Quesada's Swan

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

I land at Max's village and go to the Wind Shrine first...

Checking Dryad's magic, she has two spells for Max: Sleep Flower, and Burst. For Pidge, she has Revivifier and Wall (or Reflect)!

I check on the Wind Palace's dais, where the seed's placed. The power of the seed's gone!

I ask Max's Grandpa to heal us and save before heading to the Water Palace. Maybe Luka might know something to restore them...

Where did Luka go?

I head to the dais to try our luck in restoring the seal to the Seed here.

No good.

We head down to the lower quarters in the shrine...

There's Luka!

Understatement of the year...

Luka: "Some Imperial thugs came, locked me up, and broke the seed's seal."

But how do we restore the seals?

Luka: "Nothing else for me to do. I'm just hoping for a miracle!"

I speak to her again, she tells us to "never give up hope!" This is getting a bit hopeless...

---

We land back at the risen continent, near the Tree Palace, where I see Jema, and two Dark Knights flanking the entrance to the Tree Palace...

They buff themselves with Wall spells, and we speak to Jema.

Jema: "I've brought troops here to keep the Empire from taking the Mana Fortress. There's an ancient city under this Grand Palace. We must get into it!"

Jema gives us more revelations about Emperor Vandole, and why he wants war.

Jema: "Though your sword isn't fully powered, you need it to stop the Emperor! We'll fight off the Imperial troops here. You catch up with those soldiers!"

We head inside the Tree Palace, where the way forward is gone!

No choice but to go down the steps...

It seems our old mini-nemesis, the Shape Shifter, is here too...

On the way, we meet a Republic soldier...

A Metal Crawler's here too...

More steps to climb down...

The Metal Crawlers can also cast Reflect!

I try a different strategy...I have Pidge buff Max with Reflect...

We make it to the ground floor and into a shallow river, finding another entrance here!

Now how to get out of this river maze...

But I'll have to think about that later, as I quick save here for now.

Now I'm back, it's time to find a way to get into that door!

The monsters we're trying to attack are on land, while we're in a shallow river...

---

We head down the staircase, and into a sand covered ruin...

The new monster here is a Steelpion!

The remix for "Into the Thick of It" is back!

After taking care of the Steelpion, we're now a bit stuck...

It turns I have to use the axe to clear these small blue and purple weeds out of the way...

I use the little yellow guy to jump up and reach the chest on the higher ledge there.

But after a little slip on the waterfall, we manage to get it!

Into the door, where there's more of these weeds! What are they, actually?

There's also a switch that restores them!

Up north, we see more Metal Crawlers!

Those crawlers can breathe fire too, huh?

Ahead, we see another newcomer, a Kimono Wizard! Like his cousin in the Dragon Caves, he doesn't like earth magic!

Further on in the coral covered ruin, we see a Basilisk!

Those eyes make the Basilisk cute and creepy at the same time!

Most of these monsters here are weak against wind magic...

The Basilisk can lay eggs, hatching Eggatrices...

After a near-KO match, we proceed, and get caught up in a strong waterfall, which almost tosses us into the pit below!

So that waterfall just led us back near the entrance...

---

Now how do we switch off these waterfalls?

After seeing a glowing red switch, I press it, and that seemed to do the trick!

We now move back up and cross into the next passage...

...but another waterfall pushes us back down! The switch to shut that off is east this time!

After two or three attempts, I finally shut off that waterfall!

Now we face off against another boss! Whoop-de-doo...as if those monsters back there weren't enough...

It's a Hydra this time!

Analyzing this boss, he's weak against fire!

I have Pidge imbue Hero's axe with fire, and spam fire on him!

Those heads could knock the party unconscious if I'm not careful!

And just like in the old Grecian tales, the Hydra can regenerate his heads!

He proceeds to Acid Storm us twice!

My god, this Hydra's range is very long!!

A few fire spells later, and we see the fireworks!

We earn another orb, I'm guessing...a Whip's Orb!