Valley of Kastro

Size: 4x2 (Medium) Overall Terrain: Badlands / River valley 24 Hour Speed: Normal Stage Music: Sandstorm Overall Difficulty: 2 Stage Boss: Ares

City & Roshian Temple Information Cities (9) Hidden Cities (0) Roshian Temples (4) Buried Treasure (2) Chilchik   RT #1: W of Chilchik 1) SE of Geral Abad; Rebel Base   RT #2: SW of Geral Abad on the desert island Tash Kent   RT #3: S of Allmata 2) N of Allmata; Boss Castle   RT #4: N of Tash Kent The small patch of Allmata     disconnected desert S of Felgahnna & SE of     Chaos Gate! Tash Kent     Alpha: Muspelm Almalyk     S of Fuluhnze; in the NE of Chilchik     gap in the mountains Felgahnna     right above the one that NE of Tash Kent     is peeking out from the Fuluhnze     edge of the map Slightly SW of Chilchik       Geral Abad (Shop)         Slightly NW of Shaf’       Zahbs         Shaf’ Zahbs / Shafzab       S of Yangully         Somyul         E of Felgahnna & N of         Shaf’ Zahbs

Stage Shop Wares

Geral Abad “CURE” (Cure Potion) 400 Goth “HEAL” (Cure Stone) 700 Goth “ALL HEAL” (Cure Ankh) 2,000 Goth “BELL” (Dinner Bell) 2,000 Goth “REVIVE” (Ethereal Flute) 2,000 Goth

Back to normal items!  No more of that unique useless expensive crap you will never use. This might be a good place to get some more “ALL HEALS” (Cure Ankhs), as they are the least common item of the batch that you can find in stores.

Neutral Encounters

LV: 13 Black Dragon LV: 12 Red Dragon LV: 14 Wyrm Desert Mountains Cliff edges

Two of the three basic Dragon branches are possible to find here. You should have enough of both of them by now. Wyrms are great, but you probably have several. You will run into these guys, especially the Red & Black Dragons, constantly as you move across the map (at least I did!), so this could also provide some cheap and easy experience for your units.

Enemy Units

Different Types of Units: 8 Total Enemy Unit Deployed: 26 Enemy Level Threshold: 12 - 14 Unit# 11-1

It may look like a stupid compilation of units, but there’s a method to the madness. This time anyway!  Any character that has the Mountain terrain type will also move very well in the desert terrain.  So, creatures like Red Dragons & Hellhounds will be at home in the desert as much as they would be when in the mountains!  And, seeing as most of this stage is composed of the brown stuff, they will move quite fast to boot.  The units to watch out for on this stage are Unit# 11-2 & Unit# 11-8.

Beat The Stage!

Prologue:  The Raven Man Ares is an intelligent & ruthless bandit leader. He resigned that post when he joined the Empire to seek fame and fortune. He’s tough & resourceful, and is currently being manipulated by evil. There are rumors of a woman visiting this realm. She is the first female ”Paladin” named Rauny, and is the daughter of Supreme Commander of the Empire, Overlord Hikash.  She has fled the highlands of her own accord, and Ares has been sent here to track her down and ‘retrieve’ her.

This stage is actually really easy.  The only thing to worry about getting right is finding and recruiting Rauny, who is hiding out in R. T. #2.  And, to make things more complicated, only your Opinion Leader will make her come out of her hiding place...  Also, your first Chaos Gate can be found on this stage, so be on the lookout for it!!

Deployment Time!
The flow of enemy units coming out of Tash Kent should be pretty obvious; from west to east.  However, it will not just be a in straight line.  Some units, primarily the flying ones, will not mess around, and take the path right though the big island, which has R. T. #1 on it, and go right at your main base. Others will move along the top border of the map where there is a land pathway.  Most of their units are made so that they can move well across this terrain, so you can either deploy similar units; groups with Red Dragons, Fire Giants, and the like, or have units with Cold attacks and weapons equipped waiting for them!  Canopus should not get too much ahead of all of your other fighting units, but you can still use his unit like you usually do.  Liberate the towns out ahead and then use some “BOOTS” (7 League Boots) to bring everyone else into the action!  A barricade of units that spans the north to south borders of the map, similar to what you used in Pogrom Forest, is a great move here.  Keep your fighting flying units, like Gilbert, ready for quick strikes. Also, you may not need as many city liberating units as is normally advisable, so only deploy the very best ones you have made, or those with special characters in them.

Step 1:  You have all the time in the world to discover Rauny in her hiding place, so you may as well go about it real quiet like.  Get your north-south wall of units assembled and slowly push westward-HO! A good place to stop moving west would be the "line" of towns created by Yangully & Shaf’ Zahbs.  Once the action has died down quite a bit, you can start to move your Opinion Leader over in position without much worry of him/her unit getting attacked.

Step 2:  When you have a shot, have your Opinion Leader liberate R. T. #2.  This is the one that is southwest of Geral Abad.  Here, if your Reputation is pretty high, you will meet the fabled “Paladin” Rauny.  Even though the game banters about that she is a Paladin, her class is actually a Muse.  Go figure...  Good thing she is though, because they rock!  Anyway, Rauny tells you about her predicament, how she ditched her dastardly husband-to-be of a prearranged marriage, and now is trying to figure out how to save the highlands from the Empire.  She figures that by joining your rebellion, she has a pretty good shot at righting the existing wrongs. Rauny is such an awesome character that you had better make sure your Reputation is as high as it can get before you come here.  Otherwise, she will show up and scoff at your methods. And that is all that you will see of her the rest of the game. Sucks, don't it?!

Ally!

Step 3:  You should use Rauny to fight the boss Ares.  After all, he’s the one who is out perusing the bounty on her head!  Only makes sense for her to confront the naughty bird.  So, use the “BELL” (Dinner Bell) & “BOOTS” (7 League Boots) items to deploy a newly constructed unit with Rauny as the leader.  In the ‘heads up’ category, you will want to make sure that this new unit can deal with several Ninja.  Then send her to either the town of Allmata or Felgahnna (they are about the same distance away), and wait for the way to clear.  The first thing that you will notice about Rauny is how incredibly powerful she is.  That is both good and bad. Good, for the obvious reason in that she will kick ass in every fight she takes place in.  Bad, in that she will torch so many enemies, that both her Charisma & Alignment will be 0 before you can even blink!  The fact that she is a much higher level than anything around doesn’t help.  At least she starts out as a Muse, so you don’t have to worry about class changing her. Well...  At least by normal means anyway... Heh heh... I would refrain from having her fight anything except the boss fight on this stage.

Step 4:  With the absence of hidden towns, that’s all there is to do here!  You had better make sure that you find the Chaos Gate with your Opinion Leader while your beefy units finish off the bad guys.  Just to give him/her something to do is all. You can also snoop for buried treasure with other flying units that don’t fight while you’re at it.  This way, you won’t have to waste your time coming back here after the stage has been betean. Speaking of which...

Fight It Out!!

Boss Time!

LV: 12 Ninja   Ares Raven Man HP 215 LV 16 STR 142 CHA 46 AGI 167 ALI 38 INT 145 LUK 62   LV: 13 Ninja LV: 16 Raven Man     LV: 13 Ninja LV: 12 Ninja   6 Direct & 5 Targeted

If only Raven Men were this good when you used them! Not that he does a lot of damage, but his stats are really good; for a Raven Man, anyway!  It’s not his attack so much, but the fact that almost every Directed attack seems to miss him! even some magical attacks will miss him every now and them.  He is weak to Cold & White elemental attacks, as are the Ninja that accompany him. So, a dose of ”Justice” or ”Judgment” Tarot Cards will mop the floor with this unit.  Not to mention a well timed “Fool” card! With Rauny getting it on with her bad self by attacking with 2 Thunder Flare attacks, though, you won’t need nearly this many Tarot Cards. This shouldn't be too bad a battle at all.

Available Items

Only one item to find on this stage, but only if you have a low Reputation.  Otherwise, nothing!

SNES Name: DEMON Selling Price: 230 Goth PSX / Full Name: Sentoul Demon Buying Price: - - Description: “A statue of the demon Sentoul.”

Aftermath

Only one thing to find here; a Chaos Gate!

1) If you did not already find it, there is a Chaos Gate to Muspelm on this stage. It is in the southeastern area of the map.  If you look along the southern border of the map, you will see a mountain range that is comprised of three mountains. The middle one is barely visible, as it just pokes out only a little bit from the bottom of the map.  The gate is right above this mountain, which is the smallest of the three. Of course, you must have the unit searching for the Chaos Gate equipped with the “BRUNHILD” (Brunhild) in order to even find it!