Meet the hunters of the Archylte Steppe. They’ll run off to their camp. The monsters around here can be on the tough side so be very careful. The Red Chocobo might be a good companion if you can kill one. Follow them and enter their camp. There’s only one building in the camp and at the top will be a male hunter. Talk to him and he will give you a map of the area. Talk to him again and he’ll ask you to take care of a pesky monster for him. He’ll point you out into the plains.
Follow the Quest Marker and when you get close, you’ll be ambushed by a group of Goblins and a Goblin Chieftain. The Goblin Chieftain will buff the Goblins in his party but if you kill the Chieftain, one of the regular Goblins will turn into the Chieftain. If you don’t have a sentinel by now, keep killing the Chieftain so that each Goblin will turn into a chieftain in turn. This will increase your odds of getting the Goblin Chieftain as a party member. He isn’t the toughest of Sentinels but his Feral Link ability heals 50+ points of wound damage and provides a bunch of positive status effects for the party.
Head back to the camp and talk to the man who gave you the quest. Just N of where you fought the monsters should be a Cactuar Statue which will teleport you back to the camp. Talk to the quest giver and he will point you to help someone else in the camp. The person you need to talk to is actually just down the stairs. She will request that you collect some wool from the sheep in the plain for her. The three sheep you are looking for are SE, S, and SW of the camp. They move around a little so you’ll have to find each one. Each is slightly larger than a normal sheep. Catch them to collect their wool then report to the quest giver.
She will tell you about a Weather Machine upstairs. Go up the stairs and talk to the woman in the corner of the room. She will explain how to use the machine. Move the right lever first, then the left lever. This will make a monster appear in the SE. The man nearby will tell you about this creature that’s been eating a whole lot of flan. Before you can get over there, a Long Gui will appear. You won’t be able to defeat this creature just yet so go back to the weather machine; we need to make it move. Move the right lever again and the Long Gui will disappear but the beast will stay.
Faeryl
| 108120 HP | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Element | Vulnerability | Status Immunity | Misc |
| Fire | Absorbed | Deprotect | Chain Resist: 90 |
| Ice | Weakness | Deshell | Stagger: 150% |
| Electric | Weakness | Poison | Potent Drop |
| Wind | Absorbed | Curse | None |
| Physical | Normal | Pain | Untamable |
| Magic | Normal | Fog/Stop | No Role |
- Ravager, Ravager, Commando
- Sentinel, Sentinel, Sentinel
- Ravager, Commando, Medic
- Sentinel, Medic, Medic
- Commando, Commando, Commando
When you first start off the battle, you might be able to get a move off but then you want to change to paradigm 2 because he will likely execute a hard hitting attack. Be careful when he charges up for his flying attack. He will crouch down for a short period and then lunge. You want to enter paradigm 2 for this attack as well and stay there until he’s landed again. Otherwise, you want to use paradigm 1 to build up his gauge, 5 when he’s staggered and his gauge is sufficiently built up, 3 for minor healing (to keep chain gauge up) and 4 for when you really need to patch up.
This is a pretty tough battle but you should have a diverse group of creatures now and some of them (like the Goblin Chieftain) may do something that does more than just do damage so make sure to keep an eye on your Feral Link and keep in mind that sometimes those gauges can build even if the creature isn’t out. Abuse that ability because it is basically a free and high powered action. If you execute it at the appropriate time, you can boost a stagger gauge by a significant amount, do tons of damage, or bring your team from the brink of defeat to top form.
Once he is defeated, you’ll get the Black Hole Gem Fragment. You’ll also get a Treasure Cube for your Live Trigger choice. The Gate you are looking for is S of the camp but you can’t open it yet without killing the Gigantuars and you can’t do that yet. You need to have a sentinel with at least 2k health or a stronger party in the 3-4k health range.
For now, head back to Sunleth Waterscape. You will face a different flan this time named Mutantomato. He doesn’t have nearly as much health as his predecessor but he does more damage, he’s more aggressive with his poison attack, and he starts dealing wound damage at the outset of the battle. Having Esuna and Raise for the Medic class will really help as will Launch for the Commando class. You have to play a little more aggressively on this boss fight if you want to succeed but otherwise, use the same general strategies.
Collect the Artefact left behind with a Moogle Throw. Take the Artefact back to the gate to the S.
Familiar Places
Before you get to Academia, you’re actually going to visit the Void Beyond again. There’s more space but you still can’t get far. Open Orbs around here and head back to the rift to get back to the Historia Crux. This time you are going to visit Serendipity.
Serendipity has had a few changes. First and foremost, you should be able to get in. Talk to the woman at the gate. You can run around and sample all the different things there are to sample if you like but of particular importance is the first building on your left. Inside will be a single woman in a yellow chocobo outfit. She will grant you “Fragment Skills” based on which fragments you have collected. You’ll learn a few skills now which have to be turned on in the “Fragment Skills” section of the menu. The most important Fragment Skill you will learn is the Paradox Scope which you learn when you visit here after completing the game. This causes boss fights to be tougher during Time Reversal but if you succeed during some of these key fights, you can get a Paradox Ending. This will give you a Fragment piece as well as a large sum of CP.
Also of note in Serendipity is the game room to the right. In this room, you can get coins to play the games. It costs 10 gil for every coin. Of particular interest are the items you can buy from this shop. You can buy a Wild Artefact, a Chaos Crystal, and some fragments but all costs are in coins so it will cost quite if you attempt to just buy it by changing gil to coins. After you are done enjoying this place, return to the Historia Crux and visit Academia.
