Dragon Warrior III/Zoma's Castle

You've collected the three treasures of Tantegel, the Shield of Heroes, the Sword of Kings, and the Armor of Radiance. You've gathered the Stones of Sunlight, the Staff of Rain, and the Sacred Amulet, and exchanged them for the Rainbow Drop. But there's still one item that many people have mentioned: the Sphere of Light. You may not have found it yet, and you won't find such an object in the World of Darkness. If you haven't claimed it yet, you'll need to return to the world above to visit another location that is only accessible by Ramia the Phoenix.

The Dragon Queen
There happens to be a castle in the world that is completely surrounded by a circle of mountains. You have come very close to it when you sailed to Olivia's Promontory and broken the curse of unrequited love that prevented you from obtaining the Sword of Gaia. The body of land that you sailed below is the home to this inaccessible castle. No amount of walking or sailing will get you inside, but it is certainly possible to fly there.

To get there quickly, cast Return and choose Kanave. Then hop on Ramia's back and fly to the east. You'll need to fly slightly south, but you'll soon see the north rim of the circle of mountains that mark the castle's location. Fly into the mountains and set Ramia down in the hills or forest situated next to the castle. Then head inside to learn what mysteries it holds.

The castle interior
When you enter the castle, you will be greeted by two… horses. They will identify the castle as belonging to the Dragon Queen. Without unlocking any doors, all you can do is walk around the exterior, which includes two pools and a design on the floor near the top. To truly investigate the interior, you'll need to unlock one of the doors near the bottom.

It doesn't matter which door you choose, as both will lead to roughly the same kind of small room with a single occupant. The dwarf in the left room indicates that the Dragon Queen is close to dying, while the dwarf in the right room says that she will lay an egg in exchange for her life. Both of these rooms lead to a larger room above. In these larger rooms, only one door is visible, and it will take you further into the center.

Step inside, and you will find a room with a bed and another door beyond. Unlock that door and step inside, and you will reach the center hallway. Note that the door you just came from, as well as the same door on the opposite side, are hidden from view. A door at the top leads back to the outer wall of the castle. Heading down, you will see a horizontal hallway with two doors that lead out to the rooms you were previously in.

All the remains to be discovered is the actual location of the Dragon Queen. To find her, stand in the central hallway, and walk straight down the middle into the dark wall below, and you will find the queen in her protected chamber. The Dragon Queen is indeed at the end of her life, and she recognizes you as true heroes. She says that if you are willing to fight the devil, she will give you a special item. In her passing, she creates the Sphere of Light and leaves it behind for you to collect. Take it, exit the castle, and return to the World of Darkness below with this new weapon in your arsenal.

Assault on Zoma
Provided you have the Rainbow Drop and the Sphere of Light, there is nothing left for you to do but make your way to Zoma's Castle in an effort to defeat Zoma, and restore light and peace to the world of Alefgard. As you have heard in Rimuldar, one must do something special at the far west edge of the land that almost touches Zoma's island. Player's familiar with Dragon Warrior will recall that using the Rainbow Drop at this location will summon a bridge that allows you to cross over the water and onto the small island where the castle awaits.

It's very likely that you will make this trip frequently as you travel in and out of the castle in order to rise in levels and heal your wounds. If so, it's a good idea to cast Repel as you make the journey from Rimuldar to Zoma, to keep your combat encounters to a minimum and help you hang on to those precious health and magic points which are sure to be lost while wandering in the castle.

The entrance
The first floor of Zoma's castle is quite large and rather formidable. You will encounter the strongest enemies that Alefgard has to offer, including Green Dragons that seem to freely roam the hallways. From the stairs at the entryway, you can go to the right or to the left, although it doesn't really matter which direction you choose. You will be forced to walk along the lower edge of the castle, and then up whichever side you chose, until you can begin to walk further into the interior of the castle. When you start heading back down, you will see a set of doors that lead into small chambers above and below.

Whether you chose the left side or the right side, these doors lead to stairways that go down to the floor below. If you explore this floor, you will find that it is arranged in a large loop. Near the top, you can see a pair of staircases, one leading back up to the first floor, and the other leading further below. At the very bottom of this loop is a way to access a pathway that leads up the middle. It may appear that it takes you to the same pair of staircases, but this is in fact an illusion, as taking either staircase leads you absolutely nowhere other than where you are. This floor and the staircases you can reach, is an elaborate illusion. You should return to the first floor and look for another means of accessing the lower levels of the castle.

If you walk all the way around to the middle of the castle, you will reach a door that leads to a room with six statues. As soon as you enter this room, a stone wall will seal off the entrance. Walking to the top, you will find a similar wall blocking passage as well. It will appear as if you are trapped in the room. As you walk back down to the bottom, you will hear a voice, and two of the statues will come to life and attack you. They are Granite Titans, which you should be fairly familiar with by now if you fought a lot of Goopis. After you defeat these two, the next two will attack, and the last two after that. All together, you must defeat three pairs of Granite Titans. When you succeed, both walls blocking your progress will disappear. Furthermore, you can save this progress so that you never have to deal with those fights again when you return to the castle.

Above the statue room, you will find two large thrones surrounded by Barrier tiles. At this point, experience may guide you, or you may recall the hint of the supposed lying prisoner in Rimuldar who suggested that there's a hidden entrance behind the thrones. If you search the floor above the right throne (three squares up and one square left of the throne's seat), you will find a set of stairs. These stairs truly lead to the small island of staircases seen from the loop in the floor below. From there, you can immediately access the next set of stairs that go down to the second basement level.

Further below
You will arrive at the bottom of the next floor. A staircase leading further down is situated right next to the one you arrived on, but it only leads to an empty room. These are the stairs that you will return through if you fall down one of the many gaps near the revolving floors.

Walk up the corridor to the main section of the floor above. You will find a chaotic mix of regular floor tiles, revolving floors, and gaps. Your mastery over the revolving floors from the Tower of Rubiss is truly put to the test in this floor. Regardless of which path you choose to reach the top, your goal is to access the room in the center, as the rooms on either side are empty dead-ends.

Move slowly, and pay careful attention to the direction the the dark triangle is facing when you step on a revolving tile. When you step on one, pause for a moment to consider which direction you wish to press next, in order to make it across the floor without falling into one of the gaps. You are certainly prone to getting attacked here. When you finish a battle, stop for a moment and reassess your position so that you don't accidentally walk over an edge.

The next floor is set up as another maze. Granite Titans, Sworddroids, Putregons, Lionroars and Archmages will all attack with their most powerful abilities. There is only one path that leads you from the staircase that you arrived at, to the staircase down to the next level. All other pathways either create a circle, or lead to dead ends. There is one treasure chest worth noting, and it is found in the lower left corner of the floor. It contains the Multi-Edge Sword, but this is a cursed weapon. It works the opposite way that the Swordedge Armor works. While the Swordedge Armor hurts those enemies who strike its wearer, the Multi-Edge Sword hurts the wielder as well whenever it strikes an enemy. Therefore it is not a good idea to use this sword in battle.

From your arrival, your goal is to walk to the left until you can walk down, and then take it as far down as you can. When you can move to the left, take the opportunity to drop down to the lower corridor. From there, simply follow the path as it goes left, and back up until it loops around to the next set of stairs.

You are now one floor above the final level of Zoma's castle. Walk up the flight of steps that lead to a door and open it. Walk to the right and then up until you reach a long bridge. Cross the bridge, and when you reach the other side, you will observe something special. You will see a man engaged in battle with a King Hydra. But that is no ordinary man. That man is your father, Ortega. You will be able to watch the battle, but you will not be able to intervene, or help Ortega who ultimately succumbs to the King Hydra. After all this time, you have actually caught up with him, only to witness his defeat at the jaws of a monster. As you go over to speak with him, he will not recognize you as anyone he knows. Rather, he will simply ask you to tell his/her son/daughter about what happened, and ask him/her for his forgiveness. Then he simply passes away.

With no choice, you must bravely venture onward. As you enter the left corridor, you travel up and see another door. Ignore this door as the room beyond is empty. You will reach the top and head to the right. You will pass another door, but this door is worth opening. It leads to a hallway with six treasure chests waiting at the bottom. The two chests on either end are actually Mimics, but the four in between contain, from left to right, a Stone of Life, a Leaf of the World Tree, the Sage's Stone, and a Wizard's Ring. While you may be familiar with most items, the Sage's Stone will be new. If you managed to find and speak with the man hidden on the far west side of Rimuldar, you may recall that the Sage's Stone can heal your entire party, and may be used any number of times. Give this to the primary healer of your party, and this is an item you will rely upon heavily for the rest of the game.

From the treasure chests, walk back up through the hallway, and continue walking to the right until you reach the edge. Then walk back down the right side, ignore the next door that you pass, until you reach the stairs to the level below. Before you walk through the stairs, it's a good idea to heal up your party and prepare for combat.

Zoma's lair
When you arrive on the final level, you will be at the bottom of what appears to be a very dark room. You can walk up to what appears to be an altar. Standing on the altar, flames will light up and illuminate the room. Then Zoma himself will come down to greet you. He will state that he's looking forward to your demise, as he sics his three servants on you.

There's good news and bad news about these servant fights. The bad news is that your progress against them cannot be saved. If you defeat all three, and lose against Zoma or leave the castle (or even just the floor) and return, you will be forced to fight all three servants again. The good news is that these fights aren't terribly painful if you are high enough in level, and it's a rather quick way to obtain over ten thousand experience points for your entire party. Fight the servants, climb back up to the floor above, heal up and return to the lair to repeat the battles.

You will start out by facing a King Hydra, possibly the very same that killed your father. Like many of the Hydras you have faced before him, he can attack twice per round, and he favors using his fiery breath attacks. Make sure your healer relies on the Sage's Stone to keep your party's health as high as possible without resorting to using up magic points. Barrier is a good spell to cast to protect you from the flame breath. Otherwise cast BiKill on your best warriors to increase the amount of damage they do and to speed up the fight.

After you defeat the King Hydra, you will have to take a few steps forward before the fight with the next servant initiates. This servant will resemble Archfiend Baramos, but he is known as Baramos Bomus (or Barabomus in the remake). He is like a powered up Baramos. He too can attack twice per round, although he won't always do that. He favors the Explodet spells over everything, although his fire breath weapon is considerably more damaging. You'll need to do everything you can to keep up with the healing. The Sage's Stone should be sufficient, but there may be a few rounds where an extra helping hand from the Hero might be in order. Cast Barrier to cut down on the amount of damage that his fire attacks do to the party. Once again, BiKill is useful, as you will find that this version of Baramos has rather good defense.

The final servant resembles a purple version of Scalgons and Putregons that you have fought in the past, known as Baramos Gonus (or Baragonus). Whether this is the skeleton of one of the defeated Baramoses, or something else entirely is unsure. However, you will find this servant to be surprisingly simple. His only attack seems to be a single strike. Granted, this single strike does a tremendous amount of damage to one player, but if your party is fully healed, it is unlikely that any of his strikes will be sufficient to destroy your characters. Keep the healing support going, and use regular attacks on this servant until he is defeated. Then there will be nothing standing between you and Zoma.

Before you rush ahead to fight Zoma, it is important to ensure that you in fact are strong enough to fight against him. To ensure success, all of your characters should be at least level 40 or above. If any of your characters have less than one million experience points, it's probably a good idea to continue training them until you pass that threshold. If you are confident that you are strong enough, approach him and let the battle begin.

In his natural state, Zoma is ridiculously powerful. He can attack twice, breathe gales of icy breath at you, and use the most powerful snow based attacks. The spell of Barrier is useless against Zoma, since his attacks are ice based and not fire based. If allowed to remain in this powerful state, he will mow down your party much faster than you can heal them, unless you are at a ridiculously high level.

It is possible, however, to significantly reduce Zoma's power, and right at the beginning of battle. You have the item that makes it possible: the Sphere of Light. Make sure that whoever is holding this item uses it right away in the first round. You may suffer one full strength attack, but after the effects of the Sphere of Light kick in, it should be relatively easy to recover.

Mind you, a weakened Zoma is by no means a pushover. He still has a lot of health, a high defense, and a wide array of powerful attacks that can quickly overwhelm you if you don't stay on top of healing. In particular, Zoma has one ability to erase the effects of any spell cast on your party like SpeedUp, BiKill, or Increase. If you wish to keep your party enhanced with these spells, you will have to cast them over again every time he uses this ability. However, if you have a player who is available to cast these spells, it is certainly recommended that you do so, no matter how many times you have to repeat your efforts. Continue to use the Sage's Stone liberally, and add in an extra healer when the tide of battle seems to be going against you. Revive any character who falls, and remember that in an emergency, your Hero has the HealUsAll spell that will instantly restore every member of the party to full health. Continue hitting Zoma until he goes down.

Epilogue
Upon defeating Zoma, you may begin to make your retreat from the castle when the ground starts to shake, the floor cracks open, and you fall into the ground below. Ironically, you are ejected from the fissure found in the lowest level of the North Cave (where you found the Shield of Heroes). You will make your way out of there, and as you round the corner from the staircase, that extra hallway will crumble and collapse, leaving the dungeon in the same state it will be found in the original game. As you exit from the cave, it will seem as though the hole back to your original world closed up. In fact, if you attempt to cast Return, or use a Wing of Wyvern, you will find that your choices are limited to the five towns in Alefgard. Make your way back to Castle Tantegel for a congratulations from the king and a victory celebration from the citizens nearby. Then the credits will roll until a final message appears on the screen: TO BE CONTINUED IN DRAGON WARRIOR. A Dragon Orb will flash on the screen, cycling through the six colors of the orbs that you had to collect. Congratulations.