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

Desert Caravan
I seriously hope you have money because you're going to need it. Fly to the northwester continent and land just south of the desert. Go north into the desert, past the larger one. 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
After you're done here, fly back to the northwestern continent and land at the southern edge, near the river. When you land, go towards the river and jump into your canoe. Cross the river 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. There are no weapon or armor shops in Onlak, but there are Level 7 magic shops that sell the spells that you couldn't get in Gaia. Heal3 is the only remotely useful one, so buy it.

Waterfall Cave
Head back onto the river near Onlak and 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.

Sunken Shrine
Head back to Onlak. 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. Go for the goodies first, then deal with Kraken.

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. Use the Gauntlets to get rid of their weaker companions. 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 (or use the Warp spell if you can).

Floor 3a
Rest and save, then head back down to the Shrine. This time, head down to go after Kraken by taking the northwest stairs.

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

You're on 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 on floor three, but nothing to get here. 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, defense, and offense 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.

Beating him involves casting the usual group of spells: Blink, Shld2, and Invs2 like crazy until he can't hit you consistently, then Haste and Steel 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 pummeling him with spells with your Wizards and your physical attacks with your other guys and he'll be dead in no time flat.

Restore the crystal and get out of here.

Melmond
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 >>