When we last saw Benjamin, he had just ascended a volcano and was about to begin descending it FROM THE INSIDE.

Oh, and the Fire Crystal's there.

I need to warn you, this dungeon was incredibly confusing to navigate and therefore, might be difficult to follow. I'll try my damndest to make it clear what I'm doing but if I fail JUST RUN WITH IT ANYWAY. We've got stairs to the right, but let's not bother with them.

The Lava Dome consists entirely of new enemies. Not unfamiliar enemies (there are a few reskins), but enemies that we haven't encountered before. The first of which is this: Hot Wings.

You may remember the Stoney Roost from the Ice Pyramid. Hot Wingses can still petrify us, but (thankfully) can't immediately counter-attack with petrification. This makes them much less annoying. Unfortunately, the fact that they aren't weak against water makes them a little more annoying.

So, after taking care of them, we've got stairs and cave. We'll check out the cave for now.

Ah, a new new enemy!

Fangpires are vampires, in case you hadn't noticed. Vampires. In a volcano. This doesn't make sense at all. They can Confuse us. They're also weak against Fire, which really doesn't make sense for an enemy in the Fire area. There are two reasons for this:

1. Experience dictates that enemies here should be fire-based and thus weak against water.
2. The monsters being weak against Fire means that, since they are here, they should ALREADY BE DEAD.

Stupid thing.

We are also introduced to the Avizzard. They can cast Confusion, aren't weak against any of our attacks, and have a little bit more HP than anything else. This makes it one of the few monsters not really easy to kill. Hooray for it I guess.

So we kill them and get jumping, and there's another new thing at the other side.

Adamant Turtles are, like the Land Turtles from way back in Wintry Cave, weak against Axes. They're also weak against Quake, but why would we use that when we can axe them without wasting magic?

The treasure box contains Explosives.

Back outside and down the stairs. To the left, we've got ourselves another new new enemy.

Quoi le fuck? Ninjas? In a volcano? I think the thing I find more bizarre though is that... they're people. Not monsters, people. They need motivation and the like to be believable enemies, and the idea of Ninjas believing in the ideals of a collection of monsters destroying the world is something which causes my willing suspension of disbelief to shred itself to pieces with a scimitar.

Also, given the audience the game is designed for, what we have are Ninjas...

...in America.

What the hell made them think this was a good idea? Maybe the same thing that made them think vampires in a volcano made sense? Or that bedsheet ghosts as an enemy made sense?

Oh. As enemies, they aren't particularly hard to tackle. No exploitable weaknesses, but nothing particularly worrying about them.

So we'll take care of them, then head in the cave.

There's a Hot Wings and Ninja blocking the path.

We can get to the jumping squares to the left by walking up, but we can't get to the other side because of the boulders blocking the path. Presumably, we're meant to push them into the lava from the other side to create a shortcut.

To the left, we have a whole pile of enemies and three treasure boxes. We can get to all of them by killing only one enemy and jumping. The boxes contain Cure Potions, Heal Potions and Refreshers.

Beyond the boxes is a large, empty area which leads to a smaller corridor.

That thing by the stairs looks new but it's just the sprite of an Avizzard.

Stairs and stairs!

Ninja, Fangpire, Adamant Turtle and...

Nooooooooooo! A Jinn reskin!

My god. It's basically the same except SLIGHTLY darker. Jinn -> Iflyte is the new Behemoth -> Gorgon.

I've discovered from a "reliable" source that Iflyte is a mistranslation of Ifrit which, as Final Fantasy enthusiasts will know, is one of the recurring summons of the series. And they messed that up.

Aside from the obvious HP drop in being converted from a boss to a standard enemy, Iflyte and Jinn are pretty similar. Iflyte's now weak against water (WELL THANK GOD SOMETHING IS, EH?) but now he can put us to sleep. His HP is also relatively high, but he's not too much trouble.

So after taking care of him, we head out the door.

Outside, we've got an Iflyte, and a button which opens a big flaming door o' doom. Presumably, getting to this door is the main goal of the dungeon. I mean, if we get to it and it turns out that there's fuck all but arrows in there, I'm going to be pissed.

Back through the tunnel and out the other side, we'll head down this wall and attack this here Avizzard.

Down the stairs, and into this tunnel here.

Through this Colonel's Original Recipe. Beyond that Ninja is a treasure box containing Cure Potions. Beyond that Avizzard is...

Wait a minute...

boooooooooooooooooo

Stheno has picked up a weakness to Quake during the crossover, but it doesn't matter because the Morning Star takes her down in one anyway. Confusion, Paralysis and Petrification are the status effects she can inflict. All three of these stop you from being able to do anything and are thus very annoying if you happen to end up in a battle with more than one of these things.

Past her, and up the stairs, there's a door.

It's a room with two levels and lots of jumps. Fun times are to be had.

The hell?

Salamands are reskins of Flazzards from... the Mine? That's one minor dungeon between reskins. The fact that it's just standard enemy to standard enemy makes it even worse, possibly the worst instance in the entire game.

We've had immediate boss to mook conversions and now mook reskins with one dungeon in between. Not sure which is worse of the two, but the only place lower than this would be mook reskins in adjacent dungeons...

Actually, a place lower than that would be mook reskins in the same dungeon, but that's not going to happen...

...right?

Salamands are weak against ice (woooooooooooooooooo) and not particularly strong.

Take the Stheno, then head upstairs. Through the next Stheno and around to the right.

Over the gap and through the Adamant Turtle. Then, we have to take the path all the way around the outside of the room, through a Salamand on the way, to the door.

Well, there's a Stheno before the door, but yeah.

A collection of enemies and treasure boxes. We'll take out Fangpire in the middle, getting the tasty goodies within, and walk through. There's a Ninja at the bottom left, just by the door. We'll go through both.

Out of the tunnel, and we start climbing up the wall. Through the Ninja, and into the tunnel we go!

On the other side of this wall is a treasure chest and a large group of enemies. The purpose of this room seems to simply infuriate the player who wasted time killing the Ninja outside only to be told that the treasure is in another castle cavern.

Which is just mean.

Back outside, down the wall and up the stairs, there's an Avizzard. There's also an Iflyte, but we'll head in the cave first.

This room contains absolutely nothing but serves to ensure that the player realises that they're going down.

This is another room with jumps and levels. We'll demolish this Bargain Bucket and head downstairs.

I'm not entirely sure what this is meant to be but it looks like gold. You can't collect it or do anything with it though. It's sole purpose seems to be to block the passage.

Except you can just jump over it so uhm yeah.

We'll head up and through that Salamand. I've had a look around the room and it doesn't look like there's anything here except treasure boxes, so we'll head to the left over the gap and towards the stairs.

These stairs.

These stairs serve to demonstrate descent also. The boxes contain Explosives, Cure Potions, Heal Potions and Explosives.

Outside there is only one treasure chest, containing more Explosives.

Explosives are the new arrows.

So let's head back upstairs to that Iflyte.

Down the wall we go.

To the left, there's a Ninja guarding the stairs.

At the bottom of the stairs, there's a cave. There's also an Avizzard, but we'll leave it for now.

Inside the cave, I can get a glimpse of a chest, a Stheno and a rock, just like the two we encountered earlier.

"My thought process upon seeing this, paraphrased," wrote:

Wait.

If that's all there is on this side, how the hell am I meant to get there to push the rock?

Oh fuck.

It's at this point that I realised that pushing the rock into the lava was NOT what was supposed to happen. Let's get there and I'll show you what was meant to happen. There's an Adamant Turtle and an Iflyte waiting.

Here's what was meant to happen.

Yeah.

I was meant to throw a Mega Grenade at the boulder. Basically, I completely forgot that the Mega Grenade had uses outside of the plot. I was also tricked by the fact that these boulders look EXACTLY THE SAME as the one in Level Forest way back at the start of the game that we did have to push.

So now we have to find our way back to that room at the start.

But first, let's see what was inside that chest.

And with that, Benjamin has completed his White Magic collection! And the death of Reuben (and other NPCs) becomes deal-with-able.

We'll head back around and climb up this wall here.

Stheno or Iflyte? STHENO OR IFLYTE?

Wait it doesn't matter.

On the other side of them is a door.

On the other side of that is a treasure box.

Frickin' partaaaaaaay.

Through that Iflyte and down the wall and hey, we're on the other side of that Avizzard we left behind earlier. We'll kill it, and head up the stairs. Twice.

There's a Popcorn Chicken at the top of the stairs and... the stairs into the dungeon?

And now we discover the gimmick of this dungeon: a loop. More specifically, the left and right sides of the dungeon are connected together, making the dungeon cylindrical in shape, much like... well... much like the inside walls of a volcano would be, I suppose?

So now we're back at the start, it shouldn't be too hard to get back to that room that we foolishly left un-looted.

We'll destroy a rock with a bomb, then head through the Stheno and up the stairs.

A Ninja. There is also a Fangpire.

Ah, and here's that big pile of enemies with a chest! Beautiful. We'll take that Avizzard out, then take out a Ninja and the chest is ours!

woooooooooooooooooo

The Moon Helmet improves upon the Steel Helmet by dragging its Defense Power from 4 to 9, and granting us resistance to Fire, which is useful in a volcano.

Now, lest we forget what we're actually trying to do here. We're trying to get to a (now open) flame door. Only problem is, I haven't seen any sign of how to get to it since we pushed the button.

After nearly 20 minutes of trying to find another cave, I realised something:
"Flea's lack-of-thought process" wrote:

You remember that room that you didn't actually search through because you concluded it was empty after a not-particularly-thorough look around?

Maybe it's in there.

I then spent another 15 minutes actually trying to find that room again.

This room? How's about heading up instead of straight out of the door. Oh, and this picture was taken in the past. That Salamander is already dead. DEAD.

So we head up and jump to the right, where we're greeted by a Mini Fillet.

Around the path and down the stairs, there's another Crispy Strips. We kill it, head up the stairs, kill the Ninja, then jump over the gap and walk along the path.

Over another gap, and hey, there's that door that wasn't there that we were looking for.

And on the other side of that door we were looking for is that door we were looking for wait what?

There's a Salamand and some jumping paths left and right. We'll take left for now.

Hmm. Let's head up.

A Stheno. To the left is a treasure box full of wonderful Cure Potions. The Salamand blocks another path.

Ah! The boss! With two heads!

Eh. I personally prefer "Mwa ha! I'm enjoying our little game..." but whatever.

The Dualhead Hydra has quite a few strong and status-inflicting attacks. Paralysis, poisoning pand petrifcation can be inflicted upon your persons.

Despite both Benjamin and Reuben having armor strong against Fire, the Hyrda's Fire Breath still does a fair bit of damage, so be careful and use Life to cure yourself for God's sake.

"Hey, uhm, where'd my other neck go?"
It doesn't have any weaknesses that are exploitable, so we just have to use the standard "use White as much as possible" plan. Which works well.

He's trying to trick Benjamin and Reuben into thinking there's something approaching rapidly from behind. He's failing.

He's also dead now.

Reuben: I remember a person from Windia saying something about a Crystal...
Benjamin: Windia? Where's that?

Come on Benjamin, how can you not see the pattern here? HINT: FOCUS TOWER.

If you read this with a sarcastic tone, it fits a lot more. Seriously, Reuben knows what the deal is.

BOOM.

Oh that can't be good. Obligatory timed escape level now?

Uhm. Or not. Apparently the cave inside the mouth of a volcano isn't affected in any way by the eruption of the volcano itself.

INAPPROPRIATE PICTORIAL REPRESENTATION OF THE SUN ENGRAVED ON A METAL DISC GET!

Ah. That door was bouldered up before the eruption, so presumably that was the only effect it had on the cave.

Stairs and a door, and we're out!

Ladies and gentlemen, presenting: The first dungeon with a back door!

That lava flow seemed to clear a path between the volcano and a Battlefield (and nothing else). Inside we have Stheno/Stheno and Iflyte/Iflyte.

BUT!

There's a twist to this Battlefield! Every single battle is an Unexpected Attack, which means the enemies get a free turn. When the enemies have so many status inflicting attacks, this can be very annoying.

Barrgh.

It's a fire door. It's the only door left and a traspillion GP says it leads to Windia.

Or maybe, it doesn't!

Next Chapter