Days later, in Adlehyde, the party along with Emma, Bartholomew, and Minister Johan will discuss plans to combat the demons. Emma will create the"Emma Intelligence Agency" to acquire information on the demons. Of course, you know who will be doing most of the footwork here. Emma will take the Metal Bird item off your hands and the party will be left alone to decide what to do next. Jack wants the Princess to stay behind, but she will plead with Rudy to continue their journey. Our heros sticking together, exit out back into town.
If you drop by Mayor Cuthburt's house, you can make a sizable 20,000 Gella donation to the restoration fund; assuming you have made all of the increments before it. There's still no reward, so don't feel you need to do this at the moment if you can't spare the extra Gella.
I think Minister Johan needs to investigate this clinic...Anyway, our next destination is Rosetta Town. Note: the Earth Golem, Arctica area, and Court Seim are inaccessible, for the moment. At Rosetta Town, talk to Mayor Hernandez in his mansion and he will ask the group to look into the vortex that lies between the Inner and Outer Sea and that the Guardian, Lucadia, may be responsible for the abnormalities there.
The vortex is southwest from the shore the Sweet Candy must land on to reach Rosetta Town. When you approach it, Cecilia will feel Lucadia calling out to her and the Tear Drop and the party will be whisked away to the Dragon Shrine under the sea.
The Dragon Shrine is, yet another, one-time dungeon, so don't leave any treasures behind or they will be lost to you upon completion. Watch for the Deepones monster; although rare like the other rings, Jack can steal an Aqua Ring from them if you haven't purchased one already.
From the beginning portal, that leads back to the Sweet Candy, take the stairs on the left-side of the screen and follow the path to the next set of stairs to use. From here, take the western stairs to two treasures: a Magic Carrot and Lucky Card. Return to the previous room and take the stairs to the south, now.
In this room, there will be the first of a couple of block puzzles inside the Shrine. Walk along the northern path and push the block out of your way to walk downward. Push the block to your left, move down, followed by the block to the right, and you can continue to move down and then to the stairs to the left. There's a save point in the next room, but move past it and to the stairs on the right-side.
The next area has a long path that branches off to the left and right at certain sections. Take each one, in order, to solve the puzzles and obtain an item. The first is simple: just push the block forward onto the pressure plate and then take the Crest Graph treasure that appears.
Another fairly easy puzzle here. Push the top-most block to the left-side onto the pressure plate, followed by moving the lower block to the right, up, then pushing from its left-side onto the plate, revealing another Crest Graph chest.
Next, push the top-most block, from the left side, to about halfway in the middle of the room. Then, push the bottom block all the way to the left, get behind it, and push it down onto the plate. You can then push the top block to the right, get behind it, and push it onto the pressure plate to uncover another Crest Graph treasure. We should have 15 of these in our inventory, at the moment, but we will be using them all very soon.
This one is a tad tricky. Very lightly push the middle block up, leaving just enough room to be able to move past and behind it. Follow up by pushing both the left and right-side blocks down onto the plates. Careful though: stop pushing when you hear them set into place or you will move them too far. You can then move back around and push the middle block into place to obtain a Shining Cape armor for Cecilia to switch out with her current Ruby Bische. Using Mystic on the Shining Cape results in the Flash spell, which decreases enemy Parry (Evasion) rate. This armor is, also, one-of-a-kind, so don't lose it.
In the last room, like the previous, push the middle-right block upwards, leaving room to move behind it. Get behind the right block and push it downward, but be careful: it needs to line up perfectly with the end of the purple blocks to be able to be pushed onto the plate; any further down and it will be too far to activate it. Next, do the same with the block on the left-side of the room. Finally, simply push both of the middle blocks onto their respective plates to discover a treasure chest containing Cecilia's Vase tool. With this, Cecilia can extinguish fires.
Return to the save point room and north through the exit. Douse the flame with Cecilia's Vase and step on the underneath switch to open both doors.
Take the left-side door and push the lower block forward just slightly to get above it, followed by pushing the top block to the right to get in between the two lower blocks. Push the block to your right out of the way and put out the fires on the narrow path to open a Duplicator treasure. Return to the previous room, this time taking the right-side path. Push the top-most block left slightly, to get in between the two bottom blocks, then the bottom block to the left, up, and move the top block out of the way to access the exit north. Before moving forward, I recommend getting Jack's Luck to "Best" status in preparation for the coming boss fight.
The Guardian, Lucadia, will appear before the party and reveal the demons' goal of severing Filgaia's Ley Points that connect the Guardians. Lady Harken, hunting Lucadia, will show up and engage the party for the first time. Not too bad here; have Rudy use a Lucky Card, Cecilia cast Slow Down, then Shield on all three characters, while Jack tries to pilfer a Secret Sign from her. Save Cecilia's Force to summon with the Flash Rune, Rudy can use his Twin Orbs or Rocket Launcher, and once you've stolen the Secret Sign, Jack should switch to Slash Rave. Her only dangerous attack is Guilty Blade, but with Shield up and being able to Mystic Potion Berries, this shouldn't present too much of a problem.
Having been defeated, Harken will flee and Lucadia will give us its Triton Rune, while Jack will have developed the Guilty Blade fast draw hint from the battle. I switched out Rudy's Death Rune for the Triton Rune, but it is also a very nice rune for Cecilia, as well. Guilty Blade, like you witnessed during the Harken Battle, is a powerful attack on a group of enemies, while the Triton Rune will summon Lucadia to deliver heavy water elemental damage to all enemies. If you've plundered all the treasure of the Dragon Shrine, cast Escape and return to the Sweet Candy through the portal. The vortex will be gone and the vast Outer Ocean will be available to explore.
From the vortex, head directly south to find a message-in-a-bottle talking about a battle arena, then continue further for another bottle with a Crest Graph inside. Further south, you'll run into land with a shore and sign on it. This is the Isle of Conflict that the message bottle eluded to.
Make landfall on the shore and you'll notice a clearing in the forest to the south, but for the moment, just pass it by and follow along to the west end of the island to find a castle: the Ancient Arena. We'll be spending some time here later on in the game, but right now, we're just here to plunder the area. In the first room, search the barrels to the right of the entrance to pocket a Duplicator.
If you use the door on the left-side, there is an inn that charges an astonishing 1000 Gella a night. Pass on that and search the barrels for a Full Revive and Power Apple.
Now, take the right-side door from the inn and follow it to a set of staircases. You can use the stairs leading down and Cecilia's Wand to talk to the gladiator monsters that have some interesting things to say. One of them involving a "magic key" factory. Climb the stairwell leading up to find another Duplicator door, where inside we find three more Crest Graphs we are now ready to make use of.
Exit the Ancient Area and make your way back across the wasteland to the forest clearing to find an Isolated Guild. Here, Cecilia can finally learn advanced magic; which was why we were hoarding Crest Graphs. You should have 19 in your inventory and I recommend creating the following spells:
- Hi-Heal (White: Muse-Muse): Fully recovers a character's HP.
- Hi-Shield (White: Geo-Geo): Casts Shield on the entire party.
- Teleport (White: Wing-Wing): This spell instantly takes you to any town previously visited.
- Remedy (White: Muse-Fray) Casts Heal on the entire party.
- Invisible (White: Geo-Wing): Lowers encounter rate.
- Restore (White: Muse-Wing): Recovers any negative status effects.
- Lock State (White: Wing-Muse): Prevents any status changes to the party for three turns.
- Soul Guard (White: Fray-Wing): Prevents instant-death attacks on the character.
- Hi-Revive (White: Muse-Geo): Revives a character with fully restored HP.
- Hyper (White: Geo-Fray): Double's a character's attack power.
- Life Guard (White: Geo-Muse): Auto-revives a character once when downed.
- Counter Up (White: Fray-Geo): Increases a character's odds to counterattack.
- Saint (Black: Geo-Muse): High holy magic damage on one enemy.
- Darkness (Black: Fray-Wing): High evil magic damage on one enemy.
- Rainbow (Black: Fray-Geo): High, multi-elemental magic damage on one enemy.
- Hi-Blast (Black: Fray-Muse): Non-elemental damage on all enemies.
- Hi-Spark (Black: Wing-Muse): Thunder elemental attack on all enemies.
- MP Drain (Black: Wing-Geo): Drains MP from an enemy group and restores Cecilia's.
- Lucky Shot (Black: Wing-Fray): Guarantees item drop if enemy is killed by this spell.
If you're curious, the advanced elemental spells (Like Flame) are similar to the basic ones, but target groups instead of just one enemy and the damage output is higher. If you need your HP and MP restored, you can talk to the red-haired mage and drink her experimental potion. This potion can fail; reducing your party's HP and MP to 1, but you can just try another one until it recovers you. Also, before returning to the Sweet Candy, talk to the guy in the black robe and he will leave for Adlehyde to open an advanced magic guild there beside the basic one.
If you're in need of EXP and Gella, look for the Mandragora's outside the Ancient Area. They can be tough to handle, but provide 3500 EXP and 5000 Gella per battle. Also, if you haven't gotten a Flame Ring, the Garums have it available to steal like their Hellhound counterparts.
Out on the seas now, be wary if you encounter the Hell Diver. Whilst a rare encounter, its Death Wing attempts to cause instant-death on the entire party and its Response, HP, and evasion are high, so don't underestimate it.
Sail around the Isle of Conflict to its western side and you'll find another item bottle with a Duplicator inside.
From there, sail northwest and just before you reach Milama Village, there is another Duplicator inside of a bottle. Just to the east of there, you can land on a shore to find another Isolated Guild, however, there is nothing to be had there if you already visited the one on the Isle of Conflict.
Continue to sail around Milama and the large continent in the west; hugging the land, and nearing the northwestern edge of the continent is another bottle with a Crest Graph. Just to the south of here is a small island with a dungeon we will be exploring soon.
From the Crest Graph bottle, sail directly west and you'll run into, what seems like, a baron snowy island, but when you make landfall, you will find a hidden area "Snow Ravine". Inside, search the monument and the party will receive the Ice Rune. I'm replacing Jack's Saint Rune with the Ice Rune, personally. As you might expect, the Ice Rune, when summoned, does water elemental damage to all enemies.
From the Ice Rune area, sail southeast, hugging the Arctica continent, then, when you come to a shore that leads back to the Photosphere area, there is a small Deserted Island a little further down you can enter. Again, search the Monument and the party will have the Heavens Rune bestowed upon it. I switched this with Rudy's Triton Rune and move it over to Cecilia. When used with Guardian Summon, the Heavens Rune deals holy damage to all enemies.
Continue sailing southeast, wrap around the area near the Epitaph of the Sea Wind, then Court Seim, and you'll find another bottle with a Crest Graph inside.
From the bottle, head directly west, and you'll soon spot a shore in an unfamiliar region. Land on the beach and make your way southeast, across a bridge, to find a hidden area beyond the forest, surrounded by mountains.
The Forgotten Ruins was the home of Rudy's grandfather, Zepet. Inside, you can examine the bookcases to find information on Rudy, pick up a Bullet Clip inside the barrels, and then the Ocarina laying on the table. With the Ocarina, we can summon the Earth Golem to our side anywhere on the world map.
As you make your way back toward the Sweet Candy, you'll notice a shallow path leading north. Use the Ocarina to summon the Earth Golem and cross over to a caravan. You can upgrade both your weapons and helmets here and I highly recommend that you do, as this out-of-the-way caravan is the only place you can find them. If at anything, make sure to pick up Jack's Eradicator blade as it will be the best sword he can obtain for a lengthy portion of the game. Cecilia's Crest Wand can cast MP Drain when combined with Mystic, while the Silver Band draws out the Quick spell. Next, sail back to Court Seim.
Summon the Earth Golem to return north of Court Seim to the Photosphere area. Enter the remains of the Photosphere and examine the Guardian spirit to obtain the Star Rune. Personally, I'm not equipping this to anyone, but you decide for yourself. The Star Rune, when summoned, creates a non-elemental attack.
There's one final bottled item to obtain, but we can only find it by Teleporting to Curan Abbey. The Sweet Candy will come with you and dock on the western shore. Sail out to the red dot in the screenshot above to snag one more Duplicator. While we're in the area, I'm going to drop by Adlehyde and the newly-opened advanced magic guild and bind our two new Crest Graphs. I'm creating Hi-Flame (Black: Fray-Fray) and Hi-Freeze (Black: Muse-Muse). We've successfully explored the Outer Seas and are now ready to proceed onward with the story.
