As the status screen foreshadowed, the Water Seed no longer rests in its stand.

Whether her powers are linked to the seed, or she's just that distraught, Luka will not heal or save at this point in the game.

The shortcut comes in handy again. In the hub of town, Gemma and the elder stand near a hole in the ground that hadn't been here before.

Below, the party finds what appears to be some kind of high-tech shiplike vehicle. A sneaky-sounding tune plays (track 26 奇妙な事件 / "Strange Incident"). Oddly, a chest inside contains...

You can use the Magic Rope to leave here if you can't wait to have that reforged.

Continuing inside, the party finds three strangely dressed figures standing by a large seed. The one in the middle wears a raspberry red cape with an embellishment that appears to be a scorpion.

Was it really necessary to alert them? The matching pair flanking the more elaborately costumed figure turn around and advance. With their green eye masks and odd uniforms, they give off sort of a generic supervillain lackey vibe.

The central figure, obviously the leader, finally turns around too. With her dramatically styled blonde hair, eye mask colored to match the cape, leotard-inspired lavender outfit, and knee-high boots, she's presumably going for the supervillain look, and her dialog just supports that conclusion.

As Kishi pointed out in an LP thread on the Talking Time forums, these three appear to reference the Doronbo Gang from Yatterman, which has become an archetype for enthusiastic yet incompetent villain groups.

The minions act impressed, but she just brushes them off.

And with that, they walk away into the next room. The party follows them to find a large, rather silly-looking robot waiting. The boss music starts.

There's a flash and an exploding noise.

If it hurts this much with just the auxiliary power, it's a good thing they couldn't get it to work properly with the seed. Guardian (Kilroy) wields hammers that may look silly, but hit hard and can inflict Moogle status. Besides that, it can use a whirling attack that makes it dangerous to approach from any angle.

Keep The Girl in particular out of range so she can cast Refresh (Remedy) and Heal Water (Cure Water) as needed. The newly upgraded sword and pike may be tempting, but it's much safer to stick with long-ranged attacks. Guardian has no particular weaknesses, so Freeze will outperform all other available offensive magic, since it's as inexpensive as Diamond Missle (Gem Missile) and as powerful at equal levels as Earthquake (Earth Slide). Try to sneak in weapon hits while the spell animation locks the robot in place.

"Orphan of the Storm" plays after winning. The aspiring supervillain is not amused.

The party returns to the village automatically. Gemma has left, though the elder remains by the hole.

Everything seems normal in Pandora, though, and besides, we have other business to attend to.

Garfish have taken up residence in the water around the temple, and Sahagins (Water Thugs), with a thrown trident attack, lurk by the entrance and inside. "Holy Intrusion" plays inside as well, confirming that trouble has arrived. Luka remains by the altar as usual, but several soldiers and their apparent leader surround her. The leader has shoulder-length mint green hair, a cape in a matching color, and oversized shoulder guards.

Giving it to him has a predictable outcome...

...but trying to run away just fails, with the party thrown back by an unseen force.

Either way, Gestahl places the seed back on the altar, but instead of sitting there peacefully, it stands on end and spins continuously.

The scene shifts to the large pool of shallow water along the way in. The party stands, weapons out, facing a large monster with two dragonlike heads.

Jabberwock (Jabberwocky) has two heads that move independently of the body on long necks. Targeting the body near the feet works best when attacking. After it takes enough damage, one of the heads will explode, reducing its ability to strike.

Its attacks may cause Asleep or Poisoned, and it may also use spells including Acid Storm. Since its element is Water, avoid attacking with Undine's magic. I find that periodically casting Diamond Missle (Gem Missile), while making weapon attacks during the spell animation to add to the damage, works well.

"Orphan of the Storm" plays after victory. The party goes to check on Luka, and finds that Gemma has also arrived.

As I touched on before... without the concept of a physical object like an orb, how does he carry that around?

The seed reacts to the sword as before, and settles calmly into place afterward.

Gemma has little else to say.

Luka heals and saves again, and has a new line after doing so.

The cannon to the Upper Lands gives us somewhere to go next, but first...

Watts upgrades weapons as usual, but the elder looks lonely by that big hole in the ground. Let's go talk to him.

The Munchkin Hammer toggles Munchkin status on any one ally and never runs out of uses, providing an easy way to cure the status.

Or, if you'd rather abuse the game mechanics, using it a few times while the enemy's trying to hit you with a spell will usually shut out the enemy spell's effect.

Let's see the cannoneer, then.

Which makes the forest part of the region, not something on the way there.

And we're off!