When we last saw Benjamin, we were about to enter the Ice Pyramid.

Upon entering the Ice Pyramid, we are greeted with a completely empty room, from which there is no exit but the one we came in. But wait, there is a part of the wall which is very clearly a different colour than the rest of the wall! Maybe it's significant in some way?

Phoebe: Let's push it with something...

Benjamin has an idea which isn't verbalised, which I think makes this a puzzle.

A puzzle with an incredibly obvious solution, but a puzzle nonetheless. You can't claw it because it's not climbable, and you can't bomb non-explodable walls, so the only other thing you could possibly do was Axe it. If you couldn't complete this puzzle, you don't deserve to get any further in this game. Or any game. Or life. Or AFTERLIFE.

There's a few directions we can go. We'll head right, around the corner, and then up that corridor to the right.

Oh so it's going to be one of those dungeons...

Alright. We'll head down, then go to the right instead. There's a thin path running up the left wall.

Yep, that little square offshoot has nothing in it either. There's a treasure box at the end of this though!

...

Wait what? This game doesn't have random encounters! What the hell happened?

Anyways, we kill the Desert Hags, and grab the Explosives from the box.

We head back down, and up into here.

OK what?

OK seriously what?

There's a treasure chest at the end of this path, I bet there's another encounter before we get to it.

OK I was wrong. Well, that's everything over here, we'll backtrack to the front door again.

Wait, that monster wasn't there before... Oh I get it! The monsters are (well, were) invisible, but getting the Magic Mirror made them appear! This doesn't make any sense! How can one mirror let you see monsters in every direction at the same time? Oh wait, it's magic.

Anyways, we'll leave that Desert Hag where it is, and head down. There's some treasure boxes, but they contain Refreshers and Arrows and as such may as well be EMPTY. We'll head up the first path, and run into that Desert Hag right at the top left.

There's a Mage here. What's more important is the fact that the Desert Hag we left behind earlier can now be seen to be guarding NOTHING. Dick. Anyway, through the Mage and up the stairs.

Oh no.

Oh please no.

Why? Why must there be reskins within the same section of the game?! It's not as bad as the Behemoth/Gorgon, Mintoaur/Minotar Zombie bullshit, mainly because in this case there was at least a minor dungeon before the reskin, but it's still pretty bad.

Anyway, the Phanquid is, unlike it's predecessor, weak against Fire. Sphinxes have no weaknesses, and can inflict confusion, which can make them really difficult to fight as, outside of a Critical Hit, they will not go down in one.

The treasure box contained Heal Potions, and there's nothing else we can get here, so we'll head back downstairs.

As you can see, this is where those Arrows and Refreshers were. We'll head up this second path now.

We'll take care of these here Lamia...

...then this Mage, and up the stairs we go.

Hmm, this Lamia appears to be guarding the end of a corridor.

Oh wait, it turns out that wasn't the end. The box contains arrows. Let's head back downstairs.

We'll take care of this Desert Hag, and the barely visable Lamia to the right.

Down and around the corner, then all the way back up again. The philosophy of this dungeon seems to be "Fill up all the space with NOTHING".

We'll kill this Mage, then head upstairs.

Hmm. Meanwhile, on the bottom side of the wall...

Oh, it's some arrows. Beyond that barely visable Lamia is linear corridor containing a Mage and...

...a Phanquid. We'll take care of it then NOT head up stairs. No point heading up to floor 3 when we haven't finished on 1 yet. I'm not sure how fulfilling this will be, but whatever.

We'll head to the left.

Then down and through the Desert Hag. Just below those stairs is a Mage, which kill and head back up to the second floor.

Hit the blue thing and the door to the left opens.

More arrows. That's the fourth set so far. That's TOO MANY FUCKING ARROWS. Anyway, we kill whichever Lamia, then whichever Mage.

Ah, a new enemy.

The Stoney Roost! They're weak against shoot attacks! Which is reasonable because it's a bird and the Sparnas were weak against shoot attacks! Yay for consistency!

But, if you attack it with the Claw, Sword or Axe, it'll counter with petri-touch. This will petrify you, but you would be forgiven for thinking it turned you into a dish of some sort. No, it petrifies you, which is as bad as death. In terms of gameplay, I mean, obviously. But even if you don't attack it directly, it can still use Stone Beak, which petrifies you, as a standard attack. So if you don't kill them quick, they'll turn you to stone to death.

So after the Stoney Roost, we get through the Phanquid, and there's a treasure box at the top right.

WE DON'T NEED ANY MORE ARROWS.

There's another Phanquid. We kill it, then head up the stairs it was guarding.

There's a Stoney Roost up here that needs murdering.

Oh, there's still some enemies we haven't discovered yet. Let's take a look at these.

Gather? Gather is a VERB. You cannot call things by VERBS. Therefore, Gather is also a noun. Presumably, a gather is something that gaths. Or something from Gath. Either way, it's something that doesn't really make sense.

Oh, well that's good to know. It doesn't really make sense though. Gathers can blind you, and can also reflect magic. So basically, you can end up killing yourself with Thunder. That wouldn't be clever, so don't do it.

AW HELL NO. The distance between the Snow Crab and this Freezer Crab is a fucking Battlefield. The reskin's less blue and more silver, just in case you cared. Anyway, we kill the Crab, and get the treasure boxes. There's Heal Potions in one, and...

OH SHUT UP.

Anyways, there's some more stuff on the first floor that we need to take care of.

We'll kill this Lamia...

...then this Mage, then head up the stairs.

Through this Stoney Roost, then stab the statue, and open the treasure box.

WHY DID THEY THINK WE NEEDED SO MANY DAMN ARROWS?

Back down the stairs, and on along the corridor.

Aw hell no.

So we're ready to head up onto the third floor now. FINALLY.

We'll head down to the left, through the Desert Hag and into the badly hidden attempt to fill space. The ridiculously snake-y path contains a Stoney Roost, Gather, Freezer Crab, Desert Hag and artificial gameplay lengthening!

At the end of the winding road, there's a door. We'll head through...

..and there's another Stoney Roost. To the right, you can see that room what were in earlier. They were really trying to fill space, huh?

Anyway, at the top of the room, there're two treasure boxes, containing Explosives and...

I maintain that it's absolutely impossible to run out of ammo for weapons.

Back outside and down the corridor, there's another Stoney Roost, and a path leading up.

Ah, I see what's going on here. We've got to go to the other side and hit the switch in order to open this door. So let's head back, shall we?

We've got a Desert Hag and Stoney Roost to get through.

There's a Gather here, and if we want that treasure box, there's a Freezer Crab to get through.

OK WHAT THE HELL?

Further down, there's another Freezer Crab, and a treasure box.

THIS IS GETTING FUCKING RIDICULOUS.

We get through the Gather, then stab the statue.

Obviously we didn't just teleport across, but you know how we got here...

UCETC?

Yeah you can walk straight through that. Oh, and there's stairs, terrific! Maybe the next floor will have items that are actually useful!

I see a chest. A chest cannot possibly contain arrows, so I'm happy to see it, even if it's full of bricks or something.

We'll head to the right.

I have a distinct feeling that this dungeon was designed to infuriate the player in a manner as passive-aggressive as possible.

AND IT'S WORKING.

So we have a Mage here. We kill it, then walk all the way around the room. There's no way into the centre section from here.

Note: We've met this monster before. It's a Sphinx. This is just the first time we've seen it outside of battle. It's only recently built up the confidence to take control of its own life. So we kill that, and head on up the stairs.

Do you get it yet?

...

I'll give you a minute...

...

That's right! We have to jump off! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

And we end up in here. Alright, let's start with the treasure boxes at the bottom. Heal Potions and...

WHY?

We'll take care of the Gather in the middle.

OH FUCK THIS. THE OTHER ONE CONTAINS A CURE POTION BY THE WAY.

OH SHUT THE FUCK UP

I actually stood here for around ten minutes stabbing and *THWACK*ing this, just to stop the whole room from glowing red.

Let's kill this Phanquid and OH GUESS WHAT?

And some REFRESHERS! Let's see what's in the chest then.

Hmm. This is pretty good. We're protected from Poison and strong against Water attacks, and the Defense power is double that of our old stuff, so yay for that.

Back upstairs and to the left, there's a Sphinx. With some treasure boxes. Surprisingly, neither of them contain Arrows. They both have Explosives instead.

WHY WON'T YOU GIVE ME ANY FUCKING SEEDS THOUGH?

Let's kill this Stoney Roost, and follow the needlessly winding path to the centre of the room.

It's actually surprisingly easy to fall off. So, you know, don't.

So we kill this Gather, and NOT kill that Freezer Crab!

FUCKING A. The box contained a potion of some sort. Not sure what. It wasn't arrows though so SUCCESS.

So now we jump across this...

...and over this. This also contained a potion of some sort.

We have to jump over the box and fight this guy, because we can't turn around without moving and that would send us falling to our DOOOOOM. Also, we can't get onto that long staircase for some reason. If we try to jump onto it, we just stop on the tile before and drop down.

We've got to kill this Sphinx to get through.

See that cracked piece of ground? Guess what we do to it! No seriously, guess!

WRONG!

And down we go!

We've got some falling to do! Three floors of it, to be precise!

And we're back in the very first room of the dungeon. You may recognise this area from the past.

Wow, that's a huge door.

This really isn't as much of a clusterfuck as it looks. We'll take out the Lamia at the bottom, then open the chest.

OH HELL YES. The Knight Sword has an attack power of 95, making the Steel Sword's 52 look pathetic! Because it is!

Now we can just jump over this chest, and run around the outside and grab these treasure boxes. Heal Potions, Cure Potions and...

...

...ARROWS.

Oh that must be the boss.

Monster: I'm enjoying our little game...

...THE HELL? What the hell was he talking about? What game? The Game? This game? Did he just break the fourth wall? I DON'T HAVE A CLUE.

We now have to talk down these stairs to get under the floor. This will allow us to reach the door, which is on floor level. Why the hell they didn't just make the floor the only level and have the door on it is beyond me.

These can be blown up to reveal a bare wall. There is nothing to be gained from doing so, though. Anyways, we take care of this Lamia, and head on through.

We'll kill this Sphinx, and start climbing up the wall. At the top of the wall, there's another Sphinx to kill. Beyond that is a door.

Ah, so that's how we get onto this staircase.

Ooh, another stabbable statue.

It reveals these two treasure boxes but, they don't seem to be on the same plane of existence as the staircase, so if we want them, we'll have to fall off the staircase and do a lot of backtracking.

AW HELL NO.
FUCK FUCK FUCK.
So we fall all the way down the big hole again, climb up the wall, walk up the staircase and end up back at the doorway, beyond which is a long, winding path leading up to the boss.

Monster: Take this!
"Hey man, mind explaining why you bothered teleporting to a room when the only thing between your two positions was a Lamia and two Sphinxs?"
"SHUT UP."

Alright so here's the Ice Golem, and yes, he IS weak against Fire. If he wasn't, it would be the single greatest lack of sense this game could possibly make. He's clearly MADE OF ICE. If he's not weak against Fire, this game is fucked.

He can inflict Sleep, which can be a bit of a problem, but it's not too serious.

Ice Block deals quite a lot of damage, which can cause quite a few problems.

Benjamin's recently found strength against water attacks is actually quite useful in this battle, because a few of Ice Golem's techniques show up as water attacks, Snowstorm in particular.

If you kept Phoebe's Black Magic (and thus Fire) saved for the boss fight (like I did!), you'll find the battle a lot easier. That said, the battle is somewhat tougher than those encountered previously. There's a far greater need to Cure and Heal than there has been in the past, and failing to do so can cause disaster (well, as much disaster as you can have in a game where you can retry any battle you want).

After the battle, the Ice Golem explodes (?) and the Crystal of Water appears.

Phoebe: Don't forget to see Grandpa!
Benjamin: Right. Bye!
Oh yeah, I almost forgot that Spencer was the reason Phoebe was even here in the first place.

ILLEGAL TENDER GET!

And now, we have to get out of here all by ourselves. It's not hard.

Oh, everything's thawed out already. I know the fiend was keeping everything frozen, but you'd think that the thawing process would still take TIME. I let it slide with the Crystal of Earth because it was sucking the life out of everything, and that basically NEEDS magic in order to make sense. But this! This is thermodynamics for frick's sake! You can't screw with thermodynamics!

Also I'm not happy with how the plot-important plant just vanished for no real reason.

UCETC?

Yeah you etc.

Up these stairs, and around onto a seriously long path. Seriously. And it's just a series of stairs and bridges, and it's possibly the most boring, pointless segment of the game.

Once we get to the bottom, we head into that notch which is actually a door.

And here we are. Let's head on down.

Ah, Spencer! Glad to see you made absolutely no effort to get out the door!

Benjamin: Phoebe and I restored the Crystal of Water's light.
Spencer: Then you're the Knight in the Prophecy! The shield has found its owner!
Benjamin goes ??
Spencer: A shield used by a Knight in days gone by. Captain Mac found it.
Benjamin goes !!
Benjamin: Captain Mac! I've heard that name before!
Spencer: For years Mac's been studying a Prophecy. On his way back from doing some research, the lake dried up and his ship ended up on a rock ledge.
Benjamin goes !!
Spencer: But that's no problem. If we dig from here, we'll be able to reach the ship. Anyway, here's a key. The shield is hidden in the Focus Tower.

I like how Mac trusted Spencer with the key but not with the exact location of the actual shield. SO MUCH FOR FRIENDSHIP HUH?

Translation: The plot is in Fireburg, go find it.

So, with nothing left here of any real importance, its time to head back towards the Focus Tower.

Ooh, a new path has opened up! And it's got a few Battlefields in!

This one's Phanquid and Phanquid/Sphinx. And our prize is...

Exit! It's a White magic spell that... well, why don't I show you?

This Battlefield is Freezer Crab and Freezer Crab/Gather. You wanted to see what Exit does?

Exit, ladies and gentlemen, is an instant one-shot kill on everything it works on. It doesn't work on major enemies, such as bosses, but apart from that, it's pretty reliable.

Our prize for this Battlefield?

MRPHRPHSUCKSGRRRPH

AND NOW: THE FOCUS TOWER

Alternatively...

AND NOW: THE FOCUS TOWER

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