And we're back.
So, last time we were here, we watched the Water Crystal blow up and consequently its entire tower get eaten by the sea. Faris' pet dragon died after saving our lives, and the entire world's probably screwed now that the Cosmic Keystone controlling the oceans is gone.
But on the bright side, our heroes get a power up.
In any case, since the king was in the tower when it sank to the bottom of the sea, I assume Walse is... not doing so well. We still have one dragon left, so I hop on that to head over and check on things (and perhaps defeat Shiva this time).
The building's main guards speak about a wounded soldier from Karnak who crawled out of the meteor impact... bringing strange parallels from how Galuf was found. Given the dialog of the soldier we found in the tower, I'm starting to think Galuf was a military official in this Karnak place.
As it turns out, against all odds, the king of Walse survived and is sleeping off his Garula-mauling. Speaking with him reveals that Karnak is the location of the Fire Crystal, which is amplified like the Wind and Water crystals were... meaning the Earth Crystal isn't? In any case, we now have our destination in mind. One of his attendants also recommends Lenna visit Tycoon again, now that she has her Wind Drake back.
I find the Karnak Soldier in the barracks; apparently, he was investigating his own city's crystal when he found himself warped here. The meteors work as a travel network, somehow?
In any case, I check out Shiva, but her fight is still annoying. Since I assume her reward has something to do with the Summoner job (which I'm not using at the moment), I figure I'm fine if I put off beating her for now.
Now, since I just remembered that I own a flying dragon, I decide to take it for a bit of a joyride across the map. Eventually, I find my way back to the start of the whole game, and am now able to pass by the meteor that blocked my path before. I enter the castle of Tycoon.
The man here instantly recognizes Lenna and lets us in, telling us that the chancellor wants to speak to them.
There are some people milling about, but everyone just says some variation of 'Hi Princess!'. I start to wonder where the town of Tycoon is, since there wasn't anything on map and it doesn't appear that the town is integrated within the castle.
The chancellor is surprised to see Lenna, but they have a quick chat about her staying and is quickly convinced that she has to run off and have adventures. Somehow. I think the argument was something along the lines of "I have a responsibility to the world!" but there was a noted lack of actual explanation anywhere in there.
Anyhow, chancellor agrees to take care of things and asks the group at least stay the night. Being a mandatory plot event I, of course, am offered no say in this matter.
Lenna tosses and turns in the middle of the night before going out; apparently, the only exit her room has leads to a balcony, where Faris is looking out. Lenna figures out Faris is her sister pretty quickly, but Faris denies it pretty quickly (and also seems to forget her own gender pronouns, funnily enough). Then she... runs into Lenna's room and locks the door (?... I'm going to assume I just wasn't paying well enough attention to the architecture of this castle).
That morning, F wakes up with his usual grace and dignity. Lenna and Faris both seem back to their usual selves, so I figure it's time to leave. Before I go, I search the castle, coming across a librarian who talks about the King and his daughters; Lenna and Sarisa, the later of which having been lost to sea during a storm. Well, that clears up a couple things.
Without any other leads, I head back to the Walse Meteorite to check out it's supposed warping capabilities. Surprisingly, there's a door here now; I head in to check it out. The cave seems to lack monsters, but there is a warp panel there that F steps on and gets warped by; the other three worry about this for a second before stepping on themselves, and Galuf muses about how this feels familiar.
Meanwhile, to the west...
The group arrives at Karnak Meteorite seemingly without any ill effects. Random enemies here include giant turtles, packs of wolves, and gigantic condors that take forever to kill. These get exceptionally annoying as I wander around, eventually hitting a town and a castle.
This time, I head to the town first.
Karnak's theme is noticeably less jaunty than the other towns and, in fact, I'm pretty sure it's the dungeon theme. It's not their best track, but eh.
I head into a shop to buy some new weapons, and funnily enough, an NPC barges in just before the deal is finalized- he accuses us of being with the monsters, having crawled out of a meteorite and everything. A pair of guards show up to arrest us, and we wake up in the dungeons.
A few seconds later, an old guy blasts a hole in the barrier between our cells. Neat.
In any case, this old guy is depressed since that was his last explosive... and it just got him into another cell. After assuring him that he isn't amusing in the least, he introduces himself as this game's resident Cid. Lenna recognizes him as the inventor of the Crystal-Amplification-Shatterification machines. Cid's depressed by this, which means he's at least aware of his invention's unfortunate side effect.
Apparently, he came up with the idea when he learned that the crystals were stronger in the past then they were now; unfortunately, overclocking them had exactly the side effects you'd think. He tried to deactivate Karnak's machine before it was too late, but was locked up for his trouble.
The group reveals that they're in basically the same boat, and show off their crystal shards (wait, they carry those around with them? I assume they were absorbed or something...). But before Cid can say anything, the Chancellor comes barging in.
Totally ignoring the wall in the jail Cid blew up, he starts crying that Cid was right and the crystal's cracked. Geez guys, when someone's trying to turn off the machinery attached to the cornerstone of your civilization, you should probably listen to him if he's the one who built it in the first place.
In any case, the amp's been turned off but the crystal is still overloading. Cid theorizes that some fire-powered ship is still leaching too much power, and recruits the four party members, even if the chancellor is convinced they're monsters.
At this point, I see an open flame inside Karnak's royal library and figure they're a bit too fire happy. While it's possible that these are new developments due to the crystal, since nobody's trying to put them out, I'm going to assume open flames are rather normal to see anywhere here.
Doing some investigative work, I learn that there's a werewolf on the loose in the area that came from the meteorite, explaining why they think we're monsters for doing that. They fear that it's after the fire crystal, and their queen is missing, so they were in full-blown "panic" mode even BEFORE the crack in the Fire-Crystal happened. All the goodies here are blocked by flames, so I just leave.
Upon exiting, however, apparently there's an attack by the werewolf. The guards come up to match it, and the thing scampers off after they chuck explosives at it.
I stop by the shops again to get our equipment back up to par; this time, we're dealing with Mithril Equipment. We also get most of the -ara spells from the magic dealer, along with Stop.
We head over to the ship visible on the World Map, and Cid chastises us for taking our time. If the ship's engines aren't stopped, then the fire crystal will shatter- and just as I'm wondering why he, the engineer, doens't stop it himself, he mentions that it's full to the brim with monsters. Why? Because it's an RPG, that's why.
The engine room is surprisingly high-tech looking. I run around and activate a couple elevators each way, finally getting into a random battle wherein I...
Have my emulator frozen. Again.
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