Unrevival of Santeem

I got lost...

I explored Burland for a bit to do their dirty work. It's the only way to get their piece of Zenithian armor. Unfortunately, nothing is here. An ancestor of the current King of Burland gave away his piece of armor to the nearby nation of Gardenbough. Take the boat and find the circuitous route, fighting the annoyingly hard enemies along the way. Eventuality, we'll come to a dead end... We were warned about this in Burland, but something happened to block the path. But the Magma Staff should be able to move it. At this point, I had no idea where to go. All the walkthroughs of DQIV are vague and terrible, each giving a different direction. I opted to make my own way and decided that the kingdom of women was where I wanted to go. The Magma Staff is in Santeem keep, but it's blocked by a sentient flame. The only way to move it is to take down Balzack.

And cut Balzack is what I did. Balzack can't be Sapped, so Maya is going to have to go all out with Blazemore. If you can get five rounds in, you can win on her alone (almost). Alena can only attack, so Naya will be healing most of the time. Because I had Solo using the cursed weapon, I didn't hesitate to have her heal when needed. Bally only has 500 HP, and I got pretty lucky. He didn't use his ice attack that often, which really helped me. After the battle, Solo learned how to nullify spells, which have been great a moment ago! After we win, Balzack will be upset because he thought he was perfect. He had too much faith in the Theory of Evolution. Four imps will teleport in and mention that the Golden Bracelet, the item Alena traded for the fake Princess, is the key to that theory. Random encounters are still a thing in the castle, but all the field sprites are gone. We can enter the treasury and find the Magma Staff, as well as the Flute of Revealing. Take the Staff to the blocked valley, and the mountain before us will explode.

We can explore around, and I suggest you sleep. Try not to get there in the dark, or else you'll have to fight the monsters around the castle, which I didn't enjoy. Thanks for making me lose 800, Gardenville. You're a village now; Deal with it! As we look around, though, we'll come across a nun who tells us we'll find something in the drawer next to her, and she'll leave. I searched, but I found nothing. As we exit the room, the nun will return and blame us for stealing her sacred bronze amulet. We'll be hauled off to jail, where we'll wait for our judgement from the Queen. During sentencing, the Queen will give us a chance to prove our innocence. She'll keep one of our party members in the jail, leaving the rest to find the amulet. We can switch out the prisoner, so head to the world map, bring in your least favorite person, and switch them with the useful one. The only clue to the location is a woman who tells us that, if she were a thief, she'd hide in a cave. One such cave is to the south.

The place is odd. The encounter rate can be low, but it's painfully maze like. We'll need to walk on pretty much every tile on the first floor and most on the second to get to the third. It's pretty vertical too. There's a lot of good stuff in the chests, though, so go get them. At the bottom is a fake nun in her bed. We'll try to take back the amulet, but she wakes up. She panics and runs around, so we have to catch her. When we do, she reveals she's a man and attacks us.

Bakur can deal more teamwide ice damage, but his physical attacks might be the worst. To defend against the ice, I tried to cast Solo's now anti magic spell. Maybe, don't, though. It's so anti magic that it negates healing too, and guess what herbs I've stopped buying? The good news is, Bakur isn't that tough. A soldier from the castle enters after we win to take our felled opponent to jail. We should return to the Queen, and she'll thank us for absolving ourselves. As an apology, she offers us the Final Key. This upgraded Magic Key opens any door in the world, including jail cells. One such door is opposite the jail cell, and it contains the Zenithian Shield! Don't forget to free your imprisoned party member before leaving. If you speak to the Queen one more time, she'll lead to the next location.

South of here, nestled in the mountain north of the lighthouse, is the dwarven village of Rozehill. The defining structure here is the large tower that looks familiar. It's the same thing we saw in our dream in Izmet! Remembering how Saro entered, we play the Flute we got in Santeem and begin our climb. It's pretty short, but there's someone waiting for us at the top. Rozeguardian, a green knight, is blocking our path to Roze. We know from villagers here that Roze is an elf who cries ruby tears. People abused her to make her cry, and that's why this place is a haven for animals. I get the feeling there's something more going on here, though. But back to the fight!

What I wish I had done here was go to the Tiny Medal King and traded in my stash for a Sword of Miracles. You see, Rozeguardian has a Sphere of Silence. He uses it on us to make sure we can't cast magic. He used it on his second turn, so get as many debuffs in as you can. Sap works well, and I managed one Blazemore. Our party is silenced, but we can still use item effects. The Sword of Miracles absorbs damage when swung, the opposite of the stupid Multi Blade Sword Solo has. The worst part of this battle is we can't heal, so anything that lets us keep swinging is helpful. RG can also summon birds that die in one round to aid him. There's no real strategy here other than hold down the turbo button and let your team attack. Hope he doesn't focus on one person, and all of your party members get 7100 EXP.

We can now talk to Roze, but she's not that helpful. Her slime pet, though, thinks we should head to the outpost southwest of Endor. There's a staff that lets us turn into monsters there, meaning we get past the Castle of Monsters. I don't know what either of those are, but we might as well. So I'll head there...

...tomorrow!

I gotta look for other jail cells to open up now... Also, I have to ask why the Sphere of Silence, the item we used to kill Ballzack is behind killing Balzack. It's unintuitive and confusing. I went looking for it, only to find it's useless. Does it have value to us going forward now?