The Path Ahead

The fishman who speaks broken English doesn't take us to the Empire. Instead, he just tells us to follow the river south. Ya know? All I did was give him a pot, so I got what I paid for. He asked for the dragon stone first, but I doubt that would change anything.

This place is simply called "River," but it resembles more of a canal. Man made embankments, floodgates, and floating shipping crates are the visuals here. The puzzle includes pushing the floating boxes around to make a bridge. Cross those bridges to open the gates and continue down the path. I have no idea what's in the chest at the bottom of the river. There's a guy along the route who can tell us about a strange rock. He'll ask about dragons, and you should respond that they look like plants and rocks. We now have access to the Quarry.

As you'd expect, the Quarry is where the seventh and final dragon resides.

Down the unsecret way is the town of Pauk. It's here where we learn the capital is destroyed, and the gates to it are closed. If we want to reach our goal, we need to find an alternate route. And "gramps" might be able to tell us. Too bad his favorite chicken ran off. His granddaughter was making a chicken pen, but she was slow. Off to the west is the plains, where this new side quest takes place. We'll need to act like a sheep/chicken herder and get the brown fowl in the cage. There are bonus points for any others. I found this to be really stupid. Fortunately, I got lucky, and the bird ran into the cage on its own. With that done, Gramps tells us about the path to a strange pyramid...

En route is an optional forest. One of the mobs rewards you with 10000 zenni, and there's a dragon crystal in here I need to go back for.

We return to where we (the player) first met Fou-lu. Still guarding the tomb is the lion, Won-qu. He senses that Ryu is an endless but refuses to kneel before anyone but Fou. This battle takes s long time. I changed into two dragon forms, but that might just be because I didn't want to use Kaiser form. Kaiserbreath chunks Won, but I used fire form first, and it kinda sucked. Won's main attack is an ice breath, and his physical attacks really hurt. After the battle, return to camp and rest. This next dungeon is a long one.

We climb down the pyramid. The first bit is simply going downwards. Eventually, we'll reach an elevator that takes us to a large room. There are three rooms forking from this, and each contains a puzzle guarding a rock. That rock will open up the next room.
The first puzzle is us moving blocks around with a crystal around the "arena." We'll need to align three blocks of the same color to reach the middle. The treasure in the back, which we'll need to align both colors for, has a gun for Ursula.
The second has us flipping a block beneath us around the room. If we stand on the red eye, we take damage, but it's negligible. I just ate it. The extra chest is 5000 zenni.
The final is a boss. Or, uh, two of them at the same time. I and II are massive dice. They toss themselves every turn, and whatever number they land on determines their damage. At least, I think? Their actual attacks didn't seem dependent on what was cast. I just went Kaiser form again and won in three turns. Ryu had just enough AP to do this. Won-qu returns and recognizes us as Fou's other half. He knows we're essentially his master and hands over the Won-qu Stone, which opens up the exit in the large room. Fresh air never felt so good. We break a monolith, and there's a cave nearby. For reasons I'll never know, this cave was empty. Regardless, head to the exit.

We can return to a place we've already been, Astana. This is where the gun is. There's a bit more to explore this time, and you might want to upgrade your gear. The teleportation gate is still broken, so go to Kwanso. The gate is still locked, and the guards reiterate what the other guards said had I not skipped the other entrance from Pauk. The capital is destroyed, and refugees are fleeing here. We can't enter, but we can go around. ? is to the south, and we'll explore there...

...tomorrow!

We're getting close to the end. This is the penultimate chapter title, but I'm kinda torn. I still feel like we're in the first act. The party hasn't met Fou-lu yet, and their other BBG died offscreen before being a proper antagonist. And we still haven't met Elina.