With Neclord defeated, head back inside Tinto and talk to Gustav and he will hand over a Mother Earth Rune as proof of the alliance with your army. While a great rune in itself, if you attach this to a character's weapon, it provides an excellent +15 in defense and +5 HP regen.
Return to Crom and talk to the mayor here and you will receive a Sunbeam Rune. This is the only one you will find in the game. When attached, it provides a +15 HP regen to the character and will recover their health as you walk around. If you want the regen, you'd be better off attaching a Flowing Rune to their weapon and saving the rune slot for something better than this.
Head back through the mountain pass between Tigermouth and Drakemouth Villages and return to the spot where Riou and Nanami rested after being saved by Georg. Georg is back in this area and will join your party is you speak with him. Georg is an excellent character, but watch out for his awful magic defense. Getting him a Gold Emblem and/or a Guard Ring equipped should be a priority. Georg also comes with a rare Killer Rune attached that you can make use elsewhere, if you prefer.
If you've got Mindfulness/Listening Crystals left over from recruiting Badeaux, and you didn't recruit Sigfried and/or Feather, there are two new characters available to recruit with them. Back inside the Tinto Mine, several screens from the entrance, you will come to an area with a cliff overlooking an underground lake. Approach the lake and your Mindfulness Crystal should begin to resonate. Select to use it and Abizboah, the octopi, will appear and join your party. Abizboah is a Star of Destiny. If you have a Crystal left over, and with Abizboah in your party, return to said spot and his mate, Rulodia, will join your group as well, however, if you plan to recruit Rulodia, WAIT! If you recruit Rulodia before you do at least Abizboah's #3 secret with Richmond, it, and the subsequent secret #4, will never unlock. You must do these investigations before you recruit her. Rulodia, for some reason, is NOT a Star of Destiny and recruiting her instead of Sigfried/Feather will result in you not being able to obtain all of the Stars of Destiny. The bonus to that, I suppose, is after both octopi have joined your party, return to the docks of your Castle and Riou will spot a strange creature running around. Chase it around the docks and eventually you will learn that it is the child of Abizboah and Rulodia, Chuchara, and he will join your party also (Yes, it is a HE; you will get a letter in your comment box "from" Abizboah asking you to take care of his son). I like Chuchara, but, it's difficult to set him up with a viable option for use in battle. He has excellent defense, but very little strength, pitiful magic defense and HP. A Warrior Rune seems like a good idea, but will strip him of his defense while only providing a reasonable amount of strength. Double-Strike is okay, I guess, but he will still do well below-average damage. Water is the only elemental rune he can attach, which creates a bit of usefulness, you could also use the Firefly Rune to make use of his physical defense. Unfortunately, there is little you can do to make him a viable party member. One last note before we continue, Rulodia comes with a Flowing Rune attached, but when she casts Kindness Rain, it only has a power of 100 instead of 300 like other characters in the game. Strange.
Our last recruit is back in South Window. You've been seeing Gantetsu here for the entire game, and for whatever reason, he will join your party at this time in the game. Granted, you must defeat him in a pushing contest first. If you are reasonably leveled, this will be easy, but if you happen to fail, bring some high-strength characters like Viktor/Georg with you.
With the new recruits out of the way, make your way back towards the war room and Sheena will stop you and join your party. Before we go to the war room, just a few notes. First, as mentioned in the last chapter, Koyu has a Gale Rune attached, which you can now remove from him; his brother, Gijimu, also has a free Double-Strike Rune for the taking. Lastly, there is a comment box directly above the war room, which I'm sure you have examined before, that at this point in the game, will start filling up with notes from your fellow party members.
Inside the war room, if you chose to run away back in Tinto, you will be introduced to Boris, the son of Ridley, who will take Ridley's place as a Star of Destiny. With the forces provided by Tinto and Hauser, our army can now match Highland in terms of strength, and Shu will suggest that we use this chance to take Greenhill back from Highland, but wants Riou return to his room to rest before commencing the operation.
That night, you can view several scenes involving your party members around the Castle. There are scenes with Flik and Nina, Chaco, Rina, Eilie, and Bolgan, Gengen and Gabocha, Tsai and Tomo, and finally Freed and Yoshino.
When Riou returns to his room, an assassin, Lucia of the Karaya Tribe, will be waiting for him. Use normal attacks and heal with Battle Oath to try to berserk Riou and the battle will end after several turns. Viktor, Flik, and Tsai will run in to defend Riou and you can choose to either let Lucia go or throw her in the jail. Don't even bother with the jail; she will escape anyway.
The next morning, Riou will have to make a decision on which group to accompany during the battle to retake Greenhill. The first option is a simple battle, while the second can be a bit rough. If you choose to wait with Apple, you won't have to do a war battle at all and can simply give commands from the safety of the Castle. If you go with Viktor, the battle is won after a set number of turns pass. If you go with Kiba, your goal will be to defeat Yuber's unit inside of Greenhill. This is easier than you may think, but getting to him can be a chore and Lucia's unit cannot be defeated here. If you stay behind, just make sure to select the first option for every prompt and everything will go smoothly. Whatever path you take, you will end up at the gates of Greenhill with Teresa. Shin will want to join your party, which you can refuse, or accept and add him to your party/convoy, if you like. Before we take the forest path into Greenhill, let's first take a look at the enemies outside on the world map that have changed.
The new Eye Flower enemy will drop a Spinach Seedling item for Tony back at the Castle.
If you've been following up until this point, this will be your final seedling item and Tony's farm should be complete and look like the above screenshot. When you are ready, return to Greenhill and have Teresa lead you into the forest path. I promise, this will be the absolute last time you will have to transverse a forest dungeon.
There are new enemies within the forest path, as well, containing some rare items. The first is an accessory that cannot be found anywhere else in the game and is only available to acquire at this moment, then will be lost forever. The groups of Highland soldiers you encounter will drop the Iron Boots accessory. For such an extremely rare accessory, it sure is mediocre, at best. It only provides +15 defense; that's it. Easily outclassed by the Goldlet and Power Gloves accessories you can infinitely obtain. Before you fight Lucia in the forest, you can battle the soldiers up until her point, and then leave Greenhill and return and they will have respawned. Alternately, after you defeat Lucia, the soldiers around Teresa's former hut will respawn if you leave the screen and then return to enter/exit the hut. This will provide endless chances to get the Iron Boots to drop.
The numerous Holly Boy enemies will drop the Toy Boat. This is another one of those useless accessories you can take into the bath with Riou. You can only acquire it here, though.
The annoying Doremi Elves are back again, but this time, have two rare drops. You can obtain Recipe #34 from them, assuming that you haven't turned Recipe #12 into Hai Yo (From the Eagle Man back at the Unicorn Forest). If you did, then Recipe #34 will never drop. This is the fourth of five bugged recipes in the game you need to store in your warehouse and give to Hai Yo all at once. We're almost to that point, so make absolute sure you stash this one away with the others.
Doremi Elves will also commonly give up Throat Drops. These come bundled in groups of 8 which you cannot obtain such a high number anywhere else but here. Useless, I now, but it is technically a rare item for us completionists.
Next up is the Waking Rune. The Target Girl's have these. If you didn't strip the one from Sid earlier, this will be the only place you can find one. When attached to a character, they begin the battle under the sleep status effect, but upon taking damage, will be under the berserk status. Useless because of the availability of the Fury Rune, but if you're like me, and think Fury Runes are overpowered, this could be useful for Oulan to put her into berserk status to infinity use her Angry Dragon Rune. I prefer the Violence Rune on Oulan for that, though.
The last rare drop in the forest is the Dryad Rune. This is another one of those awful, novelty runes you should just stash in your warehouse. Look for it dropped by the Holly Fairies. You can use this rune to recover lvl 1 MP by sacrificing lvl 2 MP. I have no idea why anyone would want to do this. I guess you could conceivably use this with a basic Water Rune to recover Kindness Drops while sacrificing MP for Protect Mist or Bright Shield with Great Blessing for Shining Light, but other than that, I cannot see any other use for this. If you really want to restore lvl 1 MP, use the Magic Drain Rune on your weapon.
The first couple of screens of the forest path will be new and contain some treasure chests, while after that, will be areas you covered during your initial trip through here. The first chest you come across will have a Stone of Skill inside. This is of note as it is the only one of this item in the game.
A couple of screens ahead you will find chests with Winged Boots and a Dream Robe. The Dream Robe is the best robe/martial arts type armor in the game. However, depending on the character, the Master Robe may be a better choice for them. Due to its inherit Hazy Rune effect, I would equip the Dream Robe on a front-line mage that makes an adequate physical attacker. Sierra fits the bill just nicely, in my opinion, but choose wisely: there's only one Dream Robe to be had.
Halfway through the forest, Lucia and her gang of Karayans will engage the party. Fire Emblems, if possible, are recommended for this boss as she will bombard the party with fire magic. Protect Mist the party and dispatch her guards as soon as possible and be prepared with Battle Oath or Kindness Rain if she uses fire magic twice in one turn.
Upon defeat, Lucia will drop your third, and final, Blue Gate Rune. After the battle, Lucia will give some backstory on her hatred of the State for killing her father and Teresa will give her word that she will investigate the claims. Lucia will step aside and you can continue through the forest and into the Greenhill Academy. Just before the exit to the main part of town, there are NPCs that can recover the party and save your game before going further.
At the gates of Greenhill, Yuber will unleash the Bone Dragon boss on your party. This guy is rough, no doubt. Both his physical and magic damage will induce heavy damage and he is invulnerable to lightning magic and attacks. Cast Guardian Earth and Protect Mist at the beginning and use your best attacks while remaining adequately healed throughout. Resurrection and Wind Rune spells will do heavy damage due to its weakness.
Yuber will be defeated afterwards and retreat, putting Greenhill back into the hands of the State. The citizens will cheer Teresa on keeping her promise to return and liberate them, but Fitcher will arrive with an urgent message to return to the Castle.
