Family Gathering

Where's my wife?!


Head to Aurphia and talk to the picnicking woman in the upper right corner. Buy her book and take your Dragon Master airship to the only location I haven't been to, The Great Temple. I think that book you got is the key to getting in. Abel and Henry helped build this eight years ago, so it's nice closure to see us ruin it. Walk on in but not through the front. To the right of the main gate is a side house. Inside is one guard, a Snakehands, and behind him is a glorious suit of armor. Looking this up indicates you need the Final Key to access this, so good job, me. It is the final Zenithian Armor. Alus is now fully equipped, so we know we're getting close to the end of the game. But we ain't there yet. Return to the concourse and go through the main gate. Two guards will tell us about a sermon by someone. The slaves in the crowd are clamoring for the priest and someone named Martha...

Turn around and talk to the guards, who think there's something odd about Abel. How dare he have hope in his eyes? Two Dragon Warriors attack us, but unlike this dragon warrior, they suck. Walk around the railings and come to the front of the Temple. A woman claiming to be our mother asks us to join the Order of the Light, a religious organization we've heard a bit about through the game. They're an apocalypse cult, and that's all we need to know. After a rather convoluted conversation, "Martha" reveals herself to be Ramada. He's sad and pathetic and dies easy. Behind him is the statue of Bianca, but the staff Tabitha used on Abel doesn't work.

Beating up the unholy woman loosed the grasp on the crowd, and they begin to talk to us like normal people. One of them says Ivol, the high priest of the cult, put a deeper curse on Bianca to make sure the Legendary Hero would never be born. Another spectator is Gigo, who we might remember. He says he wants to get home, so I need to remind myself to talk to them on their isolated island to the southeast. The last one of importance says there's a hidden stairway behind the table. There is no table, but there is a grey block on the floor. Investigate that, and we'll find the old stairway down that Abel once climbed during his enslavement. And there's a new dungeon down here, too.

It's a strange maze with random walls and paths that lead nowhere. We need to navigate it as best we can. There are more Black Dragons down here, but they're not the worst things anymore. The Evil Spirits can forcibly change your tactics, causing your other characters to do seemingly random things. I've been on manual mode the whole game, and I don't like when characters perform acts I don't want them to...like waste my Megaelixer! Don't worry too much about the treasures. One of them sucks, and it'll be easier to get in a second. At one point, we can take a path off the way we're supposed to. Down that path are two skeletons. One of them is, probably, Joshua, Maria's brother and the man who saved Abel and Henry years ago. His last thoughts seemed to be of his sister, and he wished her well. The poor man deserved better than this.

When you reach the bottom of the Temple, we meet the man in charge. Ivol, which I'm just now seeing is a misspelling of evil, is quite upset. Not only has the Legendary Warrior been born, but we've killed his friend, Ramada. It's nice to see evil care about friends. He's also fair in his actions, so maybe he wasn't that evol. He brings everyone in our wagon down here for the battle about to unfold.

And, boy, did we need them. This dude is rough. He's immune to debuffs and wipes away buffs. I still tried to cast Increase and Bikill, though, allowing Abel and Alus to do around 200 damage. The trick here is to swamp out Tabi for someone else. I had a revolving door of Sancho, Boro, and that random soldier, Pippin. Ivol has high defense, so Tabi was only going to be doing 1 damage. Sadly, the replacements didn't too much more, but Boro's 20 was high enough to keep him around. Make sure Abel and Alus have at least one Elvan Medicine. MP is at a premium with all the team wide attacks we're about to be struck with. There's going to be a lot of healing. Don't cast magic on our enemy, as his anti-buff magic doesn't affect his Bounce spell. You can cast Bounce on your team, but it only reflects one of his attacks, so it might be hard to heal. A shame you can't switch targets and bounce a heal spell off of him back to you. It would have made this battle a lot easier. 210 a turn...

But, if you're good, eventually, the hardest fight in the game will swing in your favor, and you'll be victorious. Ivol is, again upset but plans to let us do what we want to do to save the real Martha. But first, he lets us in on the story. Martha works for the Demon King, Mildrath, and if we try to save her, we'll all die. He then tries to open the gate to the Demon World, but something stops him, and he dies. Truly, Ivol wasn't very ivil. In his place is the Ring of Life. We pick it up and walk our way out of the dungeon. All of the mobs are gone, so it's peaceful. As we come to the exit, we hear a voice from the ring. After twenty six years, Abel hears the voice of his mother. Martha tells us not to venture into the Demon World because Mildrath is too strong. Not even the Legendary Warrior may be able to save us. She wants us to enjoy our new family where we're safe. When we see the sun again, a light emanates from the Bianca statue, and we see her return to her true self. Apparently, we've been traveling for two years as someone mentions that it's been ten years since Bianca got to hold her children.

We all return to the Granvania, where the kids cry and snuggle with their mom while Abel prepares to ignore his own. Objeron doesn't want us to go, but Sancho and Pippin are down. After family time, Bianca, Alus, and Tabitha want to go too. Alus, especially, wants to fulfill his destiny. If you leave him behind, he gets mad. I, of course, choose to all go together. Boro and Curie are my monsters, and we head to El Haven. The elders tell us the gate to the Demon World is in the Water Shrine, so we'll need our boat. We need the three rings of Water, Fire, and Life to reach it. I have all three, so I'll venture into the end...

...tomorrow!

Everything has a purpose, and I love it. I think tomorrow might be the end of the game, and I don't know how to feel. I want more, but this feels great for a game made in 1992. I ventured into the Emblem Cave tonight to get Abel's best armor and level us Bianca a little. There's some shopping I need to do for Boro (Fairy Village!), but I'm pretty much fully prepared. I am excited!