Sanctuary of Mana

With all the Mana Spirits on our side, it’s time to save the world!

We take Viscay to Oblivisle, and Fairy does her thing to operate the portal. All of the Mana Spirits encourage her as she prepares to use what little mana is still around. After a great and monumental buildup...she fails. There just isn’t enough mana in the world to open the routine. After our characters give her more encouragement, Fairy tries again. This time, a portal opens! Please note I said, "a portal". Fairy says that it isn’t she who opened it, but someone else.

We then cut to the three big evils. First, we see the Crimson Mage in Altena. He and his group say they’ll enter the portal and use what's inside for the Dragon Lord. They take their giant flying battleship, which we’ll learn is named the Gigantress.

We then jump to the Beastmen, who want to have superiority over the humans. Goremon and his associates take flying creatures through the portal.

Lastly is Belladonna and Nevarl, namely the man we met on the volcano island, Malocchio. They want to revive their Dark Master and mention a new landscape, Mavolia.

We, however, have no way of reaching the floating portal. Riesz has an idea, though. She says her country has a Winged Defender that lives above her castle. If we travel to Laurent, we find a new NPC outside the castle that will open the way. It’s a straightforward path that takes us to a small, white dragon. If you’ve played another Mana game before, you’ll recognize this as Flammie. In this game, it’s a girl and functions the same as it usually does, or at least as it does in Secret.

We automatically fly to the portal and, when we land near the Mana Tree, see the bodies of footmen from all three evil factions. Everyone is dead. The three factions are fighting over the sword but are nowhere around now. As we travel closer to the Mana Tree, all we see are rabbites. They’re easy to kill and give 450 exp a room. I don’t know if it’s the best place to grind, but it a great, nonetheless.

The only problem with this place is finding the way to go. Here’s a hint: you can walk on lilypads. Travel north, and we eventually come to where we saw Fairy and her cohorts leave from. We stand before the Mana Tree and, bedded in it, the Sword of Mana. Despite Durran being the sword user, only Riesz can wield it. She approaches, prepares her mind, sees all the Mana Crystals resonate, and is able to pull it from the roots. We can’t use it in battle, but it’s ours. Riesz then asks Fairy what we’re supposed to do now.

...silence...

The Mana Goddess, or a shadow thereof, appears behind Riesz. She says that Fairy has been taken away, somehow, and states we need to get her back. She then gives us a Flammie Drum. We begin to walk back in hopes of something happening.

As we come to a bridge, we see the dark knight standing over the Crimson Mage. The knight says that something far more powerful is looming. Durran is upset he won’t be able to exact his revenge from the Mage. The knight then says not to let your guard down and disappears. As he does, he heavily implies a deeper relationship between him and Durran.

Later down the route, we see Goremon. He’s just a messenger that says the true evil is waiting for them at the exit. He’s not allowed to fight us and then does his best to flee the even more evil now in charge.

At the exit, we see Belladonna, Malacchio, and Fairy. Belly tells us, if we want Fairy back, come to Nevarl with the Mana Sword. Elliot is also brought up, but he remains a bit player at the moment. They teleport out, and we Flammie Drum away and back to our world.
Rather than go to Nevarl, I travel the world in my new airship. I see new places I can’t really go to now, but at least I kinda know their location on this terrible Mode 7 abomination. Out of places to procrastinate, I land in front of Nevarl Fortress. If you go up the middle, it’s a quick walk to the throne. There we see our enemies and Fairy. Reluctantly, we hand over the Mana Sword, and they corrupt it. According to legend, the sword can only be used by the one chosen by Fairy, but Belladonna and Mallo are so evil that they can ruin it. They do hold up their end of the bargain and free Fairy before teleporting out again.

Fairy re-possesses Riesz and shows us that all of the Mana Crystals are breaking. Belladonna has just unleashed the seven great evils on the world in the form of the Benevodons. Fairy suggests that we can defeat them if we take them on one by one before they merge, so we now have our next plot points...

While I’ll begin to do tomorrow!

I think playtime is over. Anytime there are seven great evils, things are gonna be rough. Oh, dear, seven bosses... Where do I grind? Also, the Sanctuary music is the best in the game so far. Most of the OST has been very mediocre, but this one is actually good.