...or, will be here before.
I went back to Izmet last night. We had a different dream, though. Roze is being attacked by the humans who abducted her, but Saro comes to save her. Unfortunately, he was too late. He kills the attackers, but Ruze dies of her wounds shortly after. Saro is now guided entirely by rage.
In the city of Elfland is a giant world tree, and someone is hearing voices. We're gonna climb it! And by we, I mean Solo and her two friends. I know, I know. It sounds dumb, but bring a party of three up here. It'll save you time later. I brought a full team up the first time to get the treasure and see what monsters are here, but it's not that bad. There is more EXP if you follow me, I guess. There are no bosses, I promise. At the top is a woman named Lucia, and she has wings. She tells us she was attacked by someone, and they broke her wings. She's searching for the Zenithian equipment and believes the sword is somewhere in this tree. She's correct as the chest is right behind her on a branch. It's kinda bad, though. She'll join the team, and you can explore around with four people again. Lucia is a healer with more HP than Naya, but, even with the cheat code, we can't control her. Oh well. She's trying to get back to her home, Zenethia, which is where we're going!
If you haven't already, return to the cave north of the Tiny Medal King. The Zenithian Armor is at the bottom of that unmarked cave, which is kinda lame. There's not much to guide us there.
But now, things get confusing. I stumbled upon this place last night, but the way to bring Lucia home is to fly the air balloon over the small island in the very center of the map. When we try to land, we'll be teleported to another minimap. It's almost like we're in a different dimension, and I got confused. Regardless, there are three places we can go now. There's a city in the center of it all named Gottland. A few NPCs tell us this is the closest place to Zenethia, as well as Hell. There's also a prophet, who informs us that a new Estark is being born. East of here is a random tower with no random battles. There's a strange but oddly neat elevator puzzle we have to navigate. The reward for doing so is the Baron's Horn, which allows us to summon the wagon.
But south of the Gottland is a different tower. It's filled with more excessive random battles. It's also the most maze lake dungeon we've been to. We need to climb up, but half of the stairs lead to either treasure, which is good, or dead ends, which is annoying. Staircases can also be in very circuitous locations from where we enter. But, at the top is a pedestal. We get onto it and begin to float upwards. We keep going higher and higher until we see a castle in the sky. It looks really familiar.
We've finally reached Zenithia Castle! Lucia will thank us and return to doing what she does. You can Return here, so I left, got a full party, and came back with my usual four. We can search around for a bit, but we should head to the throne room first. We'll see Master Dragon, who gets stuck in a minecart eons from now. He knows we're the Hero and offers us his aid. It's a paltry amount of EXP, but he also powers up the Zenithian Sword. It no longer sucks! I gladly hand over the Sword of Miracles to Ragnar, making sure our tank is even harder to murder. Elsewhere around the castle, we can get a little more information about a few things. Solo's dad was killed by lightning, and her mom returned to Zenethia. Sadly, I don't find her up here... We can also learn some stuff about Saro, Estark, and the Theory of Evolution, but I've already forgotten them. It was something about how they were sealed, and we should never, ever, unlock them. I didn't do it!
Eventually, we'll come across a stairwell down. We'll see Lucia here with a few baby dragons, and she has one join us. This is Doran, and we can't control him. He looks incredibly powerful, though, but I'd rather keep my current team as is. Just out the door near Lucia is a hole in the cloud. A nearby NPC tells us darkness shot out of the earth and stuck the castle here. If we jump down the hole, we'll come to a cave west of Gottland.
This place is a doozy! Even more frequent encounters, treasure aplenty, and even some mini bosses. It's straightforward, so long as you go north first. There's a Dress of Radiance behind a gold door, which is one of three offshoots in the area. From here, we circle around an unseen pillar for a while. The second offshoot is pretty quick and leads to something I thought was good. I'm bad at remembering what it was, though. Honestly, probably a Tiny Medal... The third offshoot is if you keep rotating around the center of whatever we're around. I didn't go that way, so I have no idea where it takes you. I thought the room on the left was a dead end, but I was wrong. If you see Sylph Co floor tiles, you've gone the "correct" way. At the bottom of this are four chests, one of which is a Demon's Armor. It lowers the user's agility to zero, but Ragnar is already going last, so I've decided to make him even harder to kill. Half elemental damage? Yeah! By the way, if you run into a Master Malice, just run. They're worth just over 1000 EXP, but they're not worth it. You can remove their buffs with the powered up Zenithian Sword, but it's still not worth the hassle. Down some more stairs leads us to what I'm pretty sure is Hell. You can run into King Metal Slimes in those halls, for some more grinding, by the way. 30000 a pop, my man!
But we step out on to land. There's another shrine right next to us with one person it in. They tell us Saro's castle is protected by four barriers, and we'll need to take out the four bosses if we want to get in. She lets us rest, save, and we've finally reached the final dungeon. It kinda snuck up on me! So it looks like we'll finish Dragon Quest IV...
...tomorrow!
Mercifully, it's almost over. Seriously, guys, I know the game is nearly 35 years old, but this really makes me appreciate how far we've come in the world of random encounters. I don't mind them, unlike others, but it's over the top in Dragon Quest. Single highhandedly, it's making me hate this franchise. But I'm still here, and I'm still excited. Let's see how this all ends!
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