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So the team traveled to Altena and wandered the Snowfield Maze until we encountered the Darkshine Knight, who name drops the Dragon Emperor. Duran gets a bit offended to know the guy is alive because his old man was killed supposedly taking the emperor with him. The Darkshine Knight then recognized Duran and then disappears leaving the team in question though I'm pretty sure everyone knows where that plot thread is going. He leaves behind three Golems who totally kicked my ass on the first attempt. They hit hard, use group hitting spells, and the arena is too small to maneuver. I finally figured out the work around with the A.I. issue. For some reason, the non-responsive A.I. engages once the player character lands a blow. So I can finally switch to Angela to play spell caster with little issue. Once this was figured out, we trashed the three Golems rather easily.

Finding the activated Mana Stone, Duran ponders out loud that letting the bad guys just activate the stones will open up the Holy Land anyway, so maube the party should just sit back and let them do all the work. The Fairy then explains that their method is actually killing the Mana Tree faster, and so the team agree to try and actually stop them from doing so. Undine appears, and is sobbing from the resolve the team has. With my team at Lv. 18, I can upgrade everyone's class, and against my better judgement, I decided that we're going to be Team Dark, so everyone chose their Dark Class Upgrade. The stat boosts alone were nice, but Duran gets a nice upgrade with a better special attack and the ability to use the Magic Weapon infusion spells, which make him far more useful in battle. Kevin is simply just beefier, and Angela is kind of the screwed one here as she only gets one new spell for her trouble and her new special is hardly better than her original. Here's hoping Dark/Dark will change that. Course I now have no means of healing myself with magic...

Afterwards, we head to Hawk's neck of the woods and track down Bigeau and Jessica in Salamando's cave. Bigeau sics her ninja due Ben and Bill,, whom I hope if this game ever does get an official release in the West, will be changed to either Bill and Ted, or Ben and Jerry. These guys hit pretty hard thanks to their Shuriken move, but the team whittles them down and rescue Jessica. We don;t stop the Mana Stone from being activated, but let's be honest here, we all know the party is going to fail this endeavor, and we recruit Salamando into the team. Next stop: Kevin's Jungle Bungalow.