“When you drag the past around you cannot go anywhere.”

The Tower of Flavell is a lot shorter than I thought it was, and I wish I had done it last night.

After returning to the random merchants, healing up, and restocking, I walk into tonight’s first dungeon. It’s directly adjacent to the Glacier, so there’s no world map between them. Inside is a strange maze like thing where tubes connect various circular rooms. It’s short and to the point. We eventually reach a tower that looks like a plant. Miranda doesn’t let us go to the right of this tower, demanding we rescue the Queen first. I kinda like the semi time sensitive feeling of this, and upcoming, dungeons. So, we listen to our new friend and climb the tower.

Lloyd, wearing Divine Dragon Dragoon armor, is kneeling before Theresa, thanking her for her compliance. Dart then teleports in, and Lloyd fills us in on the plan. He’s working for Emperor Diaz to lead us to a utopia. He mentions the Soa’s Life Tree and the 108th fruit. He continues, compliance has made human and winglies weak. He created war to advance our lives, the only way for the final fruit/species to bloom. I didn’t understand it, and neither did Dart, so we fight.

Lloyd is pretty easy, oddly enough. Try not to go Dragoon too often, as Lloyd still wields the Dragon Buster and can one-shot a character. I always had Meru ready with revives in case Dart and Rose, who I transformed to summon their dragons, fell. Lloyd also crashed me when he killed Dart once, so another reason to be wary. His physical attacks are single target and don’t do much damage, but his magical attack hits the whole party, doing about half damage to everyone. The merchants sell healing breezes, which heal everyone, in case you're worried about an extended fight. Ultimately, my grind last night was overly sufficient.

As Dart goes to land the killing blow, we’re suddenly joined by another person. Wink, from Deningrad, throws herself in front of Lloyd and absorbs the attack. Despite being groomed by him, she’s taken a liking to our villain. She, and her guards, inform us that Lloyd isn’t the main bad guy. The actual main boss, Emporer Diaz, recently showed up in Deningrad and kidnapped Shana. He’s demanding that we bring Lloyd and the three moon objects to Vellweb. As we see the Sacred Sister off, I return to the tower, wanting to know what’s in that other path. It’s the optional super boss, Magician Faust. We can’t do anything to him without finding the rest of the Stardust, so I get on with the main quest.

We cross the Snow Planes, a small section of frozen landscape. During a blizzard, we duck into a cave. Lloyd tells us even more of what’s going on. He talks about Melbu Frahma, the evil wingly from 11000 years ago. He also insists that the Moon Child is the key to bringing about the next evolution. He genuinely seems like a person who wants everyone to be better. In the morning, the blizzard clears, and we head for Vellweb. We find some more optional disk four stuff here, but we're to return after meeting Diaz.

Vellweb is the human capital of 11000 years ago. In the center of the city is the Seven Dragoon Towers, featuring the throne of Emperor Dole in the center. As we enter, the party compares the city to Kadessa, and Miru says this blog’s title. On the way down, Rose tells us about a large cannon that was used to destroy Flavell. Once again, Dart doesn’t call her out on how she knows that. We walk down the path and get reintroduced to Shirley. Rose thought she went to heaven, but Shirley says that four of her comrades are on the verge of being sucked into Mayfill, the City of the Dead. She’s doing all she can to save them but needs our help in relieving them of their burden. ...but do it later. Once again, Dart doesn’t ask Rose about how she knows these things.

At the bottom of the city is Shana kneeling before a throne. On that throne in the red armor of Emperor Diaz, or at least the person pretending to be him, according to Rose and Shirley. He asks for the Moon objects, we surrender them, and he hands over Shana. When asked about his plan, he says his utopia is to destroy the world. The final species is the Virage Embryo, the God of Destruction, and can only be summoned by the Moon Child. All of this was the Creator Soa’s plan. Lloyd, believing he was actually working towards the greater good, gets upset and prepares to fight his former master. Instead, Diaz easily disposes of him and a portion of the floor. And then the twist happens.

Diaz reveals himself to everyone. Dart calls him father, but Rose calls him Zieg, her lost love. He was petrified by Melbu Frhama, but time wore that magic spell away. He then hid his presence and became a normal man, eventually fathering Dart, awaiting the time of the Moon Child. During his petrification, he came to learn of Soa’s plan. He also says that he’s not the only Dragoon to know of it. Rose knew the plan but, rather than comply, she set out to destroy the Moon Child to save the world. To do so, she became the Black Monster. There’s some minor tension between the three until the final revelation is revealed. Princess Louvia was not the Moon Child. Instead, it was her twin sister. Who was her sister, you ask? Shana. Our Shana. Zieg then re-kidnaps Shana, and we’re asked to insert disk four.

Yeah, that's it. No big fight at the end of the disk. Bit of a wet fart, yeah?

We’ve been wrong the whole time! It was the Moon Child who we were fighting against, not the Black Monster. Are we gonna have to kill Shana? It’s a twist I didn’t see coming, so there’s a point in LoD’s favor. The whole backstory of it all is a bit confusing, though. Apparently, Melbu and the winglies, knowing of the Fruit's goal, split the 108th species into two. The soul is the Moon Child, and the physical form is the Moon That Never Sets. I’m less sure about the twist that Shana is the Moon Child than I am the rest of it. How'd she get to Seles? Why didn’t Miranda or Theresa say she had a second child? Is this why Shana’s parents were so meh about her leaving? Also, why didn’t Rose know it was Zieg when she killed him in Neet? Maybe sue didn’t? Oh...there’s still questions to he asked!

Anyway, we’re in the home stretch now. Gloriana, where we're at on the map, is filled with all the optional/post-game stuff, and I'm not sure how I feel about all of them. I’m having fun, but I’m ready to see this story out. I’ll probably do the Dragoon Towers, but I’m not sure about the Faust or the other one. And, once again, Miru’a quote about abandoning traditions hits. It’s an odd, but welcome, subplot. I wonder how heavy it will get, though.