Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation/Castle Swanstone



There is not much to do here other than getting the treasures, so this is another place that consists mostly of sequence triggers. Talk to the minister on the 2nd floor, go down to the basement, try to enter the door at point G, talk to the King in his throne room multiple times (eventually you'll show him the Mirror of Ra), go enter through the door at point G, go through the cinematics, and then talk to him on the 2nd floor once again.



If you have not gotten the Meteorite Bracer yet, go and get it at Real World Amor. Otherwise, go back to the Dream World, warp to the Underkeep, fly directly south to the Spiegelspire, and make sure your party looks something like this:

The Spiegelspire


This is actually a fairly easy dungeon; just take the stairs at D, then the stairs at G, then get the two chests down the F stairs. Climb the tower, get the Magic Water, refill Ressa/Nevan's MP if you wish (this shouldn't be necessary; but bad luck can always happen), and then fight Spiegel!

VS. Spiegel
This boss would be pretty hard, except for one factor; he has the most easily exploitable A.I. in the entire game. He will begin the fight by casting Bound on himself, and will cast it again if you get rid of it by the 3rd turn. Bound will reflect one spell back at the cast, but will then disappear after it does so. So if you keep getting rid of it with a non-damaging spell like Poof (which you should have by now, if you have been following the guide), he will never be able to attack you more than once every two turns; ever. He more-or-less cannot kill you, even if he uses Kasizzle. You will have all of the next turn to heal the damage off, and nobody should be weak enough to get killed by one of them.

The strategy, then, boils down to this:

Odd-Numbered Turns: Cast Poof on Spiegel with Nevan/Ressa (they should be slow enough to go after Spiegel). And heal up if Kasizzle was cast on you last round.

Even-Numbered Turns: Use Focus Strength with Carver and Amos if on the SNES version; one powered up Knuckle Sandwich by Carver + one Fire Claw from Milly should always take out a Low Djinks in one round. Stay on "Show No Mercy" if playing on the remakes; said Low Djinks will have only 80% of their original HP on those versions.

That really is it for the strategy; Spiegel has an extremely hard time getting that much damage on you when he's spending every other round doing nothing productive.

Aftermath
Go back to Swanstone (the stairs near Clearvale is the quickest way if you are on the SFC), solve the King's problem, and then get the Watergate key from him. Once you do, you will be able to do something very important: Zoom back to Real World Somnia, board your ship (which should be parked to the east), and then sail south while hugging the coast. You should discover a metal gate barring the progress of your ship; you could not get past it before, but now you can! Sail into it to open it, and you will now be able to explore a whole other section of the ocean!