Martel's Temple
"So this is what the inside of the temple is like." Lloyd points out.
"Colette, you've been in here many times, right?" Genis asks.
"Yeah, but it seems different than usual."
"I sense the presence of monsters. Don't let your guard down." Kratos warns.
"We can handle a few measly monsters. Let's go." Lloyd claims reassuringly.
"Wait. Lloyd, are your sword techniques self-taught?" Kratos questions.
"Yeah. That's right."
Kratos walks towards Lloyd and hands him a leather journal.
"What is this thing?"
"If you are going to use a sword, then at least learn the basics. You want to protect the Chosen, don't you?" Kratos says as he walks away.
"Humph! You think you know so much!" Lloyd shouts in jealousy.
Lloyd takes a brief look, flipping through the pages of the journal. The carefully drawn drawings and long written paragraphs bored Lloyd almost immediately.
The four continue to walk through the long stone dark hallways. As Colette said, something was off about this place.
Eventually, after enough wandering they came upon a magic sealed door, giving a blue mythical aura.
"It's sealed." Kratos sounds drained.
"Maybe the Sorcerer's Ring can open this. It should be enshrined somewhere in this temple." Colette explains.
"Where is it?" Genis questions.
"Let's hurry up and go get it!" Lloyd shouts optimistically.
"Um. I don't know. I'm sorry." Colette holds her hands in fists.
"Fine. We'll look for it. Man." Lloyd says, almost annoyed.
The group walks away from the door and continues searching through the hallways. After running into a few strange looking monsters and quickly finishing them off, they eventually came across a staircase leading into a large room surrounded by water. There was a small stone platform with a unique looking shrine holding a mythical ring engraved in the center of it.
"I bet that's the Sorcerer's ring." Genis points down towards the platform holding the ring.
"Okay, let's go get it!" Lloyd says before he notices Colette wandering away from the group.
"Look, there's something here." Colette motions.
Suddenly a large crash noise interrupted and a brown rock looking Golem monster appeared in thin air.
"Look out!" Kratos yells deep in warning, charging towards the monster.
"Sonic thrust!" Kratos shouts, sending a green magical aura bursting through the air.
"This must be the artes that the journal mentioned." Lloyd thinks to himself.
An arte is a more powerful move of fighting. It takes the mana from one's body and infuses it into the attack to install greater force. It can only be used every so often as everybody's inner mana is limited. Orange gels can help increase mana. The gels that they saw being sold in the shop previously in the village, are mostly used to help in battle. It's because of this that Lloyd carried a couple in his pocket.
Kratos continues to slash through the Golem's arms in great speed carefully with precision, every slash landing a large hit. Kratos moves swiftly, yet a bit heavy. But his eye for understanding the enemy's weakness was very good. He was able to understand almost immediately what to do and when to which opponent, almost like second nature.
Lloyd could tell this wasn't at all one of Kratos' first battles. You could see he had a great amount of experience with his moves and skills.
Before Lloyd knew it, the Golem was finished. He almost felt guilty for not being much help throughout the fight. As soon as the Golem dissolved into ash, a large rock brown block appeared in its place.
"Wow! It turned into a rock!" The excited student could barely contain her excitement.
"Well, It was kind of a rock to begin with." Lloyd corrects.
"Oops!" Colette yelps as she suddenly trips and falls, landing into the block pushing it forward into one of the large circular holes sitting in the glass floor.
"Uh- -" Lloyd stutters.
The block falls through the hole and lands down to the first story of the room into a space between two small platforms filling it perfectly, creating a bridge.
"Oh, no!" Colette yells worriedly.
"I get it." Kratos and Genis nod and say in unison.
Colette and Lloyd look at eachother confused.
"What? What are you two talking about?" Lloyd looks puzzled.
"In just a moment, it'll probably- - See. There it is." Genis explains vaguely.
The bottom right corner of the glass platform they were standing on suddenly spawned a new Golem monster as it began to stomp around searching for a new opponent.
"Woah! There's another one!" Lloyd says, sounding amazed.
"Now let's take care of it and drop it down below!" Genis shouts ready to fight.
The four finish off the next Golem monster and a new rock brown block spawns in its place. Genis quickly runs down the stairs off the glass platform and down to the first floor of the large stoned room. The previous block Colette tripped and pushed into one of the several holes engraved into the glass platform above, has fallen down in-between a rock platform path, building a bridge. There were several other empty spaces in between the other rock paths that lead to a new staircase. This must be a puzzle that is included in the Goddess Martel's trial for the Chosen. Genis walked across the rock path, using the brown block as a bridge to get to the next staircase. He silently walked up the glass stairs to another rock platform that contained a wooden chest sitting in the center of it. He opened up the wood chest to see a life bottle sitting inside. These wooden chests must be spread around certain temples. Genis makes his way back to the path and looks up. The glass platform above him had large holes that were aligned to fill certain spaces between the rock pathways. The other holes were right above the water surrounding the path.
"I see. We have to push the block into the right hole to let it fall down and fill the spaces in the path." Genis shouts to the others as he quickly runs back up the stairs to the block.
"So we just need to fight these guys a couple more times and push the block into the right hole?" The messy brown haired student scratches the back of his neck.
"Strategizing things like this and handling puzzles is just another part of Martel's trial for the Chosen one. Be careful, making a mistake such as- -pushing the block into the wrong hole can make us have to start again and will only waste our time." Kratos explains in a monotone voice.
"Oh okay! So I just need to push the block into here?" Colette asks before she pushes the block into the further right centered hole.
The party watches as the block falls down into the space between the rock pathways.
"Cool!" Lloyd excitedly yells as a new Golem monster spawns in a new corner of the glass.
Genis runs back down the stairs and crosses the new block bridge toward the chest. As he opens it up and smiles in victory he sees another bright red apple gel sitting in the middle of the chest. He quickly grabs it as the other three once more kill off the Golem monster. Kratos grabs the brown block and pushes it into the top centered hole. Suddenly, a loud sound of music plays in victory before it abruptly stops.
"What was that?" Lloyd asks.
"The sound of the temple puzzle being completed, I presume. We are done here, let's go down and cross the path to the sorcerer's ring to open the door." Kratos explains.
The four exit down the stairs and make their way to where they saw the sorcerer's ring was being held.
"That was a lot easier than I thought It'd be." Lloyd says feeling accomplished.
"Don't get too cocky. This is only the first step of the trial. I assume the puzzles will gradually get harder to solve." Kratos hangs his head slowly at Lloyd's carelessness.
Lloyd and Kratos continue to give each other looks that seem to have different feelings behind them before they're suddenly interrupted by the cheers of Colette and Genis.
"So this is the Sorcerer's ring!" Genis shouts excitedly. "I've heard about It before, It's a holy artifact of the Church of Martel!"
"We should be able to deal with most traps and obstacles with this." The red haired mercenary holds his hand up to his chin.
"Wow! Let me try it!" Lloyd interrupts blissfully.
"Okay, Lloyd." Colette smiles brightly as she walks over towards Lloyd.
"You're such a little kid." Genis shakes his head in disappointment.
Lloyd grabs the ring and the four continue back to the magically sealed door.
"Just put on the ring and use it to shoot the mana out of it towards the door!" Colette instructs Lloyd happily.
Lloyd quickly puts on the ring and uses it against the door. The magic sealing the door is suddenly taken apart and the door opens.
"Oh. Is this all the Sorcerer's Ring does?" Lloyd asks tiredly.
"You get bored so easily." Genis says disappointed, throwing his hands behind his head.
There behind the open door lay a circular purple portal at the end of the hallway. The four make their way onto the platform as the portal teleports them to the top of the temple.