Chapter 24: Upside-Down or Downside-Up? and Mirror, Mirror and Close Encounters

Remember the big crater on the Forgotten Continent that we couldn’t do anything with yet, the one with the strange castle? This is our destination. For those who don’t remember I did include a map to the location. Queen Hilda has also marked it on our map, so if you hit Select to open the big map screen and select the northern most dot on the Forgotten Continent, we’ll automatically be flown there. Whee!

Land the airship IN the pit and enter the castle. Amarant will leave and we’ll get to form the party. You want: Steiner, Freya, and Quina. Steiner and Freya because they are both under-leveled and Quina for the Blue Magic we can get here.

In a strange twist, give everyone their weakest weapons (yet another reason I advised you to never sell anything at the beginning of the game). This castle has a weird mechanic where the weakest is actually the strongest and vice-versa.  If you made an oops and sold the equipment or synthesized it without keeping an extra or two laying around, don’t worry too much. There are chests all over the place with everyone’s level 1 weapon and a moogle inside sells them. Note this mechanic only applies to weaponry. Your best armor is still your best armor. And skills and magic suffer no penalty either. If you wanna cheat your way through the dungeon, you can also keep Zidane on the Sargatanas and use Soul Blade on everything.

Entering the castle, there are two chests on either side. The left hand side holds a Dagger and the right hand side holds the Aquarius. Go through the open door on top right side of the room. Following the small path we entered we find a chest underneath the second tier. Inside is a pair of Cat Claws. Kumool the Moogle is in this room. Mognet, Tent and Save. Kumool also has the Moogle Shop I mentioned earlier. Slide down the fireman’s pole in the room to enter the lower floor. Go up and right to the ladder here and climb to the next tier of this room. Follow the upper path to the door out. Go directly up and through the next door. Out here, jump onto the ladder and climb up. Jump off to the right and grab the Broadsword at the end of the path. Return to the ladder, jump on and jump off to the left this time. Follow the path around to a chest sitting back to back with another chest and find a Javelin. Back to the ladder. Climb down and follow the path up the stairs and to another ladder. Climb up and the first chance you get, jump off. Now we’ll get that other chest, opening it for a Rod. Back to the ladder and climb up the door. You can use either ladder on either side of this door. In this next room, go and look at the Fresco door. Examine, Push, Pound, Think, Repeat, Do Something Drastic, and lastly, Rest. After the door opens, grab the chest on the balcony it opens to. Go back to the previous room and to the lift up there. Give Steiner back his Flame Saber and equip him with Add Status.

Amarant has beat us to the room. He decides that since he beat us here, he can leave the group entirely and that’s what he does. Heal up. Examine the wall and take the mirrors. Go back to the others. We try and leave and we are attacked by...

On the way back to the entrance, pitfalls in the large room with the moogle now open up when we step on them. Fall down them to get chests we couldn’t get before. Return to the foyer and go up the new set of stairs and follow the path. Go around the lift to a chest sitting in the left hand corner. Grab the Air Racket and take the lift down. In this room, you’ll see an electrified sword hanging on a wall, three pedestals and two flower pots. There is also a chest in here with a Golem’s Flute. You want to take the flower pots and move them from pedestal to pedestal counter-clockwise until the electricity fills one of the pots. Take the pot for the Ancient Aroma item. Dagger can equip this to learn Odin’s Sword, giving the Odin Eidolon a backup attack if his instant death move fails.

Leave the castle to find out that Amarant hasn’t come out yet. Zidane decides he has to go back in and find Amarant, on his own. On this next trip through, you can climb UP the pole to reach a chandelier. There are two chests on this chandelier with a Mage’s Staff and a Fork. Going down the pole, we hear a groan and locate Amarant. He’s obviously been injured but doesn’t quite understand why Zidane came to find him. Finally, we can leave this place behind for good. We also learn a little more about the mirrors we found. We decide to go hunt down the shrines associated with the mirrors to try and open the seal. However, this has one stipulation. They have to be activated all at the same time.

We first go from location to location, dropping off two characters at a time. You can use the map provided in the chapter to locate each shrine with ease.  Eiko and Dagger go to the Water Shrine. Vivi and Steiner to the Wind Shrine. And Amarant and Freya to the Fire Shrine. Which leaves Zidane and Quina to hit the Earth Shrine. Equip both Zidane and Quina with the Gaia Gear, trust me.

The Earth Shrine is located on the Outer Continent, the area east of the Black Mage Village. You’ll know it when the map starts shaking. Yes, that shaking is normal, there is nothing wrong your game. If you have Bad Breath, Master Thief, Bandit and Thievery, this area will be a snap. As we go through the shrine, it’s pretty much automatic except for one or two instances where you have to quickly press the X button. The characters run through and place their mirrors. From each pedestal rises a Fiend of Chaos (FF1 reference). We fight the Earth Guardian. This is so simple, I’m not even giving him a Boss Box. Just cast Bad Breath with Quina, steal his two items (Rubber Suit and the Avenger), then you can either hit him with Thievery and Twister or in a strange twist, you can have Quina eat him to learn Earth Shake (if you didn’t learn it from the Adamantoise earlier). 

With that done, we now have access to the portal to Terra. Before we do this however, thanks to the Chocobo Hot & Cold game, we have plenty of new abilities to learn, especially Dagger who has to learn her new summon, Bahamut. Everyone has at least a couple weapons with at least a few abilities they need to learn. So yeah, it’s grinding time again. However, what we’re going to do (to save time) is only do three characters now. We’ll do the other three in a little while. On Lanar Isle (the island with the Qu’s Marsh on it west of the Forgotten Continent) has Grand Dragons. They are difficult but with Zidane’s Thievery and Quina’s Lvl 5 Death, they can be taken down for a healthy amount of AP. We can also find the last few Friendly Enemies. Feather Circle can be found on Mitmakis Snow Fields on the Lost Continent and he wants a Moonstone. The forest above Gizamaluke’s Grotto has the Garuda and he wants a Lapis Lazuli. And the last friendly, Yan, is found on the Fairy Island aka Vile Island and he wants a Diamond. Warning, if you run into the regular Yan, have Zidane use his Flee skill because these guys may look simple but they can kill you in a single hit even this late in the game with the deadly Comet spell.

On Lanar Isle (or any of the islands in this area) you may run into a kitty asking you for a diamond, however note that the Friendly Creature theme does not play. That is because the cat is a lie. Have Zidane steal from it before you attack it though to avoid its Meteor counter.

If you choose to fight the Grand Dragon’s, make sure you save every battle or so. Also have at least one character equipped with the Coral Ring.

If you haven’t yet done so, this is also an ideal time to hunt down the Ragtime Mouse and finish his pop quiz. He can be found in the forests of the world but is rarely in the same forest twice in a row so you’ll have to hop scotch from forest to forest to finish this guy off.

Make sure you have delivered those Rare Coffees to Morrid because after the next set of story events, this quest will be locked out until your next new game.

It’s a good idea to hit all of the marshes again and catch some more frogs.

We have reached another Point of No Return. After we go to Terra, several places will be locked and many items will no longer be reachable.

Places:
Observatory
North/South Gates (from any vantage point)
Oeilvert
Esto Gaza
Desert Palace
Mt Gulug
Ice Cavern
Conde Petie (and the Mountain Path)
Fossil Roo
Iifa Tree
Pinnacle Rocks

Missable Items:
Mythril Sword
Rune Blade
Trident
Heavy Lance
Obelisk
Diamond Sword
Flame Saber
Black Hood
Hamelin
Octagon Rod
Zorlin Shape

Keep in mind, you will need the Zorlin Shape to forge later. Make sure you buy a few and synth an extra Sargatanas.

Lastly, this is the last chance you have to fight the Ambusias in the Treno Weapon Shop. Take it and win the third pair of Running Shoes if you haven’t already.

After you’ve done everything you want to do, head to the icy glacier called Shimmering Isle in the ocean near Esto Gaza.

But wait, before you actually fly in, enter the airship and change and reequip your party until your characters are outfitted like this:

Zidane: Earth Absorption, Thunder Absorption, Antibody
Dagger: Earth Absorption
Freya: Auto Reflect, Antibody
Amarant: Auto Reflect, Antibody
Quina: Thunder Absorption
Steiner: Thunder Absorption

If you cannot absorb an element, try to either nullify or cut the damage down as much as possible.

Drive the Airship into the Shimmering Isle and watch this breathtaking, epic FMV.

We’ll leave it here for now and pick up again next time as we travel through the first bit of Terra. See you then.