The Lich, Fiend of Earth
Inside the door, there's a yellow orb that we walk up to and investigate. It turns out it's "he who feeds on the power of earth". So this is our guy. It announces itself as the lich, Fiend of Earth.
As we enter boss mode, his size and presence give the feeling that unlike the Vampire who was done in 2 turns, the lich is the real deal. Taking manual control, I realise that we didn't really heal up in preparation for a fight of this magnitude, so I get Clair to Healara, while the others try to soften him up a little.
Rukus immediately gets paralysed, and without anything to heal it he's effectively out of the fight, so I get Clair to Protect him, while Glitz hastes Kaili, because they're our only physical damage dealer now. The lich counters with Slow, bringing everyone else down, but Kaili back to normal.
Glitz re-Haste's Kaili as Clair casts Heal to keep on top of things - seems like the lich is going for a status-based game though as it tries unsuccessfully to put us to sleep. Already dealt with that tonight though.
In a miracle, Rukus springs back to life, and we decide to take a more offensive strategy. Unfortunately, so does he, and he hits the whole party with Blizzara for well over 100 HP. That puts Clair back on healing duty, while Glitz is also getting some good hits in with Thundara, around the 120HP mark. Rukus though, for some reason is only doing 1HP damage at a time, I guess the axe is a bad fit for this fight, maybe he's resistant to slashing or similar?
The next round we do much the same, and it's Glitz who gets the killing move in, zapping the lich into a million pieces. 3000 gil and 2000EXP thank us for our good deed.
As we stand in front of the Crystal, the smaller Crystal we hold seems to react, and now in our menu it seems illuminated, so I guess that's 1 down and 3 to go.
Most importantly though, behind the Crystal, there's a portal that gives us the chance to leave! And we're teleported back to the world map, praise be!