Just to see if I could get by those stone statues, I stayed in the underwater cave until I reached Level 41, then went up the pass to try to pass the statues again. No luck. Once again, when we reached the fourth statue, the ground rumbled and our party was instantly killed. Oh, well.

Fortunately, thanks to helpful readers Terpkristin and Edjemaster, I learned how to get the Invincible over the mountains. The key is to find a low spot, push up against it with the directional pad, then press A to hop over. I checked this out before calling it a night and sure enough, there is a mountainous area to the north-east of Amuru with some low ridges. Using the above trick, it was no problem to hop right over them. It looks like there are a number of jumps to make before we can get to a cave farther in the mountains. I toyed with the idea of continuing on, but I was too tired and low on magic spells. I turned back to Amuru to resupply and rest. We’ll set out for the cave in the mountains tomorrow.

Status: Killing Stuff with a Purpose

Well, without a clue as to what to do next, I set out to level up my characters as quickly as possible to Level 41. Since the first underwater cave worked so well last time, I ventured back there last night for a half hour of random battles.

Just as it did last time, we got some fantastic experience from the battles. Each fight generally gives us three opponents, and each of our characters gets about 3500 experience points per battle. This makes leveling relatively quick, even at Level 39. Unfortunately, I was a bit sleepy last night, and by the time I got my party halfway to Level 41, I was only about 10% awake. I saved, clicked off the DS, and crashed.

I’ll try to finish the rise to Level 41 tomorrow, then go back and try those stone statues again. If that doesn’t work, I may have to resort to my first cheat.

Status: Killing Stuff with a Purpose, but Stuck Overall

We’re supposed to find a cave north of Amuru, which I’m figuring lies inside one of the mountain ranges up there. However, I’ve been all around them several times and I can’t get over them. I’ve been looking to see if there is a low spot in the mountain range that I can fly over, but I can’t find that either.

I thought the Invincible was supposed to be able to fly over mountains, but mine seems to be broken. I come to mountains and stop. If I press the A button, the airship whirls its propellers and rises, but before I can move forward, it sinks back down to its normal, low altitude.

There is one confusing place, and that is the narrow pass that goes through four pairs of Easter Island statues. There looks to be a low spot in the mountain range just beyond the fourth pair. However, the Invincible can’t fly past the statues. When I exit and try to walk past them, I can make it past three pairs, but the ground shakes and my party instantly dies at the fourth one.

At this point, I’m stumped. I only have one, vague idea…

I swear that when I found the Easter Island statues the very first time, I got killed before the fourth one. At that point, I was level 20-something. These last two times, I got past the third statue, when I was level-30 something. Perhaps, just maybe, I have to be level 40 to get past the last pair of stone statues?

Humm. I’m level 39 now, so perhaps I can’t do some quick leveling up and try again. I honestly have no other idea at the moment how to get past the mountains.

Status: Stuck

We locate the correct cave easily, and head inside. The fighting is surprisingly light, and within a half dozen battles we reach the cavernous interior of the Invincible, a mighty flying warship that has just about everything we could want for travel.

This thing rocks. Whereas previous vehicles simply allowed you to get on board and travel, the Invincible is more like a flying town. When you enter the ship you are taken to a separate zone representing its interior. Inside is the following: merchants for weapons, potions, armor, and spells; a mogu for sending mail; a Debumogu (fat Mogu) for storing stuff; and beds for sleeping. It’s a veritable portable town, and it will make adventuring much easier.

Once we find it, Unei gives us some simple directions and then disappears. She tells us to use the Invincible to get to a cave north of Amuru, find the Earth Fang, and then return to the wizard’s castle (Dorga) on the southwestern continent.

Perfect. I like simple, easy directions.

We set sail in the Invincible for that cave. Earth Fang, here we come.

Status: Killing Stuff with a Purpose

After we got the flute, I either completely missed what I was supposed to do, or I totally forgot something. Anyway, I found myself wandering around in the Nautilus, looking for a clue as to what to do next.

By complete chance, I spotted a cave that I hadn’t remembered seeing before, and went up to take a look. After making our way inside, we quickly ran into a wizard, asleep on a dias! Aha! We immediately start playing the flute, which wakes up the guy! Turns out this is Unei, one of those three wizards. Nice! Anyway, she gives us a fang, and tells us that we now have three of the four fangs we need.

Huh? What fangs? I thought we were looking for crystals. I must have totally missed this part as well. And what do we need fangs for? At times, trying to play this game with limited Japanese is like trying to make sense of an LSD trip.

Anyway, she tells us that we’ll need to get the last fang, but in order to do that we’ll need yet another vehicle. Sheesh, I was just getting to like the Nautilus. The vehicle we’ll need is called the Invincible, and it can fly over mountains, which is where we’ll need to go to get the final fang. To get this vehicle we’ll need to go to a cave up north, and Unei wants to come with us.

Onward! For the fang! Why? Who knows!

Status: Killing Stuff with a Purpose.