The explosion on Thinbeard's ship scatters the party to parts unknown. Jay wakes up in a familiar-looking house, when he sees someone who at first be believes to be Carol, but isn’t. The woman, an earth mage named Gaia, walks over to check on Jay. She notifies him that he crash-landed in a town called Nifton. When asked if she knows where Jay’s friends are, Gaia’s heart gets all aflutter when she thinks the “cute girl in red” he’s talking about is her. She thinks he’s trying to hit on her, so she flirts back even harder and forces him to accept her in the party.
Jay explores his new surroundings with Gaia in tow. A few of the NPCs have some things to say about Jay's new companion's attire, but then quickly try to change the subject when they realize Gaia is listening to them:
- Male NPC: Oh! That Gaia is soooo sexy! I'd do anything to... you know... "get" with her.Male NPC: Oh...I mean, uh... Welcome to Nifton!Jay: (thinking) Trust me, you wouldn't have to work that hard to "get" with Gaia.Female NPC: You know, it's kind of freaky when you think about it. There's only one house in town, and it belongs to the village prostitute.Gaia: I am not a prostitute!Female NPC: Oh.... uh.... I mean, isn't it a bright sunny day?
He comes across a kid whose grandfather gave him an old war medal, but is more interested in the “JRG” badge Jay picked up from Jarogo. Jay takes the badge, and when he runs into the kid’s grandfather, he gets incensed that his grandson doesn’t appreciate his treasure. He agrees to take his medal back and gives Jay a Clear Gem in exchange.
Despite being knocked out and blasted to an unfamiliar location, Jay managed to keep all of the cash he’d earned from fighting the monsters in the Lava Cave underneath Pecot, so he uses the opportunity to shop for some better gear at the weapon store for himself and Gaia.
There is another puzzle room near the entrance to town that offers a prize of 1000 gold pieces on just 50, but with a twist: unlike the other puzzle rooms that came before it, the switches can’t be switched off after they’ve been switched on.
After Jay and Gaia take care of business in Nifton, they purchase a canoe for an unusually high 700 gold pieces and head toward their next destination. Not knowing where else to go, Jay takes his canoe and begins his search for his missing comrades in Crystia, where he learns that Frost is resting in his house due to injuries sustained from the explosion on Thinbeard’s ship. Frost asks Jay and Gaia to take him back to the Ice Temple to take care of some more unfinished business, to which they agree.
The treasure chest that Frost was guarding during Jay’s first meeting leads deeper into the temple, populated by ice flames, explosives, ice demons, and a few more switch puzzles that challenge Jay’s perception of the dungeon’s layout. In his search, Jay finds a Fire Katana and a book teaching the Flame Sword technique, both of which come in handy when they are confronted by an Ice Golem before reaching the back room.
In the last room of the temple lies a gravestone for Frost’s deceased fiancé Alicia. He takes a moment to pay his respects while Jay wonders if he could have just buried her in a normal graveyard and saved everyone the trouble of entering a monster-infested temple just to get to her. After Jay and Gaia bicker for a bit, Frost is ready to go, picking up an Icicle Shooter (a bow that shoots ice arrows) he left behind at her grave “just in case”.
The party quickly exits the temple and sails back to Kyro, where a few of the townspeople say they saw a lion pass through the area recently. Jay believes the lion to be Atolla, but is unable to find him in Kyro, so he catches up to him in Cymore. Atolla rejoins the party, but says he has no idea what happened to Puff, Max, or Carol.
Jay returns to the tower east of Cymore and finds that a bunch of soldiers were given orders by King Dorian to clean everything up. One soldier is guarding the shortcut to the bottom of the tower and refuses to move out of the way, so the party is forced to descend the long way.
The monsters that were only casual nuisances with the presence of the twin skeletons have been forced out of the tower, only to be replaced by even stronger monsters. Hornets, zombies, and skeletal swordsmen (largely similar to the skeletons Jay and Carol had first beaten on their way up) offer greater resistance than anything the party has faced up to this point, but much greater experience point and gold rewards.
A soldier at the top of the tower had a hard time trying to get a barrel up the stairs of the tower, and asks Jay to help him move it, so he does…right into a hole that drops the barrel all the way to the basement. The soldier is peeved, but Jay makes good use of his blunder by revisiting the barrel puzzle in the basement, and is rewarded with an “Ice Sword book” in the treasure chest on the north side of the room.
Jay goes back up to the ground floor and prepares to face off against a Minotaur, who guards the entrance to the tower and the only other save crystal, forcing him to burn through his potions to get everyone up to full health before the battle. Despite the Minotaur wielding a great big hammer, it spends more of its time casting fire spells at the party. Jay’s new Ice Sword technique and Frost’s ice magic help carry them through the battle, allowing them to return safely to Pecot as the soldiers continue to repair the tower.
Back at home, Jay runs into a man looking for a gem to give to his wife, and he offers to trade the gem for a wooden board. Jay decides to inspect Carol’s house to see if she managed to get back home. Up ahead, he sees Cindel and Ames talking. Ames tries to get Cindel to take Nosage and Needog with her again on her next mission. She takes them with her, and walks right past Jay without saying a word to him.
Jay continues on and searches Carol’s house, and when he is unable to find her, heads out of Pecot when he sees Cindel chiding the guards for letting Thinbeard get away, which they promise will not happen again. Cindel and Jay exchange notes on their search for Queen Esmida, admitting that neither of them has been successful in rescuing her, even though Antignarot had kept her behind bars under their noses in Pecot the whole time. Nevertheless, they vow to continue looking out for her, and Cindel gives him some advice on where to look next. They split up for the time being, with Jay thanking her and heading back toward his canoe to seek out both the Queen and his remaining party members, with his only lead being a town called Mentilla, somewhere south of Crystia…
