Rhapala's love triangle has been resolved, and Beyd seems to have officially won the heart of Shadis. (Not that Zig appeared to have much of a chance.) That resolves few of Ryu's problems, however, as the nearby Lighthouse is still broken, and without a functioning Lighthouse the ship the party needs won't return to Rhapala. Looks like you'll need to fix it for the Porter Guild.
The entrance to the Lighthouse is found in the northwest of Rhapala's Wharf, and with a Guild Badge in possession the party can now enter the Lighthouse grounds. Before you go there, however, you should probably buy one or two pieces of Flame Chrysm from Rhapala's weapon shop. You'll need them to complete a puzzle in the Lighthouse, and though there are a few to pick up in the Lighthouse having some spares can't hurt.
The Lighthouse
Monsters
- Blood Bat - Steal Berries
- Bomber - Steal Vitamin, Drop Ivory Dice, Learn Air Raid
- Ghost - Steal Wisdom Seed, Drop Buckler
- Spectre - Steal Wisdom Seed, Drop Barrier Ring
- Thunder - Steal Taser
- Volt - Steal Taser, Learn Charge
Head up the stairs to the northwest once you arrive on the Lighthouse grounds. There are more stairs a little ways to the west, and if you climb them and go northeast you'll find more stairs. Go up them and continue northeast to find a chest containing a Coin.
Head back south, then begin making your way northeast. There are barrels that Momo can blast out of your way with her cannon, though you can also just take the longer way around, further north. More stairs will bring you back down to the water's edge. Check southwest of the bottom of the stairs, along a thin pathway, to find a hidden chest containing a Mithril Shield.
You'll find a divide in the path to the southeast of the entrance. If you climb the stairs along the northern path you'll eventually reach the top of the Lighthouse. The bulb is inactive, and the nearby lever won't turn it on. You'll need to supply power to the bulb. It's still worth coming up here early, however, as the Eldritch Gene is sitting nearby. When combined with other Genes the Eldritch Gene will grant Ryu powerful healing Skills in dragon form.
The remainder of the Lighthouse consists of a series of branching paths that loop around on each other. Head west of the entrance to find a box containing Skill Ink, then follow the path leading southwest. Along the way you'll run into a lever. Switch it to the up position, then keep walking southwest. You'll eventually wind up in the Lighthouse's boiler room. You'll need to power up the boiler to reactivate the Lighthouse.
Climb down to the lower level of this room and go through the door to the right. You'll be back in the main hallways of the Lighthouse. Follow the path east, then go through the first door you find, on your left. It will take you to a small nook back outside. Twist the camera around and you'll discover that there are three boxes here, each containing a piece of Flame Chrysm. Stock up and return to the boiler room.
If you check the sign on the wall on the upper floor it will explain what you need to do to activate the boiler, though it's a little vague. Here are the steps you need to follow:
- Place a piece of Flame Chrysm in the hatch at the top of the boiler.
- Check the lever to the northeast of the boiler. This will reveal a green graph at the top of the screen, complete with a curving point of light.
- Wait for the point of light to reach the highest point of its arcs, then watch the upmost line on the graph carefully. You need to pull the lever when the point of light lines up with the red line that runs through the middle of the graph.
- Once the point of light reaches the line immediately to the right of the red line, wait about half a second and pull the lever. This should activate the boiler.
If you pull the lever at the wrong time you'll use up the Flame Chrysm in the boiler, forcing you to put another piece in and try again. Your timing doesn't need to be exact, just approximate. You should get the idea after one or two tries at most.
The power conduit running out of the base of the boiler will light up yellow if you did everything right. Climb to the bottom of the room and follow the conduit out into the northeastern hallways. A ways northeast you'll find another lever, and if you pull it you'll redirect the flow of energy to the top of the Lighthouse.
Head back to the entrance in the northwest. As you approach the stairs to the top of the Lighthouse you'll find something... absolutely bizarre... in your path, and though it won't bother you at first, you'll get into trouble once you try to climb the stairs.
Gazer
Steal: Wisdom Fruit
Drop: Nothing
Learn: Nothing
Oooookay then. Gazer fights as weirdly as it looks, and this battle can be reasonably difficult if you aren't loaded down with Fire attacks. (Earth also works well, though only Momo can access Earth spells at this point.) Gazer uses the following attacks against you:
- A squashing melee attack that will strike everyone in the party
- Hypnotize, which can Confuse one character
- Eye Beam, which hits a single character very hard and can immediately knock them out
Most of the time your party will get squashed by the melee attack, making it vital that you use Protect / Shield to raise everyone's Def. Heal as necessary. Ryu should promptly turn into a Flame dragon of some kind, allowing him to rip through Gazer's HP with Flame Claw. On his own Ryu shouldn't have much trouble demolishing Gazer while everyone else remains on the defensive.
(Apparently you gain double XP if you successfully Blind Gazer. I couldn't verify this, as I couldn't get the ailment to stick using the attack of the same name. Give it a try!)
Trek to the top of the Lighthouse and pull the lever. This will activate the light... and thoroughly enrage a little faerie, who will smash the controls, accidentally ensuring that the light can never be turned off. Whoops. She'll demand you visit her in her own world, and give you a Faerie Tiara to grant you passage.
You're all done here, so leave the Lighthouse the way you came in. Your next storyline stop is at any little flower ring that you come across on the world map, and they're found all over the place. First, though, you should unlock another Master, and a good one at that.
Meryleep
Put Peco in your party. Head back towards Wyndia, then southeast towards Genmel. On the road to Genmel you'll see a mountain on your right. If you check the left side of the mountain you'll find a ? spot that you may have visited earlier in the game. There's a tent here, and the guys inside complain about the birds in the tree next to the tent. Smack the tree with Peco and a Flower Jewel will fall out.
Return to the main highway and head northeast towards the Checkpoint that borders Rhapala. There's a forest running along the west side of the road, and a path into the forest will take you to another ? point, which, again, we visited earlier in the guide. Northeast of the entrance you'll find a pond that Ryu can access by slashing some bushes out of the way.
There's a rock sitting in front of the pond. If you charge at it with Peco - you need to give him as much room as you can - he'll knock it into the pond, bringing a faerie named Meryleep out of hiding. She demands you bring her the Flower Jewel by way of apology, which you can hand right over. You can then apprentice your characters to Meryleep, and in addition to her stat boosts (+2 to Agi, which makes your characters very fast) she can teach Charm, Shadowwalk, and War Shout, all of which are powerful Skills.
(Unfortunately, you need to repeat the whole rock-in-the-water thing with Peco whenever you want to speak to Meryleep. What a pain.)
Look for a little field of flowers on the world map and interact with it. You can use these spots to jump to a pleasant little canyon, complete with a shack. Enter the shack and you'll meet Cadis, the faerie who smashed the Lighthouse controls. She claims that a monster has been threatening to eat the faeries if they don't keep the Lighthouse turned off.
Prep your team for battle, then head to the beach, west of the shack. Check the dock and you can wait until nightfall for the monster to appear. (Note that Nina and Momo will get forced into your party for this battle, so make sure they're ready to fight.) The monster isn't what you expect at first... though it displays some attitude, and the attitude gets much worse when the faeries show up. Enjoy a little translation of its dialogue, if you like, then prepare for battle.
Dolphin
Steal: Fish-Head
Drop: Nothing
Learn: Intimidate
Surprise! The Dolphin isn't quite as tough as it looks, though if you haven't been leveling Nina or Momo it can be a challenge. It uses three attacks:
- A melee stab with its horn
- Intimidate, which prevents one of your characters from taking their turn
- Tsunami, which hits everyone for a large amount of damage
Tsunami is the real threat here, and can wipe your party if you don't heal consistently. If you have the Thunder Gene then transform Ryu into a Thunder Dragon, otherwise use the Flame Gene. Ryu's Claw attacks will rip through the Dolphin's HP pretty efficiently, and Nina can provide some assistance with Lightning. Keep Momo on healing duty, with backup from Nina as needed.
Head back to the shack. The faeries are quite grateful for the help, and will tell the party to revisit them in the future. Later in Breath of Fire III the Faerie World will be the center of an optional (but very useful) side quest, but for now you're done with the faeries. Return to the little cluster of flowers where you started to jump back to the normal world.
Return to Rhapala and speak with Beyd at the Wharf. Despite the repair job on the Lighthouse he says that the boat won't be coming back any time soon, which means the team is still stuck in Rhapala. Ugh. Beyd suggests speaking to Sinkar, the leader of the Porter Guild, and if you talk to him in the pub beneath the inn he'll grant you access to the guild's secret path to the northeast, through Mt. Zublo. He'll also give you the Guildmaster's Letter, which will get you past his guards.
At this point you'll have reached a bit of a crossroads. Going through Mt. Zublo will not prevent you from returning to previous areas, but you'll have to make a trip all the way back through the dungeon to return to Rhapala, and it's not that easy of a journey. If you have any business to complete on this side of Mt Zublo - likely speaking to Masters - now is the time to do it.