Incubus Prison

This page is a guide to the Incubus Prison which immediately follows the Incubus War. Expect SPOILERS.

Simon is stripped of everything and is set back to level one. Progress will be slow and earned. This entire section is one giant puzzle.

However, there is an easy route. If at any point you accept any of the holy items from the glowing white crystals, the game sets you on an easy path. These holy items are incredibly powerful and can easily carry you through this section. They also prevent you from obtaining the only permanent items in this section. An Incubus Sword and a Shining Sword.

This page is going to break down into two sections. A general information and tips section if you want to try this on your own, and a specific walkthrough. The specific walkthrough will assume you are not using the holy items.

General tips

 * Understanding how RPG Maker stats work is important for this section. You can read about them on the Basic_gameplay page.
 * Read enemy names and skill descriptions carefully. They will help you understand what stats you should try and increase. All six of the stats are important at various points.
 * There is no downside to using the healing save points. There is dialogue every so often when you do so.
 * With a few obvious exceptions, there is no need to clear an area fully in one go. You can and should exit and re-enter areas.
 * You will need some consumables to complete the final optional section - The Final Lock. You should be able to complete every fight outside of it without using any consumables if you heal at the save points.
 * You can escape most fights (hit the Left arrow key, then select Escape from the menu).
 * When you gain the Retreat skill, it can be used in most places but not all.
 * Status-preventing items can be used as out-of-battle cures. For example, if you are poisoned, equip a poison-immunity item, and the poison will vanish.

Walkthrough
Temporary link to a 0.58.1 walkthrough that is likely relevant but could be outdated by changes made since 0.58.1.

At the start of this story arc, Simon wakes up in a little slice of hell - the Incubus Prison.

The Prison is divided into three sections, which will be dubbed the First, Second, and Third Zones. Each Zone has multiple areas to visit, each with their own unique names. Access to the Second and Third Zones requires defeating bosses, and moving through a connecting pathway … once. A final boss guards the exit from the Third Zone, and the end of this particular arc of the story. This walkthrough will describe an optimized path through the whole prison in order to handily conquer the Final Lock, but strict adherence to the order of actions is not required.

However, do note that consumables are best not used except as directed.

First Zone
In the initial scene, you can gain the Black Gloves if Mestan survived until the very end of the last story section. If he died early, you get nothing. After the cutscene, you’ll be in the overworld map for this section of the game, and will be facing in the direction you should go. If you got the Black Gloves, equip them immediately.

Walk to the magic glowing circle in the middle of the area to access the central hub for the First Zone.

Fragment of Rest
You’ll pick up 50 Sx just for walking in on your first visit here. Walk to the magic circle in the center of Fragment of rest to heal and save. On subsequent visits to this area's map icon, you'll have the choice of whether to enter. Easy Mode Crystal: The Glowing Crystal on this map is an Easy Mode switch. If you accept the power, you’ll get the Holy Sword, but you'll lock yourself out of the final reward. The other Easy Mode Crystal locations will be noted as well, but for the purposes of beating the Final Lock, do not ever accept the gift.

Here, you’ll also meet your first “merchant.” Like every shop here, it only sells one item, once. If you have extra Sx just before the Final Lock, then you can come back and get it, but there are much better purchases to make.

“Stealth” Running

At this point, Simon has no equipment, no abilities, and low stats. The first order of business is to scrape together some gear, and use the ability to Escape all fights to stay alive. For brevity, areas that are only briefly visited here will be expanded on later, once they’re approached with seriousness.

Exit the Fragment of Rest and walk back to the crater you made on entry to the Prison.

Arrival Crater: Ignore the enemies - if one of the wandering mobs catches you, then hit Left and Escape. Go directly to the bone pile in the lower-right area with the shiny, to pick up your first weapon: the Broken Claw. Equip it immediately. If you want to, you can fight the spider mob now, but don’t bother either the wandering jellyfish or the bat right now.

If you don’t have the Black Gloves, go to the Tower in the south of the Zone. If you do have the Black Gloves, you can leave this for later.

Tower of Silence: Avoid the enemies, walk up the stairs, and grab the shiny to get the Feather accessory, which greatly boosts your AGI. The Black Gloves are superior in most cases.

Go to the lake in the lower left of the map.

Dreamlike Pond
As the area name suggests, this small map has a pond, and not much else. There is only one encounter in the area, and there’s mercifully only one enemy in the encounter. If you came here first thing with no equipment, you can win, but it’s RNG-dependent. With the Claw (and/or the Black Gloves), it’s a guaranteed victory. Here’s also where you’ll find your second merchant: The stats make this equipment very appealing at this stage of the Prison, but you shouldn't: you’ll get semi-equivalent gear for free soon, and the Sx is best preserved for later use.

Exit the pond and head to the Grey Cave in the Eastern area.

Note - Diverging paths:

This guide will take advantage of the Escape functionality to sneak through a higher-level area a little earlier than strictly intended. To keep with this guide’s recommended path, scroll down to the Dreamlike Mine section and keep reading.

If you want to instead follow the likely intended progress, take the following steps:


 * 1) Grab the shiny in the Mine, equip the Leather, and leave.
 * 2) Go to the building in the eastern area (the Dreamlike Ruins; see that section further down for details)
 * 3) From the first chamber, go up, left, then up - be careful and run from enemies if you can’t beat them.
 * 4) Grab the Shiny to get the Lantern. Equip it.
 * 5) Go to the Brown Cave directly north of the Save Point (the Cave of Darkness; see that section further down for details).
 * 6) Get the Skull Helm and the Magic Rock, and fight the cockatrice at the back of the cave on the right-hand side and get Familial Flame.
 * 7) Go back to the Ruins and fight the Idol in the bottom-right chamber, to get the Prophylactic Mushroom.
 * 8) With the mushroom’s poison immunity, go to the Forest. See the Dreamlike Forest section.
 * 9) After clearing the Forest, you can go back to the Ruins to clean up; after this, you’ll be roughly in line with the guide, but will still need to loot the Mine.

Dreamlike Mine
Enemies and encounters will be listed in the Take 2 of the mine - avoid all fights at this point in time.

Immediately on entry to the Mine, grab the shiny to the left to pick up a piece of armor: the Leather. Feel free to equip it, but you won’t be wearing it for long. You can leave and return freely as long as you don’t drop through the hole to the actual mine tunnels, but that’s exactly what we’re here to do. Avoid the encounter (the bandit sprite) on your way to the hole - it’s three enemies that you can’t handle right now.

Once through the hole, you’re in the mine tunnels. Note that if you went to the Forest earlier and grabbed the Retreat skill, it is disabled here - the only way out is through.

Combat notes: Avoid all fights on this first visit. All the encounters have more than one enemy, and you cannot win any of these fights with your current level and equipment. For bragging rights, try to avoid getting caught by any of them, but if you do get caught, Escape immediately.

Turn right, then up, then right to pick up 25 Sx. Go back down, then right. The way up leads to a blocked off Shiny, so go down the long corridor. Turn left, then down to flip the switch. Turn right to grab the Shiny for another 25 Sx. Go back the way you came and go all the way up to the now unblocked Shiny to get the Carapace Armor. Run back to the start, and this time go up and left. Go past the downward turn to the end of the corridor for another Shiny - another 25 Sx. Now go down, and take the right-fork to grab another 25 Sx. Take the left fork, then down and right. The magic circle is a limited use heal; leave it for the second run through the mine. Go down to reach an open area. Take a left, and go up to grab some Mana Leaves. Go down to flip another switch, then go back to the open area. Go right and slightly down; grab a shiny in front of ruined boxes to the right of the exit for another 25 Sx. Go right for another Shiny in a short dead end: an Edible Root. Go up and take the upward path on the right-hand side. Turn right and go to the end to grab another Shiny: Stunning Strike is a physical attack, with a chance to Stun the target. Go down and exit. We’ll be back here later to clear the place out.

Enough running; Time to Fight Back on the world map, go to the cross-shaped forest.

Dreamlike Forest
Recommended equipment at area start:

Weapon: Broken Claw

Off-hand: None (Equip Log once you get it)

Headgear: None

Bodygear: Carapace Armor

Accessory: Black Gloves. If you don’t have the Black Gloves, use the Feather.

Combat notes: If you came here before, you’ll have found that the initial enemies were doable, but only just, and that Wasps meant you needed to go heal. With the Carapace armor, nothing in here is a threat. Be careful with the multi-enemy encounters, and make sure to heal before taking on the final group, but you should be able to clear this entire section without issue.

Take the right-hand path from the entrance, and interact with the axe in the stump to get your first ability. Furious Strike is a workhorse Special skill. It deals Physical damage regardless of your equipment, based on the ATK stat, and does more damage than a standard attack. Now take the left-most path, and pick up your first shield: the Log. Equip it.

Start clearing out enemies. The first five encounters in the Forest are all single-enemy encounters, and the encounters in the north are all multi-enemy encounters. Wasps will poison you, but with the Carapace Armor, that's no longer a threat. Take the right branch in the middle area, and down the line of trees that don’t match the rest of the forest to find an Edible Root. The left branch in the middle area leads to another 50 Sx. Go north again, then take the left branch and grab the Mana Leaves, and the shiny at the end of this branch for your next ability. Retreat is an out-of-battle ability that warps you back to the save point from most areas - it’s disabled anywhere that is meant to trap you (such as the Mines we visited earlier). Finally, take the right branch and take on the stationary sprite to clear out the forest. Use Furious Strike on the Spiders to take them out first, then hit the bats, and finally the Wasp. With the gear you have at this point, and the level ups from getting abilities, you should barely break a sweat. Get the shiny the sprite was guarding to get a weapon upgrade: the Sharp Horn. It's just as strong offensively as the Broken Claw, and also boosts your DEF.

Head to the square gray building in the East (not the tower).

Dreamlike Ruins
 Recommended equipment at area start: 

Weapon: Sharp Horn

Off-hand: Log

Headgear: None

Bodygear: Carapace Armor

Accessory: Black Gloves. If you don’t have the Black Gloves, use the Feather.

Combat notes: The enemies here are much stronger than in the Forest. Some of them you may have seen in the Mine while running for your life. With your current gear and stats, you can handle single-enemy encounters, but you will need to run back and heal after every combat you take on.

In the entrance, you’ll be greeted by a Thug. Defeat him, then go left. You can defeat the Plant here with your current abilities, or leave it for later; if you do defeat it, Simon will have some thoughts on best tactics for dealing with it. Grab the shiny for more Mana Leaves.

Go back to the entrance room. Go up: the enemies in the bottom-right room can’t be fought yet. Bother the spiders (Furious Strike should kill a Spider in one hit by this point), then grab the item hidden behind the pillar: a Fat Root. Go left, to fight a Thug, then Up, to find another Plant. Grab the Shiny to pick up the Lantern, which is the main reason we’re here. Go back to the center room, then Up. This bandit sprite has two Thugs - this is doable, but be careful; use Stunning Strike to make sure that only one of them can attack you. The magic circle here is a limited use heal. The shiny is another 50 Sx.

If you’d like, you can challenge the stationary Flower. This fight is doable right now, but best left for later - for the purposes of this guide, we’re leaving it for later. User Retreat from the skills menu to leave quickly.

Equip the Lantern, then go north from the Save Point to the brown cave.

Cave of Darkness
 Recommended equipment at area start: 

Weapon: Sharp Horn

Off-hand: Log

Headgear: None (equip Skull Helm once you get it)

Bodygear: Carapace Armor

Accessory: Lantern

Combat notes: This area applies Blind to Simon just by being in it, meaning you’re almost guaranteed to miss with all your attacks. The solution is the Lantern. With the Lantern equipped, nothing in here is a threat.

There are narrow corridors, but this isn’t exactly a maze. A corridor branching to the left from the central area leads to an Edible Root. The right hand side leads to a Nullshroom, and the right-most path leads to a spider that guards your first piece of Headgear: the Skull Helm.

The upper areas of the cave are split, and you have to return to the center areas to swap between them. The left-most chamber of the left-hand side has more spiders and the Magic Rock - your first magical weapon. Since Simon has not yet unlocked any magical skills, keep using the Sharp Horn.

Easy Mode Crystal: The right-hand chamber of the left-hand side has another Easy Mode Crystal (again, this guide assumes you aren’t doing Easy Mode). This one gives you the Unchanging Helm.

The right-hand side of the upper area has more spiders, and the Cavern’s “boss” - a Cockatrice. Hit it with a Furious Strike, which should take out over a third of its health. It will then Silence you, but you’ll be able to kill it with regular attacks before it can threaten to kill you, if you went in with full health.

Grab the shiny for another Skill: Familial Flame is your first magic attack, and is essentially the same as Robin’s Fire. Walk into the circle for a handy teleport out of the cave, or use Retreat.

Dreamlike Ruins (take 2)

 Recommended equipment build: 

Weapon: Magic Rock

Off-hand: Log

Headgear: Skull Helm

Bodygear: Carapace Armor

Accessory: Black Gloves (or Feather, if you don’t have the gloves) Guess what’s weak to Fire? Plants are weak to fire. Equip the Magic rock, then go back to the Ruins and clean up any lingering plants, and fight the stationary plant in the upper-right chamber as well. Since Thugs are also weak to fire (though only by a little) best practice is pyromania. The shiny behind this fight unlocks your first Sex skill, and your first Sex attack: Sexual Impact. It uses both SP and MP, and uses the MAG stat for damage calculations.

If you’ve tested your luck against the jellyfish sprite, you’ll have found that the Idols rebuffed any options you had up until this point. However, they are vulnerable to magic, and especially Sex attacks. Go to the bottom right room and kill the Idol that’s guarding yet another shiny: the Prophylactic Mushroom. This item allows you to handle the Forest if you didn’t sneak through the Mine. If you’ve already gotten the Carapace Armor, it’s largely pointless, but can be useful later to give you poison immunity without tying up your Bodygear slot.

Exit and go back to the Crater.

Arrival Crater
 Recommended Equipment Build: 

Weapon: Sharp Horn | Magic Rock for the Idol fight

Off-hand: Log

Headgear: Skull Helm

Bodygear: Carapace Armor

Accessory: Black Gloves (or Feather, if you don’t have the gloves)

While you can wait until you get something from the Third Zone to make the bats a walk-in-the-park, everything in this area is easily destroyed at this point in the run, so we might as well do it now. Combined with the levels Simon has gotten, the Magic Rock and Sexual Impact or Familial Flame will handle the Idol easily, while the Sharp Horn and the defensive equips will prevent the eight bats from doing any damage to Simon. Once you’ve cleared the bats, grab the Shiny to get the Scroll of Wendis. Put it away and forget it exists for now; it is reserved exclusively for the Final Lock.

Exit the crater and go to the Tower.

Tower of Silence
 Recommended Equipment Build: 

Weapon: Sharp Horn | Magic Rock for the Hornets

Off-hand: Log | Defensive Rod once you get it

Headgear: Skull Helm

Bodygear: Carapace Armor

Accessory: Black Gloves (or Feather, if you don’t have the gloves)

Combat notes: Take it easy -  at this point, you can handle anything in here with cautiousness. Since the Cockatrices wield silence, go physical - Furious Strike first turn, then attack after you’re silenced. Retreat and heal when HP gets low, and there should not be much challenge. Refer to the encounter list so you know what you're dealing with.

On the first floor is a bat and a Cockatrice, both single enemies.

The second floor has the Feather (if you didn’t get it earlier) and a stationary encounter blocking access to the next floor. With your current stats, the bats can’t actually hurt you - focus on the Cockatrice and mop up the bats afterwards.

The third floor has no wandering enemies. Equip the magic rock and hit the hornets to the right. They will evade all physical attacks, so hit them with Familial Flame or Sexual Impact. They cannot actually hurt you at this point in the run, as Simon should have enough DEF to outright Block all damage they can do. Pick up the Shiny they were guarding for a new Off-hand item: the Defensive Rod. Equip it, as it’s much better than the Log. Re-equip the Sharp Horn. The third floor guard is a Cockatrice, a Spider, and a Wasp. Familial Flame the spider for a one hit strike (Spiders have high enough ATK to be dangerous if left alone), then attack the Cockatrice after it Silences you. The Wasp is not a threat with the Carapace Armor on.

On the fourth floor, grab the Shiny for 100 Sx. The floor guard is a Cockatrice and a Thug - Sexual Impact the Thug for a one-hit kill, then focus on the Cockatrice.

On the fifth floor, there are two Cockatrices. Make sure you’re fully healed - Furious Strike one of them, then attack until they’re dead.

Grab the shiny for another Skill: Silent Shard. This is another magical attack, which does Ice element damage and can Silence enemies.

Return to the world map. Walk south and fight the Zone boss.

The Dream King
 Recommended Equipment Build: 

Weapon: Magic Rock

Off-hand: Defensive Rod

Headgear: Skull Helm

Bodygear: Carapace Armor (Leather if you didn’t pick it up)

Accessory: Black Gloves (alternatively the Feather; or use the Prophylactic Mushroom if you don’t have the Carapace Armor)

The Dream King is enough of a stone wall to wreck players who try to escape early, but if you clear everything except for the Mine you can still walk all over him. He’s weak to Sex and Ice, but immune to Silence, so just hit him with Sexual Impact (which hits just a touch harder). His attacks can poison you if you’re not immune, but at level 7 and with the Magic Rock, Sexual Impact will take him down in three turns, well before poison becomes a problem.

With the Dream King dead, we can leave the First Zone, but we’re not done here yet. See those tents to the west, just before the mountain path? Walk in and pick up the final skill from the First Zone: Healing Surge. Finally, you can use your MP to heal yourself.

Before we move on to the next Zone, it’s time to do some clean up! Head back to the Mine and prepare for some cautious killing. Why, you ask? EXP and Sx. If you decided to skip the stealth run through the Mine before, now’s the time to pick all the Mine items as well.

Dreamlike Mine (take 2)
 Recommended Equipment Build: 

Weapon: Sharp Horn

Off-hand: Defensive Rod

Headgear: Skull Helm

Bodygear: Carapace Armor (Leather if you skipped the Stealth Run)

Accessory: Black Gloves (or Feather, if you don’t have the gloves)

Combat notes: All the encounters in the mines are multi-enemy encounters, and remain dangerous even with your current level and gear. Be careful. There are two single-use full heal points in the mine, and remember that you can escape from fights, run out the exit, and then come back.

With a high LUK, status effects can sometimes fail to hit you - if you’re blessed by a Cockatrice silence failing, take advantage with a Furious Strike. The guide will assume this doesn’t happen.

Note: If you skipped the Stealth Run, just make sure to pick up every shiny you see. As soon as you get the Carapace Armor, throw it on.

Mine Entrance: Sexual Impact the thugs, then attack the Wasp. Heal with Healing Surge, then jump into the mine paths again.

Mine Tunnels:

Go right. The Spider mobs have five spiders in each encounter. Familial Flame will one-shot one spider per turn, and you can survive with your current defense as long as you're quick to reduce their numbers. You should be able to survive both spider encounters to the right without healing in between. Used Healing Surge to recover health, but leave at least 5 MP unspent.

Go down and attack the bandit. Sexual Impact one of the thugs. Use normal attacks once silenced, but focus on the remaining Thug first, then the Cockatrice, because the Thug goes down faster and is just as damaging.

Go back to the entry point for the tunnels, and then go down and around the loop to the heal circle (avoid the bandit encounter for now). Use the heal - it’ll disable the circle, but it saves you a trip out of the mine to regain your MP. Go back left and attack the bandit. It’s the same fight as above, so use the same strategy.

Heal up with Healing Surge, and head into the open area. Attack the bandit: it’s two thugs and a wasp. Sexual Impact the thugs, attack the wasp.

Go up, and hunt the chicken. This is a Cockatrice, a Thug, and a Plant. Sexual Impact the Thug. Once silenced, normal attack the Cockatrice, and then the Plant (the Cockatrice does more damage). If you’re lucky enough to not get Silenced on the first turn, then you can Silent Shard the plant to apply silence to it and reduce its damage. Familial Flame will be unlikely to one-shot it, so Silent Shard is the better choice in this battle.

Heal with Healing Surge, and make sure to leave at least 50 MP. Go to the right to find the spider - it’s another 5 spiders, which should be killed with fire. Once they're dead, congrats! You have killed everything you can in the First Zone. We’ll return for the Guardian (the Knight in the Ruins) a long time from now. Sx Total (area pickups & monster drops): 505

Now it’s time to leave the First Zone. Heal up, then walk to the mountain path the Dream King was guarding, and select Advance.

The Flickering Path
Warning: You can’t come back to this area once you leave, so for best results, leave no path unexplored and leave no enemy unslain. Retreat is disabled, so once again the only way out is through.  Recommended Equipment Build: 

Weapon: Magic Rock

Off-hand: Defensive Rod

Headgear: Skull Helm

Bodygear: Carapace Armor

Accessory: Black Gloves (or Feather, if you don’t have the gloves) Combat notes: The area is set up to allow you to just walk on through without fighting anything, but again, you will not be able to return. Instead, deliberately challenge all enemies for experience, Sx, and the items they guard. All enemies in this area are stronger versions of ones you fought in the First Zone, with the same weaknesses.

Remember to heal between battles with Healing Surge - to conserve MP, you can afford to leave yourself just short of max HP. If you find yourself in an untenable position, reload and re-enter.

Approach the first encounter. With the Magic Rock equipped, Familial Flame should one-shot the Penitent Bat, and Sexual Impact should one-shot the Penitent Thug. Since the Bat does more damage, kill the Bat first. Walk down, pick up 100 Sx.

Approach the Jellyfish to meet a Penitent Idol and a Penitent Hornet. The Hornet evades all physical attacks, but will drop in one shot from either Familial Flame or Sexual Impact. Take it out first to reduce the damage you take.

The Idol is weak to Fire, Ice, and Sex, but is immune to Silence. Sexual Impact does the most damage for the smallest cost. Grab the shiny the Idol was protecting to get the Unwoman Potion. Like the Scroll of Wendis, forget that it exists for now; it will come in handy at the very end.

Walk down and trigger the next bandit encounter. Use fire on the Bat, sex on the Thug, and either option on the Hornet, in that order. Grab the Fire Leaves. Walk down and trigger the final bandit encounter. Use fire on the bat, sex on the Thug, and sex on the Idol, in that order. If you’re following the guide, you’ll have enough MP to make it work. The final clearing holds another 200 Sx (the left and right shinies) and the Pickaxe Charm. This accessory comes in handy when you need to focus on the Physical side of things.

Easy Mode Disable switch: If you haven’t accepted either of the Easy Mode gifts from the glowing crystals up to now, you’ll also see a Dark Crystal here, which will let you reject all Easy Mode gifts. Taking this option will make all of the crystals disappear, and lock you into the Hard Mode. Go ahead and do this now, if you're following this guide.

Having cleared out the area, go back to the start and take the left path. When you exit, the path will disappear.

Sx Total (area pickups & monsters): 835

Walk down, heal, and save. Welcome to the Second Zone!

Second Zone
New zone, new areas, new threats! By now, Simon’s hit his stride, has some useful gear, and combat feels a little less fraught. Should be smooth sailing from here, right? … Right? Head to the tent in the south-east.

Verdant Clearing / Scorched Clearing
The content of this area depends heavily on the status of your game.

If Fuzkao lived through the war section, then this is the Scorched Clearing, and you’ll find that Fuzkao’s set up shop here. You’ll have to fight him to get anything in the area, and there will not be any Sx pickup. However, he does give you 5000 extra exp. Unfortunately, he’s far too powerful to take on at this point in the run if you’re not using the Easy Mode items, so you’ll have to do without.

If you managed to kill Fuzkao in the last section, then you’ll find the Verdant Clearing. The tent has a shiny that gives you the Flashfire Armor, a useful armor with better stats than the Carapace Armor and the ability to prevent Blind, which you might as well equip immediately. There will also be a shiny in the south-west corner that gives 50 Sx.

If Altina is part of the harem, there will be a shiny to the left that gives you the Poison Dart ability. It makes life easier in some future encounters.

If you were able to get the pick-ups, great! If not, you'll be back here again later. Either way, head to the city.

Tynaburg
Welcome to a facsimile of a City, named after a certain adorable and competent princess! You’ll find a number of “merchants” here, as well as some encounters that you’re best served to not mess with right now. Fortunately, there are no wandering monsters around here. Feel free to scout the enemies, but again, you’re not equipped to deal with any of them just yet - enemy details will be provided when its time to face them. Instead, focus on picking up the shinies and seeing what the merchants have to offer.

You can find the following items out in the open:

Mana Leaves - east area, in a bush between two buildings.

Mana Leaves - west area, in a dead-end of an alley just above a bush.

50 Sx - North-west area, close to the central wall behind a building.

The important thing is the shiny at the far north-east, which gives you Blinding Pierce. This Physical Attack can inflict Blind, which is critical to dealing with certain enemies.

Next check out the merchants. Anything offered by the hooded figures is unnecessary, and you should skip it. The real important merchant is in the lower-right corner, and she looks different from the others. She sells Neranda’s Wall for a whopping 1000 Sx… provided you’ve successfully freed Eustrin from Aram’s grip. If you haven’t then it will cost 1200 Sx instead. This is why saving Sx has been important.

Important: If the Wall costs 1200 Sx, then you’ll need to choose between it and another later, high-cost item (the strongest physical armor in the Prison). If it costs 1000 Sx, then you can get both the Wall and the later item, provided you don't waste money on other items. Make your choices on purchases carefully, and figure out what you want; you can make it through the entirety of the Second Zone without the Wall, though it certainly makes it a lot easier, while waiting and grabbing the armor later on will make a significant portion of the Third Zone easier.

Right now, if you’ve been following the guide exactly, you should have around 885 Sx (from pickups and monster drops), which is just shy of the shield’s lowered cost. We’ll be back for it later.

For now, go to the north-west area of the city, and walk into the tent that’s against the north wall.

Tent of Stabbiness
Welcome to the Tent of Stabbiness! An attraction befitting a carnival of horrors, this area is all about knowing your limits, and being able to do math. You have to walk over the spikes to get to the shinies, and each spike tile is deadly. There are no enemies, but there are items you want and need in here.

Walking onto a spike tile takes away 250 HP and 10 MP. If you reach 0 HP, you die. This means that if you have 1000 HP, you can walk on three spikes and not die, and with over 1000, up to four; at this point in the guide you should have around 1033 HP. Unfortunately, there’s nothing within four spike tiles, and you have to get back, too (yes, Retreat is disabled in the Tent of Stabbiness). The solution? Healing Surge and careful checking of health throughout. Since Healing Surge heals based on MAG, make sure you’re wearing the Magic Rock and the Black Gloves (if you have them) to max out HP gain per MP.

On this first visit to the tent, we're here for a very specific item. Walk up (one spike) then left and up (across two more spikes). Having crossed three spikes, check your health. Heal until you have more than 500 hp, and go left again to get the Shiny. You have acquired the Big Axe! This item massively boosts ATK at the cost of heavy MAG reduction, and we will be leveraging it for some specific fights in the near future. Again, heal until you have more than 500 hp, and walk back (two spikes). Heal again, this time for more than 750 hp, and leave the tent (three spikes). Nothing else is in reach at the moment, not without using one of the Mana Leaves or Fire Leaves, and they’re best hoarded for later.

Instead, go to the ice mountains.

Dreamlike Spire
 Recommended Equipment Build:  Weapon: Big Axe

Off-hand: Defensive Rod

Headgear: Skull Helm

Bodygear: Flashfire Armor (Carapace Armor if Fuzkao lived)

Accessory: Black Gloves (or Pickaxe Charm if you don’t have the Black Gloves)

Combat notes: Pay attention to Simon’s comments: you want to use Physical attacks here, and magic attacks are worthless. Therefore, pop on the Big Axe. You also want to stack MDF, since the enemies use magic attacks, but at this point in the run, there’s not much to change defensively… yet. Your workhorse ability will be Furious Strike; while Blinding Pierce and Stunning Strike are both physical, everything here resists Blind and Stun, and Furious Strike does more damage than either of those. You can also use just the regular attack to finish off nearly-dead enemies, but there’s not much need to conserve MP. Finally, remember to swap to the Magic Rock from the Big Axe when using Healing Surge out of battle - otherwise, you’ll heal for negligible amounts with the spell. This also means you shouldn’t bother trying to heal in-battle. Walk up, meet the Ephemeral Wisp. Use Furious Strike to kill it. Walk north, grab the Shiny: the Frozen Hat. Equip it immediately for a significant MDF boost.

Attack the next enemy. The Mana Shard is much more dangerous than the Wisp; without the defense of the Hat, it can easily two-shot you. With the Big Axe on, though, you can two-shot it.

Heal up, walk up and grab the shiny for 50 Sx. Then take on the right-hand encounter. With the Hat, the Wisp should no longer be able to hurt you - focus on the Shard first.

Grab the shiny for another 100 Sx, and then leave. The left-hand encounter has two Mana Shards, and they hit too hard for you to survive right now. While you can muddle through with Blind or Stun, they’re resistant to both and it takes too much luck to be reliable. Instead, it’s time to go on another brief Stealth Run. Go to the tree in the eastern area.

Dry Hollow
Simon warns you that this area is dangerous, and he’s right. Don’t try to fight anything here just yet. Of the encounters here, only the single Zombie, who starts in the north, is feasibly conquered at this point. Consider this optional at this point. While avoiding the fast-moving zombie sprites, go west and grab the shiny on the northern wall for 50 Sx. Go south and grab the shiny on the big tree to get the reason we’re here: the Icy Book. This is the strongest MDF shield, aside from Neranda’s Wall. Then go east and grab the shiny along the eastern wall for another 50 Sx.

Easy Mode Crystal: There’s another Easy Mode crystal here, which gives you the Ring of Unending Stamina. If you’re committed to hard mode and used the Dark Crystal, then the crystal has vanished.

Leave; use Retreat to be safe.

Note - Diverging paths:

You have now gathered over 1000 Sx; if you’re in lockstep with the guide, then you should have 1139. You can go ahead and buy the discounted Neranda’s Wall at this point; accordingly, all equipment builds will incorporate it as an option from here on out.

The course to take at this point depends on available equipment. If you have either the Flashfire Armor or Neranda’s Wall, you can return to the ice mountains now. In that case, feel free to move to the Dreamlike Spire (take 2) section. For this guide’s purposes, we will continue to do some preparation.

If you’re not skipping ahead, go to the Volcano.

Dreamlike Volcano
 Recommended Equipment Build:  Weapon: Magic Rock

Off-hand: Neranda’s Wall or Defensive Rod

Headgear: Skull Helm

Bodygear: Flashfire Armor (Carapace Armor if Fuzkao lived)

Accessory: Black Gloves (or Pickaxe Charm if you don’t have the Black Gloves)

Combat notes: Pay attention to Simon’s comments: physical attacks are worthless here, and you’ll need to use magic attacks to progress. Accordingly, pop on the Magic Rock. You’ll also want to stack DEF on the defensive side. The only offensive ability you’ll need here is Silent Shard, since everything is vulnerable to Ice. The other magical attacks you have are either resisted (Familial Flame) or are just not as strong against these enemies (Poison Dart and Sexual Impact).

This area’s layout is exactly the same as the Dreamlike Spire; they are mirrors of each other.

The first encounter is a single Flamefly, the counterpart to the Ephemeral Wisp. Depending on your DEF, it may not be able to even harm you at this point. Two Silent Shards will take it down. Walk up and get the shiny: the Burning Helm. If you haven’t gotten Neranda’s Wall, then this is the highest DEF boosting item you’ve found so far. Put it on immediately, heal up, and take on the next enemy.

The second encounter is a single Volcano Imp, the counterpart to the Mana Shard. It’s strong enough to hit through your strong DEF, and at this point in time will go down in three Silent Shards. You can poison it, but it will still take three turns to kill. Walk up and grab the shiny to pick up an Edible Root. Heal up, and take on the right-hand encounter.

This encounter is one Flamefly and one Volcano Imp. If your DEF is 100+ (easy to get with the Burning Helm), the Flamefly can’t hurt you. Focus on the Imp - it will go down in three turns (two if you’re lucky with the RNG). Walk into the chamber and pick up the Mana Chalice. This accessory grants +100 MP and some minor magical stat boosts, which are generally useful. For now, though, leave the Pickaxe Charm on, for the extra DEF.

Heal (Retreat and full heal at the save point if you’re low on MP). Make sure your DEF is 100+, then challenge the left-hand encounter. Two Flameflies and one Volcano Imp will challenge you; the Flameflies cannot hurt you, so focus on the Imp again. Once it’s dead, take out the Flameflies at your leisure. Walk into the chamber, and grab the Ashen Spear. At this point in time, this is the best all-rounder weapon, since it boosts both ATK and MAG. We’ve gotten what we need from the Volcano for now, so go back to the Dreamlike Spire.

Dreamlike Spire (take 2)
The return to the Spire has different approaches depending on what gear you have available. Refer to the build that applies to you, and engage the left-hand chamber encounter (two Mana Shards) once ready.

Minimal build (No access to Neranda’s Wall or Flashfire Armor):

Weapon: Ashen Spear

Off-hand: Icy Book

Headgear: Frozen Hat

Bodygear: Carapace Armor

Accessory: Mana Chalice

Build notes: If you use the Big Axe, your AGI will drop below 50, and the shards will move first. This means death. Therefore, you need to use the Ashen Spear to keep your AGI above 50, and also not to nerf your healing capability since you must heal to win.

Combat notes: Furious Strike x2 on one of the shards to kill it. You’ll have taken enough damage that one more hit will kill you,and you’ll need two hits to kill the remaining shard, so start healing instead. With the Ashen Spear, you’ll heal slightly more than the Shard does in a single turn, so you’ll be able to make gains. Watch for your health to hit over 400 after the Shard hits you, then Furious Strike x2 to finish off the Shard. Early build (Skipping the Volcano): Weapon: Big Axe

Off-hand: Neranda’s Wall or Icy Book

Headgear: Frozen Hat

Bodygear: Flashfire Armor

Accessory: Pickaxe Charm or Black Gloves

Build notes: You can only take this on this early if you have the Flashfire Armor, meaning Fuzkao must have died in the last story section. Without the Flashfire Armor, you don’t have the MDF or AGI to survive the Shards’ attacks. Neranda’s Wall makes you doubly safe with the increase in HP and the even higher MDF, but the Icy Book suffices. The PickAxe Charm helps with the AGI and boosts your ATK even more, making it potentially possible to one-shot the Shards. The Black Gloves give a slight amount of DEF and ATK, so are a possible choice as well.

Combat notes: Furious Strike x2 to kill one shard, Furious Strike x2 to kill the other. The Shards will be able to hit you four times total, which you will be able to barely survive. Don’t try to heal - the Big Axe debuffs your MAG so much that it’s pointless.

Maximal Builds (all items; safest):

Weapon: Big Axe or Ashen Spear

Off-hand: Neranda’s Wall

Headgear: Frozen Hat

Bodygear: Flashfire Armor

Accessory: Pickaxe Charm or Mana Chalice

Build notes: With all items available to you, you can choose your approach: Pickaxe Charm or Mana Chalice.

Pickaxe Charm: no MDF boost, but it boosts AGI over 50. Moving first means you take less damage, because you can kill one of the Shards before it attacks more than once. The ATK boost also gives you small chance to one-shot a Shard, though this can’t be relied on. This is the safest choice - you’ll end the fight with well over 400 HP.

Mana Chalice: a small amount of extra MDF, but your AGI will be less than 50, so the shards will attack first. This means you will take six attacks. With the MDF and the extra HP from Neranda’s Wall you’ll survive, but you’ll likely be less than 200 HP left.

Combat notes: Furious Strike x4 until the shards are dead. Neutral attacks can be subbed in to finish off the shards, but there’s no real reason to conserve MP.

Regardless of the strategy used, enter the chamber the shards were guarding and grab the Winter Cloak. Fitting the theme of this area, it’s a MDF-heavy armor, and it’s going to be a mainstay piece of gear for most of the run (especially if you don’t have access to the Flashfire armor). Heal up, then walk up and challenge the area boss. Equipment builds differ, but strategy does not.

Heal up, then walk up and challenge the area boss. Equipment builds differ, but strategy does not.

Minimal build (No access to Neranda’s Wall or Flashfire Armor):

Weapon: Big Axe

Off-hand: Icy Book

Headgear: Frozen Hat

Bodygear: Winter Cloak

Accessory: Lantern Flashfire Armor build: Weapon: Big Axe

Off-hand: Neranda’s Wall or Icy Book

Headgear: Frozen Hat

Bodygear: Flashfire Armor

Accessory: Pickaxe Charm

Build Notes: You must have Blind immunity. If you don’t have the Flashfire Armor, then you need the Lantern. If you do have the Flashfire armor, then you can put on the Pickaxe Charm for its ATK boost. The Winter Cloak is a higher MDF, which is necessary when using the Lantern because it’ll take longer to take down the boss.

Combat notes: Furious Strike the Spell Consumer until it dies. The Wisps cannot hurt you with either of the recommended builds. If you’re wearing the Pickaxe Charm, it will go down in three turns. If you’re wearing the Lantern, it’ll take four to five turns. After that, Furious Strike the Wisps to take them out in one turn each.

Walk up and grab the Shiny to get an Ability: Defending Wall. This is an upgraded version of the Guard action, and we’ll be using it for a certain fight later.

Retreat, heal, and save. If you haven’t done the first part of the Dreamlike Volcano yet because you came here early, do so now.

Head back to the Tent of Stabbiness (North-East area of Tynaburg ). With the Ashen Spear and the Mana Chalice, our range has increased, and we can get more items!

Tent of Stabbiness (Take 2)
If you have Neranda’s wall, make sure you’ve equipped it and healed up. The extra 250 hp extends your range by one spike. Regardless of the Wall, make sure you have the Ashen Spear and the Mana Chalice equipped: the spear is your best MAG booster right now, and the Chalice’s extra 100 MP greatly extends your range (even more than the Wall).

Remember, each spike hurts for 250 HP and 10 MP. By this point in time, you will have more than 1000 hp, so you can walk over at least four spikes before needing to heal when first entering the tent. Check your health regularly and heal as you go. To avoid wasting MP, don’t max out health while using Healing Surge; heal enough to get through one spike at a time.

First Entry:

Take the right path from the entryway (four spikes). Heal, then keep going up the right-most path (six spikes). Go to the right and grab the shiny for the Tower Shield, which serves as the substitute for Neranda’s Wall for those who don’t have access to that item. The Tower Shield offers the same HP bonus, but not nearly the same defensive capabilities. If you don't have Neranda's Wall, equip the Tower Shield immediately.

Heal up, and head back toward the exit. Once you clear the six spike row, use up all your remaining MP on healing to get yourself over 1000 hp, and then leave the tent (four spikes).

Heal at the save point, and come back.

Second Entry:

Take the right path from the entryway (four spikes). Go up the second path from the right (three spikes) to pick up the shiny: Fire Leaves. Don’t try to continue on from here: there’s nothing further up the same path, and trying to get the final pick-up from here takes you through more spikes than you can handle. Instead, head back out of the tent the same way you came in (seven spikes total), heal at the save point, and return.

Third Entry:

You have to make it to the end of the tent, then back to the entrance, without dying. The path with the least spikes still takes you across 16 spikes, and then you have to get back, so the round trip involves crossing spikes 32 times. This means for the round trip you will lose 4000 hp and 320 mp from the spikes alone

On this run in particular, it’s very important to save as much MP as you can. On the way in, watch your HP. Use Healing Surge whenever it drops below 250 HP, and only when it drops below 250 Hp.

Go up and take the left path (three spikes). Take the second-from-the-left path (four spikes) and keep moving up to the next group of spikes. To avoid walking over an extra spike tile, you will not take a straight path. Instead, walk up three spikes and turn right onto the empty tile. Walk up over two spikes and then to the wall. Walk left over one spike, then up over three to shiny.

Check your MP; depending on the RNG’s blessings (HP gain from Healing Surge is variable), you will have between 90 and 110 MP.

Pick up the shiny: it’s the Scroll of Sarai. The Experience gain should get you to level 11. Use the Scroll of Sarai to gain 25 more MAG; you should be at 95 MAG. Healing Surge is now much more effective. With less than 160 MP, you’re going to lose the MP to Spikes before you reach the end, so pop two heals now and then start walking over spikes - if your health falls below 1000, heal again. Regardless of HP level, make sure to use the last 10 MP on a heal rather than waste it on a spike. However, you’re only going to get through four spikes before you’re out of MP.

While at 0 MP, walk through spikes until your HP is less than 250 MP, then use a Set of Mana Leaves to regain 100 MP. Again, heal up if you drop below 1000 HP, and don’t be afraid to use up the last of your MP rather than feed it to spikes.

Once you exit the tent, retreat, heal, and then head for the Brown Cave to the North West.

Twisted Caverns
Recommended Equipment Build: Weapon: Ashen Spear

Off-hand: Tower Shield

Headgear: Burning Helm

Bodygear: Flashfire Armor or Winter Cloak

Accessory: Feather.

Build notes: For this area, you need DEF and AGI. The Lightning Snakes are fragile, fast, and hit ridiculously hard. You need more than 110 AGI to hit before them, which means the Feather is required. Neranda’s Wall penalizes AGI too much, so even if you have it, leave it off. Not all encounters have the snakes, so you can shift equipment around a bit, but any encounter with a snake requires more than 110 AGI.

You can use Retreat at any time to get yourself out.

Walk up and meet your first snake. Attack it. If you’re faster, you win, if you’re slower, you’ll survive, and find out why you need to be faster.

Most of the encounters in here will be doable with the recommended build, so long as you keep to the following rules:


 * 1) Kill Snakes first.
 * 2) Sexual Impact Orcs
 * 3) Use Blinding Pierce on Bears, followed by Poison Dart to inflict poison. Once blinded and poisoned, use Familial Flame. If you don’t have Poison Dart, just blind the bear and then use fire.

Accordingly, this guide will focus on item locations and a recommended path through the area. Refer to the Enemy List and Encounter list for enemy details.

Take a right, then up. Ignore the Ogre for now. Turn right, then grab the shiny in the upward branch for … a hint about how to deal with the bears. Ignore the downward turn, and instead take the second upward branch to find a bear (which is actually a snake, a bear, and an orc), and beyond the bear a skeleton with a Shiny. This is the Knight Helm, which is currently the best all-rounder helm available, giving noticeable bonuses to all stats except HP, MP, MAG, and AGI. Equip it - the extra 10 DEF the Burning Helm gives doesn’t outweigh the bonuses, and Burning Helm has a small AGI penalty.

Go back and take the downward path. Turn right, walk past an upward branch, then down to reach 50 Sx at a dead end. Go back and take the upward branch. If you keep going up and then left, you’ll find another one-use full heal circle. This is best saved for when you’re low on MP.

Go right and then up instead to progress past the blocking rockslide. Ignore the left turn and keep going up to find a Fat Root. Go back and take the left turn. Take the wide downward path to find another 50 Sx.

Continue left.

Easy Mode Crystal: Another Easy Mode Crystal may be found in the central dead-end path to the left; this one gives you the Brilliant Armor.

Take the upper path to find the final room.

The encounter in this room contains two bears and is tough enough that specific strategies are needed:

Equip the Pickaxe Charm instead of the Feather for the extra ATK and DEF. If you have Neranda’s Wall, equip that too. Return to the single-use heal circle and use it before triggering the combat.

Open combat with Blinding Pierce to blind each bear. If Blind fails to apply to one of them the first turn, it’s best to Escape the fight, heal with Healing Surge, and then re-engage. If you have Poison Dart, poison the bears - whenever Blind wears off, reapply it. If you don’t have Poison Dart, things will take longer. Focus on surviving - keep Blind on, heal if your health gets below 600 hp, and use Familial Flame when you get a free turn.

The Shiny to the North is the Scroll of Lynine. Use it immediately to get a permanent +25 to both AGI and LUK.

The Shiny to the South is Mana Leaves. Retreat, and heal. You now have over 1200 Sx, so if that’s the cost of Neranda’s Wall in your game and you’re going to buy it, now is a good time to do so.

Note - Diverging paths:

If Fuzkao is alive, now is a good time to go deal with him, as the Flashfire Armor is the best armor option for the upcoming fight. If Altina is in the harem, it’s doubly important, as Poison Dart is going to be even more useful than the Flashfire armor. Scroll down for details on his combat.

However, if he’s already dead, then skip to the “Twisted Caverns (Ogre)” section.

Head to the tent in the southwest area.

Fuzkao (combat)
Recommended Equipment Build:

Weapon: Magic Crystal or Ashen Spear

Off-hand: Flashy Shield

Headgear: Frozen Hat

Bodygear: Winter Cloak

Accessory: Mana Chalice

Build notes: You’re building MAG over everything else. You can only hit Fuzkao’s weaknesses with Magical attacks at this point. Now that you have the stats and the gear, Fuzkao is no longer a threat. At level 11 and with the above build, you can walk up to him and drop him with two (with the Magic Crystal) or three (with the Ashen Spear) rounds of either Sexual Impact or Silent Shard (or any combination thereof). You’ll get a whopping 5000 exp, and the Flashfire Armor. The other prize is the Poison Dart spell that he was gatekeeping, provided you rescued Altina and added her to the harem.

Twisted Caverns (Ogre)
Return to the Twisted Caverns for the Ogre.

Recommended Equipment Build:

Weapon: Ashen Spear

Off-hand: Neranda’s Wall or Tower Shield

Headgear: Knight Helm

Bodygear: Flashfire Armor or Winter Cloak

Accessory: Mana Chalice

Build notes: You’re stacking MAG and DEF again. The Mana Chalice’s extended mana pool is helpful if you don’t have access to Poison Dart.

The Ogre’s critical weakness is blindness, much like the bears. Use Blinding Pierce, and re-use every time blindness runs out. From here, the fight has two paths depending on if you have Poison Dart or not. If you have Poison Dart, use it to poison the Ogre. It will bleed 1500 hp per turn to Poison, and this makes the fight go much, much faster. Once poison has been applied, use Sexual Impact (remembering to keep it blind) until it dies. If it gets in a lucky swing and hits through blind, heal. If you don’t have Poison Dart, prepare yourself for a slog. Use Sexual Impact to do a little over 600 HP damage each time. Again, make sure the Ogre is always blind, and heal any lucky swings. Without Poison DoT, you’ll be here for a while chipping at the Ogre’s enormous health pool, but you’ll still win. Walk right and then down to pick up the Magic Crystal that the Ogre was guarding. This item is the exact opposite of the Big Axe: boosts MAG, heavily reduces ATK, and reduces AGI a small amount.

Exit, heal, and go to Tynaburg. We have a ghost to bust.

Tynaburg (First combat)
Head to the south-west area and approach the animated hooded figure sitting in the alleyway. You’ll start combat with the Wraith. Recommended Equipment Build: Weapon: Magic Crystal

Off-hand: Neranda’s Wall or Tower Shield

Headgear: Knight Helm or Frozen Hat

Bodygear: Winter Cloak

Accessory: Mana Chalice.

Build notes: You want MAG and AGI. If you’re doing this before you get the Scroll of Lynine, use the Feather; but with the Scroll’s bonus, you easily outspeed the Wraith. You can win with lower AGI, since Defending Wall has priority and will always trigger first, but it’s more annoying.

The Wraith is designed around the ability you got from the Dreamlike Spire. It charges on one turn, healing for 100 HP, and then attacks with Life Destruction the next turn, which deals around 1300 HP regardless of your defensive stats. The only defense against Life Destruction is Defending Wall. This means that the turn after it heals itself, you must use Defending Wall, or die.

The first turn of combat, use Familial Flame. The second turn, use Defending Wall. Repeat until your health gets below 400 hp: Life Destruction still hits for around 350 hp through Defending Wall. Now, instead of attacking, heal every other turn. Once you have 400+ HP remaining after a Life Destruction, use Familial Flame. Repeat until the Wraith is dead.

Walk into the back-alley area it was guarding to pick up the Flashy Shield. The main utility is the immunity to Silence; based on stats, the Flashy Shield is slightly better than the Tower Shield, but lacks the bonus HP. If you don’t have Neranda’s Wall, the Flashy Shield is better in cases where you need more magical power and defense than physical. If you do have Neranda’s Wall, then use the Flashy Shield only when you need Silence immunity. Speaking of Silence Immunity, heal and head back to the Volcano.

Dreamlike Volcano (take 2)
We’re here to clear out this area. Walk all the way up and challenge the final encounter.

Recommended Equipment Build:

Weapon: Magic Crystal

Off-hand: Flashy Shield

Headgear: Knight Helm or Burning Helm

Bodygear: Flashfire Armor or Winter Cloak

Accessory: Pickaxe Charm or Mana Chalice

Build Notes: The Flashy Shield is required, as the boss will inflict Silence and is immune to physical damage. Stack MAG and DEF: The Winter Cloak is only for if the Flashfire Armor isn’t available. If using the Winter Cloak, take the Burning Helm for the extra DEF. The Pickaxe Charm’s DEF bonus is more useful than the Mana Chalice’s minor MAG boost, as you’re not going to have MP concerns in this fight.

The Flameflies either are fully Blocked, or will do scratch damage (Winter Cloak + Knight Helm allows Flameflies to do between 10 and 12 damage). Ignore them and cast Silent Shard on the Fireflier. He’ll go down in 3 hits, after which you can hit the Flameflies with a Silent Shard each to win the day.

Walk up and grab the Shiny here for Crackling Lust, a strong Thunder element Sex ability. Like all the Sex abilities, its strength is based on the MAG stat.

Leave, and heal. It’s time to move on. If Fuzkao is still alive for some reason, now is the time to deal with him: go back to the “Fuzkao (combat)” section in that case. If not, move on to the Dream Spirit.

The Dream Spirit
Recommended Equipment Build: Weapon: Big Axe

Off-hand: Flashy Shield

Headgear: Knight Helm

Bodygear: Flashfire Armor

Accessory: Pickaxe Charm

Build notes: Build ATK. The Flashy Shield is required to prevent Silence. The Flashfire Armor or the Lantern are needed to prevent Silence.

The Dream Spirit’s weaknesses cannot be taken advantage of. She cheats and uses Draining Light in a surprise first round, draining all of your SP and preventing you from using any Sex abilities in the first round. Her other attacks either apply Sexbind (this one also drains SP), Silence, or Blind, and apply various stat debuffs.

With Silence and Blind prevented, you can hit her with Furious Strike with impunity. By this point you have enough DEF, MDF, AGI, and ATK that even with the debuffs applied you still out class her, and her attacks don’t hit hard enough to be a threat so long as you can still attack reliably. Her health will run out before yours.

Once she’s beaten, congratulations! You’ve handled everything you needed to in the Second Zone, for now. We’ll be coming back for the Unpeople in the Dry Hollow later.

Heal, save, and enter the mountain path. Sx Total (area pickups & monsters): 1278 (Less 1000 or 1200 if you bought Neranda’s Wall)

The Gentle Path
Warning: You can’t come back to this area once you leave, so for best results, leave no path unexplored and leave no enemy unslain. Retreat is disabled, so once again the only way out is through. Recommended Equipment Build:

Weapon: Ashen Spear

Off-hand: Neranda’s Wall or Flashy Shield

Headgear: Knight Helm

Bodygear: Winter Cloak

Accessory: Feather (Pickaxe Charm for one fight)

Build Notes: You need over 120 AGI to outspeed the Penitent Snakes. Even with Scroll of Lynine’s bonus, this is only possible with the Feather. Neranda’s Wall hurts AGI, but not enough to matter if the Feather is on. If you don’t have the Wall, the Flashy Shield offers the best balance of DEF and MDF. A mix of ATK and MAG is needed, so the Ashen Spear is superior to either of the specialized items.

Combat notes: You cannot escape from encounters if you’re not in Easy mode. The area is set up to allow you to just walk on through without fighting anything, but again, you will not be able to return. Instead, deliberately challenge all enemies for experience, Sx, and the items they guard. All enemies in this area are versions of ones you fought in the Second Zone, and need the same tactics to handle. Also, during this section Simon is afflicted by the same HP draining Lust-starved effect that he dealt with at the start of the game. HP will drain in battle, and as you walk outside of it. Keep an eye on HP and heal when necessary. If you’re particularly low, remember that you can put on the Magic Crystal for extra healing power. The first encounter, a red flame, may well come to you, and comes with Penitent Snake and a Penitent Flamefly. Attack the snake first (no need to waste MP on an ability, it has only 1 HP). If you don't have the feather equipped, the snake will move first, and you’re going to lose over 1000 hp in the first turn. If that happens, you might as well reload and try again. The Flamefly will die to single Silent Shard.

Walk right and open the chest for an Offensive Rod. As the name implies, it’s an offensive piece of gear, offering +20 to ATK and MAG, but no defensive bonuses whatsoever. It’ll be useful later, but don’t equip it now.

Continue south and be careful of the encounters. The light-blue fire is more north - attack it before moving too far south.

This is a mirror of the red fire encounter: a Penitent Snake and a Penitent Shard. Again, hit the snake first. Then Furious Strike the Shard: its physical weakness ensures it dies in one hit.

Heal to full with Healing Surge. Equip the Pickaxe Charm and seek out the dark blue fire encounter, which has two Penitent Flameflies and two Penitent Shards. The strategy changes heavily depending on whether you have Neranda’s Wall or the Flashy Shield:

Neranda’s Wall: With the defenses from the Wall, this combat isn’t a threat. The shards will do between 200 and 250 hp damage, while the Flameflies will do closer to 60. Furious Strike the shards, then Silent Shard the Flameflies. You should have around 50% of HP left.

Flashy Shield: Without the defenses from the Wall, these enemies can easily kill you. The Shards will do the most damage, between 350 and 400 with the Pickaxe Charm on, so Furious Strike each of them to take them out of the picture. The flameflies will be doing between 200 and 275 damage, and with the chip damage from Lust drain you will die in another hit. Heal instead. Keep Healing until you have more than 300 hp at the end of a turn, then Silent Shard a Flamefly. It will die, and you can tank one more hit. Silent Shard the last Flamefly, and you win.

Open the chest just north of the Forest for the Poison Spear. Like the Ashen Spear, it boosts both ATK and MAG, but the Poison spear boosts more MAG than ATK. It also reduces LUK, deals poison damage on a neutral attack, and confers Poison Immunity.

Heal to full and approach (but don’t engage), the bear guarding the chest on the west. Equip the Feather. You can also swap to the Poison Spear or Magic Crystal, and the Burning Helm or Flashfire Armor, but it’s not required.

Engage the bear, and you’ll see a Penitent Bear and Penitent Snake. Hit the Snake first, as always, then Blinding Pierce the Bear. Unlike the regular bears, Poison Status is hard to apply; hit the bear with Familial Flame instead while keeping it Blind, and you’ll win in a few turns.

The chest holds your glorious reward: another Shining Sword!

Note: If you’re on Easy Mode, this chest instead holds a Holy Draught.

Head south for a scene and some interesting information. Once it’s done, you’ll exit the Gentle Path, which will disappear.

Sx Total (area pickups & monsters): 1314 (Less 1000 or 1200 if you bought Neranda’s Wall)

Walk down, heal, and save. Welcome to the Third and Final Zone!

Third Zone
Another new circle, more new maps, and more new threats! You’ve overcome a lot to get here, and you’re better situated than ever. Surely Simon can handle anything this place can throw at him now. Start by going to the colorful obelisk in the south-west area.

You’ll be warped into an area that makes no physical sense, hanging in a void. Welcome to the House of Mystery!

House of Mystery
There are no enemies here (as Simon notes). This is a purely puzzle area, so there’s no reason to put it off unless you can’t figure out the solutions. If you'd prefer to work out the solutions yourself, skip this section.

Walk south and find the first “puzzle” - it’s really more of an introduction to what the puzzles are, which is to get the boulder onto the switch tile. Push the boulder left to open the door to the south. Move on to the second puzzle, which is an actual puzzle. See below for detailed instructions or refer to the image to the right.

Solution:


 * 1) Walk down the center path and push the western boulder west one tile.
 * 2) Walk back up, left, and down the west path. Push the western boulder south three tiles until it’s on the switch.
 * 3) Push the western boulder south two tiles.
 * 4) Walk up, right, and then down the east path to reach the boulder, and push it west two tiles.
 * 5) Walk down, left, and up to reach the boulder, and push it north two tiles to reach the switch.

Pick up the three shinies for a total of 100 Sx and the Givini Potion. This consumable heals you to max HP and max MP.

Proceed to the third puzzle, and note the shiny Save Point. If you’re going to tackle the puzzle yourself, save before you move any boulders so that you can easily reset the puzzle.

This puzzle has multiple solutions, some more complicated than others, but as long as you can get all switch tiles covered by a boulder, you will succeed.

The solution presented here is one of the more complex ones:


 * 1) Push the easternmost boulder up two tiles onto the switch.
 * 2) Use the loop to get north of that boulder, and push it south one tile.
 * 3) Walk west and loop around all the boulders, to reach the southernmost boulder from the west. Push it east one tile (locking yourself in).
 * 4) Walk north, then east, then push the first boulder you moved one tile north.
 * 5) Walk west, south, then west two tiles, so that you’re south of the boulder that is south of the center tile. Push that boulder north two tiles, and stand on the switch.
 * 6) Push the boulder to the west one tile only to the west.
 * 7) Walk west, the north. Push the boulder east two tiles to the second eastern switch.
 * 8) Walk west two tiles, south three tiles, east two tiles, and north one tile. Push the boulder beside you one tile to the west, then push it one tile to the north, so it’s on the center switch.
 * 9) Walk west around the loop, and push the westernmost boulder one tile to the east. Walk north, then east as far as possible. Push the boulder to the south two tiles.
 * 10) Walk one tile south, then one tile west. Push the boulder that’s on the center switch one tile to the north, then push it west two tiles to the northwest switch.
 * 11) Walk south and then west around the loop. Push the boulder east one tile to the center switch.
 * 12) Walk north one tile, east two tiles, south two tiles, east one tile, and south one tile, to approach the final boulder from the east. Push the boulder to the west until it hits the switch.

Completing this puzzle opens the door at the start of the area. Go back and pick up the three shinies to get another 100 Sx and the Ribbon De Iris, the strongest universal stat-boosting accessory.

Leave via the teleport circle, save, and head to the red-roofed castle.

Castle Vera
Welcome to local civilization! Castle Vera, like Tynaburg in the Second Zone, has various merchants and some static puzzle encounters. The items offered by the robed figures all have the theme of sacrificing one type of stat to boost others. Of those, only the Stamina Charm is worth anything, but don’t buy anything from the robes just yet.

Walk up to the throne room to find an Unsuccubus merchant. She sells the Golden Armor for a whopping 1200 Sx (no discounts!); if you aren’t buying Neranda’s Wall, buy this armor now; it outclasses anything else you own.

Easy Mode Crystal: If you didn't use the Dark Crystal, then another Easy Mode Crystal is here in one of the thrones, and will give you the Bands of Pure Strength. Again, do not take this gift if you are following this guide.

If you have bought the Golden Armor and intend to buy Neranda’s Wall (1000 Sx version only) as well, save your Sx and don’t buy anything else right now. If you can’t buy Neranda's Wall (1200 Sx version only), or just don’t plan to, then go ahead and buy the Stamina Charm here, and also feel free to buy Dream Potions from the merchants in the First and Second Zones. None of the other purchases are worthwhile.

Since you should have either the Golden Armor or the Wall at this point, most builds from here on out will assume you have one or the other. Meanwhile, the Stamina Charm is useful and recommended for those who can’t get both Neranda’s Wall and Golden Armor, but won’t be included in any builds (with a couple exceptions), based on the assumption that you’ll want both the Wall and Armor. After exploring the market, go to the southeast of the castle, through the armory and to the dormitory. You’ll find a shiny (a Fat Root) and a wandering orc, who turns out to be a gift from Balia! It can’t land any attacks and is weak to all elements; it’s literally a free 9999 EXP and 100 Sx.

Go to the Northeast chamber of the castle and engage the blue fire encounter, to meet the Numbermaster. If you escape the fight, Simon will have some insights to share.

Recommended Equipment Build:

Weapon: Magic Crystal

Off-hand: Offensive Rod

Headgear: Frozen Hat

Bodygear: Winter Cloak (or Golden Armor)

Accessory: Ribbon de Iris

Build Notes: Stack MAG and ignore everything else. The Numbermaster is a puzzle boss, and does fixed amounts of damage regardless of your defense.

The Numbermaster follows a set rotation: two turns of 500 HP damage followed by one turn of 1000 HP. If you Silence it, it swaps out the 500 HP attacks for 250 HP attacks, which is much more manageable.

To win, use Silent Shard in the first round. Since it wasn’t silenced at the start of the round, you’ll take 500 HP damage. Cast Familial Flame on the second round, then Healing Surge before it hits for 1000 HP. Watch it’s Silenced status, which may only have 1 round left. You don’t want to let it expire, since that will let a 500 HP attack in, so if at all possible always reapply Silence when there’s one round left. This is the basic rotation: Silent Shard to keep it weakened, Healing Surge to keep yourself out of danger from the 1000 HP damage that drops every three turns, and Familial Flame if you ever find yourself with a free turn.

With the Numbermaster defeated, walk into the chamber it was guarding and grab the Shiny to get the Sexual Strike ability. This ATK based Sex attack is also the only ability that doesn’t use any MP, which makes it key to a couple of fights.

Heal, save, and come back to the castle. This time go to the dining room in the southwest and approach the blue flame encounter that’s guarding the kitchen. Say hello to Lady Luck! If you escape her, Simon once again drops some hints. Pay attention to the name of her attack: Test Your Luck.

Recommended Equipment Build:

Weapon: Magic Crystal

Off-hand: Neranda’s Wall or Icy Book

Headgear: Knight Helm

Bodygear: Golden Armor or Winter Cloak

Accessory: Black Gloves or Ribbon de Iris

Build Notes: Stack LUK, then MAG. Neranda’s Wall gives bonus HP and more Luck than the Icy Book, but if you don’t have it, the Book gives some LUK and boosts MAG. The Knight Helm is the only headgear that boosts LUK at this point. The Golden Armor and Winter Cloak give the same LUK bonus, but the Golden Armor also boosts Max HP, making it preferred if you have it. The Black Gloves give a whopping +50 to LUK and also boost MAG slightly, but if you don’t have them, the Ribbon de Iris does a good job of it too. Since there’s no LUK boosting weapon at this point in the game, the Magic Crystal is preferred for its massive boost to MAG.

Lady Luck will switch between two attacks: Test Your Luck and Unlucky Break.


 * Test Your Luck is defended by the LUK stat rather than anything else. You can get over 180 LUK without access to the Black Gloves and Neranda’s Wall, and over 260 if you do have those. Test Your Luck will do between 875 and 925 damage with the Book and the Ribbon, and around 450 with the Wall and the Gloves. Either way, it hits harder than Unlucky Break, and should be defended against with Defensive Wall. With either of the builds, this will completely block all damage.
 * Unlucky Break hits about half as hard as Test Your Luck, and has a good chance to apply ATK and MAG debuffs. This serves to prolong the fight, but gives you an opportunity to attack or heal in between defending.

To win, use Defensive Wall on the first turn, and then every other turn. On the alternate turns, use Poison Dart until Poison gets applied, then switch to Crackling Lust. Make sure to keep your health up with Healing Surge.

Once Lady Luck is defeated, walk into the kitchen for two shinies: 100 Sx on the prep table, and the Scroll of Tertia to the west in the storage corridor. Use it to get a permanent extra 250 max HP and 25 DEF.

Leave the castle, heal up, and go to the forest in the Northwest.

Outskirts
Welcome to the Outskirts, which plays host to some of the most ravenous bloodsuckers known to man. No, not vampires. Mosquitoes.

There’s two types of mosquito here:


 * Blood Mosquitoes (red-orange) focus on the physical side of things. They drain HP and are blocked by high DEF.
 * Mana Mosquitoes (blue) focus on the magical side of things. They drain MP and are blocked by high MDF. If silenced, they will drain HP instead, but this is never something that’s worth using.

In both cases Crackling Lust hits their weakness and can one-shot them, but they are also fully able to be killed by a neutral attack. Blood mozzies might make this hard by draining your HP and healing from it.

Recommended Equipment Builds:

Neranda’s Wall

Weapon: Magic Crystal (or Ashen Spear)

Off-hand: Neranda’s Wall

Headgear: Frozen Hat

Bodygear: Winter Cloak

Accessory: Ribbon de Iris

Golden Armor

Weapon: Big Axe

Off-hand: Tower Shield

Headgear: Burning Helm

Bodygear: Golden Armor

Accessory: Pickaxe Charm

Build notes: With either build, you’ll have enough DEF and MDF that the mosquitoes will only be annoying, as opposed to deadly. If your MDF is too low, the Mana mozzies will drain you of all MP in a single turn, and you’ll be hoofing it back from the save point after each battle. If your DEF is too low, then the Blood mozzies can prove to be a major issue, especially after the Mana mozzies eat all your MP.

With Neranda’s Wall, Mana Mozzies will eat single digit MP numbers per hit (usually 2 MP), while Blood Mozzies will eat 100 to 155 HP, which is completely manageable, and lets you one-shot everything with Crackling Lust with impunity.

With the Golden Armor build, Blood Mozzies will eat single digit HP numbers per hit (usually 2 HP) while the Mana Mozzies will eat 100 to 200 MP per hit. You’ll lose all MP, but nothing can eat through your HP before you kill it with neutral attacks.

With the Magic Crystal, Crackling Lust will one-shot any single mozzie. With the Big Axe, Furious Strike will one-shot any single mozzie.

Walk in and fight the first encounter. Crackling Lust or Furious Strike the one Mana Mozzie first, so that it doesn’t eat any of your precious MP, and then Crackling Lust or Furious Strike the Blood Mozzie until it dies.

Keep going south, and meet another group of enemies: three Mana Mozzies. They cannot kill you, so use your method of choice to deal with them and move on.

Directly to the east of you is a stationary encounter guarding a skeleton. With Neranda’s Wall, retreat and heal up if you’re low on MP, otherwise go right ahead.

Neranda’s Wall: Be bold and attack. You are greeted with eight mosquitoes: four Blood and four Mana. Crackling Lust the four Blood Mozzies, since the Mana Mozzies can’t dent your mana pool. Once the Blood Mozzies are dead, the Mana mozzies can’t kill you unless you silence them, so use anything other than Silent Shard to finish them off, but ideally Crackling Lust.

Golden Armor: If you have any MP going into the battle, Furious Strike one of the Blood Mozzies as your opening attack. You’ll lose all your MP on the first turn, so just Attack from there on out, focusing on the Blood Mozzies first. In reality, it doesn’t matter too much, since it would take hundreds of turns waiting and doing nothing for the Blood Mozzies to kill you with their 2 HP per hit attacks.

Search the skeleton to get Shockwave Strike: your one and only Area of Effect attack. Simon says what we’re all thinking: this would have been super useful in the fight we had to win to get it.

Retreat and heal up, then return to the forest and go north. Address the wandering encounter to meet three Blood Mozzies. Kill them via your build’s preferred method, then turn your attention to the stationary insect guarding another skeleton.

This is the Ravenous Mosquito, a mid-boss with a gimmick. To deal with it, we’re going to change our equipment.

Recommended Equipment Build:

Weapon: Big Axe

Off-hand: Neranda’s Wall or Offensive Rod

Headgear: Knight Helm

Bodygear: Golden Armor or Winter Cloak

Accessory: Ribbon de Iris

Unlike the other mozzies, the Ravenous Mozzie doesn’t directly drain your HP. Instead, it “digests the blood” and heals to full after every turn, unless it is Stunned. Since Stunning Strike is based on ATK, building ATK will help.

Use Stunning Strike until it gets stunned. With the above builds, you’ll do around 700 or more damage with each Stunning Strike, which means that as soon as it gets stunned and fails to heal up, you can hit one more time with either Stunning Strike or Furious Strike and it will die.

Pick up the Shiny the Ravenous Mozzie was guarding to get the Shielded Stance skill. This is effectively the same as Carina’s Shield of Purity, healing for a reduced amount compared to Healing Surge and buffing DEF and MDF in battle.

At this point, you can return to the build recommended at the beginning of the area, or if you have the Golden Armor you can start making use of Shockwave Strike to eat through the encounters faster.

Shockwave Strike Build

Weapon: Big Axe

Off-hand: Offensive Rod

Headgear: Knight Helm

Bodygear: Golden Armor

Accessory: Pickaxe Charm

This build is only feasible with the Golden Armor, because the armor gives you the ATK needed to kill the mozzies in one Shockwave Strike. Without the Golden Armor, it will take two hits, which means the Mana Mozzies will drain your MP before you can use Shockwave Strike again.

Move east and you’ll meet an encounter with three Mana Mozzies. With the Shockwave Strike build, one such strike will kill all three Mana Mozzies in one hit. If you’re using the original Neranda’s Wall build, they can no longer drain any Mana from you since you should have leveled up to 20 by now.

Keep moving, and you’ll meet an encounter with two Mana Mozzies and a Blood Mozzie. The original Golden Armor build means the Blood Mozzie can no longer do any damage to you. The Shockwave Strike build will kill the Mana Mozzies in one hit, and the Blood Mozzie can then be dealt with via any physical attack.

Keep moving, and you’ll see three shinies: a Key (it dreams of doing Key-like things one day), and two sets of 50 Sx.

The chest is not a chest; surprise! It’s a mimic! Second, nastier surprise: you can’t escape.

If you came into this while low on HP or MP, you may wind up dead; hopefully you’re properly paranoid and expected some kind of Monster in a Box. Adjust your equipment and prepare for a battle. See below for recommended strategy for your item.

Neranda’s Wall

Weapon: Magic Crystal or Ashen Spear/Big Axe

Off-hand: Neranda’s Wall

Headgear: Frozen Hat

Bodygear: Winter Cloak

Accessory: Ribbon de Iris

Use Shielded Stance to remove debuffs and heal, use Healing Surge if necessary to recover health. Offensively, it depends on the weapon used.

Magic Crystal: With the Wall, you can’t get enough raw ATK to kill the Mana Mozzies with a single Shockwave Strike. The Mimic can debuff your MDF, which will let the Mana Mozzies drain all your MP, so build enough MAG to Crackling Lust them in one hit each. Do so, and it leaves just the Mimic. Attack with Familial Flame: while the Mimic resists Fire, it doesn’t matter; with the above MAG-heavy build, Familial Flame still does around 600 to 700 damage, which is comparable to the damage of any physical attack based build you can put together at this point in time.

Ashen Spear/Big Axe: Shockwave Strike x2 to kill the Mana Mozzies, then Furious Strike the Mimic instead of Crackling Lust. However, your healing suffers, especially with the Big Axe.

Golden Armor

Weapon: Big Axe

Off-hand: Offensive Rod

Headgear: Knight Helm

Bodygear: Golden Armor

Accessory: Pickaxe Charm

It’s the Shockwave Strike build! This focuses on raw ATK, boosted by the Golden Armor. Shockwave Strike on the first turn to kill the Mana Mozzies, and then Furious Strike the mimic. Again, remove debuffs with Shielded Stance. Your MAG is low enough that Healing Surge is unlikely to be worth it. Furious Strike should be doing over 1000 damage per use, so the Mimic should go down quickly enough.

As your reward, you get the Heretic Robes. This Bodygear is the magical counterpart to the Golden Armor, and is your new mainstay armor if you chose Neranda’s Wall.

Return, heal, and save. Now it’s time to take care of some lingering business. First, go back to the red-roofed castle.

Castle Vera (Take 2)
In the library (just west of where you fought the Numbermaster) there is a locked door, and you just picked up a Key in the Outskirts. Unlock the door, walk up, and grab the Pink Stone. This accessory has one single purpose: protecting you from Sexbind.

For the next bit of lingering business, go back to Tynaburg in the Second Zone.

Tynaburg (Second combat)
There’s two encounters we haven’t dealt with in this city: the snakes in the northwest, and the big demon in the center of the city. With access to the Shockwave Strike, you can now actually take on the eight Lightning Snakes and live. Make sure you have more than 110 AGI, and don’t use the Magic Crystal. One Shockwave Strike will kill them all, and you’ll be able to go up and get the Scroll of Yelarel. Use it for +50 MP and +25 MDF.

Feel free to save, then go approach the big demon in the center of town.

Recommended Equipment Builds

Neranda’s Wall

Weapon: Big Axe

Off-hand: Neranda’s Wall

Headgear: Knight Helm

Bodygear: Heretic’s Robes

Accessory: Pickaxe Charm

Golden Armor

Weapon: Big Axe

Off-hand: Tower Shield

Headgear: Knight Helm

Bodygear: Golden Armor

Accessory: Pickaxe Charm

The Mana Demon starts by draining all of your MP. This is why we’ve avoided doing anything with him, because it’s not possible to take it down with standard attacks. Sexual Strike changes the equation, since it only uses MP, and hits the Mana Demon’s weakness.

With either of the above builds, use Sexual Strike until the Mana Demon dies. Sexual Strike does around 2500 to 2800 per hit, depending on the build you use. If he were to only attack you, you’d lose, but on the fourth round he’ll spend a turn trying to drain MP (thus why we don’t bother use Fire Leaves to get around the mana problem). With no MP to drain, this means he does nothing for a turn, which lets you win. You’ll be left with 200+ to 500+ HP; the extra HP from items provides insurance.

Walk up and grab the Scroll of Sabitha. Use it immediately for a permanent +25 to ATK.

Warning: You can walk north from the square the demon was guarding. If you exit to the north, Tynaburg will permanently disappear. This is purely for flavor and is not necessary to do at any point. If you still need to purchase Neranda’s Wall, do not exit via the north. Go south or use Retreat instead.

Heal, save, and head to the tree in the Second Zone.

Dry Hollow (take 2)
We ran from the Unpeople in this area before. Now, Simon has drastically improved stats and much better gear, and most importantly, no longer has to worry about Sexbind due to the Pink Stone.

Recommended Equipment Builds:

Neranda’s Wall

Weapon: Magic Crystal

Off-hand: Neranda’s Wall

Headgear: Knight Helm

Bodygear: Heretic’s Robes

Accessory: Pink Stone

Golden Armor

Weapon: Magic Crystal

Off-hand: Flashy Shield

Headgear: Knight Helm

Bodygear: Heretic’s Robes

Accessory: Pink Stone

Walk in and catch the northernmost Unperson. This is a single Zombie: hit it with a Crackling Lust to put it down.

To the west, you’ll find a wandering single Unhuman. Where before it would easily have killed you, now it usually does less than 200 damage. With the Pink Stone, it can no longer Sexbind you and keep you from healing or using Crackling Lust to hit its weakness. You can use Shielded Stance to shut it down even further, but it’s not necessary. Crackling Lust until it dies.

The unperson guarding the shiny in the cliff is a single Unwoman. If you used the Feather, you could exceed 150 AGI and thus move faster than her, but that would mean giving up the Pink Stone and Sexbind immunity, so just accept that she moves first. She does less damage than the Unhuman, so again, just use Crackling Lust to beat her.

The shiny is the Fire Shield, which gives 30 DEF, but -5 MDF; a mirror of the Icy Book. If you don’t have Neranda’s Wall, it’s the strongest physical DEF shield.

Wandering to the east you’ll find an encounter with a Zombie, an Unwoman, and an Unhuman. Hit Shielded Stance twice to shut down all possible damage from them, then use Crackling Lust to take them down one by one. Focus on the Unhuman first, since it can bebuff your offense.

The final encounter is a group of five: two Zombies, two Unwomen, and an Unhuman. Either use Shielded Stance twice and Crackling Lust to wipe them out (focus on the Unhuman first, since it can debuff your offense), or consider the following alternate solution:

Equip Big Axe and Pickaxe Charm. Use Shield Stance twice to block all damage (but not Sexbind). Use Shockwave Strike until only the Unhuman remains (usually three strikes), then switch to Furious Strike.

Grab the shiny they were guarding for Weakening Slash, a physical attack that can apply debuffs to ATK, MAG, and AGI.

Return to the Third Zone, save, and enter the gray rocky cave in the center of the cross of brown dirt.

(Next steps not yet written - recommended path is Demonic Entrance/Psuedodemonia, then Elemental Vortex, then Nyst, then Final Lock)



The Final Lock
This section consists of a series of five consecutive boss fights; it is impossible to escape The Final Lock once entered, so be certain you are adequately prepared. (You should have completed all other battles by this point.) This section is only available if you never used the crystals.

The first boss is the Ancient Guardian. This boss is vulnerable to ice and has two attacks which it alternates between, Blade of Terror and Brinkman's Blade. Notably, Brinkman's Blade reduces your health to exactly 1 regardless of what your health originally was. This boss is easily defeated by alternating between healing (after Brinkman's Blade) and attacking with Silent Shard (after Blade of Terror).

The second boss is the Soulbound Lamia. This boss is vulnerable to fire. However, on the second turn and every third turn thereafter, the Soulbound Lamia attacks with Void Stare, which has a very high chance to inflict Profound Silence for three turns, even with high luck, so assume you will be unable to cast spells for most of the battle. Instead, the most reliable strategy is to prioritize your attack stat and rely on regular attacks to inflict damage. The Soulbound Lamia's other attack, Test Your Speed, deals more damage the lower your agility is, so prioritize that stat. This strategy requires exactly one Fat Root.

The third boss is the Primordial Pool. Upon entering this battle, your SP and MP are both set to 0. Primordial Pool primarily relies on regular attacks, but every few turns it attacks with Punish Mana, dealing calamitous damage (close to 10,000) if you have any MP, so don't use any mana consumables at any point during the battle. Primordial Pool is vulnerable to sexual attacks, so use Sexual Strike whenever your SP is at least 20 and regular attacks otherwise. You will need one Fat Root to survive this battle.

The fourth boss is the Heart of Lust. This boss uses two attacks (whose names this author doesn't remember and can't be bothered to check) in pairs; the second one deals substantially more damage than the first, but the first inflict a whole host of crippling status effects, making the Amulet of Chaos essential. At one (and only one) point during the battle, the Heart of Lust will use Hand of Horror, inflicting the unique Hollowness status effect; this status effect massively reduces all stats and can only be cured by the Unwoman Potion, an item this battle is unwinnable without. Make sure you always have at least 1500 health so that when Heart of Lust uses Hand of Horror, you can tank the ~1250 damage it will deal on the next round before you can use the Unwoman Potion. The Heart of Lust is vulnerable to sexual attacks, so apart from being prepared for the Hand of Horror, this battle is a relatively normal process of attacking with Sexual Impact and healing whenever your health drops too low.

The fifth and final boss is the Forgotten Shard. You will want to begin this long battle by using the Scroll of Wendis. This boss has six moves, although it will only be using one or two of them at any given point in the battle. This boss is neither immune nor vulnerable to any particular type of damage; in terms of raw damage output, Sexual Impact is the most effective attack. It is vulnerable to blind, so except when it is buffing its attack stat using Reflect, you can routinely blind it to cause most of its attacks to miss. This battle consists primarily of healing when your health is getting too low and sneaking in attacks as you can. Notably, when this boss's health is low, it will use Last Gasp: this attack sets your health to 1, debuffs all of your stats, inflicts Profound Silence, and disables the use of items. Don't panic: using a regular attack will deal many times the normal amount of damage, defeating it.

Victory over the Forgotten Shard rewards the Incubus King Sword, the fifth (and presumably last) item in the Incubus King gear set. In the room prior to the Heart of Lust, there is a memory fragment containing dialogue related to Ginasta, but it awards no items.