Quesada's Swan

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

My goodness, the temple and the surrounding scenery itself is another pic-worthy scene.

I save before heading in.

At the entrance doors, there's a lot of KO'd exorcists...

There's a noise beyond the doors!

And someone's yelling!

Eleanor: "A daemon!"
Magilou: "The daemon we heard about? Sounds like it's having fun."

Velvet decides to go in!

Skit: Laphicet's amazed at the temple! Magilou explains like the Yvolg Ruins, Palamedes Temple was built in the same fashion: underwater.

Laphicet knows that "it couldn't have been easy" to build an underwater temple.

Eizen notes that too.

Rokurou wonders how the temple builders did it. Eizen explains it. Rokurou grins at the thought of the building process.

Eleanor brings up more info: this temple used to sit on the coast, according to the "official" records. She explains that the "temple was swallowed by the sea" the moment the Empyreans slept.

So another building crew made a tunnel connecting to the temple.

The info's from The Revised Theories of Ancient Architecture. Laphicet read that book. Eizen "read the first edition." Oops...

Eleanor talks plenty fast at this point. There's many different "competing theories" as to how the temple was built.

Rokurou asks if she was actually debunking what Eizen read. She didn't mean to do that...

Eizen's gloomy...

Velvet, as usual, don't care.

---

As we head down the stairs to the temple, I play another skit: Velvet asks Eizen if "there's no Empyrean" in the temple. Magilou asks her to ask Eizen to flip the reaper coin. Rokurou points out "it always comes up tails."

Eizen insists the temples are just "places of worship built by human hands." He says that Empyreans sleeping in the temple are only "legend."

But there's Innominat. Eizen's still skeptical, saying Innominat's "a special case."

The dark blue stone and blue lights capture the scenery of this temple very well.

At the foot of the stairs are soldiers and more enemies!

We face off against five Spearmen first!

Then another wall monster, the Deep Barrier!

We climb down more stairs to another chamber filled with waterfalls.

The doors behind them are locked...

There's a monolith in the middle. I read the writing there:

"The chalice bears a symbol and that commands flowing water.

Should the chalice be filled with water and its mark turned blue, the water shall be as a wall to thwart your path.

Should the chalice be dried by flame and its mark turned white, the impeding waters shall lie still, opening the path before you."

This is a puzzle...

I climb down another large set of stairs, to where the chalice is on a dais...

There's even lizard monsters here...

---

I check the pedestal below the chalice. What am I supposed to put in the relief here, though?

I head to the east wing and slide the doors open there. There's another chalice with a gem lodged in its pedestal.

I turn the gem red, drying up the chalice here.

I'm now given a tutorial on the temple's chalice waterfall system.

The lizard daemons are priests!

The east path upstairs is now open!

Nothing but Katz spirits and simple treasure here.

In the west chalice room now, there's a cracked wall behind the pedestal.

I turn off the waterfall for the west door upstairs...

While heading back up, I read the updated synopsis of the game so far: it seems from what we've learned, therions absorb malevolence. From what I've seen with Velvet so far, after Velvet finishes off a human-turned-daemon, they turn back into a human...

Could she have absorbed the "malevolence"?

Could this "malevolence" be daemonblight?

There's a teardrop embedded on a monolith, and a warp point to the right...

I take the warp to another part of the ruin...

Unfortunately, the way forward is blocked by a waterfall.

I warp back down and take out the Teardrop-Shaped Gemstone from the monolith.

I head down and place the gem on the empty recess of the center chalice's pedestal...

I dry up the center waterfall. Now we can move forward!

This dungeon sort of feels like a Zelda-themed temple.

---

In the next area, we see a daemon!

The daemon, Magilou notices, is wearing the crest of Amenoch...this must be a priestess.

Laphicet: "Then that makes this daemon...!"
Rokurou: "Yeah. She must be the missing mother Mahina."

Eleanor's in shock again.

No other choice...

I switch to Velvet for this battle!

Velvet tells Eleanor not to get distracted!

The Daemon Mahina doesn't have any weaknesses, but she's strong against non-elemental attacks.

I finish her off with a Mystic Arte!

Her breathing's shallow now...

Eleanor: "To think a priestess beloved by her village would become a daemon...she's never going to be the same again. This is the least I can do for her..." No...

Eleanor: "So says reason!"

Another drop of water! Laphicet senses something again!

Mahina roars and runs away!

Velvet decides to leave her alone. Eleanor stands there.

To the next door, there's five passages, with two on the east and west, and one in the center. The center passage, though, is locked...

Seeing a save point nearby, I stop here for now.