Wood

We’re looking for a flask today, but there isn’t one inside the church. But there is an auxiliary building behind the chapel. Use the Ark of Fire to light a sconce, which unlocks the door. Behind that door is a bed. But there’s a bookshelf in the back, and the Ark of Wisdom says it’s fake. Inside that hidden room is the flask. Eventually, figuring out how to activate that takes us to…

Another church. And we’re on the dais before three people who are happy to see us! They call us the Hero of Wind and proclaim the legends are true! Before us is a chest that contains the Ark of Wood (not wind), but everyone gets mad if we try to take it. Felys is too nice. 

The story in this world is that the wind is dying. There are many earthquakes and other natural disasters that occur. The wind comes from the east, from a giant whom the village elder is weary of. Worst still, a man went to investigate but has yet to come back. You can speak to his son, and he’ll join you, but we’re heading east for now. 

We come to a cave with five stone statues outside. We find the missing father unconscious just as we enter. He wakes up and warns us about the strong winds that blow around the cave system. He and his son return home, while we go spelunking. As warned, our characters get blown down the halls of the cave. When it opens up, we get tossed around randomly from all sides as we make our way back. It’s really annoying, and you have to be specific when you try walking. Fortunately, there are no battles, so it’s just a puzzle dungeon. There’s a rock in the back, which we can use the Ark of Wisdom on to read the glyphs. It’s a threatening legend I don’t understand, and the game won’t explain it in a moment. 

We return to Nanaka triumphant, but not really. We learned something, but we didn’t solve anything, and that’s bad. 

During the night, the wind stops. The cave system we were just in begins to rumble, and the inhabitant moves. A giant golem the size of a mountain rises from the ground. It then starts walking towards the town. It’s done in a cool cutscene, too. It may be the most cinematic scene on the SNES. Quite impressive! We see the devastation in the morning, and half the town is in rubble. The giant went west, so we gave chase. There’s a mountain in our way, but we never climb down it. As we reach the peak, the earth rumbles. 

We wake up in a new town, Kumu, and our savior tells us the giant stomped on us. This new town is covered in sand from the giant walking by. The weapon shop sells something to make the sword we made last chapter useless, so that sucks. But people mention someone named Sytus, who went ahead to the tower across the lake. Also, the air is polluted. 

We find Sytus on the first floor being attacked. He’s not a fighter. He came here looking for two books, and Sytus has to turn back, so guess what we’re doing? This dungeon is a tower, but there aren’t a lot of battles. It is filled with floating tiles that glide across the abyss. Finding the correct path leads us to two books. Sytus can translate one of them, but the other will take more time. The book tells us about a mirror that reflects the power of the ancients. It’s located in the southwest in a hole in the ground. Good luck finding it; this area of the map is huge. You also need to navigate moving sands, which does have mobs floating around. It sucks. 

The next section also sucks. You have to pick between theee statues to remove a rock in the path. Picking the wrong two has a battle. But choosing correctly… also leads to a battle. There’s zero indication of the correct statue, so good luck. The good news is, you only need to do this five times! The better news is that this is the best grinding spot in the game. I ended up coming back here to get Reeshine and Miesia to level 30 and Felys to 34. The backhalf is a traditional dungeon. You’ll find the Mirror of Ancients in the back. 

Return to Sytus, who tells us someone is at the Kolb Ruins. We passed this weird town en route to the tower, but a green guy hit us with a thunderbolt before. The mirror, though, will reflect it back to him. And we can enter this tower. The goal here is to turn off three (four) switches to stop lava from forming. This area frustrated me so much. The area is massive and mazelike, and mobs are everywhere. And they’re not exactly fragile. But the bottom contains a machine that the Ark of Wisdom can turn off. The air is no longer dirty.

Sytus meets us outside with the other book translated. It tells us about the Ancients and how they thrived in areas humans would call dirty. They also controlled the giant from atop the tower across the lake. Climb it, the second book destroys an invisible wall, and turn off the control machine. It’s unguarded. Rather than die, the giant knocks down the tower, creating a bridge to the island on the lake, where the ancient base is. Return to town to heal and see the giant blow off all the sand from the town. The giant is actually a good guy who was controlled by evil hands.

Back to the final dungeon of this chapter, we eventually come to a room. We’re constantly ambushed by weaker versions of the green guy outside. They’re not difficult, but there are about a dozen of them. We eventually reach the guy in charge, who is barely any stronger. There is one final machine behind him. Activating it stops all cloning, restores the wind, and saves the world. 

Sytus is off on a mysterious archaeological dig somewhere, but we can still witness the giant walk into the sea and disappear from view if we return to Kuru. Return to the first town to see everyone’s excited and confused. The wind is blowing, but the windmills are stationary. That isn’t explained. But whatever, we did our job and are now the Hero of Wind. Despite that, we can pick up the Ark of Wood and return to the church. And we’ll go into world six…

…tomorrow! 

I don’t like games that throw weapons and armor at you every ten seconds. Fortunately, I spoiled it for myself, and the last three chapters have limited inventory. So I’m all good on that front. Grinding all those levels, hopefully, puts me in a good position to blitz through the rest of this. I’m already kinda at my limit. There’s still nothing nutritious in the game… Any day now… But the goddess is losing her ability to speak to us, so there’s some story...