Radimvice! I am deducing Radimvice's gender from the fact that she must have a Dress of Radiance equipped. Unlike other Dresses of Radiances, hers *always* works, so do not try to use spells on her. (This is why I do not recommend Mara or Brey.) Unlike the other bosses, Radimvice appears along with three Demighouls. Your party will try to take out the Demighouls first. Hopefully, Cristo's Defeat works well on them. Otherwise, Ragnar and Nara will use the Ice Blade and Magma Staff, respectively. Radimvice can cast Blazemost, Infermost, and Blizzard. On the other hand, her regular attack is pathetically weak. During the first round, the hero should cast Fendspell on Nara. After that, the hero should use the Zenithian Shield at the first opportunity (that is, when everyone can get by without a heal spell from the hero). At the next free chance, the hero should cast Fendspell on Cristo. After that (by which point the Demighouls are hopefully dead), the hero should cast Fendspell on Ragnar. With the Demighouls dead and everyone protected from Radimvice's spells, the battle is now quite easy. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Necrosaro's Palace Now that the barriers are broken, it is time to enter Necrosaro's Palace. This place is reminiscent of the Cave Southeast of Gardenbur in that it should be cleaned out before the final goal in this place is achieved. It is also reminiscent of Zenithian Tower in that there are no enemies in areas exposed from above. The enemies in Necrosaro's Palace include: Leaping Maskan Impostor Demighoul Swinger Great Ridon Ryvernlord Duke Malisto Guardian Master Malice Duke Malistos can cast Stopspell, Blazemost, Firevolt, and Beat. On the other hand, they do not have very much HP (about 200), so toting around a Sphere of Silence in here may not be worth it. In Necrosaro's Palace, Master Malice may be accompanied by Ryvernlords. Upon entering Necrosaro's Palace, use Stepguard and head northeast. Try to avoid the dolls that move around along with you. They are Clay Dolls, which can cast Sleepmore and Defeat, and they have a lot of HP. (Random battles with Clay Dolls do not occur.) After heading northeast and into the next area, head south. You will see some stairs to the left. After going up these stairs, head out of the room. You will be back in a place that is exposed from above. Head northeast to the next portion of the palace. Upon reentering the palace interior, you will have to head down a long hallway heading west, then you will be forced to go south. In this area, there is a flame which suggests that you proceed no further. Not likely! You should also notice a big hole in the floor and some stairs going down. Both of them lead to a large basement whose only reward is a Small Medal. If you want the Small Medal, go in this room and open the treasure chest, which is along the southern wall. From near where you encountered the flame, head east, go upstairs, and out of the doorway. The next portion of the palace is west of here. So far, with respect to finding your way through, this palace has been cakewalk so far. It gets a little harder now, but not by much. There are only two real forks in this entire palace, and you are about to encounter the first one. Upon reentering the palace interior, you should see an elevator and a path heading north. For the time being, do not go down the elevator, but remember where it is. Head north instead and go upstairs. Despite appearances, this is where the second fork is. After going up the stairs, head straight north. You will come to a hidden room. Follow the paths and stairs until you finally reach a new part of the palace exterior. Out here is one of the most valuable items in the game: the Sage's Stone! There are a couple more treasure chests in here that you may as well get. Go back to the stairs at the second fork. Do not go down them. Instead, head southeast to the room's exit. Head east on the palace exterior to the next room. This tiny room contains two treasure chests. Their contents are Lifeforce Nuts and the ever expensive Staff of Thunder. I will give directions for getting through Necrosaro's Palace within the next section. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Preparations for Necrosaro It is time to prepare for the last battle with Necrosaro. First of all, I recommend that you get everyone (with the possible exception of Nara) up to at least level 40. I recommend hunting for King Metals in the portion of the Final Cave that is closest to the Last Refuge. Someone outside of the wagon should have the Mirror Shield equipped while hunting for King Metals. If you have not gotten the second Dew of World Tree, be sure to do that. Only the hero will use the Dew of World Tree and Leaf of World Tree appropriately, and I highly recommend that you have control over when the Sage's Stone is used. Thus, the hero should be carrying the following items: Zenithian Sword Zenithian Armor Zenithian Shield Zenithian Helm Sage's Stone Dew of World Tree Dew of World Tree Leaf of World Tree To go through Necrosaro's Palace, head back to the elevator mentioned in the previous section. Go down it. You should notice that you land on top of the big hole in the floor. (The flame should be north of you.) Head south, then east. In this room, immediately go upstairs. After that, head to the elevator and take it back down to the previous room. Go back up the stairs. You can now walk on the ceiling of the elevator. Making your way through the rest of the palace is pretty straightforward. After emerging on the palace exterior, make sure that someone is carrying the Baron's Horn. Otherwise, once you go through the last doorway, you will not be able to retrieve the wagon! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Necrosaro Immediately after exiting Necrosaro's Palace, use the Baron's Horn to retrieve the wagon. After that, head north to the big rock. Climb upwards. Random battles rarely occur in this area, but they do happen. The enemies that are here include: Curer (only when summoned by Bharack) Bharack Flamadog Ryvernlord Duke Malisto After trudging your way up the big rock, you will finally come across Necrosaro. You may notice that he already looks like Esturk. Before getting too close, I recommend that you have the hero, Ragnar, Taloon, and Cristo out of the wagon. Upon approaching him, he says that he does not remember anything, but he knows that he must destroy you. Bring it on! The battle music from the battle with Esturk repeats itself here. For the time being, Necrosaro only has a regular attack, but he can attack twice. So that Cristo does not do anything stupid (Beat and Defeat come to mind), I recommend using the option "Use No MP" except in case of emergency. The hero should not have to use any spells yet either. Just regular attack or use the Sage's Stone. Of course, if one person is really hurting, the hero can cast Healall on that person. After dealing Necrosaro a lot of damage, one of his arms will disappear! Appropriately, he will only be able to attack once per round. Necrosaro cannot yet cast spells, but he will be able to soon. I recommend preparing for this by having the hero use the Zenithian Shield and cast Fendspell on his three comrades. After dealing Necrosaro a lot more damage, his other arm will disappear! In this form, he can cast Snowstorm, Firebane, Increase, and Beat. If you followed my recommendations from earlier, Beat will be a waste of Necrosaro's time, and Snowstorm and Firebane will do nothing except for injure him. Increase, on the other hand, could be a pain, were it not for the fact that Master Dragon blessed the Zenithian Sword. In this form, Necrosaro still has a regular attack (albeit puny), and he can emit gales of sweet breath. While Necrosaro has this form, Ragnar, Taloon, and Cristo should easily be able to retrieve HP due to their Swords of Miracles. As there is really no hurry to get Necrosaro out of this form, the hero should use the Sage's Stone until everyone is at maximum HP, then he can help out with the good work. After whomping on Necrosaro, his head disappears. During the very next round of battle, his stomach will writhe grotesquely and his head will appear there! He also turns green. In this form, Necrosaro has a puny regular attack, he can recover HP via meditation, and he can emit scorching gas, violent blazes, and freezing waves. The last is not bad at all, as Necrosaro will not cast harmful spells anymore. In fact, the freezing waves eliminating the effects of Fendspell is actually helpful, as now spells like Healall and Healusall can now get through. From here on, things get more difficult as the battle progresses. Necrosaro will grow two new arms. Because of this, he can now attack twice again, and his regular attack is slightly more powerful than it was at the beginning. His only other attack consists of emitting scorching gas. Since Necrosaro is not messing around anymore, it is time to bring out the big guns. Switch out Cristo for Alena. You need to watch her HP, as her defense is most likely not nearly as high as the hero's, Ragnar's, Taloon's, or Cristo's. She will put a major hurting on Necrosaro though. If everyone has near their maximum HP, you should consider having the hero give Necrosaro a taste of Lightning. Once you reach Necrosaro's next phase, his legs will get bigger. His strength and defense are now at a maximum. At this point, switch out Taloon for Brey. Of course, you will want to change the tactics to "Offensive". Brey might be stupid for two or three rounds and cast Chaos, but unlike Cristo, Brey soon learns from this mistake and instead casts Blizzard instead. This has a much higher success rate than Mara's Blazemost. You will really need to keep an eye on Brey's HP. Fortunately, emissions do not hurt Brey nearly as much as everyone else due to his Water Flying Clothes. Upon reaching Necrosaro's next, and final, phase, he will grow out a new head and immediately cast Bounce. Fortunately, this is the last time that Necrosaro can cast a spell, and its effect can be negated via the Zenithian Sword. In this form, Necrosaro can also emit freezing waves, violent blazes, and gleaming icy gusts of wind. The last is absolutely painful. Just hope that he does not do this twice in one round! On the other hand, Necrosaro usually (and very stupidly) emits freezing waves a lot, which is either helpful to you or pointless at this portion of the battle. Since Necrosaro reached a new form, Brey may try Chaos a couple more times, but he learns quickly that it still does not work. Between the hero's Lightning, Brey's Blizzard, and Ragnar's and Alena's attacks, Necrosaro does not stand much of a chance. If the battle should go ill, have the hero use the Leaf of World Tree or get Cristo back out of the wagon. If you do not have the tactics on "Offensive", Cristo should use Revive as necessary. If things get really bad (as in both the hero and Cristo are dead), make sure Doran is out of the wagon. If Necrosaro kills everyone off except for Doran, the game will consider you party as having perished, so you may as well have Doran out dealing damage in hopes that Necrosaro bites the dust before your party does. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Conclusion Once Necrosaro bites the dust, only the hero will be out of the wagon, and Necrosaro will claim that, as long as he has the Secret of Evolution, he will survive. Then, he alternates between human and Esturk-like form. Finally, he perishes. After that, the rock begins to crumble. Just in the nick of time, Master Dragon comes to rescue you. Apparently, your party is whisked away to Zenithia. The hero, Ragnar, Alena, and Mara will be in the throne room. Master Dragon has many words of praise to share with your party. He extends an invitation to the hero to live in Zenithia, but the hero prefers to go back to the world below. Just so that you know, Return will not work. The only way you can leave is by walking out of Zenithia. Feel free to talk to whoever you want in Zenithia before leaving. Upon leaving, the game shows Zenithia from afar, just as it appears in the opening credits. Then, everyone gets on the balloon, and the journey home begins. The first stop is Santeem. Everyone is back here again. The hero walks behind Alena, Cristo, and Brey as they make their way to the throne room. The king has some words with Alena, Cristo, and Brey while the hero stands discretely behind them. Finally, Alena is in her bedroom with the dumbest architect in the world: He is fixing her wall with wood again! The next stop is Burland. One of the most interesting things about this balloon voyage is that it is very noticeable that the Cascade Cave, the Cave of Betrayal, and the Cave Southeast of Gardenbur are all very close to each other, although it takes a long time to get from any one of these to another by means of walking and sailing. Anyways, the king of Burland has some words with Ragnar, then with the hero. After listening to the king, the hero leaves as Ragnar watches on. The next stop is Endor. Taloon's wife and son are waiting for him outside the shop. As Taloon draws near, his son runs around him, then Taloon throws him up into the air. The next stop is Kievs. Nara, Mara, and the hero head to Edgar's grave and have a moment of silence. They all leave and get back on the balloon. The next stop is Monbaraba. As the hero walks behind Nara and Mara, the townspeople rush up to the two sisters, and the hero gets out of the way just in time. Nara and Mara turn every which way to face all the people surrounding them. The next scene is Mara giving another dancing performance with Nara standing on the stage off to the side. In addition to the normal audience, the hero is standing in the hallway, but he walks off and leaves. At this point, the music sounds sadder as the hero heads back to Hometown all alone. He walks around near his house, then to the square where Celia was lying towards the beginning of Chapter Five. (Mara must have cast Stepguard, as the hero crosses a square of swamp without the screen flashing red.) As the hero sits in silence, flowers begin to grow out of the swamp, and Celia is revived. Celia and the hero embrace, then rush forward to greet all of the controlled characters, who have all come to visit. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to thank everyone who helped create Dragon Warrior IV. It is such a fantastic game. Despite all of the advances in the gaming industry in the sixteen years since this game came out until now, this is still my favorite game to play. There were several references that I found immensely valuable. These references are: - Dragon's Den Dragon Warrior IV (URL http://www.woodus.com/den/games/dw4nes ) and related pages, written by Woodus, - Dragon Warrior IV FAQ/Walkthrough (URL http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/nes/file/563409/19846 ), written by BTB, and - Dragon Warrior IV: Speeches FAQ (URL http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/nes/file/563409/16172 ), written by rulerofevil2k. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Additional Stuff My name is Warren Buck. You can e-mail me at Wkbj79@aol.com. The first edition of this walkthrough was completed in January of 2008. You may be wondering why I went through such an effort to make a walkthrough for a game that is sixteen years old. Well, the only reason I have is that I enjoy the game that much. Moreover, I would like others who enjoy RPG's to be able to have as much of a pleasurable experience with this game as I have. Although I did look at other walkthroughs and similar material to assist me in writing my walkthrough (see Acknowledgements), the vast majority of this work is entirely original. I would greatly appreciate it if you would not draw from this work unless you either cite it or obtain my consent. As a legal disclaimer, Dragon Warrior IV is copyright (1992) of Enix Company. I hope that you have enjoyed reading this walkthrough as much as I enjoy playing through the game.