Other than the water and frogs, it's basically your standard castle.

The EasyType omits げんしゅくな (genshuku na, dignified or solemn), presumably since it's not exactly an everyday term.

The women in leotards inside are a bit unusual, though.

このえへい (konoehei, 近衛兵) is the same term as used for Baron's Royal Guard. Since Troy doesn't seem to have a royalty, that translation feels a bit off here.

The EasyType substitutes the native term オシャレ (OSHARE, fashionable) for the English-derived ファッショナブル (FASSHONABURU, fashionable).

You'd better hope you never have to find out...

The EasyType replaces each いくさ (ikusa) with せんとう (sentou), both of which roughly translate to "combat" or "war".

Censorship strikes again, but this reminds us that sexism is harmful to men, too. And I wonder if she knows about the more-or-less brothel in town? While I'd argue that having the option to pursue any means of income you want—as long as it doesn't step on anyone's rights and is actually your choice rather than something you're being forced or coerced into—is important to things like freedom and equality, it seems as though the sort of person who makes comments like this also tends to condemn women who would "demean themselves" by seeking profit from anything in any way sexual.

Anyway, vaguely political rant aside, the eight priestesses are inside.

That explains the apparent obsession with nonmetal equipment, at least. There's also another interesting rumor floating around.

Sure enough, Gilbert lies bedridden in one room of the castle.

Number of times someone has survived apparent certain death: 3

This is a good example of a line taken out of context. Gilbert's ほんとうに, by itself, does translate to "really" (or "truly"), but note the context and that he trails off and groans. He was probably starting to say something along the lines of ほんとうにすみませんでした ("I'm so very sorry").

The EasyType changes Gilbert's どうぜん (douzen, practically the same as) to おなじ (onaji, the same as).

The EasyType changes ようじょうせねば (youjou seneba, must recuperate) to ゆっくり　やすまねば (yukkiri yasumaneba, must take time to rest).

Presumably starting a sentence like じゃあ　うまく　ひくうていを　てにいれたね, roughly, "Then, things went well and you got an airship."

The doctor just confirms that he's not in good shape.

The EasyType replaces だいぶ　すいじゃくされています (daibu suijaku sarete imasu, is quite weakened) with あちこち　ケガを　おっています (achikochi KEGA wo otte imasu, is wounded all over).

There are a few treasure rooms on the other side of the castle. The main one is blocked off by a guard, but the others include two useful Ruby Rings.

Since it should be obvious what your next destination is by now, make sure you're prepared with nonmetal equipment for everyone. There's some for sale in Troy, while Baron and Mysidia have better options for everything but armwear. Don't change equipment just yet, though.

Head north through the forest to find this area, chocobo-shaped on the inside. Regular, white, and black chocobos all appear here, as well as a spot where Gysahl Greens summon the world's hugest chocobo to store extra items. Don't leave your metal equipment behind, though—you'll want to have that handy.

Chocobo storage is nothing new, though, having been available in the smaller chocobo forests in numerous places. Another useful trick that's been available all along is that a white chocobo will recover the party's MP, so combining that with healing magic means free full restoration.

Once you're ready, catch a black chocobo to fly to the island just to the east, and land near the cave. The airship can't land here, since forest covers everything but the mountains. A black chocobo, on the other hand, can only land in forest, so it all works out just fine.

First, remember to remove everything metal anyone is wearing (the weapon and armor pages note which items count as metallic). Here's the short version, based on what's actually available at this point:

Tella should be almost fine already. Just swap out the Silver Bracelet he's presumably wearing for a Ruby Ring, and make sure he isn't using the Mithril Staff. All other rods and staves are fine. I've found that the Transformation Rod works amazingly well, since turning things into pigs disables most of their special attacks, and using it as an item never seems to fail unless the target is immune. Tella should be wearing a Triangle Hat and Earth Garb, both for sale in Mysidia.

Yang should similarly be nearly ready. Keep him with the Twisted Headband and Kung Fu Suit he probably already has from Baron, put on a Ruby Ring, and you're good to go. All claws are fine. Use the Flame Claw for the one enemy with an exploitable vulnerability. Although nothing else in here has a weakness to anything he has handy, Yang will still be the mainstay of your offense in the cave.

Cid should also wear a Twisted Headband and Kung Fu Suit with a Ruby Ring. For weaponry, he has a choice between a bow and arrows or the Wooden Hammer he starts with. The hammer is less trouble and considerably more accurate, so that's my preference.

Cecil, on the other hand, doesn't have much of a choice except to use a bow, preferably the Greatbow. Only Iron Arrows count as metal. Holy Arrows from Mysidia work particularly well, even though they're slightly weaker than the arrows Troy sells, since everything in the cave is either weak against Holy or has no elemental weaknesses at all, and the Draculady (VampGirl) in particular is also Undead, giving the Holy Arrows a racial bonus on top of that. Don't forget to put the bow in his off hand (left) for full damage. Alternately, Cecil can use a Healing Staff to aid recovery, though it's essentially useless for attacking. Also remember that you can switch weapons at will, which could come in handy. Like everyone else, Cecil gets a Ruby Ring. He has more flexibility for the rest of his equipment, since he can use both the mage equipment from Mysidia and the fighter equipment from Baron. Personally, I recommend mixing the Triangle Hat with the Kung Fu Suit.

If you're playing the EasyType, this is your lucky day. This version replaces the Mithril Sword with the Piglet's Bamboo Sword, which despite sounding silly actually has slightly more power and accuracy. The best part, though, is that it's nonmetal, so Cecil can fight normally! The sword isn't sold in the Mithril Town, but instead appears in the basement of Baron's eastern tower, accessable any time after beating Beigan.

For best results, put Cid (unless he's using a bow) and Yang in the front row so their attacks work to best effect, and put Cecil (unless he's using the Piglet's Bamboo Sword, if available) and Tella in the back row for the defensive bonus. This will probably be the only time you regularly put Cecil back there.

Save the game before entering the cave, just in case you missed something. Anyone equipped with anything metal inside the cave will be stuck with an incurable paralysis-like status effect during combat. If everyone has it, that's an instant game over.

In the DS remake, characters wearing anything metallic helpfully display as paralyzed on the menu without needing to enter combat to check. On a less positive note, Cecil can't use bows or staves any more, making his options more severely limited than ever.

There's a save room on the third floor that should come in handy. On the way to the fourth floor soon after, find the Faerie Claw for Yang, which has no element and gets a substantial attack bonus against Giant type monsters, as well as giving Yang a slight agility boost and sometimes inflicting Confusion status on attack. It has the drawback of low accuracy, so consider not using it except when the attack bonus applies, which in here means against Ogres.

The DS remake gives the Faerie Claw normal accuracy, and does retain the racial bonus despite not mentioning it in the item's description. However, the remake also nerfs racial bonuses to provide only +50% damage, as opposed to quadrupling attack power as in the original. Still, every little bit helps.

There's one last save room on the eastern side of the fourth floor, and then, in the central room...

The creature speaks in all katakana, suggestive of an unearthly sound. The broken English I initially used, however, was improper. Though the katakana makes it look awkward, everything the Dark Elf says, barring noises that aren't language, is perfectly natural and grammatical.

The Dark Elf does nothing for several rounds, and then a scripted event takes over. Don't waste any items.

The Dark Elf chains Fira, Thundara, and Blizzara, then hits anyone still standing with Tornado on his next turn.

Casting Reflect before this can be amusing. It makes no meaningful difference, though.

Combat ends, and the party collapses.

Scene change to Gilbert's room in Troy Castle.

He struggles out of bed, only to collapse a few steps later. The doctor and nurse rush to his side.

The EasyType replaces ままならぬ (mama naranu, won't go as desired) with できない (dekinai, cannot do) when describing his ability to walk.

Rather than doing something sensible like helping him walk or bringing the harp to him, they back away and watch as he struggles the rest of the way to his harp and begins playing. Scene change back to the cave.

The Dark Elf seems weakened.

The EasyType adds a space between じりょくを and あやつる (a type of edit it often makes), and more significantly, omits the first けんを！ (Ken wo!, [Your] sword!).

The party gets up, and has conveniently fully recovered.

Put all your best equipment back on, with one exception: Cecil should use the Sword of Legend, regardless of what other equipment you may have, since the Dark Elf now has a severe weakness against Holy.

Those are basically strangled gurgling noises, I'd say.

Combat goes much more smoothly this time. Cecil's Holy sword inflicts massive damage, and the elf's triple spell combo has become almost laughably weak (his spells now get 1 hit chance instead of 15). Although Tornado still hurts, it only hits one person at a time at this point, so Tella can heal easily enough. A Pig-inflicting attack may also appear, which the Transformation Rod cures effortlessly. Anyway, after you inflict 3,890 total damage...

...the Dark Elf transforms into the Dark Dragon, and the battle arguably gets easier. All he does now is alternate between normal (if stronger than before) attacks and Dark Breath, which damages all characters by roughly 1/4 of their maximum HP. And remember that critical weakness to Holy? It's still there, so this shouldn't take long at all. On that note, Cid could try using Holy Arrows, though I don't find that the damage bonus makes up for the low accuracy.

If taking advantage of a severe elemental weakness doesn't feel like enough, the Dark Dragon has an even greater vulnerability: no boss flag. This means spells that normally fail on bosses can work here. Although the Dark Dragon has status immunities that render most ineffective anyway... try casting Tornado.

There are two more odd bits of trivia here, too. First, the Dark Dragon is flagged as a Dragon, which is completely pointless since the only equipment available at this point that cares is the Gold Headdress (Tiara), and no one in the current group can use it. More oddly, the Dark Dragon is flagged as absorbing Holy in addition to being highly weak against it. The effect of being both weak to and absorbing the same element is that physical attacks of that element strike the weakness, while magic answers to the absorption. However, Tella never learns Holy and can't cast Meteor, so that's not meaningful, either. It's all rather peculiar.

In short, equip Cecil's Sword of Legend, toss Berserk and Haste on him if you like, heal and Blink as needed, and you'll win before you know it.

In the DS remake, the Dark Elf and Dark Dragon both have an additional weakness to Flame for Yang, Cid, and Tella to exploit. Survival is more of an issue, since the Dark Elf's spells still inflict a respectable amount of damage even with the harp playing, while the Dark Dragon's normal attack hits much harder than before. I also sincerely doubt that Tornado works, though I didn't actually try it since Tella was flattened before I got the chance. Silence reportedly works on the Dark Elf to disable nearly all of his attacks, which I didn't even think of trying since I'm too used to status magic (other than Slow) always failing against bosses.

Cecil takes the Earth Crystal. The monsters should cause less trouble on the way out, or you can just Teleport after leaving the crystal room.

On a side note, if you come here without first seeing Gilbert, the Dark Elf will wipe the floor with you. Oddly, he mostly forgoes magic in this case, instead striking with overpowered normal physical attacks (254 attack power x99 hits at 99% accuracy), and casting Quake only to mop up if anyone survives long enough.

On another side note, the Mindflayer (Mage) enemies occasionally found here have a slight chance to drop the rare Mindflayer summon item. They appear most often on B3F, which averages 106 Mindflayers per 256 battles, and the drop rate is the usual 15 in 16,384, resulting in an average of 2,638 battles per drop. Though that's a painfully low rate, the other floors are even worse, Mindflayers don't appear anywhere else, and no other monster drops the item.

Let's go see Gilbert first.

The EasyType replaces Cid's nonstandard きゃつ (kyatsu) with ヤツ (YATSU).

The EasyType replaces あしき (ashiki, evil) with the blander but more accessible わるい (warui, bad).

The EasyType adds ゆうきって‥‥ (yuuki tte...) in the middle of Gilbert's final line to clarify that he understands what courage is.