Final Fantasy/The Crystal of Water

Treasure: 10 Gil, 20 Gil, 110 Gil, 385 Gil, 450 Gil, 1760 Gil, 2000 Gil, 2750 Gil, 2750 Gil, 4150 Gil, 5000 Gil, 5000 Gil, 5450 Gil, 6400 Gil, 7340 Gil, 7690 Gil, 8135 Gil, 9000 Gil, 9900 Gil, 9900 Gil, 10000 Gil, 12350 Gil, 13350 Gil, Antidote, Mage's Staff, Light Axe, Ribbon x2, Diamond Helm, Diamond Armour, Diamond Shield, Giant's Gloves, Diamond Gloves, Diamond Armlet, Spellbinder, Defender, warp cube, rosetta stone

Gaia
Now it's time to make good use of all that loot you cleared out of the Ice Cave and the Citidel of Trials. Take a trip to Gaia first. You can find it close to the north-eastern corner of the world, surrounded by mountains. There's some good, but expensive goodies here. You're going to need at least 50,000 Gil later on so don't go crazy here. If you can afford it, buy some Protect Rings for your party members.

Waterfall
After you're done here, fly back to the North-western continent and land at the southern edge, near the river. When you land, go towards the river and jump into your canoe. Paddle up the river until reach the waterfall. It's been said before, but I'll say it again if only for the sake of redundancy: there's always something behind the waterfall in RPGs.

__  |  \_   |    \_   |      \_       __   |        \_   _/  |   |          \_/    |   |                 |   |                 |____   |  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 anymore. 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.

Desert Caravan
I seriously hope you have money because you're going to need it. Take your canoe back down the river, and then get off and go north into the desert. If you walk a little to the west of the forested area you'll be at the Desert Caravan. Talk to the guy and buy the Bottled Fairy for 50,000 Gil. Use it and the fairy will appear, and then fly off. Now go back to your airship and head to Gaia again. Once you're there, go to the corner of the town and follow the path around until you reach a small lake. If you end up back on the world map, you've gone too far =P. Talk to the fairy and it'll thank you for freeing it. It'll go to the bottom of the lake and get you some Oxyale, which you'll need to get to the third fiend.

Onlak
Now, go all the way back to the north-western continent and then walk to the northeast along the coastline to find Onlak. Some of the people here are weird, as they act as if they're surprised that you have legs. You'll eventually see why they're like that. It might be best if you use the inn to save your game since this is the closest spot to the Sunken Shrine.

Sunken Shrine
When you're ready, go to the south-eastern corner and talk to the woman there. She'll give a short, rather cryptic message, and then disappear. Jump into the barrel and you'll be on your way to the Sunken Shrine. Note that you actually start on the third floor of the Sunken Shrine.

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

Go up past the pillars until you reach a crossroad, head to the right from here and grab the treasure in the first room. Now go all the way to the left, then up and get the treasure in the second room. After this, you have a choice: you can either head straight to the third fiend, Kraken, by going to the upper-left corner of the room and taking the stairs down, or getting all the goodies by going to the upper-right corner of the floor and taking the stairs up. I suggest you go straight for Kraken so you get him out of your way, then clear out the treasure on the upper levels.

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

You're on the 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 back on floor three, but in a different area. 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, damn, 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, defence, and offence 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.

If you have the spell Break, just keep casting it until it connects, and kills Kraken. The second, tougher method involves casting the usual group of spells: Blink, Shld2, Invs1, and Invs2 like crazy until he can't hit you consistently, then Haste, Steel, and Sabre 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 pummelling him with spells with your mages and your physical attacks with your other guys and he'll be dead in no time flat.

Sunken Shrine
After you defeat Kraken, walk into the warp to get sent back to the surface. It's easier to do this than to backtrack all the way back to floor 3a, and then going up to get the treasure. Once you're back in Onrak, stay at the inn to refill your charges, then head back down into the Sunken Shrine.

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. 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 Onrak were talking about. Hmmm. 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 Onrak again.

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 pompous ass 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.

Chapter 9: The Crystal of Air >>