Clament is another smaller village, similar to Sandeltan. "Village" plays here, and Maxim's recent adventures haven't gone unnoticed.

Here's another example of that provincial sort of nomenclature that I find so realistic. To the people of Tanbel, it's the southeastern tower, but if you head north from it and ask the people of Clament, they'll refer to the same building as the southern tower.

There's a woman of som significance in one of the shops.

Tia is speaking very politely here, which is why I chose a fancier phrasing.

There's also an unusually large house in the village. It seems that a rich couple lives there.

The rich guy's name seems to come from 金余る (kane amaru), which roughly translates to "too much money". I threw a hyphen in my pseudo-English rendering of it because it looks more stuck-up that way, and to help with pronunciation. "Rochy", incidentally, is probably meant to sound like "rich". Maybe I ought to call him "Monibaggs" or something...

Maxim's line changes accordingly if he's already been there.

Apple Ruby rather than Ruby Apple because "ruby" is the primary noun and "apple" is more of a description.

The wife comes over to talk to him.

She heads back over to the side of the room where she started.

In case money and adventure weren't enough, talking to him again if Maxim has tried to pass the shrine to the north results in...

And so, the party is left with little choice but to search for a ruby shaped like an apple, with nothing but a rumor to go on.

It's another cave, but with lava this time. The party can't actually fall in the lava, so it doesn't matter in that sense, but at least it's a change of scenery.

Many rooms have basic puzzles that involve simple things like cutting down bushes or flipping a switch, so let's skip straight to a more complicated switches puzzle. There are four switches arranged in a square, each one flipped to the right, and a sign on the wall.

"Complex" is an overstatement. Flipping any switch also flips the two adjacent to it. The trick to this puzzle is that moving each switch once makes every switch flip three times, which results in all being flipped to the left. This drains some lava in the next room, allowing access to...

Armor Dog's default name of もえもえ (Moe moe) translates to something like burn-burn. The NA version defaults to BLAZE instead.

Armor Dog, the fire-elemental capsule monster, has good stats overall except for low GUT, which means chickening out fairly easily. Though not particularly exceptional at anything, Armor Dog comes in handy when fire is a good thing to have, assuming it doesn't run away too quickly.

Passing a few lesser puzzles grants access to another one of those important treasure chests...

...but the main puzzle in this dungeon is...

...using ice blocks to cross a lake of lava. The blocks can be picked up and dropped like pots, and create a 3x3 platform of solid rock when dropped in the lava. Leaving and reentering the room resets the blocks. Clever use of the ice blocks allows access to several optional, but useful, treasures (particularly the Aqua Whip and Fury Helmet reached by going down from the bottom right). Only minimal usage is required to reach the innermost part of the dungeon, where the usual recovery tiles and save point are hidden behind some vines. The party then finds, almost too easily...

As they approach the ruby, a monstrous hairy blue spider appears in a swirl of red sparkles.

And it's another boss battle.

The spider can summon lesser spiders and heal itself a bit, it has a poisoning multitarget attack, and its regular attacks can paralyze. I don't remember having problems with that, but maybe I was just lucky. It's weak against fire, so the Fire Dagger from the tower helps, as does Armor Dog, if the silly creature doesn't wimp out. The weaker Insect Killer also inflicts bonus damage. The Giant Spider may drop a Giant Spider's Cryptolith, but at only a 3% rate, it's far from reliable.

After the battle, the ruby lies in pieces.

The party continues into the room behind where the spider was. A man with short red hair is standing here. He's wearing a green outfit and some kind of apron.

He pulls out an object that looks exactly like the Apple Ruby.

Tia walks to the outer room and comes back with shattered Apple Ruby.

Either I missed some dialogue, or the writers made an oversight, since I can't figure out how she knows his name.

As noted above, the rich guy's name means something like "having excess money". The NA version ought to say something like "Rochy's riches" to parallel. Or, if you like my idea for an alternate name, then it's "bags of money from Monibaggs."

And so, everyone heads back to the village.

First things first. The party heads to the rich guy's house.

The following line is skipped if Maxim hasn't been to the shrine yet, though of course he's still allowed passage after this.

The party heads outside.

Maxim leads the party across the town and into Jeffrey's store.

This adds a Glass Pierce to the inventory. The party heads outside.

And she sort of hyperactively hop-jump-spins across the village.

The party regroups after this.

And we never do find out how much money was involved, but perhaps that's for the best.

Before leaving, it couldn't hurt to make sure the rich couple won't cause him any more trouble.

Sounds like their in the clear. Another villager has a more interesting comment.

She'll say the same thing upon first arriving in town, and this line is the only possible place to hear Jeffrey's name before meeting him. Since the line doesn't explicitly make the connection and is entirely optional anyway, though, it's still strange that Tia knows his name without him introducing himself.

In any case, that's everything for here for now. Onward!