The Fiery Sands of Jadd
Go round talking to the villagers, in particular make sure you talk to Nana in the Silver Mermaid, as she will reveal Moti’s worry for his homeland of Jadd.
(IMPORTANT NOTE: If you have NOT completed Tess’ quest to rid the Mana Tower of monsters as suggested at the end of the first chapter, this trigger will not occur, so make sure you do this subquest.)
Next head over to Moti’s and you’ll find that Nana’s suspicions are correct, he is troubled by word reaching him that monsters are attacking the desert land of Jadd. Which means that you now have a new mission to head out on: head to Jadd and find out why monsters are inexplicably on the rise.
Get your armour, weapons (invest in a better bow if available!) and gems equipped and ready, Save, and call Flammie. Ah that soothing music… Just as before, a new location will show up on the map, the Fiery Sands of Jadd.
Your feet firmly on the ground, you’ll find that the wind is making it impossible to go any further. Good job we have that branch from Treant to use as a wind-break. The wind will stop, and the level will now start, with some rather funky racy music, I might add, that has my head bopping as I play.
Now, some quick notes on new game physics here. New land, new dangers to face. First off, bushes. The red ones are safe as a sausage to cut down, but if you hit a green one, you’ll find yourself siled with paralysis, meaning your character will hesitate every now and then and won’t be able to move. Also, the enemies are going to start getting really nasty. Bees are very versatile in long and short distance combat, the rolling green armadillos can spin a rock formation toward you causing you to not be able to attack, and the walking skeletons will resist your hits while their shields glow. Aren’t you glad you levelled up?
Another quick note. This time, barrels are substituted for small round cacti with pink flowers, and these can be used to knock down the rather large cacti. However, unlike previous instances of these items, they will hurt you if you touch them. But they also hurt enemies, which means that some monsters will die simply by insisting to walk into a cactus over and over. Let one do it, ’tis very funny indeed. So how do we move these small cacti ourselves? Have I not taught you the wonders of the Flail? Stand where you want the cacti to be, pretty much, the pull it towards you. Sometimes it will damage you, sometimes it won’t, but you stand a better chance of avoiding tooth-rot this way.
-1st Zone
Gleamdrop: Defeat a certain monster
Gleamwell: ——–
There’s nothing particularily note worthy in this zone. It will get you used to the enemies and dangers of this level, as well as reward you with an impure gem or two along the way, so take your time to study how the enemies move, swarm, and attack. You’ll also find that rushing in to things in this level won’t get you far, as the maximum number of enemies on screen has now increased, so diving in head first could get you into a LOT of trouble.
-2nd Zone
Gleamdrop: Defeat a certain monster
Gleamwell: ——–
A few new enemies here, but nothing that you can’t handle by now. At the topmost left hand corner and the bottom right hand corner of the level you will find two unpassable chasms with a skeletal rat and a chest. Defeat the rat with your Bow and then reap the rewards, including the Gleamdrop which you will get from defeating the rat. You should also receive a Steel Sword and an Impure Gem.
-3rd Zone
Gleamdrop: Defeat a certain monster
Gleamwell: ——–
Now first off, to the right of where you start you will find a chest guarded by snakes (I hate snakes!). This should pose you any problem, so deal with them as you normally would. Now, don’t attack the snakes on the other side of the chasms, you don’t want one knocking that chest open. Instead, head back to where you started, and go up and then right. They only have Lucre in them, so nothing terribly exciting. Now the chests above, that’s something different! To get to these we need to have created a Gem called Virtue of Balance (as mentioned before). The chests contain two impure gems, a yellow, and some Lucre, so nothing too special. There are also two trap chests, so watch out.
Other than that, this zone has little to offer, so make your way over to the left and defeat the skeletal rat to get the Gleamdrop, right next to the Gleampool.
-4th Zone
Gleamdrop: Defeat a certain monster
Gleamwell: ——–
Well now, almost a mini-boss, you could say. First off, get some distance, he can’t follow you out of the sandpit, so quite calmly collect the Lucre in the chests and when you’re ready hit him with a few arrows from outside the running sand Then go in, collect the drop and get to your save point.
Now, if you happen to have collected any new items or gems that you’re interested in, and have the level to use them, equip as per normal, Save, and get ready to move along.
-5th Zone
Gleamdrop: Defeat a certain monster
Gleamwell: ——–
Again, the rat has the Gleamdrop, and there’s nothing terribly exciting in the zone. Hack your way through, collect an impure gem in the golden chest at the top middle, and move along to the next level. You may want to have bow equipped for those bees, and get some practice in.
-6th Zone
Gleamdrop: Defeat a certain monster
Gleamwell: ——–
Same as before, I’m afraid. Lots of monsters, not many goodies, and the rat has swallowed the key.
-7th Zone
Gleamdrop: Defeat a certain monster
Gleamwell: ——–
Same old same old, except we do have some more quick quicksand to deal with. Now, if you have the gem, it’s easy. If not, you can at least get two of the chests. The chest on the left you can get by flailing yourself diagonally over the first batch of quicksand, then flailing the chest. Only gets you a Crystal of thought though. So head round to the other, which you can reach easily, for a Saber. You CAN get across the first lot of sand with the Flail, but it’ll only get you far enough to set off the trapped chest. The other two remain out of reach. One of them contains an impure gem, the other a piece of armour (this can vary).
The drop is right over the far left, and again it seems the rats got to it.
-8th Zone
Gleamdrop: Defeat a certain monster
Gleamwell: ——–
It’s the same cockroach as before, except now there’s no chests to keep us happy. Same tactic as before really, and head for the exit.
Now, it’s your last chance to save and equip before the boss, so make sure you’re up to scratch. If you used the gem to stabilize yourself over the quicksand, you may want to switch to something more useful now, although it could still be useful on the boss’ quicksand, but personally I don’t think you’ll need it.
IMPORTANT: EQUIP A BETTER BOW! I can’t stress how important this is, as the question has arisen countless times. If you use the default bow given to you by Moti you will do 1 point worth of damage per arrow, so you’ll defeat him but your thumb will hate you.
– Boss Battle : Thaydol –
Well your character knew what was coming, and I’m sure you did. Yep, it’s another big beastie with a barrier that needs some Holy Sword intervention. And doesn’t he remind you of something from Seiken Densetsu 3?
Anyway, on to the fight, you’re on uneasy ground sliding toward the boss all the time, but don’t worry about falling into the pit, that’s not going to happen.
This is probably the easiest boss you’ll face in the game! While in his back position, he’ll lunge at you with his claws and knock you back. Now, if you stand right in the middle and pummel him with arrows, he doesn’t do any damage to you with this side swipe, just knock you back (or at least that’s what happened to me, if you find out otherwise let me know and I shall amend).
When he leans forward, that’s a different story altogether. Run like hellfire toward the far right or far left. He’ll either set some blue flames a blazing at different parts of the quicksand, or lunge at you with both paws straight down the middle. Either way, if you keep far to either side, you’ll miss those.
Then just run back and keep hitting him with arrows. I defeated him in around 2 minutes, and that’s while writing this, so you can probably do it in much less than that.
After your ranking and prize, we see the beast split into two spirits once more (the benevodons of Moon and Shadow), and are now greeted by Gaia as the heir to the holy sword of Mana. He is the face of the earth who has been sleeping for ten years also (holy hibernation, Batman!). He explains that evil forces flowed through the creature turning it into a malevodon, and the sword restored it to its true form, through the rebirth as a benevodon, of which six are already born (the ones corresponding to the beasts you’ve defeated… all starting to make sense now, eh?). Your sword has the power to restore the world to its proper state.
He also states that you must stop the man you saw before at any costs, even if he defies the will of the planet. Gaia then hands over a stone of his being that should break his spell, together with the branch from Treant. With that, he vanishes, leaving you to return and explain it all to Moti.
You show the stone to Moti, but he is equally puzzled about who the man is and what his spell is. What Moti can do is to give you another weapon, that Watts crafted himself and sent as a gift: the Mallet! You can knock enemies back with these hammers, and send shock waves through the ground to knock them over or hit pegs into the ground. And, quite importantly, break the big pots, cacti and vines we’ve been having such a hard time doing so before! Now, this does have a down side to it… Unfortunately, this now means that in pretty much every quest and zone, the Gleampool is going to be hidden by one of these large objects, which means not only do we have to find the Gleamdrop, but the pool as well, and with the recoil time the hammer has, that makes it a long task. So all I can say is…
IT’S HAMMER TIME!
Well, not really, it’s actually time to save, and do some more subquesting, as well as checking out new stocks at the stores. You may want to revisit some of the levels you’ve already done as well if there were things you couldn’t get before (like the chests guarded by quicksand). Also make sure that you Chat with Balbo of Bomb Brothers to receive their subquest. You will now also have available the elemental subquests for Salamando and Luna.
If you want some good levelling, I’d recommend Fiery Sands subquests that mention eliminating all the monsters, specifically those stating “overgrown insects”. These large cockroaches award 14 EXP each (as opposed to the rather meager 2 that most enemies are awarding), and when you’ve got a whole batch of 20 or so of these bugs, that means almost a level in itself. Or half, at least. And if you REALLY want to get the best out of them, you may want to consider investing in a Heart of Progress gem. It’ll only increase the gain of EXP by 50%, and it takes up 2×2, but an EXP saved is an EXP earned.
Another suggestion is that you take the time at this point to revisit old stages as their original missions, and try to better your ranking to Gold if you didn’t manage it first time through. This will give you some rare Purple Gems to increase the level of your focused attacks during Fury, so they’re worth getting your grubby mitts on.
My recommendation level wise is to get your character up to level 30, and kit them out with the best available gear (because at level 30 you’ll be able to). Gem-wise you’ll probably want to stick with what you know, or if you’ve acquired some better gems switch them out, but you don’t have any more space to put them at the moment, so you can’t add more on. You should probably, if you have the money, upgrade your knapsack. I went straight to Jumbo at this point, but you can just go for the next size up, it’ll do just fine.
Once you feel you’re ready, we’ll move on to the next chapter.
Subquests available: Big Money! (Millionaire), On the Wings of Dreams (Tess), Benevodon of Fire (Salamando).
