Alpha: Muspelm

Size: 3x2 (Medium) Overall Terrain: Sky Island 24 Hour Period: Long Stage Music: Autumn Sky/ Womanheart Overall Difficulty: 2 Stage Boss: Slust

City & Roshian Temple Information Cities (8) Hidden Cities (0) Roshian Temples (3) Buried Treasure (4) Alkatrum   RT #1: S of Segejin; along 1) NE of Alkatrum; on Rebel Base   the road the island E of the Muspelm   RT #2: NW of Fidelin mountain Boss Castle   RT #3 (H): E of Fidelin; 2) SE of Alkatrum; on Chifla   near the edge of the map the island on the E side NW of Muspelm; at the     3) S of Chifla; on the edge of the island     island NW of the double Dannis     mountain W of Muspelm     4) NE of Dannis; on the Fidelin     island SW of the double SE of Muspelm     mountain Insala (Shop)     Chaos Gate! Slightly SW of Segejin     Beta: Organa Segejin     S of Alkatrum; on the NW of Alkatrum; along     island on the W side the road         Taudeni         SW of Alkatrum; along         the road

Stage Shop Wares

Insala “CURE” (Cure Potion) 400 Goth “ALL HEAL” (Cure Ankh) 2,000 Goth “REVIVE” (Ethereal Flute) 2,000 Goth “JOKER” (Joker Tarot) 2,000 Goth “CHARM” (Persuasion Spell) 50,000 Goth

Besides the supply of great staple items that you routinely burn through, there is a new item (& expensive!) available for you. The “CHARM” (Persuasion Spell) is a nifty little object that can really help out the make up of your army.  A tad bit pricey, but they can be worth it.

M.O.B.Q. Tip!

This “CHARM” (Persuasion Spell) item has several uses.  The primary use is to get character classes that you have no hope of getting because of poor Charisma & Alignment management. Some stages are better to use these on than others, because not every stage has those oh so tough character classes in units for your taking. The best stages to steal classes from would be Antanjyl or Antalia, even though they are quite a ways away.  But the prospect of getting Vampyres, Werewolves, Tiger Men, & Sylphs for the use of an item should be an inviting prospect to you!  just remember that you cannot absorb the entire unit into your army because the unit leader is immune to the “CHARM” (Persuasion Spell).  There is a minor secondary use that this item can have, and that is to render enemy units completely ineffective, because it’s like killing off characters in the enemy unit! This is a rather expensive way to deal with tough units though, so I wouldn’t recommend it!

Neutral Encounters

LV: 15 Fire Giant LV: 15 Raven Man LV: 15 Red Dragon Mountains Mountains Mountains

None of these classes should be anything too special for you at this point in your journey.  You should even have all three by now from other neutral encounters on other stages.  I believe that the Raven Men can be found in the lakes in the middle of the sky island as well as the other two beasts, so don’t be surprised if you find one there as well.

Enemy Units

Different Types of Units: 7 Total Enemy Unit Deployed: 23 Enemy Level Threshold: 13 - 15 Unit# AL-1

You get a slight break as far as different types & total units that you fight on this stage. Maybe the Empire couldn’t get as many guys up here, who knows! As an added irritant, you have to make extra certain that you win battles that take place near the perimeter of the sky island. The reason why is because if a unit that has no Low Sky or High Sky characters in, and it gets pushed over the edge, they will fall to their death!  If this happens to one of your units, it will get returned to your stockpile, but every single character in the unit will be dead! They will have to be revived in order to fight on this stage again. That sorta happens when you fall off of a floating sky island! The units themselves are not really all that tough. A lot of classes that are deployed are of the Snow terrain type, even though there is no snow for them to move around in.   Use Fire attacks & weapons in those cases.  The only tuffies are Unit# AL-4 & Unit# AL-7.

Beat The Stage!

Prologue:  The ruler of this floating palisade is the knight known as Slust the Red.  It appears that you have arrived too late, as he has been mentally dominated by Rashidi’s magic.  Only by besting him in battle will he come to his senses. And, possibly help you out in your journey...

Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it?  Well, actually, it is!  This stage is not really hard at all. The only thing that might make it hard is that the levels of the enemy units might be much higher than your own, which could result in some messed up Charisma & Alignment in your units.  However, this will be a good chance to gain some levels for your ‘goodly heroes’ without fear of losing any Charisma & Alignment.  You could maybe even afford to give some of your real high level fighting units a break this go around.  If you want to, you could even have your Opinion Leader fight some, just as long as he/she does not have 100/100 Charisma & Alignment!

Deployment Time!
There is a convenient road straight to the boss castle of Muspelm.  You could take this road, or you could just cut right across the middle of the map with your flying units.  Of course, this road is where you want to send the majority of your city liberating units down.  Canopus or any one of your High Sky liberating units should head to the extreme west and take the town of Chifla.  You can then “BOOT” (7 League Boot) over some ground units if you are impatient. A Mountain terrain unit or two, such as Lyon, would not be too bad an idea to patrol around the middle of the map. The enemy sends almost every single unit, especially the ones that can fly, through this region.  You will want to intercept them as quickly as possible. All of your fighting flying units, like Gilbert, can rove around where needed with no problem.  The rest of your units can head down the main road and liberate towns at their leisure.

Step 1:  There's not a whole lot of goings on with this stage. While your other units are busy pressing closer to the boss castle of Muspelm or liberating the towns along the road, your Opinion Leader can run around behind the scenes and locate the Chaos Gate to Organa, which is located on the island directly south of your main base Alkatrum.  You can send some city liberators to the southern edge of the main island if you want, but if you do it too early, then the some enemy units will start to swing down there, which you don't want to happen.  There is only one town down there as well, and it’s deep in enemy territory, so you can’t simply get one unit there and use some “BOOTS” (7 League Boots) to bring the rest on over.  They only work on towns, not temples anyway.  Besides, you want to keep the enemy in it’s stupid linear line of thinking, which is attack your base in the most direct path. Canopus can liberate the town of Dannis on his way to Chifla, and pick up some buried treasure en route if you are lacking in good ones.  The rest of your units should be pressing west, either along the road or through the mountains, doing the whole town liberating thing as they go.

Step 2:  After a while, you should have the castle of Muspelm pretty well surrounded from the north and east.  Maybe even from the south as well if you’ve gotten your High Sky units to wrap around the underside of the island to liberate the temples and the town of Fidelin.  However, this boss battle will be pretty tough. The good thing is that there are no character requirements necessary when facing off against Slust, which will make picking your unit that much easier.  You will want one of your best attacking units to move in.  This stage is small enough where you will be able to liberate all of the cities and temples before beating the boss without any difficulty. Depending on how many enemy units are left, when you get units close enough they may go after the units that you have waiting on the west and south directions of Muspelm instead of trying to get to your main base. They know that they’ve lost already!

Fight It Out!!

Boss Time!

Slust Ally? Dragoon HP 198 LV 17 STR 149 CHA 62 AGI 138 ALI 78 INT 128 LUK 60   LV: 15 Gold Dragon LV: 17 Dragoon     LV: 15 Gold Dragon     4 Direct & 1 Targeted

Time for a tough boss battle!  Slust is really quite powerful, and does not have any glaring weaknesses. To make matters worse, you also have to fight some new enemies: Gold Dragons.  You would think that a guy called Slust the Red would have fire based dragons, like Red Dragon II’s, but go figure. Anyways, these beasts have quite a bit of Hit Points compared to what you are used to fighting in a boss unit. And the problem is that you could spend an entire battle defeating just one of them, only to have a brand new one pop back in for the next fight! The best Tarot Cards that you can use are the “Magician” & ”Emperor” cards to cause mean damage and get some extra attacks in. If you can get it to work, a “Fool” card is ideal to remove the big obstacles blocking your way to Slust.  If Slust does have any weakness, it is to Black attacks, so any evil characters will work nicely. You only have one attack from Slust himself to worry about, so you should be able to survive it and dish out some damage! You need a topnotch unit, with lots of magic and targeted attacks. Just blast away, and eventually you’ll prevail...

After the battle, you’ll get a dialogue with Slust after he’s come to his senses.  This will different, depending on the consistency of your Opinion Leader.  If you have a high to almost full Reputation Meter, your Opinion Leader has at least a 70 in Alignment, and the “HEROSTAR” (Star of Heroes) item, you will get the good dialogue, and he will ask to join your rebellion! Oh, and don’t forget that you have to have free space in your army (100 is the max) for him and his Gold Dragon escorts!! Otherwise, he won’t join you no matter how good you are! If you are not up to his high standards of leadership, you will get the bad generic dialogue, in which he will chastise you and sit in his little castle of Muspelm the rest of the game.  Bummer...

Ally!

Available Items

There are lots of goodies to get on this stage.  All of them are found on the return trip to the stage after beating it.  Take note of the all important Zodiac Stone!

SNES Name: CROWN Selling Price: 24,000 Goth PSX / Full Name: Dream Crown Buying Price: - - Description: “Use this item on an Amazon and...”

SNES Name: LEXICON Selling Price: 87,500 Goth PSX / Full Name: Book of the Dead Buying Price: - - Description: “Describes the way to achieve the eternal life.  A book from the ancient kingdom.”

SNES Name: PERIDOT Selling Price: 5 Goth PSX / Full Name: Peridot Buying Price: - - Description: “The eighth stone of the Zodiac. Signifies knowledge.”

SNES Name: ZANZIBAR Selling Price: 33,925 Goth PSX / Full Name: Zanzibar Buying Price: - - Description:   Effects: Strength + 18

Aftermath

There are quite a few things to play around with once you’ve beaten the stage. A Zodiac Stone, a Chaos Gate, this stage has it all!

1) Visit the town of Segejin, which is along the main road, and you will be greeted by a Monk from the boss castle of Muspelm.  He’s found a “LEXICON” (Book of the Dead), and he’ll give it to you as a reward for saving this region. Now you have the item that the wizard Badista wants!  Go back to Sharom Border, and make the trade for an “UNDEAD” (Undead Ring)!

2) Make the long trek across the stage to the town of Chifla.  Here, you will be asked a question about the appearance & beauty of women, and whether it is necessary or not.  As far as these townsfolk are concerned, there is no right or wrong answer, because if you say “YES” or “NO,” you will be given a “CROWN” (Dream Crown) for free!  You will only get this item if you have a moderate or high-ish Reputation Meter.  The best candidate to use this item on is either Norn, Rauny, or, Deneb, if she joined...  Their insanely high Intelligence will go a long way in helping them dish out immense damage with their newly acquired power!

3) Visit R.T. #2, NW of the town of Fidelin, and if you have the “TABLET” (Tablet of Yaru), the messenger of the Gods will present you with the “PERIDOT” (Peridot), which is the eighth stone of the Zodiac.

4) If you did not already find it, there is a Chaos Gate to Organa on this stage.  It is on the small-ish island directly below your main base of Alkatrum.  Look for it on the western side of the island.  Of course, you must have the unit searching for the Chaos Gate equipped with the “BRUNHILD” (Brunhild) in order to even find it!

5) If you were not able to get the mighty Slust to join your rebellion, you can visit the boss castle of Muspelm for a consolation prize.  He will greet you at the door, and present you with his sword, the “ZANZIBAR” (Zanzibar).  It is actually really strong, and is a White elemental weapon, but it’s nothing compared to not having him in your army!  It won’t replace his own value, but it’s better than nothing at all!