Meanwhile, you'll see a scene of Wink and a few of the knights from the Crystal Palace making their way towards the Mountain to help the Dragoons in their fight. Suddenly, the youngest of the Bardel brothers will appear and attack the group, only for Lloyd to intervene and kill his fellow Wingly; defending Wink once again. However, the sadistic Bardel will unless one final attack injuring Lloyd. When Dart and company leave the Evergreen Forest towards Deningrad, the Commander of the Knights will inform the group that Wink and Lloyd left for the Castle and Queen Theresa was abducted upon their arrival.
Make your way back to the throne room in the Crystal Palace to learn that Lloyd, having used Wink to easily access the Palace, knows Theresa is the key to obtaining the Moon Mirror and has taken her to the resting place of the Divine Moon Object in the Tower of Flanvel. The party hot on his trail, they'll need to pass through the Kashua Glacier to the west of Deningrad to reach the Tower.
Entering Kashua Glacier, you'll be met with a small scene where Miranda reveals that Theresa is not her biological mother and she was actually adopted by her. From there, Dart will have to advance on slippery passages that will interfere with his movements. You'll spot a chest containing a Thunderbolt just above the entrance area, then move Dart around the linear, icy channels to the northwest, and after plundering the Heat Blade in the chest to the east of the exit, proceed to the next screen. Since there are more enemies in the area other than water-based ones, I wouldn't switch this back to Dart, but it will be useful against the upcoming boss.
If you get lucky, the Rocky Turtle enemy may drop the Guard Badge accessory. Although you will be able to purchase it soon, it will save you 1000 Gold. The Guard Badge provides a nice boost to both physical and magical defense, which may be considered for either Dart or Haschel, but in my opinion, the bonuses are too small to be useful for the other character's needs.
In the following area, the Tower of Flanvel is located down the slope in the center of the area, but before that, move north to crack open the chest containing a Meteor Fall, then proceed past the slope and south of the sign to pick up the Heavy Mace for Meru, before taking the slope down into the icy depths of the Glacier.
In the ice caves, there is a chest on the right-side containing a Gushing Magma, then on the left, two shivering, brother merchants. The item shop has nothing new, however, the armory is ripe with new things. Dart should already have a Mind Crush from Kadessa, but buy a Battle Axe for Kongol, Virulent Arrow for Miranda/Shana, and the Flamberge for Rose. The awesome Saint Armor should be placed on Dart and Albert/Lavitz immediately, with Robes for Meru and Miranda/Shana. If you have the Dragon Shield equipped on Rose, like myself, I recommend keeping the Sparkle Dress equipped on her for the additional magic defense; if not get a Robe for her, too. The before-mentioned Guard Badge is here, as well, but pricey.
Exiting southeast from the merchants, you'll find yourself amid several ledges with icicles Dart can use like ladders. Stick to the left-side ledges and proceed down to a Dancing Ray chest. This is the very last Dancing Ray item in the game, and if used/sold, you can never obtain this item again, as a warning.
Back to the top of the ledges, move Dart down to the center, then back up, followed by down the right-side of the area to another treasure holding the Phoenix Plume helmet you should have one, or a few, of from the Red Bird special monster. If not, this should be equipped on one of the guys, of which don't have a Magical Hat. From the helmet, proceed back up, then left-to-center, and down to reach the bottom and a save point. Go ahead and equip Dart with the Heat Blade and exit southeast. Before climbing up the obsidian-looking walkway, go around and behind it to find a Fatal Blizzard item. From there, proceed to the middle of the upper area for a boss fight.
Painfully easy, here. Throw the Speed Down item on the Windigo, Power Up on Dart, then have him use his "Special" Dragoon command to turn the battlefield to a fire aura. From there, 3x Final Burst should be plenty to bring this beast to its knees. If not, you only need to concern yourself with the Windigo capturing one of your party members and holding them hostage until you destroy the Snow Cannons he deploys that can be quickly wiped with Explosion or throwing the Gushing Magma you found. After releasing an ally, you can attack its Heart to win the battle, which takes only 1 damage and has a total of 3 HP, but you only have a very short window for this and it'll be quicker just to deplete the Windigo itself's HP.
For winning, the party receives the Brass Knuckle weapon for Haschel. This one-of-a-kind weapon has the ability to inflict instant death and will be Haschel's second-best going forward. You may consider returning to Deningrad to rest as the showdown with Lloyd is forthcoming. From the boss, there is a Black Rain treasure on the western-side of the platform, then have Dart exit to the northeast.
You'll then be at the base of the spiral-shaped Tower of Flanvel. Just before the entrance to the north, divert Dart to the left-side and open the chest with a Rave Twister item before entering the Tower.
Within the Tower, grab the Spirit Ring in the chest on the right-side, the second of only two of these to be found in the game, then use the portal on the left-side of the room to ascend up. You'll be transported into a pod with multiple other portals to choose from. To proceed, have Dart use the lower-right portal, then the upper-right one to advance onward.
In this mid-point room, open the treasure with the Mage Ring inside: a one-of-a-kind accessory that restores 10 MP of the character per turn. If you're using the Amulet on a character like Miranda/Shana for increased max MP, I highly recommend you switch it out for this. If you inspect the plant-looking object near the bottom of the screen you'll get a small scene with your party discussing the Tower, then jump in the portal on the western-end of the screen to move on.
You'll be in another floating pod room. Use the lower-left portal and then the upper-most one to reach the top of the Tower and a save point where the party will prepare to confront Lloyd within. As you well know, Lloyd wields the Dragon Buster that is lethal against Dragoons, so equip a Talisman on one of your characters, even better if you got the second one from the Phantom Ship, and if you want to roll the dice, give someone the Holy Ankh for a chance of reviving if defeated. Lloyd has taken the Moon Mirror, now holding all three Divine Moon Objects, but he's cornered and not escaping with them this time.
Lloyd is tough, no doubt, but if you equipped a character with a Talisman, while that character is in Dragoon form, he will waste his turns trying to kill them with the Dragon Buster, only for the attack to miss. With this advantage, Lloyd is fairly easy to defeat. Use Dragoon form with the Talisman character and the one with the second Talisman or Holy Ankh, but leave one character in human form in case you need to use items. Alternately, you can also use the one-turn Dragoon form technique you employed against the Grand Jewel and Divine Dragon. The Speed Down item, and the various magic items you picked up in the Glacier, are effective to pierce Lloyd's high physical evade, as well. With him wasting his turns, he won't pose too much of a threat.
With Lloyd defeated, Dart will go in for the finishing blow only for Wink to appear and shield him from the blade. Wink had come to tell Dart that Emperor Diaz has taken Shana and demanded he bring Lloyd and the Divine Moon Objects to Vellweb. Lloyd gives Dart the Moon Gem, Dagger, and Mirror, which are all three added to your inventory, and asks Dart to finish him. Instead, Dart punches him and walks away; forcing Lloyd to watch how his treacherous actions will unfold.
At the base of the Tower, the Royal Knights will escort Theresa and Wink back to Deningrad while the party, with Lloyd, leaves for Vellweb. Before that, return back to the save point room at the top of the Tower, then have Dart use the teleporter on the right-hand-side that Miranda prevented you from using earlier. Usable now, the visage of a magician named Faust will appear and threaten anybody who attempts to enter the land of taboo below. If you get too close, you'll be thrown into an unwinnable battle with him, but you can select the Escape option to flee. Instead, sneak around the corner of the room and open the chest with your second, and last, Therapy Ring, before leaving the Tower. We'll return and deal with Faust later on in the game. Our next destination is the Snowfield, west of Kashua Glacier. To reach there, return to the slope where the party entered the ice caverns, but take the western exit, past the sign, to exit out to the world map with the Snowfield nearby in a land known as Gloriano.
As you enter the Snowfield, a blizzard is raging outside. Continue to the left, grabbing the Burn Out in a treasure chest on a hill, and Lloyd will stop Dart and need to tell him something about Emperor Diaz before they reach Vellweb. The party will then take refuge from the blizzard inside a cave. Here, Lloyd recalls Diaz telling him of his goal to regenerate the world through the birth of the Moon Child, the 108th fruit of the Divine Tree, of which the Divine Moon Objects are key. The next morning, the blizzard has ended and the party can return to this cave and rest, if need be.
On the top two slopes of the Snowfield, and on the world map outside of Vellweb, the party will occasionally encounter the Wild Man enemy. They have a chance to drop the very useful Giganto Ring accessory that boosts a character's physical attack and defense. Although the attack total is equal to the Attack Badge, I highly recommend this be equipped to Miranda/Shana. Meru is a nice choice, also, but I prefer she keep the Therapy Ring equipped, personally. If you can't get the drop, you will be able to purchase the Giganto Ring in Vellweb for 1000G. Note: The parts hereafter are optional, and if you want, you can continue west to exit to the world map and Vellweb, however, you will miss several useful items and Dart's best weapon.
Upon entering the screen to the west of the cave, there will be a sign warning about the danger of snow slides nearby. Move south of the post and use the action icon for Dart to begin to slide down the slopes; of which you'll pass by two treasure chests we'll return for in a second. At the bottom, the party will find a glyph covered in characters from different species speaking of a place called Zenebatos. You'll also see an entrance to an area that Rose refers to as Fort Magrad, but for the moment, climb the steps to the upper-right to ascend back up the slopes. You'll be on a linear, spiral trail that circles back to the area Dart slid down. On the way, you can pick up chests with a Burning Wave, which is the strongest fire elemental attack item, and a Gushing Magma. Burning Wave is a very rare item, so don't use it unnecessarily.
At the top of the slopes again, position Dart to the left of the signpost, then activate the action icon. You'll have noticed that you're presented with a series of 4 additional icons on the slide down: these determine whether you'll end up reaching the out-of-reach treasure chests or not. Starting from the left-side of the post, have Dart activate the 1st, 3rd, and then 4th icon to be placed next to the Magic Shield treasure. This infinite use, once-per-battle item is the magic version of the Material Shield, canceling all magic attacks on a character for 3 turns. To get the other item, you'll have to trek back up to the top of the slopes again. Now, stand on the right-side of the post and slide down, pressing the X button on the 2nd and 4th action icons to arrive at the Dancer's Ring accessory. You may have got one of these as a drop in Kadessa, but it adds a +20 Speed when equipped to one of the females.
Still at the bottom of the slopes, enter Fort Magrad to the north. Meru will want to have a snowball fight, with Rose explaining this is the area where Emperor Diaz and the Dragoons first declared war against the Winglies during the Dragon Campaign. Descend down the steps and open the treasure for a Midnight Terror item, then enter the Fort. Wrap around the outside of the Fort, using the steps to make your way toward the center of the area, picking up the Stunning Hammer item along the way and a Poison Needle treasure (Keep this for later) near the save point. Make sure to save and equip at least one offensive character with the Talisman, and perhaps a Protector accessory or Rainbow Earring. Miranda/Shana is also recommended for the boss that awaits.
After several flashbacks to Emperor Diaz, a magical sword, that apparently has resentment for the Dragoons, for whatever reason, will attack Dart and Rose. If you brought Miranda/Shana, then this is a fairly simple battle, but if not, can be a bit of a challenge despite the boss' low HP. The first thing to note is there are three parts: Sword, Armor, and Helmet. While the Sword is alive, if another part is defeated, it will deal instant death on the character that landed the killing blow; because of this, we not only need to target the Sword first, but make sure our Talisman character is the one that defeats it so the Sword's final attack will miss. The Armor casts powerful magic, which can be deadly for Kongol, Albert/Lavitz, and even Haschel, so if you are carrying one of them in your party, use the Magic Shield item on them or, at least, cast Rose Storm. The Helm uses annoying arm blocking status, but you can clear that with Dragoon transformation. If Miranda/Shana is with you, have them activate their "Special" Dragoon command to weaken all parts of the boss, however, I would not use their MP to summon the White Silver Dragon: instead, use Star Children and Moon Light for healing. Once the Sword is gone, focus on the Armor, then lastly, the Helmet.
The Polter parts drop the Smoke Ball item and said magical sword, the Soul Eater, which is the best weapon in the game for Dart. More on the Soul Eater in a second, but the Smoke Ball is an infinite use item that allows you to instantly escape from battle.
After the battle, Dart can open two more chests containing a Panic Bell and the Armor of Yore. The latter is a fantastic piece of armor, that is one-of-a-kind, and provides a great boost in physical and magical defense, along with preventing several status ailments. You may consider giving this to Kongol, who could definitely use the magical defense, but doing so will lose him a tremendous amount of physical defense, and in the next chapter, we'll be able to more adequetly defend Kongol from magic. Instead, stick this on Albert/Lavitz, which combined with a Spiritual Ring or Angel Scarf, adequately shields them from the woes of their innate low magic defense.
As for the Soul Eater, it is easily Dart's ultimate weapon, however, it does have a flaw: a poison-like condition where he loses 10% of his HP each turn. Thankfully, the game gave us a counter for this in the Therapy Ring accessory, which hopefully you picked up the second one in the Tower of Flanvel. With the Soul Eater and Therapy Ring equipped, Dart will neither take additional damage or heal it; it will act like he doesn't have anything special equipped at all. Of course, this forces you to waste Dart's accessory slot to use, but in my opinion, with all of his statistics being above-average, it's more than worth it, but you decide for yourself. Strangely enough: the Soul Eater is not a limited item and you can get them elsewhere. When finished, make your way back to the top of the slopes and exit to the west and enter the Capital Vellweb.
In Vellweb, there are two monster drops to look out for. First, the Succubus can drop the Platinum Collar accessory. You first saw this for sale in Fletz, but getting it here will have saved you 1000G. When equipped, when a character is physically attacked, they regen 10 MP. This could have been useful if purchased early in the game, but has since been outclassed by the Mage Ring.
Maximum Volts will drop Flash Halls, the strongest lighting-based magic item, at a fairly common rate and is the best place in the game to find extras of them. Note: There are no bosses in Vellweb, so feel free to make use of all of your Dragoon SP and MP.
Inside the Capital, the group will marvel at the seven Dragoon towers and the history of the site before venturing further. Make your way down and through the straightforward, cobbled roads, that extend the first two screens of the dungeon. In the third area, you'll notice a gateway, near the middle of the path shown above, that Dart can use a set of stairs to access an Attack Ball treasure, then exit to his left.
As you approach the center of the next area, there will be a scene between Dart and Rose where she will explain how archers used to fire upon the Tower of Flanvel from a battery above. You'll have noticed on the previous screen two merchants that were out of reach, to access them, take the lower-right path below the one that brought you into the current area. The item shop has your basic necessities, while the weapon shop has new Partisans for Albert/Lavitz, and some other items you should already have if you've been getting rare drops and opening chests. I also recommend that you shave some room off your inventory as there will be a large dungeon after Vellweb, with no shop nearby and many treasures, so you don't want to have to throw out items you could make a little Gold on now. Note: The shop here and in Kashua Glacier persist, so you don't have to worry about any of these items becoming missable, yet.
Return to the previous area where Dart and Rose had the scene, then exit to the west to be visited by the visage of Shirley, once more. She'll ask the party to free the souls of four of the Dragoons from the Dragon Campaign that have been unable to find rest. The priority is meeting with Diaz, so we'll have to undertake this side-quest a little later on. Also, I wonder if Shirley knows Drake is still waiting for her to return back at her Shrine? Poor guy; he needs to find some rest, too.
Despite not being able to do the quest yet, exit north, past the save point, to the Dragoon towers anyway. Have Dart ascend the stairs to the left-side of the screen, then climb the ones to the right-side, and enter the center tower. This is Rose's former Dark Dragoon tower. Search the mural on the middle wall to pick up your 46th Stardust.
If you want, you can see some mini-scenes at a few of the Dragoon towers here, but these will be expanded upon when we return near the end of the game. For now, return to the save point and use the lower-left exit to continue further into Vellweb.
Climb down the ruined streets and follow the long, narrow path into Diaz's tower that has a purplish light emitting from the entrance. On a spiral set of stairs now, pass by the first door, then enter the second one down, then to the lower-left to pick up a chest containing the Rose's Hairband helmet. Naturally, this unique item is for Rose only. It provides no defense at all, but does protect against instant death and gives more magical attack than the Phoenix Plume and Tiara. If you've got the Dragon Shield and Sparkle Dress equipped on her like I do, I would go ahead and use this helmet, if not, stick with either the Tiara or Phoenix Plume. Back to the spiral stairs, ignore the third door, and enter the fourth at the foot of the tower and use it to find a Spirit Potion chest. Finally, go back and use the door you passed and you'll see the doorway leading to Diaz at the bottom of the stairs. Note: If you have any business left in Mille Seseau, return and take care of it now. After you meet with Diaz, you will be unable to return to the country for quite some time, but will eventually.
The party will find Shana in the clutches of Diaz. The group will surrender the three Divine Moon Objects (Removed from inventory) and Diaz reveals he intends to use them to destroy the world, instead of restore it as he manipulated Lloyd into thinking. An enraged Lloyd will be easily expelled by Diaz; seemingly falling to his doom.
Another revelation awaits as Diaz removes his helmet to reveal that he is the Red-Eyed Dragoon, Zieg, Dart's father, and Rose's former lover. Like all good villains, he'll explain how he intends to use the Moon Child, Shana, who escaped being killed by Rose, the fabled Black Monster, to merge her soul with the vessel of the Virage Embryo, the Moon That Never Sets, to bring destruction to the world as foretold by Soa, the creator. The scene ends with Dart in shock that Rose is, in fact, the Black Monster and Zieg vanishes with Shana to use the Divine Moon Objects to severe the Signets that bind the flesh of the Embryo that is the Moon That Never Sets.
