When we left off, Terra whooshed south without her clothes and you have to return them to her. I guess she wanted to get the hell out of Narshe. It's always winter, never Xmas. Which I suppose is a good thing; the Empire is bad enough without Robot Santa declaring everyone naughty. Stop by Figaro Castle because we need to tunnel to the other desert. Sabin isn't here because everyone else is more important. Gau gets access to Fire 2 and Lightning 2 and bio and will soon have Ice 2. Celes can cure and use magic (earrings help) and is generally a good attacker, and generally needs to level up because she becomes even more awesome and more mandatory soon enough. Edgar now has flash, which does magical damage and blinds, not that anyone cares about the latter, and drill, which does lots of damage. Locke can steal, and with the thief knife you should have picked up in Narshe, he can steal and attack at the same time. You probably saw a walking carpet in Narshe, but you can ignore that for now.

Once you've tunneled to the other side near the town of Kohlingen, you meet some new enemies! If you must, take Gau to get the Anguiform (has Aqua Rake) and Aspik (with the awesomeness called Giga Volt) I'd wait.

As far as enemies go, Vultures are unremarkable and can't be suplexed.

FossilFangs are remarkable. They'll use Bone to turn you into a zombie and Sand Storm to polish you and strip off about 200 HP worth of flesh. Gau's Templar rage is useful. Aura Bolt is really effective, but Sabin isn't here.

We arrive at Kohlingen, where Little Girl talks about that shining thing. What we want to do is keep this situation from happening: Our elders have been replaced with the benevolent Emperor Gestahl. All Hail Gestahl.

About as crazy as everyone else here.

I'm just not sure. Edgar's bound to be disappointed.

We arrive at someone's house and Locke repeats something he said earlier.

It's time for a flashback, which features Cupid de Locke and someone with the very shoegazy and remarkably not-Fantasy name of Rachel. They're off to find treasure, of course. See, the fundamental difference between a treasure hunter and a thief is that a treasure hunter takes loot that is just hanging around instead of just stealing it.

So he sees Celes of all people as a new Rachel. Look, Locke. Terra's the amnesiac one.

She kicks him out. Locke makes off with her wallet, her jewelry, several books, that bottle of wine, but not the elixir that someone stashed in her grandfather clock.

She's as dead as leaves now.

They don't even look alike. She looks very natural, though. Hard to believe she's stuffed with sawdust.

I really don't want to know.

Buy some new equipment and leave this place. These people are beginning to creep me out. Ah, monsters.

Mind Candy is a bee that can put you to sleep.

Over Grunk is a plant that can poison you.

Red Fang can also poison you.

Iron Fists are those monks that can use Stone to do 7.5 the damage of battle if you're at his level. If you somehow survived 1300 HP of damage, it muddles you. That means level 15 in this guy's case. If you're not level 15, it muddles you. Muddle is bad because a strong character's HP is usually less than a weak enemy's.

You can go to Jidoor, the town of rich people who seem to put everything in banks or stocks far far away so that Locke can't take it instead of diamonds and rubies or even a lousy card. The Jidoorians tell you that people in Zozo lie and steal. Sort of like Locke, except they always lie.

Who cares about Jidoor, though? The auction house is currently inactive, and you can't just raid everyone's house, so let's go to Zozo. Holy catchy music, Batman. Dum du-dum. Da-do-da-do-da-dum. Even if you've never touched this game since your SNES broke, you'll remember that. It's like Megaman. I remembered the Wily Fortress music from a game I never owned for years. You may not remember where it's from, but you'll remember it.

Gabbldegak use vanish on you if they're confused. That's about it. I am not impressed. I'm pointing this out because you can use this to your advantage.

Harvesters look like they're going to steal, but all they do is use fight for piss damage and throw a dirk or mithril knife at you that will probably instakill a character.

Slam Dancers use level 2 spells. They carry thief knives, but they never use them. Someone says there's something wrong with this. Magic's been unknown for 1000 years, and there's an entire city of people who can use these spells.

HadesGigas hits hard and that's it. When they're knocked out, they'll use a Magnitude 8 as a last ditch effort against you. They hurt. Snare and Imp prevent that from happening. But wait! That's not all. There's a broken clock. Now, keep in mind that everyone in Zozo LIES. Clock's second hand's pointin' at 30.
The seconds? They're divisible by 20!
The second hand of my watch is pointing at four.
Time? It's 4:00.
You can trust me! It's 8:00.
10:00! Time to go home!
It's already 12:00.
It's now 2:00.

You can do it given this information, or simply brute force it. When you've solved the puzzle, you get a chainsaw. It's stronger than the drill, causes insta-kills occasionally, what's not to like? Using it against enemies that are immune to insta-kill. Edgar seems to don his Jason mask against undead and other things immune to it when they're immune and not when they're susceptible.

On the way here, there's a Thief Glove for Locke. It changes fight in to capture, which is steal+attack. Like attacking with a thief knife, except with the battle power of something worthwhile. It does other things too, like take abilities away from weapons, but you don't care about that at this point, as you don't have anything that the Thief Glove affects. I'll mention it later. However, if you got the rune edge instead of waiting for a ribbon, it will no longer consume MP to cause a guaranteed critical.

This fellow is Dadaluma. Steal a sneak ring or jewel ring from him. Use any rage Gau has that features Bio, or maybe just Stray Cat. He'll eventually use Safe on himself. Hit him with magic twice and he'll throw and then pogo jump. Remember Kain? Yeah. That. Slow prevents that, but why waste a rage? He'll summon Iron Fists after 30 seconds. I'd point out that mute prevents that, but I should also point out who the hell cares; you don't have mute?

Move on. It never specifies who says this.

You meet this guy, who you've maybe seen in Final Fantasy IV or V, assuming you ever used the Ramuh summon in IV. I never did.

Hey, everyone! An old man is telling a story!

My story begins in nineteen dickety two. We had to say dickety because the Emperor had stolen our word twenty. And I was wearing an onion on my belt, as was the style at the time. And I had to take the ferry to Nikeah, which in those days was called Kaipo. On those days, five-gil pieces had pictures of bumblebees on them. Did I mention I was wearing an onion on my belt? We only had red onions because of the war, which in those days was called the Second World War II. Anyway, the point is Terra is the offspring of a human and an esper. In those days, she was called Rosa Jr. and espers were called Phantom Beasts.

Well, I could have said huh-huh erected huh huh huh huh huh like that other guy probably would. Anyone who would think infantile toilet humor is funnier than references to obscure Mac games and The Simpsons is not here anyway. They're either isolated from the worthwhile part of the library of babel that is the internet or they're watching Farrely Brothers movies.

Lazy scriptwriter, can't come up with unique dialogue for each character?

He's a communist! Let's get him and turn him to magicite.

Gau's exit is the best part. You know that his birthday is April 5? If you can't figure out why that's awesome, listen to some New Wave. Celes mentions that she was asleep when being infused with magic. I'd imagine it feels like sticking your hand in a nest of fire ants.

If no boats go there, what? Do they just leave the transports on the continent when the Empire comes to annex them? Seems awfully inefficient. They do have an air force, but it doesn't look like that's very useful for moving battalions of soldiers, even if they are suspended from bungee cords. No wonder the Empire fired Celes.

"I don't know, Celes. For once in my life, I feel like I've stolen enough."
*SMACK*
"I don't know what's come over me."
*Locke steals Celes' money*