Rosary's Fate
Following Despisaro's lead, we head back to Rosary Hill to find things much the same. Inside Rosary's tower, however, I do notice that there is a nun holding some sort of mass for a bunch of animals. This might have been happening before and I missed it because I only came in at night - but when I talk to the animals, they all talk back to me! Also, they all seem to be devout followers of Despisaro. The nun tells me this place is only for talking animals and the followers of Despisaro, so I should leave. So I do.
We play the flute again and go upstairs to find Rosary missing. Her helpslime is still there, though, and it informs us that Rosary was taken away by some humans and carried off in the direction of Imar.
At Imar, we find nothing in particular - so I wonder if we need to try to communicate with the missing elf in the dream world again. Sure enough, during our slumber, we're treated to a new vision. And this one is pretty grim. Three people are kicking a prone Rosary trying to get her to cry out a ruby. A furious Despisaro happens upon the scene. Rosary, with her dying breath, begs him to abandon his crusade. But Despisaro isn't hearing it - he kills the three men and declares humanity unforgiveable.
I think we're in trouble, folks.
Going back to things I've said already about the nature of the antagonists in this game, this is definitely the first time we've gotten an ounce of humanity out of a DQ baddie. The final bosses of DQs I~III are simple otherworldly evil, never presented as anything more than an archetypical monster for us to destroy in order to regain peace. Despisaro has a motivation - however thin it may be - and this tiny glimpse of pathos does more to turn him into a memorable character than any previous DQ villain so far.
And I feel really bad for Rosary. :C
It's a Gas
Anyway, the cutscene doesn't give us any clue as to where to go next. It turns out the right answer is to take the gas bag from Estark's temple to Riverside, where the guy manning the transit shop uses it to build us an airship!!!!
Oh sorry, it's not an airship. It's a hot-air balloon.
The balloon gives us the ability to fly anywhere on the world map. It behaves a bit like Pac-Man, flying ahead by itself until we change direction. It can land on most walkable terrain (grass, forest, desert, etc.).
With this, we can cross off several of the areas on our list. The first one I check out is the big "X" on our treasure map, which turns out to be a forest tile in the middle of a vast desert. Walking onto this tile takes us to a village of elves built up around this game's version of Yggdrasil, the world tree. There are a couple of shops and homes on the ground, where we (unsurprisingly) learn the tree has become overrun with monsters. Also, someone has apparently been calling for help from up in the tree.
After this I get back in the balloon to see what else we can find. In the middle of the central ocean is an island we couldn't sail to, so I check that out next. Landing on it actually transfers us to a secondary overworld map, and no matter where we land, we always end up on the west side of this island. The enemies on this island have names like "Hell's Gatekeeper," "Emperor of the Night," and "
Tearing Limb From Limb Animal," so I decide to take off for now and deal with them later.
Walk into the Waterfall
The last notable location I find is a cave due east of Rosary Hill. This spot is one I believe I could have found earlier, but missed. In the cave is yet another unique dungeon! The tileset is beautiful - all of the walls of the place are waterfalls, each cascading in layers down to the cavern floor, and they're all animated. At the end of the first chamber is a suspicious shadow in the wall. Remembering some of the clues from our visit to the nameless village, I get out the "thirst stone" we found there and try using it on the wall. Sure enough, the stone absorbs some of the water and gives us passage into a single chamber with a treasure chest. Inside is "the sands of time," another key item - also references in the nameless village - that we don't know what to do with yet.
But beyond the treasure room is a locked door that requires the jail key, which we also have. Heading through, there's another two floors of the dungeon, all leading up to a final treasure chest containing the
Rogue Metal Sword, which is so far the most powerful weapon we've found for Drac.
Tree of Life
With that cave completed I felt like we had a choice between either revisiting Yggdrasil or the mountainous island. I decide on the former.
The Yggdrasil dungeon is yet another unique tileset, but is honestly kind of annoying to traverse. You have to walk around on the tree's narrow branches and patches of leaves, and if you accidentally walk off, you fall back down to the overworld. This happens to me several times. Additionally, when you reach the top, you discover that the calls for help were coming from one of the sky-world people! This poor woman - named Lucia - arrived here in search of help for her land, but the monsters ripped off her wings.
When we offer to help her, she says we have too many people in our party. >:C
So I have to jump off the tree, kick Minnea out, and re-climb back to the top so Lucia can join. Now, I could have possibly prevented this backtracking if I'd correctly translated one of the NPCs on the ground, who was apparently telling me that the voice was asking for help in groups of three. But I wasn't sure if the elf was saying that three people had already gone up (I thought maybe the people from the dream).
Anyway, it was kind of annoying, but we eventually rescue Lucia, and she tells us that she's heard rumors that the Sky Sword might be in the tree somewhere. As it turns out, the Sky Sword is in a chest literally a few feet behind where Lucia was standing. Nice observational skills, lady!
But, this is good news, as it means we now have all four pieces of the Sky Equipment, and it's time to go meet the big dragon in the sky.
Shrine South of Endor
Sky Armor
Sky Shield
Sky Helm
Sky Sword
Shrine North of Soretta (warp gates)
Gardenburg
Riverside (sealed "vehicles")
Mini-Medals
Magma Staff
Jail Key
Monster Castle Near Riverside
- Gold Ring (Frenor)
- Mountainous island at the center of the world map
Treasure area on map
Strange flute
Thirst stone
Bag from Riverside
Rosary Hill
Transform Staff
Hell Emperor Estark
Gas bag
- Sands of Time
- Figure out how to get to the sky kingdom