The first things newcomers are likely to notice about Zozo are that it's always raining and that 2-5 "Slam Shuffle" plays instead of the usual town music. Zozo also has several high towers, and, more to the point, random battles, while all the townspeople lie except the one who says it's dangerous.

A brief unused conversation might have belonged with him, too:

Many people make some reference to the time, and all their lies about it serve as clues for how to set a broken clock to open a passage to Edgar's Chainsaw. Other notable treasure includes the Thief's Bracelet accessory for Lock, found high in the main tower. A man blocks the stairs to the very top.

And since Dadaluma is, of course, lying, it's time for another boss battle. He can heal himself a bit and boost his defense after taking some damage, as well as calling for backup and tossing an occasional knife, but doesn't really have very many hit points, considering.

He calls for backup after a certain amount of time passes, but is unable to do so when under 'silence' status. He'll throw a weapon and then Jump on his next turn if hit by Magic twice, but not if he's in 'slow' status. Unfortunately, 'silence' is completely unavailable as far as I can tell, but Gau can inflict 'slow' status through the Paupolium (Poplium) Rage. However, 'stop' also works, so Alacrán (Areneid) and Acrophies (Primordite) are better options, as against Cefca earlier.

Dadaluma also has a chance to hit back when attacked normally, and will throw two weapons for massive damage after being hit with four normal attacks. Avoid his various counters by relying on skill attacks like Machines. When his health gets low enough (under 1920 out of 3270), once per battle, he heals himself with three items (each is randomly either a Potion or a High Potion) and casts Protect on himself, which is another reason to use skill attacks, since many ignore defense to begin with. Alternately, Celes can absorb his spell if you brought her. He also counters Steal with Steal, but that's pretty pointless, since you get back the money he takes when you beat him anyway. On that note, Lock can steal either a Jewel Ring (common) or a Thief's Bracelet (rare).

In other interesting notes, Dadaluma is weak against Poison, so Gau's Terrarium (Trilium) Rage will rough him up nicely with Bio. He's also susceptible to 'kappa' status, so you can also have Celes cast Kappa on him, but it's only questionably useful. Though it will stop his Protect spell and turn most of his attacks, including the knife throws, into normal attacks, he's one of those monsters that keeps full attack power and always gets critical hits under 'kappa' status, instead of dropping to 1 attack like most do. The net result is that his deadliest attacks are sealed, but everything else hurts more. Your choice.

There's also an unused line of text for this battle. While Dadaluma does whistle for backup, it's just a sound effect, with no text displayed.

The party beats him and continues to the top floor. Unlike the rest of the town, the room here is rather tidy, with no sign of monsters. Not only that, but Tina's here, lying on a bed and still transformed into... something. The party goes to check on her, and the music stops.

Much of the following dialog is generic and doesn't depend on who's in the group. The rest works as noted.

The music changes to "Awakening".

Suddenly, they hear a voice...

...and an old man with a very long white beard appears in the chair nearby, holding a staff.

Celes's line is less gendered, but otherwise identical to the more masculine generic one (for Lock, Edgar, Mash, or Shadow).

There's no time to wonder about that cryptic remark, though, since Tina suddenly starts moving erratically. She falls out of bed, lurches across the floor, and runs into the wall, then collapses. The music fades out.

Wow... so much so far off... While she's not in any danger or badly hurt, she's not necessarily "undamaged" either. There's no reason to believe she can't understand them, just that she can't control herself. The fact that using a power she's unaccustomed to caused this is lost completely.

That's enough to give everyone pause. "Another World of Beasts" plays...

Celes's line is again identical to the generic one except that lacks the masculine tone.

"Wrong" here, in Japanese (chigau), has Gau's name in it. For what it's worth.

There's a big difference between "my form happens to resemble a human" and "we sometimes take the shape of humans". There's no indication that Genjuu are shapeshifters. Ramuh simply looks enough like an old man to blend in with relative ease. The only mention of fear is the risk Ramuh is potentially taking.

We'll be seeing a lot of that line... but that doesn't necessarily mean it's true.

The above line sounds slightly stiff and is used for Cayenne. However, it's also used for Edgar and Mash, despite the fact that their mother died in childbirth and couldn't have told them stories about anything, though they could always have heard secondhand that she spoke of such things.

The above line is used for Celes, who probably didn't have much of a childhood, and Shadow, whose past is shrouded in mystery.

Ramuh keeps talking, but the view changes to show what looks like a small town, full of caves.

結界 (kekkai) is one of those slippery terms that's hard to pin down, in part because its popular usage has become so far removed from its origins. In short, it comes from a religious context, involving separating an inside from an outside, with the inside being somehow distinct—being set aside for a special purpose, having a stricter set of rules, something like that—than the outside world. The term could refer either to the enclosed area itself or to the boundary of the region.

This concept has since become more generalized, but as best I can tell, it retains the basic idea of there being a distinct inside and outside, with something special about the inside. One of the more popular uses in fantasy and science fiction is something akin to a protective barrier or force field to keep out attacks or harmful creatures, or, conversely, a sealing ward to keep something locked away. As a result, "barrier" is perhaps the most common translation of the term.

In some cases, like this one, though, that doesn't really work. Here, he's clearly referring to the enclosed space, not to the enclosure around that space. It's a place cut off from the rest of the world, not easily entered. We find out later that it even has different properties than the rest of the world, affecting how their powers manifest. It's a distinct "inside", set aside for a special purpose, with its own set of rules, and has some way to keep harmful outside influences out.

Which is all basically a longwinded and convoluted way of saying that whatever they did, it was probably more complicated than just moving into a cave and slapping a magic shield over the entrance, but not nearly so elaborate as creating an entire separate literal world.

Ramuh keeps talking as the view shows the outside of a large cave, with the opening covered by a massive door. The cave is somewhere dark and otherworldly.

The scene shifts back to the room, where Ramuh continues talking.

The party members nearest Tina help her back into the bed.

The music fades out.

That's interesting to note: Magicite is crystallized power. Incidentally, that presumably ought to be a hard 'c' ('k' sound rather than 's'), combining "magic" with the "-ite" suffix that often appears in mineral names, like hematite and malachite.

Ramuh raises his staff, and three stones slowly fall from above.

A crackling sound and bright flash of light occur as he raises his staff. The force shoves the party away, and he is reduced to a piece of stone, like the others.

Celes again says the same thing with only a slight tweak, this time avoiding a masculine self-pronoun.

All characters now have magic points and can learn spells through magicite, though the natural magic users tend to have better casting strength.

The characters who had been left behind in Narshe appear at the entrance to the room after the party takes Ramuh's magicite.

And so, they start to leave, talking along the way...

The player now chooses which characters, if any, will accompany Celes and Lock.

Lock looks away as he replies.

It's easy to miss, especially in the English version, but there's only one thing that the game refers to as 秘宝 (hihou). He's after what rumor claims can call back the spirits of the dead. On closer inspection, his intro text refers to it, too. He's not seeking treasure in general so much as that treasure.

There's now someone wandering around near the entrance of Zozo who looks like a ghost and wasn't there before.

And that's Genjuu usage in a nutshell. Each character may equip only one Genjuu at a time, and only one character at a time may equip any given Genjuu. Equipping a Genjuu allows the character to learn the spells it provides, summon it in battle, and gain any listed attribute bonus at level up.

Level-up bonuses can be earned repeatedly as long as the character continues to gain levels. However, max HP has a 9999 cap and max MP has a 999 cap. Because of the algorithms and variable sizes used, raising strength above 128 provides no additional benefit, and very high magic power may cause damage overflow for the stronger spells (particularly Ultima). There is also only one Genjuu that raises agility, and only by one point per level (which means that agility over 235, which would result in extreme slowness, is normally unreachable... was this done deliberately?). Also note that if you're maxing out levels anyway, each of the 14 final party members reaches at least 9783 max HP and 989 max MP (961 in the NA version; why the difference?) at level 99 without any extra help, so the usefulness of extra HP/MP gains is minimal if you max levels, unless you insist on having straight 9s. Then again, you're pretty overpowered at level 99 anyway, so if you're interested in any actual challenge...

With things taken care of here as well as they can be for now, the party heads back south. In addition to the usual experience points and gil, most battles will now provide Magic Learning Points (魔法修得値, carelessly translated as "Magic Point(s)" in spite of that already being what the MP used to cast spells conceptually stands for), which I will abbreviate to LP as needed.

If you didn't recruit Shadow in Kohlingen before, you can do so now, but be aware that he'll leave shortly after reaching the Opera House, if not sooner.