Part 10: Chronicles

So, Crotona... it's a small place with very few NPCs of worth in it. It doesn't even have a bank! It does, however, have another animal who'll give you a free thing and since there's been no bank since Tilmun, you're going to have the Sol Ring.



A free Rune is nice, since the item store here sucks and doesn't sell them for some reason.



Seriously, they sell Pana Cares but not Runes! Antidotes and Mona Branches are useless to buy at this point, since spells can do the exact same thing.



: They are no different from the Zord. They are crazy about Gaia.

In the one house in this village, there's this guy bitching about two of the Gaia Masters; we've already met Baal, but there's not been many mentions of Lucifer. There's been a few NPCs who bring him up along with the 5th Gaia Master (who you could reasonably guess at this point but I'd like to keep it a surprise).

There's literally only a handful of NPCs in this place that don't run stores, and two of them are children. Talking to the woman with them, gives us some very nice information;



: He may be busy now... An Ark isn't easy to... What!? That's not what you wanted!? Woops! Sorry! I misunderstood you.

The child next to her helps us learn more about this Ark thing.



So, let's see if I've got this straight; we're off to Atlantis as per request from Zodia so as to... do something related to the Gaia Masters being evil all along or whatever, but it just so happens that there's a man there who can make a ship that can also fly. Seems like quite the coincidence that. Let's see what else is around before moving on.



: There is something fishy about that town... The guards at the gate won't let us in...

Since we have no indication of where Atlantis is other than that clue that turned out to be wrong, we might as well go see what this place is like.



Dalo is, like the NPC said, located just to the northwest of Crotona. It's the northern-most town on the entire planet, even. There is a bit of a problem, however, since there is indeed a guard at the entrance to the place proper...



This isnt remotely suspicious, and even if you do go in there with the Emblem there's nothing worth the detour (just some money and a Light Charm). The only thing worth coming here for is, actually, outside the building.



That makes three, so back to the Mt. of Sages by Tilmun if you want this guy (hint: you do).



Dude is built to be a tank, and that's what he is. There's no question about this either, since it has no spells and has quite the nice Endurance and HP to go with it. Since it can only attack physically, it stands to reason that it'd have a decent Strength but without a weapon the stat is quite underwhelming at this point. If a demon isn't throwing spells around like a pro, you're doing it wrong. Still, it's going in the party since it makes one nice... meat...shield... umm, that expression kinda falls apart here, doesn't it?



Okay, so Atlantis is actually just a bit further east than Crotona. Um, oops? Anyway, this place is surprisingly large and it has a bank in the item store. It also has a stupidly expensive weapon and armor shop;



The armour is the only stuff arguably worth grinding for and even then it's really not. The weapons are, naturally, one for each character and they're all crap (the Excalibur for Samuel is even a significant downgrade if you have the Hecto Axe). The Wind Sword for Enkidu is not worth the $22,500 it costs since you get a better weapon for free in the next dungeon even and the Aaron Rod is a weapon for Kali. Why are you attacking with her?



On the left side of town, we can find Hiram. We can't do anything else with him though, but we can see his sprite from any of the other sides!



Hey that sprite... nah, it's probably nothing. Since we can't go in through the door, and there's stairs conveniently inside his house leading down it looks like we can go in that way.

Of course, how we do that is, um, well...



We have to, er, go through the local sewer. It had to happen sometime, right? The only problem is that we get into the place just now. The trigger for getting into there is completely arbitrary, but it's something we've done for, well, every town so far (when applicable); let's visit the shrine!



: When we do that's when peace will return!
: We must do everything we can to get back the Orb.
: But why did the Zord steal the Orb of Ramuh?

As you may have noticed, there's two Gaia Masters here hence why these guys are claiming the Zord are the culprits of the theft in Ramuh. Speaking to Vaerial Belial makes it obvious that the Masters told them that; fortunately, we know the truth and can confront Baal directly on this.



: And you think that we stole the Orb? Ha, ha ha. That's crazy. Zodia is lying to you!

If I had to choose between the guy who practically raised me and a guy who's floating and named after a demon... that'd be a weird choice, but, uh, my point is that I wouldn't trust Baal here.

Anyway, with that done some new NPCs are around the sewer area. The kid has disappered...



Just two fights? Neither are unique or bosses either, so let's just see what we're up against shall we?



Oh, well... this is disappointingly easy. Orthrus/Samuel casting Flare/Blaze 2 makes these two fights wonderfully short.



The sewer is kind of a weird dungeon; when we enter it, we're on this screen and can see a bit of treasure lying around. There's other chests scattered around too, but to reach any of them we have to go down a floor, run around there and come back up. The location on the map and the location of the stairs are in no way correlated so this is kinda annoying. Thankfully, the sewer is hilariously short (like, maybe 20 seconds long if you just head for the exit) and has a super-low encounter rate; even by running through the entire thing and getting every treasure I still only fought 1 battle.



Free sword for Kishe; better than the Wind Sword, so why you'd waste your money on that (like I did for some reason) is beyond me. Even I did it, and I don't know why! The other chest here just has a Water Charm, and there's a few more unimportant treasures lying around (an Earth Charm, some magnetite, a bit of cash) as well as this;



The second Amon Bone and the Muramasa are the only two items worth sticking around for down here, so its quite the nice sewer dungeon.

Once you're at the exit, you get a scene that repeats every time you step on the same tile (until you talk to Hiram at least);



: Is it true? It's OK if it's true. Don't you ever forget that it was Belial, Baal, Lucifer and myself that created all of you!

So, it turns out that the 4 Gaia Masters are the guys that made the monsters after all. Who'd have seen that one coming? They really are evil!



: Hiram is in the prison of Dalo, a town to the west. We kidnapped and took him there. This is the key to his cell. I will never do anything bad again.



Oh, now we need our Emblem again so as to rescue Hiram right? Well, no. You see, we've been beaten to the punch...



Priests in this place are pretty awes- well, okay, Zords are complete jokes but that's not the point. They managed to storm the second Zord stronghold apparently singlehandedly, but there's a trick to the third and they won't be able to beat us there. We need to rescue Hiram, so let's go do that. He's being held just to the north.



: I can't believe how cruel those priests are. Look at those two! How long does this fight have to last... I'm going back to Atlantis! If you ever need an Ark, come see me anytime. I'll build one for you.

And he does run off to Atlantis. The house where we found the Zord masquerading as him at that, so he's easy to find when you go there for an Ark which, of course, you'll need to do eventually but first let's talk to one of these Zords that somehow died. Despite being a perfectly sealed room this entire time.



: The headquarters is in danger. Please rescue them. Here is the pass... Bard...



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