The Mermaid Enclave
From there we head upstairs to 5F, where there are just 15 rooms, all in a square except for a gap at the bottom-left-middle for where the stairs we just climbed up emerge.
I decide to work through them sequentially from the bottom left, and the very first one contains a mermaid, who exclaims that her prayers have been answered. The one above contains another mermaid who I think is giving us a warning that if the shrine isn't restored there'll be trouble. Again feels like maybe we should have been here before finishing off the Kraken...
The one to the right of there contains 3 chests:
- 9000 gil
- 1760 gil
- a Diamond Armlet
I decide to give Glitz the Diamond Armlet, raising his Defence from 26 to 36. The next house up on the left tells of a friend who went to see the world above. Perhaps that was our evaporating friend from the end of last time out.
It's also made apparent from the next mermaid that we've been breathing underwater this whole time. That's not made abundantly clear graphically, particularly when you can see what look like pools of water around the ruined parts of the shrine. It's not immersion breaking but it doesn't stand up to too much scrutiny, I'd dare say.
Continuing around where we can we find another 2750 gil in a chest. The next mermaid seem to have heard the good news about us saving the shrine, so at least that's good news. We grab another 4150 gil, before speaking to another mermaid who tells us that Kraken is at the base of the shrine. Was at the base, my dear, was.
In a hint for the next area, one of the mermaids speaks of Mirage Tower, says they saw someone enter it, accompanied by "the most lovely chiming sound".
We find another 5000 gil, and then head to the far corner of the map to get Diamond Shield, which adds another 4 to Rukus's defence, then grab another 10,000 and 1,150 from one in the north.
After struggling to work out how to get to the top right hand room, I work out that somehow this area wraps round on itself, leading us to the last room with 3 chests:
- a Diamond Helm
- Diamond Gloves
- The Rosetta Stone!
Mission accomplished! With a fanfare to celebrate, no less!
I guess that means we can consider heading to Lufenia again, and we might be able to get the gist of what they're saying now.
That last step with the Pac-man style walking through from the left to come out at the right is going on the list of design grumbles too. Again, to my mind there didn't seem to be either reason or precedent for it.
But I'll not dwell for now, as we head back to the barrel, all reaching Level 41 and I decide to head out of Onrac to save on the World Map to wrap up for the day.