Through Enemy Territory

Flash Mountain is the opposite of Denizen Pass, so I'm pretty happy.

Flash Mountain is a straightforward excursion. Along the way, we'll have to fight a lot of cacti, which aren't a problem. They try to use Fire 3 but lack the MP needed to do so. However, they can be teamed with a giant floating yellow orb that can give them the MP needed, so quickly take them out. I turned a lot of them into crystals, which don't sell for much. There are also clouds we have to fight, which is somewhat unique in video games. Even the boss isn't very hard. Flash Golem will cast something on us so we can't charge properly, but I didn't have any issues with it. Have Asera give Xero and Enda earth attacks and go to town. He lacks any team wide damage, so Zephyr/Doppler if need be, and he should be fine. Don't use lightning on him like I did. Made the battle a third longer than it needed to be.

But FG isn't done yet. He gets upset that we killed him, so he jumps around and causes a local earthquake. This knocks several large boulders off the cliff and blocks our path back. Blue Creek was nice, and I was thinking about returning to Atlantia, but I guess I can't now. Onward we go!

We're north of Barre and can return to the village. Though, we can't get past the soldier still. We can buy food. Just north is a signpost that tells us there are four ways to go. You know what's south, but the city of Lethbridge is to the west, a desert is far to the north, and the Palisade Prison is to the northwest. I was curious about Lethbridge. We can walk as we please, proving Zero's fear wrong again. There isn't much here, but I bought stuff for a new device for Asara, the laser. But northwest of this, on a fill overlooking the city, is a lone tower. Someone in town gave us a hint to enter with low MP, which is the key to this fight.

Kilgarve Belfry has but a single creature in it. Climb to the top, ring the bell, and fight the apparition that appears. The biggest trick this guy does is use your MP against you. The higher it is, the more damage you will receive. Xero seemed fine, but Enda and Asera are in trouble. Wellspring of Souls will be his first move, and it'll be used intermittently throughout. Sometimes he'll preempt it by giving you MP, so try to use as much as you can in that one turn. He can also silence a character, so use Asera's debugger to clear the ailment (and heal). Zephyr when you need to, obviously. Now, there's more here than just having low MP because physical attacks do almost no damage. Magic is the way to go, so you gotta keep a fine line somewhere. Something I wish I had thought about sooner was using summon shards. I had two, but I placed one on Asera, who can't use TP, making it useless. Enda finished the fight with a 900 damage fire fella. I should have put the light summon on Xero. Your reward for this is 1000 gold, 2200 EXP, and a new summon that grants the party genius and a heal. There's no reward from the guy at Lethbridge.

So it's on to Palisade Prison we go! We stalk up to the front door and then decide to go looking for a back entrance. We find one and come up with a plan. Xero thinks we should knock them out and steal their uniforms. Asera asks how he plans to make them unconscious, and he says by hitting them with the hilt of his sword. She thinks that's dumb, and the two start to argue. Enda tries to settle them down because we're just outside an enemy prison, but she fails. The fighting causes a boulder to shake and roll, far too conveniently, towards the three guards outside the door. ...happenstance...

With our disguises on, we enter the prison. The very first thing we do is get in a fight with the guards. Similar creatures we fought in the Aquadome are in here and see right past us. I've forgotten what they're called, but they're special forces under Barcllys, and they're more monster than human. The regular humans see nothing wrong with us, though. One even warns us not to step on sewer grates, which we should follow. A fight that's long and unrewarding may happen if we do. We continue our way past everything and come to several puzzles.
The first is merely moving boxes onto switches and using Xero's field skill on an orb.
The next is guiding a spark through a maze. The spark is quite unresponsive, so turn a bit before you think you should. Use Asera to freeze the box that drops and move into position to form a bridge. You get glasses and a stat upgrade food.
The third requires advanced knowledge of the game that it never tells you. On an X-box controller, you can press L1 (I think) to pivot your character. You need to place a barrel on a small hole looking thing, then use Enda's Gust Jump to push the barrels off the rafters. Use Gust Jump to get up there, of course. Place all four barrels onto the switches, and it's a straight path from here on out.

We see a scene where a soldier tells us Barclyss nearly destroyed the prison a few days ago, but something seems odd here. Enda is the one to state the obvious. For a prison, why is everything empty? Before we can guess, she notices Slash, barely alive, nearby in a cell. We rush over and try to open the door, but, as you'd expect, it's locked. Asera says she can pick it, but Xero smells a strange scent coming from beyond a nearby door. He ventures in, alone, and sees the bodies of almost ten dead Blaze soldiers covered in blood and smoke. We saw the preamble last night, but this is the ending. I shudder to think about the actual event. He leaves and finds the whole party is surrounded. They got Slash out, though, but he's still knocked out. The coughing General Hogh enters from the left and prepares to kill us. Just before he gives the order, another soldier sneaks up behind him. They take off their armor to reveal themselves to be a small, green haired girl. I think she's from the opening space scene, so that's one thread connected. She casts a spell that kills the soldiers on our left and stuns Hogh, giving us time to deal with the ones on our right, which we do.

Hogh knows this is someone named Kira, who's fighting against Hogh and Barclyss because they took her family from her. She's willing to sacrifice it all to get revenge. We know this because Barclyss is marching towards us. Xero talks her out of suicide while Asera drags Slash, and we all rush into another room. Inside is our old pal Captain Farrell and his three soldiers. Farrell asks his guards if they've seen anyone pass through here, and they say no. He opens the sewer gate, and we all head down. I think Slash came with us. Our camaraderie in the forest did something, but we're in the sewers now. And we'll get through this...

...tomorrow!

Don't sell your Iron Plate. I did, and now I can't craft something with one more defense point. I weep...