Final Fantasy/The Crystal of Water

'With new powers and resolve, the Light Warriors open the door to there greatest challenge yet. From the towns on Onrac and Gaia comes many rumors of fantastic machines, of a shrine that sank with the coming og the Fiend of Water, and of robots that fall from the sky.'

Gaia
Nestled in a narrow mountain valley, the town of Gaia is well protected from the troubles of the wide world beyond as it is accessible only by airship. If you haven't visited yet, you'll learn from the townspeople that outsiders call it the Eye of the Hawk, because the continent is shaped like a hawk's head. Some of the most powerful magic that the game has to offer is sold in this town.

If you have a Black Wizard in your party you will have noted that he has no great strength for fighting. The Cat Claws, the only weapon for sale in town, can help change that. It is arguably the best weapon in the game for Black Wizards; it increases their physical attacks substantially. The Protect Ring protects against instant Death spells. Many of the creatures you'll soon meet use such magic and the results man be devastating. Equip as many warriors as you can afford to with a Protect Ring.

Buying magic spells is starting to get expensive, but with all the loot you've collect from the Volcano, Ice Cave, and Citadel of Trials you should have plenty. All of the available Level 7 spells are valuable. Holy (Fade), NulAll (Wall), Stop, and Warp (Zap) are all good buys in the Level 8 shops. Stop will freeze time for some enemies including one powerful fiend whom you've already met.

Gaia is home to a spring once inhabited by a faerie. At one time, a faerie lived in the quiet pond in the back of town, but by the time the Light Warriors arrive on the scene she is gone. Clues are given both here in Gaia and in Onrac. Buy new weapons and spells in Haia, but save some Gil. You'll need 40,000 for your next objective: recovering the faerie from the Desert Caravan.

Onrac
Onrac can be seen to the west of the Carsia Island chain. However, there is no safe place to land nearby. Follow the river south until it leads to a grassy plain where you can land the Airship, and then follow the river back up to Onrac. There, the Light Warriors hear much about mermaids and robots and other fantastic beings. The townspeople tell stories of a shrine that sank into the sea long ago and is now inhabited by mermaids. At the port, you will find a submarine that can take you to the Sea Shrine where the mermaids live. You'll also meet Dr. Unne's brother from Melmond. There are no weapons or armor for sale in Onrac, but there are item and magic shops. Check out the magic shops, being sure to pick up the white spells Healaga and the black spell Saber.

As people both in Onrac and Crescent Lake tell you, until the coming of the Water Fiend 200 years ago, Onrac was part of a great civilization. Part of that power was derived from the good will of the mermaids who lived nearby in a shrine, but now the shrine has been lost beneath the waves. Onrac is still the place to hear news of the world though. In speaking to the citizens, you will learn that there was something very strange being offered for sale at the Caravan. The Caravan Master's daughter reveals the location of the Caravan. It is at the oasis in the Western Desert. Make sure you have lots of Gil when you go to buy the faerie.

One man insists that he saw a shiny object fall from the sky and others have seen a robot to the north near the Great Waterfall. Near the inn in Onrac you'll come across Dr. Unne's brother. He tells the Light Warriors that Unne has been unraveling the mysterious language of Lefeinish, but that a stone tablet with valuable translations is needed to finish the work. A woman in town says that many treasures sank with the Sea Shrine and that one of them was a stone plate.

Desert Caravan
In the northern part of the desert west of Onrac, near the green oasis, a Caravan has set up for business. One specialty item is for sale that is of utmost important to the Light Warriors. Land your airship in the small spot of grass south of the desert east of Onrac. On the north end of the desert, walk onto the isolated piece of sand to enter the caravan. When you reach him, he only has one item to sell. Although unmarked, the Bottle commands a stiff price. Its contents must be very rare and valuable. In fact, the Bottle contains the faerie from Gaia. You'll have no choice but to pay the asking price.

Once you have possession of the bottled faerie, take it to the faerie's spring in the northern part of Gaia and open it by selecting Bottle from the item subscreen. The faerie, once released, will give you a supply of Oxyale, which is an essential part of the submarine in Onrac.

In Dawn of Souls version of the game and subsequent version, the Caravan also sells a multitude of tonics that will increase stats temporarily while engaged in battle. For the price of 1500 Gil, you can buy the Faerie Tonic and the Giant's Tonic, which will temporarily increase your MP and HP respectively. At a cheaper price of 1000 Gil, you can buy the Protect Drink which raises defense, the Speed Drink which raises agility, and the Strength Tonic which raises Attack.

Sunken Shrine
To review, since the Sea Shrine sank there is just one way to reach it: by using the Submarine in Onrac. But to do that you'll need Oxyale, and Oxyale must be given to you by a faerie. Unfortunately, since the faerie has been sold to a caravan, she can't help you unless you buy her back. If you go to the Western Desert, near an oasis, you'll find the Caravan. Buy the Bottle, as it contains the faerie inside, and take the Bottle to the faeries spring in Gaia. Release the faerie and receive the Oxyale. Now take the Oxyale back to Onrac. Finally, you'll be allowed entrance to the submarine. Simply enter the submarine and you'll be taken to the Sea Shrine.

After a short submarine ride from Onrac, you'll find yourself in the middle floor a shrine inhabited by monsters and mermaids. Above, stories from Onrac of mermaids in distress will become a reality in the Sunken Shrine. Below you'll need to defeat Kraken, the Fiend of Water, to light the Water Crystal. Seek out the mermaids first. They have many treasures that will help you in the battles in the lower part of the Shrine. The lightning-based spell Thundaga will also be helpful against the area's aquatic foes.

Floor 1
Beneath the sea your most potent magic is lightning. Thundaga will give your watery foes a jolt few can withstand, but lesser Thunder and Thundara will also give them quite a charge. The Zeus Gauntlet will also be a substantial help, giving the user the ability to cast Thundara every turn for free. By now, you should also have purchased the Exit spell in Crescent Lake.

Floor 3a
F2a V__                F4a |             _^      |_____________|           |           |       2   |       =   |    ___|___|   |   |                  1   |                  =   |__________________|             |             |             |            Surface

Time to go treasure hunting =). Go to the top right corner and take the stairs up.

Floor 4a
1                     =                    __|                   /               F3a /              V                 |                | |_______        |                         |        |                      2  |________|                      =  |                      |__|                  ____|                 |                 |                _|        4   ____           3   |          =  |    |            =  |     _____|__| 5  |            |__|____|          =  |                               |__^ F5

Lots of treasure here, just be quick because there are a number of annoying enemies here. Ghosts hit rather hard and appear in groups so watch out for them. Sahagin Princes are also a pain in the ass only because they appear in large groups that take awhile to defeat. Use the Gauntlets to get rid of their weaker companions. Even still, I would take the time to get all of the treasure because there's some good stuff here. The stairs to floor 5 are in the bottom right side.

Floor 5
<_________        67    BCD   _________> | 4      =      =  |                   |  =      |__    |__|                ___|__|___      |               |          |  5  |   8               |          |  =  |   =               |          |__|__|___|               |      123       |               |       =        |               |_______|        |                       |        |                       |        |___                       V    9   | A | F4a  =   | = | |___| |_|

There's tons of treasure here, along with the mermaids the people in Onrac were talking about. So I guess the woman guarding the barrel in the beginning was a mermaid at one point. Grab everything and then top left corner and walk to the left. You'll wrap around to other side where there's one last room. Enter it and grab the treasure, which includes the Rosetta Stone, and then backtrack all the way to the barrel to get to Onrac again (or use the Warp spell if you can).

Floor 3a
Rest and save, then head back down to the Shrine. This time, head down to go after Kraken by taking the northwest stairs.

Floor 2a
F3b ^        ___|        |        |        |        |        |     ___|    |    |    |    |______           ^            F3a

You're on floor 2a now. There's no treasure here so just head straight up to the stairs at the top.

Floor 3b
F4b ___^ V   F2a

You're on floor three, but nothing to get here. Just go up the stairs.

Floor 4b
F3b ____   V    | |        |         V          F3c

Nothing happening here, just grab the treasure in the room and go down the other set of stairs.

Floor 3c
1   _____    =    |    |    |    ^    |  F4b    | |   2____|         |         |         |         |         |         |         =   V_____| F2b

Yet another area of floor three, enter the room, grab the treasure and go down the stairs at the bottom of the floor.

Floor 2b
F1          V______ |       6         |   789A =          |    =      |___________|____|          |          |             _______^ F3c |           |   345    |            |        12    =     |            |        =    |_____|____________|________|

You're finally in the main section of floor 2, and there's lots of treasure here. Check all of the rooms and grab the treasure in each of them. After that, walk all the way up and go down the stairs.

Floor 1
O Kraken |         =   _______|  |  |     ____  |    |    |  |    =    |  |____|    |          __|         |      _____         |     |     |         |     |     |         =     |     |         |_____|     |                     |_______                             |                             |                             ^                              F2b

Whew! Confused yet? You're finally on the final floor where Kraken is located. Walk up a little ways, and go left, then up, then left again. Now all you have to do is follow the path through the rather large room and you'll be at the orb. Touch it and Kraken will attack you.

Kraken
Well, this guy will probably give you a hard time if you're not ready. He's easily the toughest boss so far in the HP, defense, and offense departments, but he lacks something vital that most of the other bosses had, a pile of magic spells. He actually only has two spells, and both of them suck. Kraken does have his phenomenal strength of his physical attacks, which can easily knock out White and Black Wizards if you're not careful, as well as drop a large amount of HP from Knights, Masters, and Red Wizards. How do you fix this? Easy, there are actually two ways. The first method is rather cheap, but will end this battle quickly.

Beating him involves casting the usual group of spells: Blink, Shld2, and Invs2 like crazy until he can't hit you consistently, then Haste and Steel on your Knights, Monks, Ninjas, and Red Wizards so they can beat the crap out of Kraken. Of course, you'll never be able to completely avoid Kraken's attacks, since he has such a high attack percentage, but, for the most part the remainder of this battle will be easy.

Black Wizards are actually somewhat effective in this battle, just have them use their Bolt3, and when you run out of those, your Ice3 spells. They won't do as much damage as you would expect, but hey, they work well enough. If you run out of Ice3, start randomly using your next strongest spells; they'll hardly do any damage, but it's better than nothing. As long as you have on enough casts of Blink, Invs1, and Invs2, you should be able to easily outlast him, just keep pummeling him with spells with your Wizards and your physical attacks with your other guys and he'll be dead in no time flat.

Restore the crystal and get out of here.

Waterfall Cave
__  |  \_   |    \_   |      \_       __   |        \_   _/  |   |          \_/    |   |                 |   |                 |____   |  123456              |   |   =                  |   |___|                  |                          |                          ^                          Exit

There's some difficult enemies in here, including a few with instant-death spells, but that's nothing if you have some Protect Rings. This place is also full of dead-ends, but the real path to the treasure is left. Yes, really, just keep going left, and then down when you can't go left any more. Talk to the malfunctioning robot in the room at the end of the path to get the Warp Cube, another very important item that you'll need later, then get the treasure in the chests. Exit the cave.

Melmond
Now that you're back on the surface, the question remains, what do you with the Rosetta Stone. The answer - take it to Dr. Unne in Melmond. That know-it-all surely knows what to do with it, and he does! He'll teach out the Lufenian language, which you can use right away by going to Lufenia. When you're ready, fly to north-eastern continent.