Bravely Default/Chapter 4

Upon touching down on Eternia, Edea explains that the Earth Crystal is in the Everlast Tower, which was formerly known as the Temple of Earth. To get there, you must first survive a trek through Frostpeak Passage.

Frostpeak Passage
The nearest gate to the city of Eternia is closed, so you must take the dirt path around it. It is here you will be introduced to the various enemies you'll find across Eternia. Silver Wolves can inflict paralysis with Paralyzing Bite, while Mandragoras attack in groups and can poison you with Poison Pollen. Teufels sometimes appear at night, and possess the powerful Thundaga spell.

Boss: Ice Golem
As you near the city, you'll see a massive monster in your path. Approach it to start a fight with the Ice Golem! The Ice Golem is a simple boss, but a very powerful one at that. The threat comes from its strength, able to dish out incredibly painful attacks including its abilities. Freezing Punch is an extra strong move that has a chance to inflict Stop, a nasty status ailment that can potentially ruin your team strategy. It also has Blizzard Blast to strike the whole party with.

As with most minor bosses, the Ice Golem does not require a very sophisticated strategy to beat. A healer is important as always, given that its attacks are extremely damaging. Stop is a major consideration as it is hard to defend against, and hard to cure. Since all the boss's attacks are physical, Ninjas can be very effective against it using a combination of Utsusemi and Transience. You can also try to Blind it, which will render its attacks nearly useless against your whole party, although your means to do so are limited outside of Specials.

With the Ice Golem out of the way, head north to enter the city of Eternia!

Eternia, Land of Immortality
At the city, Edea explains that the Eternia is connected with a system of white magic cables, using its energy to treat various diseases. One of Edea's old friends tells her that Edea's mother has fallen sick, and is currently being kept in the Central Healing Tower. Perhaps you should pay her a visit. Go into the entrance with the yellow light to enter the Central Healing Tower, then go to the top-left corner of the building. Edea's mother, Mahzer Lee, has heard about Edea's betrayal from her father, but bears no ill will to the group. She only wants Edea to talk it out with her father.

After the cutscene, check the top right corner of the room for a Rebuff Locket. Outside, Edea reveals that the white magic cables get their energy from the Earth Crystal, and ultimately decides to help awaken the Earth Crystal despite the impact to Eternia's patients. She says that there are three paths to Eternia Central Command, where the Council of Six are stationed. The center path is the shortest, but has very powerful enemies, the west path is longer but the enemies there are more manageable, while the east path is the longest and lacks any strong foes.

Before you set out, take a look around Eternia to prepare for the trip. In front of the exit to the Central Healing Tower, go west and search south to find an Elixir. Go to the southeastern corner of the city and inspect the area to get an Artic Wind. As for the shops, there is a wide variety of weaponry to be found in the armory, while you can get level 5 White, Black and Time Magic from the scroll shop.

The three paths
You have a choice of three passages to reach the Eternia Central Command. As Edea explained, the center path is the shortest and the hardest, the west path is longer and more forgiving, while the east path is easy but very long. You can choose whichever path you wish, but if you're aiming to fight all the bosses on the three paths, be sure to do it now, as they eventually disappear after you advance the story.

Central path - Boss: Guardian
The center path is a straight road to the Eternia Central Command, but it is lined with turrets and patrolled by a dangerous Guardian. Walk up to it to start the fight. The Guardian is an upgraded version of the Automatons, although this single one hits harder than the three previous robots. It still has Limiter Rescission, which boosts its P.Atk by sacrificing its P.Def, and Rocket Punch, which has the serious threat of wiping out your party when boosted. Additionally, it can now use Optical Camouflage to raise Evasion. Lastly, those turrets on the overworld aren't for show, as they can use Assist Attack to inflict exactly 1500 damage on your whole party every 3 turns.

This fight will be similar to the Automatons, except you can focus on just one robot instead of 3. It's still no reason to let your guard down, as the Guardian is extremely tanky and has exceedingly painful attacks that can wipe out a careless party. However, its main threat still comes from its sheer strength, so you don't require any special strategy to defeat it. Use Default very often in anticipation of Rocket Punch and make sure your healer can restore damage dealt by Rocket Punches and Assist Attacks, and you should eventually take down this mechanical powerhouse. Lightning magic like Thundara or Pantheon's Wrath targets Guardian's weakness, and will help make a long fight shorter. The Performer's Got Your Back is handy as well to raise your party's P.Def if you're really worried about Rocket Punch.

Once the Guardian falls, there is very little that can stop you from reaching Eternia Central Command, so head on north.

West path - Boss: Dragon Zombie
Travelling down the longer west path, you may come across a castle rising up from a dead forest, but you can't enter it at this point. Instead, continue down the path to find your blockade: the Dragon Zombie. Like the Dragon you've fought before, the Dragon Zombie has a remarkably simple skillset. Its main attack is Bite, which targets a single party member for considerable damage. It also has Toxic Breath, which harms the whole party and has a chance of inflicting Poison. Finally, despite its lower than average HP, it can use Rise from the Dead to lengthen its lifespan. Being part Zombie, it is weak to Fire, Light and curative magic.

The Dragon Zombie is much more manageable than the Guardian, although it can potentially draw the fight annoyingly long due to Rise of the Dead. The damage from Bite and Toxic Breath isn't too problematic if you have an active healer. The Poison is a nuisance, but you can easily remove it with Poisona, cheap Antidotes or just equip everyone with Star Pendants. The Dragon Zombie's multiple weaknesses are very easy to exploit, as you have a wide range of jobs and skills that can use fire elemental attacks. Even your healers can join in the offensive when there are no serious injuries, as the Dragon Zombie is also weak to healing spells and items.

After you down the Dragon Zombie for good, it's a short walk to Eternia Central Command.

East path - Gravemark Village
The scenic route to Eternia Central Command is quite uneventful. The biggest threat to you here are the random encounters. A new enemy you'll find is the Hybrids. These snow bears can use Bare Claws to attack while ignoring your P.Def. Halfway along the path, you can head further east to reach the gloomy Gravemark Village. According to the old man at the hut, this village was ravaged by a plague and most of the residents were killed. Edea's parents came from Gravemark Village but moved to the city before the plague struck. Apparently, the Crystal Orthodoxy denied help to the village, and even quarantined it to prevent its spread to the rest of Eternia.

There are some items you can find here. Look around the southernmost row of gravestones to find an Ice Charm. Next, inspect the area directly south from the hut to find a Light Curtain. There is an Adventurer here for saving and supplies, and the old man's hut acts as a free inn. With this helpful destination along the eastern path, this route is without a doubt the easiest to traverse.

Eternia Central Command
Outside the central command building, the party is once again attacked by Victor and Victoria. Like before, Victoria suffers another seizure just before she tries to kill off the party, so the duo escape into the building. Since they're so close, you should quickly chase after them and defeat them during this moment of weakness! From the entrance of the building, head through the east gate and into the room beyond to reach the White Magic Circulation Hub.

Boss: Victor and Victoria rematch
At the hub, Victoria can be seen resting inside the massive heart-shaped contraption. Victor explains that Victoria suffered a life-threatening incurable disease. She was ultimately saved thanks to the medical treatment in Eternia, but the treatment had painful side-effects that led to her psychotic personality. Just as he finishes, Victoria exits the contraption, now fully-healed and ready to fight. For the first time in a long while, it's a tag team asterisk battle!

Victoria attacks using debilitating status ailments as well as powerful spells. Her basic combo is a group cast Poison, followed by Exterminate, which deals massive damage to all poisoned characters. She can also cast Dark to deal raw elemental Dark damage. Finally, she can use Corpse to inflict Doom on a party member, which guarantees a KO after a set number of turns. At low health, Victoria is more prone to using Braves, either for her Exterminate combo or for multiple Dark casts. Victor focuses more on supporting Victoria, using Curada to heal and Fairy's Aid to boost elemental damage. However, he also has the formidable Holy spell which deals high elemental Light damage. Victoria is weak to the Light element while Victor is weak to the Dark element.

Starting off the battle, your primary focus should be on Victoria. While Victor's healing and buffs are a concern, they are not as disruptive as Victoria's deadly status ailments. Poison immunity of some kind is a must, as it protects you from Exterminate and prevents your healer from wasting turns curing it. You can't do much about Corpse if it lands, but you can prepare to immediately revive your fallen teammate after Doom activates. Once Victoria falls, Victor will become more aggressive, but his spells are easier to counter. Level 4 White Magic is pretty handy in this boss fight, as Dispel will remove Fairy's Aid while Reflect counters Dark and Holy. If you aren't using a lot of offensive magic, you may also cast Reflect on the enemy to force Victor to heal you whenever he uses Curada.

You gain two new asterisks at once! Victor leaves the Spiritmaster asterisk, an upgraded White Mage with loads of strong support spells that expend BP. Victoria on the other hand gives the Arcanist asterisk, a job that supplements Black Magic nicely, particularly with its powerful spell combos out of status ailments.

Now that two major threats in the Council of Six have been defeated, you can proceed north toward Everlast Tower. Unfortunately, you will be ambushed by a mysterious vampire, who was apparently helping Alternis Dim. Edea is brought to her old room, while the rest of the party is locked up in the dungeon.

Central Command - Prison
You find Edea alone in her room. Try to leave and you will encounter Templar Braev Lee, Edea's father and the Grand Marshal of the Duchy. After an unsuccessful debate about the two's ideals, Edea hatches a plan to sneak out of her room. Using a secret passage, she escapes into the dungeon! Meanwhile, the Templar meets the vampire from before, recognizing him as Lord DeRosso. It seems that Braev seized power of the Duchy by making Lord DeRosso the archduke.

Now in the dungeon, Edea finds the keys to the cells with ease. Now you must free the rest of the party, but you can still find individual Duchy guards in this area even while alone, so stay on guard. Head west first and get 3000pg from the chest in the open cell. The adjacent cell contains your first target to free: Ringabel. Keep going to the northwestern corner to find a chest containing an X-Potion.

Return to where you started and now go south. You'll find Agnes's cell next, as well as a Light Curtain from the chest in the room below. Go west from here to find the last of your party: Tiz, as well as 5000pg from the adjacent room. At the southwestern corner is the stairs out, but there is one more chest for you to find. In the chamber with the stairs, move south down the southeast corner of the room to pass a false wall. Move along the path to enter a locked cell with a chest containing the Excalibur. With all the loot collected, head upstairs.

You're not out of the prison just yet, and this floor is a veritable maze. You'll encounter more varied enemies here, such as Silver Wolves, Teufels and Archdemons. Archdemons in particular can both damage and Charm one target with Charming Thrust. The Excalibur you collected will be quite effective against it as well as the Teufels.

Head north to the top of the floor and look in the small alcove for a Light Curtain. Move east, ignoring the various passages south until you reach the dead end to find an X-Potion. Head south into the first branching path from where you are to find a chest containing a Dragon Fang at the dead end. Head back north and this time travel down the adjacent path to progress further. Continue down the path and get the Zeus's Wrath from the northern chest in plain sight. Go to the southeastern corner of the floor to find a chest containing Bacchus's Wine. Head north to the stairs to exit the prison!

Central Command
You can now proceed further to the north. There is a path leading outside to the west, but you can't do anything about it quite yet other than get the Pantheon's Wrath next to the gate. The exit leading to Everlast Tower is still locked, so you must head further into Central Command to find the key. Go east and head up the elevator. Note that you will start to encounter Duchy guards very often on your climb. Normal Guardsmen can lower M.Def with Carotid Slash, Pike Guards attack first with First Thrust, while Mage Guards uses Sleep and Blizzaga. You may also encounter Lilith's that can inflict Charm with Tail Whip.

The elevator takes you up to the 47th floor. Head to the center of the room and go southeast. Head north from there to find a chest containing a Gold Hourglass, then go west to the southern end of the floor for a Lilith's Kiss. Next head to the northwest area of the floor. Go east into the northern corridor to find a chest containing a Turbo Ether. Head south from there and you'll eventually reach the stairs.

On the 48th floor, head north and east to reach the center of the floor. Head to the south and into the chamber at the southwest to get an Assassin Dagger. Travel down the corridor south of the room with the locked chest and go to the room at the dead end to find a chest containing Divine Fists. Backtrack to the center and head up to the north corridor, then go east. There's an exit that leads to Edea's room, which you've been in before. Edea's bed functions as an inn if you need to heal up. Go south to the end of the corridor to find the stairs upward.

On this floor, you're basically following a linear path that slowly spirals toward the center. However, as you're moving down the western corridor, you can head west into a branching path. Go north to find the stairs leading down to a chamber containing a Holy Lance. Head south along this outer rim until you reach another chest containing Stardust. Return to the main spiraling path and head inward until you reach the elevator. Make your preparations with the Adventurer and get the Elixir from the chest to the east before heading up.

Boss: Braev the Templar
At the hall of the Council of Six, Braev Lee awaits the party alone. Edea tries to reason with him once more, but neither father nor daughter are willing to give up their ideals. Thus, the only way you're going to reach Everlast Tower is by defeating the Grand Marshal, Templar Braev Lee!

This battle is quite tricky due to how unpredictable the Templar is. Braev Lee will make liberal use of Default to greatly reduce any damage dealt to him, and rack up a lot of BP as well. Every so often, he will drop his guard to attack, often Braving for some powerful consecutive hits that can likely KO a character. His main attack is Heart Strike, which is always a critical hit. However, he will also use Radiant Blast, an elemental Light attack, as well as Giant Slayer when his health is low. Speaking about HP, Braev has a rather small HP pool for such a defensive boss, but he will actually use Recover twice whenever you reduce his health to 0, effectively forcing you to fight him 3 times.

There's really no clear strategy you can use in this battle simply because the boss is so hard to predict. Due to the slow and drawn out nature of the battle, you can't rely on Special Moves as their effects wear off quickly and chaining is ineffective against the boss. Braev Lee Defaults a lot, so Default piercing abilities like the Ranger's Targeting comes in handy for wearing him down. You should often use Default yourself, especially if Braev has positive BP, to defend against spontaneous Brave combos. The Templar will often focus his attacks on one party member, which will very likely incapacitate them. The Black Mage's Damage Dispersion is fairly helpful in this scenario, as it reduces the sting of Braev Lee's single target abilities. Occasionally, Braev may Brave into negative BP, leaving him vulnerable for a turn or two. Expend all of your BP during this period of vulnerability to rack up as much damage as you can. Do not worry about Braev Lee reviving himself, as he doesn't get any tougher, so keep up your usual tactics to defeat him eventually.

You get the Templar asterisk for your victory against the Grand Marshal! Templars are like deluxe Knights with some focus on critical hits. Even though he is defeated, Braev is tough enough to stay alive, but can hold you back no longer. Lord DeRosso shows up to comfort Edea, saying that Braev will live while Mahzer can continue treatment even if they awaken the Earth Crystal. It's time to finish off the last leg of your quest to awaken the crystals!

Sub-scenario: The immortal archduke
On the western route from the city of Eternia to Central Command, there is a branching path that leads to a castle made of ice. You have no way of opening it, but you're told to collect 6 keystones. Thus begins one of the longer and tougher sub-scenarios in the game.

Bosses: Keystone Dragons
It isn't immediately clear what you must do to unlock the entrance into Vampire Castle. However, you should recall seeing a series of odd obelisks scattered across Luxendarc, all with the same design and seemingly serving no purpose. You can now inspect these obelisks, and doing so will start a boss battle with a dragon! Defeating the dragon boss nets you a keystone, and your goal is to seek out all of the dragons to collect all six keystones.

The keystone dragons all have the same attack pattern. They will spend the first two turns either using Bite on one target, or a breath attack that hits the whole party and can inflict a specific status ailment. On the third turn, they will always use an "eye" debuff that renders your party vulnerable to their breath attack element for two turns. After that, the dragon's strategy repeats, using a combination of bites and breaths before debuffing you every third turn.

As all of the keystone dragons have the same attack pattern, you can use a general strategy to tackle all of them. Their breath attacks are your main worry, since it can likely wipe out an unprepared party swiftly, and the status effects are a major nuisance if you survivors. Luckily, you've earned some nice jobs for countering these attacks. The Templar has Rampart, which can completely block one breath attack per use. The Spiritmaster is another great job against the dragons, as their Stillness last the entire duration of the dragon's attacking turns, letting you launch an all-out offensive on every third turn. Finally, if you don't mind playing cheap, a group of fast Ninjas with Utsusemi can render each dragon's attack useless. Combined with Comeback Kid or the Red Mage's Turn Tables ability, you can effortlessly defeat all the dragons without taking a single hit.

In the Caldis region where your adventure began, you can find the obelisk on a cape near Lontano Villa. You will find the Jabberwock there guarding the Dark Keystone, which can use Fearsome Breath and Evil Eye. The Jabberwock's Fearsome Breath can inflict Dread, which can jeopardize strategies reliant on BP management especially since Rampart and Stillness expend BP. The Jabberwock is weak to Light, which is rather hard to exploit. Divine Rain courtesy of the Salve-Maker should do the trick, while the Templar's Radiant Blast is also quite handy.

Around the northwestern region of the arid Harena desert, near the oasis is the second obelisk where you can earn the Wind Keystone. You'll have to fight the Wyvern, a dragon that can use Stormy Breath and Tempest Eye. This dragon is a bit easier to handle, as its Stormy Breath doesn't inflict any status ailments. Its weakness to Fire is all too easy to target. Firaga, Promethean Fire or Bomb Arms, you have plenty of options to deal double damage and take Wyvern down.

To get the Light Keystone, you must head through the heavily wooded region of Yulyana until you reach its northern tip to find the obelisk. Since you can't disembark in the middle of the forest from the Grandship, it's going to be a long walk with some minor random encounters along the way. Shinryu is the keystone dragon for this region, capable of using Holy Breath and Celestial Eye. Holy Breath can inflict Blind, so don't rely too much on your physical attackers if you don't have adequate Blind protection. Only Salve-Makers and Arcanists can rely take advantage of its weakness to Dark. Dark Sigh is a cheap source of Dark damage for Salve-Makers, but you can also make stronger, more expensive Dark spells through Compounding. Arcanists on the other hand needs to Poison Shinryu first before they can use Exterminate for heavy Dark damage, easier said than done when trying to inflict a status ailment on a boss.

The obelisk of the Water Keystone lies north of Florem, on one of the islands in the northeastern archipelago. There, you must slay the dragon Mizuchi, who can use Icy Breath and Freezing Eye. Mizuchi's Icy Breath is particularly nasty since it has a chance to inflict Stop. Given how crippling Stop is and how hard it is to cure it, this dragon can really cause you a lot of grief. If you absolutely need Stop protection, consider using the Time Mage's Stop Immunity ability. Mizuchi is weak to Lightning, which you can use to your advantage with Black Magic, Sword Magic or Compounding. If you've collected the Deux Ex summon from the Earth Temple, it is also quite effective here.

For the Fire Keystone, you must traverse the war-torn plains of Eisenberg. The obelisk is located near Grapp Keep, where you will find the Salamander, a dragon that can use Fiery Breath and Scorching Eye. Like the Wyvern, the Salamander's Fiery Breath doesn't inflict status ailments, so it is slightly easier to kill. It is weak to Water, a common attack element. Be it Blizzaga, Artic Wind or Ziusudra's Sin, you can make short work of Salamander if you keep up your barrage of icy attacks.

Lastly, you can find the obelisk of the Earth Keystone on one of the inner shores at the eastern half of the Eternia region. The final dragon you need to slay is Ladon, who can use Megaton Press and Earth Eye. Megaton Press can cause Paralysis, a status ailment similar to Stop but slightly more manageable. It can still be a major headache if you lack immunity against it. Ladon is weak to Wind, but chances are your White Mage's Aeroga isn't going to do a lot of damage. If you really want to exploit elemental vulnerabilities, Salve-Makers are your best bet, or a well-upgraded Combat Item Shop from Norende for a steady supply of Tengu Sneezes.

With all six keystones in hand, you can finally venture into Vampire Castle!