Part 7: Head to Rainbase - Great Sandy Desert
Monsters
- Black Brothers - Weak to Speed
- Burning Stonecrop - Weak to Power
- Eisa - Weak to Technique
- Lesser Brothers - Weak to Speed
- Mountain Bandits Vulture Gang - Weakness varies
- Sandora Dragon - Weak to Speed
With a Memory Link handled and the path forward cleared, the Straw Hats can now pass into the northern half of the Great Sandy Desert. Keep going from the spot where you entered the Memory Link and you'll find a small clearing populated by members of the Mountain Bandits Vulture Gang. They can Paralyze your party members, but are otherwise the same as Desert Bandits.
Ignore the big skeletal bridge for the moment and check along the east side of this clearing. There are two points along the cliff where you can climb down. Use the left climb point and you'll drop down onto a ledge. On your right is a small cave with a chest containing a Burst Brew. Jump off of the ledge and you'll wind up at the bottom of the other climb point, where you'll find a Sanji's Cube Fragment.
Climb back up the cliff. Halfway up you'll find three Volcano Dragon Tails if Sanji is in the lead. Head to the skeleton bridge and cross, then fight / flee your way to the west, past more Vulture Gang members. Just before you enter a stone archway, look over the cliff on your right and you'll see a Luffy's Cube Fragment that he'll need to grab. At the end of the path you'll come to Spiral Canyon... and sitting at the bottom of it is Collapsed... Josh...? Give him three Energy Apples and he'll give you three Excite Apples. Also near him is a barrel containing a Yaya Cube.
You can only head up, so start climbing. You'll fight some Bandits along the way, but there's nothing else of interest during the ascent. At the top you'll enter the Sandy Ruins, and if you check the bronze-colored rock pile heaped against one of the walls you can bash through it. Sneak through the resulting passage as Chopper and you'll eventually wind up on a ledge overlooking a sandsea, and staring out at an adjacent building. Use Luffy to zip over to the next ledge and you can climb up to a chest containing Freeze Element Jewelry.
Use Luffy to zip back to the previous building from the rooftop where you found the chest. You'll be more or less back where you started, and right beside a campsite. Everyone will settle in and discuss Vivi, their Alabastan friend. Have a party to end the campout.
Go down the northern stairs from the campsite. There are a pair of guys here who will dish out some info regarding the Side Story The Truth About Eye-lashes, if you're on the case. Follow the twisting path west of them to reach a chest containing four Simple Pastas. Head back to the men and go east to find the end of the ruins... though, uh, not the end of your problems.
Jura Bird
Weakness: Power
Ooo, fancy. Though it looks dangerous, the Jura Bird is quite easy to defeat. It can use Slice Hurricane to hit everyone in its area, inflicting Bleed, though it has so little health that taking it down should only require a few strong hits. Luffy, Chopper, and Sanji can all mutilate this poor creature.
Beyond the Jura Bird battle you'll run into a series of bone piles. Step on one and you'll summon a Jura Bird to fight. If you want to gather the random items found in these bone piles, whistle up Luffy to snag them from a distance. (And if you step on the bone piles on purpose, well... Usopp will get annoyed after a while.)
Once you're back on the rock and dirt you'll come across a big, blue dragon, sitting on a heap of treasure and surrounded by bones. Try as you might you can't reach the treasure chests without making noise, soooo...
Leviathan
Weakness: Power
Poor guy. This thing looks like it could be tough, but Leviathan will spend the fight using melee hits and not doing that much damage. Bring out Luffy, Sanji, and Chopper and wallop the thing.
You'll earn Leviathan's Power for defeating Leviathan, and you can plunder its treasure chests to find three Electric Dragon Meats, a Guts +68 Ring, an ATK +114 Ring, and... a locked, red chest. Come back for this later. Clomp east of here and you'll find the exit to the next area.
Great Sandy Dunes
You'll start out on a series of descending walkways patrolled by Vulture Gang members. You can either face them head-on or use the holes and grapple points around the ramps to avoid them. Either way, you'll find four Scoprion Legs in a chest on the west side of the walkways and 10,000 Berries in a chest to the east, sitting on a rocky ledge.
Descend to ground level and you'll find a save point beside a wooden shelter filled with boxes and pots. Check among the pots with Nami in the lead to find 36,000 Berries. From here the desert opens up, though if you try to do any exploring Nami will get angry. Start heading east along the half-buried road. If you're doing the Side Story The Truth About Eye-lashes you'll run into the camel along the way, and at the end of the path... quicksand. Too much quicksand for the party to handle without help.
Nami tells you to head north, towards a small oasis. This will open up the rest of Great Sandy Dunes for exploration. Shall we look around?
- Check along the edge of Vast Quicksand, the area that comprises the entire eastern side of Great Sandy Dunes. In the southeast you'll find a chest containing 9,000 Berries.
- Not far from the chest, also in the southeast, is a small clearing called the Lord's Hunting Grounds. In here you'll find a sleeping Sandora Dragon. Behind it is a chest containing 25,000 Berries.
- In roughly the middle of the desert is the Northern Watchtower Ruins. Inside them you'll find a chest containing two Large Jura Bird Eggs. Look above and to the left of the chest to find a Luffy's Cube Fragment that only Luffy can reach.
- In the northeast of the desert, assuming you completed a Side Story back in Nanohana, you'll find the Kung Fu Dugongs. Again. They want a Master and Student Rematch.
- In the north of the desert is a bridge to an oasis, your next destination. Check along the eastern banks of the water to find a chest containing four Fragrant Herbs.
This will bring you to the oasis in the north, where a little Yoisa will promptly steal Nami's 'stash' (likely her money) and run off. Follow it to the save point in the southwest of the desert, near the planks you climbed down earlier, and you'll discover that it was being bullied by some Eisa. Beat the little weaklings up. The Yoisa will, by way of gratitutde, unlock 'Yoisa Travel', which will allow you to fast travel between Yoisa Travel signs scattered throughout Alabasta. You can access the Yoisa Travel option via the Map.
That's all for Great Sandy Dunes. Head north and into Sandy Oasis to enjoy a bit of a break. Upon entering you'll hear of a different route to the Rainbase, and it involves going through a nearby cave. Yep, the traveling continues for a while longer.