Final Fantasy/The Crystal of Air

Treasure: 180 Gil, 800 Gil, 880 Gil, 2750 Gil, 3400 Gil, 3400 Gil, 4150 Gil, 4150 Gil, 5000 Gil, 5450 Gil, 6400 Gil, 6720 Gil, 7600 Gil, 7900 Gil, 7900 Gil, 8135 Gil, 8135 Gil, 9000 Gil, 9500 Gil, 9900 Gil, 10000 Gil, 12350 Gil, 13000 Gil, 13000 Gil, 18010 Gil, 18010 Gil, Tent, Potion x2, Gold Needle x2, Cottage, Thor's Hammer, Vorpal Sword, Sunblade, Healing Helm x2, Dragon Mail, Aegis Shield, Venom Blade, Sasuke, Ribbon, Mythril Helm, Shirt, Protect Cloak, Black Robe, White Robe, Diamond Shield, Diamond Gloves, Protect Ring x2, Bell, Adamantite

Lufenia
You won't be able to land anywhere near Lufenia because of the swamp and forest in the area. The only place to land is a small square north of Lufenia near Gaia. Land at that spot then make your way down to Lufenia. You can buy some more level 8 magic here, but the best stuff is "hidden" in somewhere in town but it isn't much of a secret if you look around. Walk to the top-right corner of Lufenia and then head off to the right to find it. Buy both Flare and Life2. They may cost an arm and leg (60,000 Gil each!) but they will be worth it for the road ahead. Now, after that's taken care off, walk back to the town proper and talk to the guy near the bottom-right corner for the Bell, which you'll need to enter the Mirage Tower.

Mirage Tower
Walk back to the airship and then land on the grass pretty much directly south, near the Yahnikurm Desert entrance. There's a well known spot you can land that will leave you much close to the Mirage Tower but it's a little hard to find. Basically go southwest with your airship and look for a tiny patch of land right beside the mountains. It's the spot where the mountains start to recede to the east, forming a sideways "V" shape. Now walk to the northwest and you'll find the Mirage Tower which you'll be able to enter now. If you haven't already, you should have a full stock of items, fully healed, and all of your magic charges ready to go. You're going to need it here.

Floor 1
__          6            __|  |          |           |     |    234   |5           |_   1|    ______|             |   |   |             |   |___|             |_________                       |                       |                       |                   ____|                   =   =                   |   |                   |   |                   ^   V                   F2  Exit

The stairs to floor 2 are right to the left of you. Just go through the door in front of you and then through the door on the other side to reach them. The center area has a bunch of treasure. You should get it since there's some good stuff there.

Floor 2
____________________  _____|                    |  |                      _^  |_  |   __                | F3   |_ |__| |               |        |        |_______        |        |_____           _____|       |_             |          |               |__          |          |                  |         |          |                  |         |          |  1          5    |       __|          |  2 ________ 6    |      |          |  3|        |7    |      |          |  4|        |8    |      |          |   =        =     |   ___|          |___|        |_____|  |                            ____|                       ____|               _______|               V               F1

Ugh. Just follow the path around until you see a space between the pillars at roughly 11 o'clock. Make your way downwards along the inside wall until you see a door, and get the treasure inside and exit at the opposite end. Continue up and you'll find the stairs to floor 3.

Floor 3
F3         V          |__________ |                    |                     |                     |          ^ F1 (Fort)| |         |          !          |          =          |          |__________|

This room is simple. Just go around to the bottom where the door is and enter it. You'll enter a battle with a Blue Dragon one tile in front of the door but it's pretty easy to kill. Enter the teleporter in the center of the room after you kill it and you'll get warped to the Flying Fortress.

Floor 1
^ F2 (Fort) |                      |                       |                       |                       |                       |____                            |    3             F3 (Tower)|             7 89 2|4    _______     V    |_______     6 | | 5  |       |    |    |       |_      | A    =    _|       |    =    |         |_    = |___|        |____|____|           |___|                       |                       |                       |                       |____                            |                       1    |                       =    |                       |____|

You start in the center. Work your way around for some more treasure and then head to the warp in the north.

Floor 2
F2 (Fort) V            1___2      |         3___ =        |            =              |__       |       _____|                 |_     |     _|                   |____|____|                        |            4            |7          |            | 5           6|     ______|_______     |            |    |      |       |    |            =    |      |       |    =            |____|     _|_      |____|                     _| | |_                   _|   |   |_             _8   |     |     |  A9_ =   |     |     |    =             |____|     |     |____|                        |                        ^                        F3

Head down and into each of the different paths for some treasure. Be sure to get the Adamantite here. Once you've collected all of the treasure, find the warp at the southern-most point (6 o'clock) to continue on. If you want, you can exit the Flying Fortress and then go back to Mt. Duergar and get the adamantite forged into the Excalibur sword.

Floor 3
7 8            9 A               = |____                   |                    |                    |                  5 6                    |                  3 4   BCDE             |                  1 2 =              | F2                 = |_______________V_                  |__ |      |                     |              |       |         _____       |       F4 ^___|       |________|     |      | |______|

The warp to floor 4 is just to your left and then down. There's also a bunch of treasure to the far right after you go through a needlessly tedious mini maze to get the items there. There's more treasure to be had if you go up and directly left from the floor 2 warp. If you look through the large window near the floor 2 warp, you'll find out where to go once you defeat this fiend.

Floor 4
F3            V__________________ ***     ***   |                 ***      ***   |                                |                          ***   |                          ***   |                                ^                                F5

The whole of floor 4 is a maze of sorts. If you start walking you'll notice you don't run into any dead ends, it just keeps going and going and going... that's because the top and the bottom, and the left and the right boundaries of the floor wrap around to each other respectively. To find the warp to floor 5 the easy way, go left past two of the windows, and then down twice until you see it.

Floor 5
O Tiamat |                  |                   =                   |                   |                   |                   |                   |                   |                   |                   V                    F4

Just head up until you get to Tiamat. Don't mess around here because there's a (slight) chance you'll run into a Warmech... and if you do, you'll probably get your ass handed to you. Anyway, you should give the Excalibur sword and the Giant's Gloves to your strongest attacker. This will even the odds a lot. Prepare yourself and then touch to orb.

Tiamat
He's tough if you're not prepared. The first thing you should have your White Wizard do is to just have him cast Blink, Shld2, Invs1/Invs2, NulAll on all of your party. Keep stacking those spells on your guys until your White Wizards gets low/runs out of charges at those magic levels. By then, Tiamat should be having a hard time hitting you. Of course, you should heal any Knight, Ninja, Red Wizard before their HP falls below half of max, and any of the rest before their HP falls anywhere between half and three-quarters of max. Seriously. Tiamat can and often will hit like a ton of bricks and can knock out or seriously damage most characters rather easily (depending on your levels).

Have your Black Wizards and Red Wizards start powering the rest of the party but the Knight with the Excalibur should get priority to Haste and the other stat-boosting spells. Once that's done, they should focus on attacking Tiamat. Start with Flare. That should do some decent damage while it lasts. After that you're out of luck, as rest of your damaging spells won't do too much damage, so just have your Black Wizards and Red Wizards cast their strongest non-Flare spells. Also, don't bother with status effect spells. They won't work as far as I know. An alternate strategy would be to have your Black Wizard cast Break, either one after another, or alternate with damaging spells. Either way, it will take some time for Break to actually connect and kill Tiamat.

The Venom Sword would be a better choice since you can use it any number of times and it will usually work faster.

Your Masters and Ninjas should just attack. Knights will have the ability to use low level White Magic so you should cast a few Blink spells on them just for the sake of redundancy and then have them attack. Red Wizards should start by protecting and powering up the rest of your party first, and then attack, or use spells. Whichever one works best.

It will take awhile but you'll eventually kill Tiamat. She has some strong spells herself as well as a bitchin' physical attack. The NulAll should take care of the elemental spells she casts like Thunderstorm and most of everything else, but watch out for Toxin. It might kill one your guys but as long as you have Ribbons you should be okay.

The Kingdom of Corneria
Walk up to the crystal and shine that sucker up. After it gets its glow back, head into the teleporter to get warped outside. Now what are you supposed to do, you ask? Simple. Go back to the Temple of Chaos, where you first fought Garland, the pathetically easy, not-really-fit-to-be-a-bad-guy knight, if you were paying attention...

Chapter 10: The Temple of Chaos >>