Later in the day, the party has made their trip back to the Kingdom of Ursaror. They are now in the King's throne room.
"I am forever in your debt travelers." King Marmaduke said with happiness. "I am gd to see that Hyacinth has been brought back safely from the dreaded cn Moonhawk."
"Thank you, your majesty." Shokei tells him.
"And because of you and your party's efforts, I am delighted to offer you a reward...well I haven't made my decision of what I should reward you with." The King said.
"That's not a problem." Shokei said to him. "The only reward is to see your daughter back in your pce."
"Yes, that is true." The King nodded. Then, he turns to his daughter. "Dear, do you have anything to say to the travelers that have rescued you?"
"Why yes..." Hyacinth said. "As a matter in fact, I certainty do..."
Shokei hears the King's daughter talking to her.
"I thank all of you for saving me..." Hyacinth said. Then, the conversation became different. "However, Emissary of Light, this right here is not the real princess of Ursaror..."
"What?!" Shokei said in confusion.
"Huh?!" Everyone said in confusion, baffled to what the impostor is saying.
Just then, the impostor Hyacinth lifts up her arms and then snaps her fingers to reveal its true identity. The party and King Marmaduke watch to see who was pying the role as the princess. The smoke clears the way and then everyone can see that the false Hyacinth turns out to be someone in a red-kimono Lolita dress. Shokei and her party are surprised to see who it really was.
"Ha-Hauntmystic!" Shokei called out to the imposter. She can see that it was a Necromutant the whole time. "W-what the hell are you doing here?!"
"Hehehe...you did a good job of 'saving' me." The Necromutant responded. "I feel amused to see the Emissary being heroic for once."
"Cut the sick joke!" Rei calls out to the enemy. "What the hell do you want?"
"My goal is to follow you and your friends in search for the Sand Gem." Hauntmystic tells the party. "I know exactly where all of you are heading to."
"If you're not the King's daughter, then where's the real one?" Kichiro asked her.
"Ohhh, where is she you asked? Then why don't you find her at the Necropolis of the Sacred Sanctuary." Hauntmystic replied. "I'm sure she's over there at the moment. If you are curious to what happened to her, find out yourselves! Now if you excuse me, I'm off to search for that precious gem you're heading to Emissary! Haha!"
The Necromutant vanished as she leaves the scene.
"Dammit!!" Shokei said with a pissed look. "We were fooled for a fake princess!"
"Absurd! Absurd!!" The King said in disgust. "How could Hyacinth head off to the Necropolis on her own without me knowing?! This is very upsetting indeed!"
"Actually, we were heading off to the Necropolis, but the sandstorm trapped us." Shokei said to him.
"Speaking of that, is there any word on the sandstorm?" Mizuki asked the King.
"Oh that!" King Marmaduke said, recalling the sandstorm. "I got word from one of my guards that the sandstorm has ceased. If you are to head there now, you would go and search for my real daughter from the Necropolis and bring her back here safely."
"Then we have to get going." Shokei said to her party. "We have not got a second to spare."
The party agrees and they left the King's throne room immediately.
"I want my daughter alive in one piece!" King Marmaduke calls out to them.
The party leaves the King's throne room. Before they can do anything else, the party has a group meeting.
"Since the road to the Necropolis is far, I have decided that half of you guys should remain here while me and a few of us should head north to the pce." Shokei said.
"If you're going, then you already know that I'm coming with you." Rei said to her.
"Exactly." Shokei said. "I need at least five of you that will join me on this journey. Rei is with me."
"Hmmm..." Rei thinks for a minute.
"Say Rei, why don't you make the decision?" Shokei asked her friend.
"Who, me?" Rei asked. "Aren't you in charge?"
"We're leaders of the party, aren't we?" Shokei asked her.
"Huh? Right, right!" Rei said, recalling what she said to her a long time ago. "Then again, I'll decide who gets to come with us."
"What if I didn't get picked?" Marie asked.
"Then you should watch the castle." Shokei tells her. "We were met by the real enemy, and we need half of us to make sure that this Kingdom is protected."
"Oh ok." Marie nodded.
"Let's see..." Rei said, looking at everyone in the party. "There's thirteen of us here..."
Soon, Rei made her decision. She decided to let Obsidian, Ferron, Mizuki, Sadako, and Lei join Shokei to the Necropolis. With a party of seven, Shokei's group is all set.
"Kichiro." Shokei tells him. "You and the others should stay here in case anyone of the Necromutants try anything suspicious to this Kingdom."
"Yes." Kichiro nodded. "And good luck out there."
"Thanks." Shokei said.
Shokei and her group leaves the castle. From departing Ursaror, the party heads northwest to make their journey to the Necropolis. Where they are walking now, Shokei can see that the sandstorm is no longer there. It appears that the area is clear for her to travel onward.
"Mizuki..." Shokei calls out to her. "I got a question."
"What's that?" Mizuki asked.
"I was wondering...are you sure that scroll you transted would increase my chances of finding the next gem?" Shokei asked.
"I cannot answer that for you." Mizuki replied. "That scroll I transted may not lead to what you seek."
"I mean, the gem is really located in that Sacred Sanctuary." Shokei said. "I know that there is a chance that the Sand gem is hidden there."
"Maybe it could lead you to what you need to find over there." Mizuki said. "It could lead to your destiny, but then again, the scroll could also mean that a treasure lies deep within the Necropolis. You'll never know."
"Then we'll have to find out." Shokei said to her.
The party continues their way through the sandy desert as they travel into the ndscape.
From walking distance, the party has finally reached their destination. Shokei can see that they have arrived at the Necropolis of the Sacred Sanctuary. The party looks to see the big area and it is an ancient city. The city also has a cemetery with many temples and shrines. The Necropolis is built with a cream-colored stone. Just like Thygya, the Necropolis appears to be a ruined area.
"Wow." Shokei said, looking around the pce. "I can never imagine how big this area would be."
"If I remember, there is a sanctuary that is located in this area." Mizuki said. "The Sanctuary is small and there is a secret that lies in one of the temples."
"While we're here, we need to find Hyacinth." Rei said.
As Shokei and her party looks around, Shokei notices something. She takes out her medallion and there she can see that her medallion is giving off a soft glow.
"What are you staring at?" Mizuki asked her.
"My medallion." Shokei tells her.
"Why is it glowing?" Mizuki asked. "Are you treating it like a compass?"
"It is." Shokei tells her. "It's giving a glow, indicating that the next gem is here."
"Really?" Mizuki asked. "Never seen a medallion like that."
"Follow me everyone." Shokei tells her party.
The party continues through the area. Shokei notices something up ahead. To their view, they can see that there is a statue standing near a medium size obelisk. The obelisk is surrounded by four tall pilrs and each one has a statue on top which is a giant-sized griffin. The party walks up to where the statue is and they all examine it. The statue that they see resembles more of a human.
Shokei examines the statue. Looking at it, she carefully looks at the figure. The statue appears to be a girl that looks like she is posing in defense.
"This is odd." Sadako said. "I find it odd for a statue to be here near this Obelisk."
"Hmm..." Mizuki examines the statue. "This looks like a statue, but something appears to be not quite right."
"What's that?" Rei asked.
"This statue is under a spell." Mizuki said. "It appears to be a human trapped inside."
"You're not making this up, are you?" Rei asked.
"No. Please, have a look." Mizuki tells her.
Rei looks at the statue. The statue of the person has a dress, along with a round medallion on her chest, and is wearing a crown.
"This statue looks a lot like the King's daughter." Shokei said.
"You really think so?" Lei asked.
"If I remember, the fake Hyacinth did not wear a medallion on her neck nor a crown." Shokei points out.
"I can recall that." Rei said, looking back. "I never seen any medallion on that imposter."
"I'm curious why this statue is the only statue to be here?" Shokei asked, scratching her head.
"I can expin that!!" A voice calls out of nowhere.
Suddenly, Shokei and her party can hear someone's voice calling out to them. They look above to see that Hauntmystic is standing on top of the pilrs.
"For your information, that is the real princess of Ursaror!" The Necromutant tells them.
"What the hell?!" Rei said.
The party looks back at the statue and sees that Hyacinth is already stoned.
"How did she get turned into stone?!" Shokei asked the enemy. "Did you do this?!"
"Of course, I did!" Hauntmystic replied. "I turned her into stone the moment she came here."
"Really?" Shokei said and asked. "Then what about the Moonhawk cn? Was this all a trap to distract us?"
"Ohh that!" Hauntmystic responded. "I learned that the cn was pnning to kidnap that girl. I learned that she was heading to this Necropolis secretly, without her daddy knowing, to find an important treasure here. That's when I encountered her and imprisoned her in my spell. Then I have disguised myself as the princess to allow those putrid humans to capture me."
"And you did all of that to distract us from our mission, huh?" Shokei asked.
"Why yes I did, Emissary!" The Necromutant responded. "But it seems that you foiled their pns to use you as human sacrifice."
"Oh, hell no! I wouldn't want to be a part of that!" Rei refused.
Mizuki examines the statue again and she pce her hand on it.
"I can feel the presence of dark energy trapping the princess." Mizuki said.
"I knew it!" Shokei said and unsheathes her sword. "Cursed bastard you! C'mon and fight."
Hauntmystic smirked and shakes her head as she ughed. She is amused to see the attitude in Shokei's eyes.
"Remove this vile curse from the real princess to her normal state!" Shokei demanded.
"You dare to order me, Emissary?" Hauntmystic asked her and ughed. "No, no! You see, my objective here is to destroy you and retrieve the Sand gem that you are going after. And since you want to get even towards me, being the master of my scheme, I have brand new toys that you and your allies can py with!"
Hauntmystic extends her arms in the air and looks up.
"Spirits of the Dark Dreams Gaxy!" The Necromutant summoned. "Bring forth the darkness to terrorize our foes!"
The party looks up to see dark clouds are forming, sealing the blue skies. Just then, a bolt of lightning has struck on the griffin statues. The statue sparks with electricity as the party sees what is going on. The statues succumb with energy, and they break out. The griffins emerged out of the stone, revealing its wings out, and makes a war cry. The party looks in the air to see four flying griffins flying above them. The Griffins are big in size, and they are behaving fiercely through the darkness.
Once the Griffins have been summoned, Hauntmystic looks down to see Shokei. She can see that it was only half of her party members but does not notice where the others are. The enemy has an idea.
"Hey, Emissary!" Hauntmystic calls out to Shokei.
Shokei hears her calling out to her.
"You wish to fight me?!" The Necromutant tells her. "Then come and get me...if you can!"
Shokei sees the enemy is flying in the air as she is leaving the scene.
"Hey! Get back here!" Shokei shouted at the enemy and takes off.
"Shokei!" Rei calls out to her. "Where are you going?!"
"No time for that! Look out!" Mizuki yelled.
The party get themselves ready for battle as they are about to fight the griffins.
As Shokei leaves her party behind, the rest fought against the Griffins. Rei and Lei are working together against the first Griffin. The Griffin swoops down to make its attack on them. Rei leaps in time to avoid the attack and swift kicks the monster from behind. The Griffin felt the first attack being done by Rei, losing its flying for a bit, but regains in airtime. Rei sees that the Griffin won't fall so easily and the monster swoops down to strike again. Lei sees the Griffin charging down to Rei. Although she is disguised as a Necromutant, she helps out the party without anyone knowing her true identity.
These people don't know who I really am, but still, what was Hauntmystic thinking?! Lei thought to herself. All this was a trap all right, but hey, might as well help these guys even more.
Back to the fight, Lei can see the Griffin heading towards Rei. Rei prepares herself to wait for the monster to make an attack. Lei used a psychic attack against the Griffin. The monster feels the impact of the telekinetic force that is being pushed against its atmosphere and sends the flying monster to the ground taking damage. Rei sees the opportunity and then she rushes up to where the Griffin is lying on the ground, trying to recover. The Griffin tries to get up, but Rei came close to the monster just in time to use a strong punch on the monster's stomach. The Griffin is then dealt with fast pace blows as it was struck all over its body. From being hit with punches and kicks, the Griffin counters by fpping its wings hard as it could, sending Rei in the air and falling back to the sandy ground. Rei looks up to see that the Griffin is flying back into the air.
"Dammit!" Rei said with a pissed look.
Thinking of what else to do, Rei looks to see if there was anything that she can use to throw at the monster. Lei takes her time and gets into her stance, waiting for the Griffin to make its next move.
The other party members are dealing with each Griffin and Sadako and Ferron are working together to defeat one of the Griffins. Mizuki and Obsidian are dealing with two Griffins at the same time.
"Rock Mineral Assault!!"
Sadako casts out her spell to make the rocks appear above the Griffin. The enemy tries to avoid getting struck by the rocks that are targeting its body. The Griffin gets hit by the rocks and falls down to the ground. Ferron sees the Griffin nearly going down and then he charges at the monster to take his chances of striking at the enemy. He used his sword to strike the wings of the Griffin, but then he was caught off guard as the other Griffin swoops down at him. This made Ferron missed his target, but then he dodged the enemy's attack. The Griffin that was being hit by Sadako's rock spell flies back in the air as it recovers quickly, but the damage was not enough. Ferron gets up to see the Griffin back in the air and he waits for the monster to come down at him again. Sadako can see that Griffin she was trying to take down is back in the skies. She prepares herself into using another type of magic spell to go up against the Griffins.
Mizuki and Obsidian are taking on one of the Griffins. Mizuki was about to strike at the enemy, but instead, she did something different. She gets into a trance-like position as she is readying herself to do something against the Griffin.
"By the atmosphere from the terrain's surface...Enchanting Whirlwind!"
A great swirl builds up on the ground's surface. Then, the winds build up as it became an actual whirlwind.
"Woah!" Obsidian said in surprise.
"What the?!" Rei said and she sees the whirlwind.
The party moves out of the way as the whirlwind traps the Griffins all around them. The whirlwind spins around with rocks and gravel in a mixture of dirt and sand. The Griffins are caught into the whirlwind as the strong current winds made them fly carelessly inside the tornado. The Griffins are hit by the rocks and are blinded by the sands and dirt, making them unable to escape. After a few minutes of the ferocious wind, the attack dies down and then the Griffins fell all the way on the ground floor. They hit the surface hard with damage by the chemist's attack.
"Amazing!" Rei said and then asked. "How did you do that?!"
"I guess I never told you before. I am capable of using Gaia techniques." Mizuki tells her party.
"In other words, we have a Geomancer in our party." Lei said, recognizing on what Mizuki did.
"That is true, young one." Mizuki nodded. "What you seen is what you've saw out of me."
"Interesting." Lei said.
"C'mon everyone! Now's our chance to finish them off!" Rei tells everyone.
Seeing that the flying Griffins are trying to recover from the unexpected whirlwind that made them lose their bance, the party takes action to defeat the monsters.
Somewhere far away from the battle, Shokei continues to pursuit after Hauntmystic. The Necromutant flies off into a cemetery that is around in the Necropolis. As soon as Shokei arrives at the cemetery, bypassing the gates, she looks around to figure out where the enemy has fled off to. All she sees is a graveyard field with graves along with small shrines and temples.
Where did she go? Shokei thought to herself.
Shokei looks around and there she finds an old chapel that is in the center of the cemetery. Shokei heads up to the chapel and she walks inside.
Entering the chapel, Shokei looks around the area. She can see that the chapel appears to be a medium-sized pce, build in yellowish-brown stone. The chapel looks quite dingy and ancient.
This pce looks awful...then again, this is an ancient Necropolis that is many years old... Shokei thought.
"We meet again...huh, Emissary?"
Shokei looks around and hears someone calling out to her. Looking above and seeing the broken tainted windows are, she can see that there is someone standing there on one of the wide broken windows. It is Zgebus!
"What the?!" Shokei said and then she remembers the face. "Hey! I remember you!"
"Really?" Zgebus asked her. He stands there with his arms folded.
"You're the Necromutant that I encountered back at Senwald." Shokei tells him.
"Heh! Great memory Emissary." Zgebus said to her. "Besides, I was really expecting you to come here."
"Where is she?" Shokei asked him. "Where did..."
"Hauntmystic?" Zgebus finished for her. "I can tell you where she went off to."
Shokei listened to the enemy.
"That is if you hand over that gem you possess." Zgebus demanded.
"No way! Why the hell would I do that?!" Shokei asked him angrily.
"Because I said so." Zgebus replied. "I won't let you go further into finding that Sand gem around here. You must be stopped immediately."
Zgebus reveals out his ironcw on his left hand and then jumps in the air. He heads downward to where Shokei is standing there in the middle of the walkway.
"Time to die, Emissary!" Zgebus cries out to her. "En garde!"
Shokei quickly rolls out of the way. She dodged right on time as Zgebus attempts to make a swipe with his cw weapon. Shokei grips her Mithrodin sword and turns to fight the Necromutant. Zgebus charges toward Shokei once again and Shokei quickly moves away again to avoid the enemy's attack. Zgebus touches the ground and rolls backwards to nd on both feet, skidding near the altar. Both sides get themselves up and are ready to go at it again.
"If it's a fight you want, then a fight I shall have!" Shokei calls out to Zgebus.
The fight continues as both sides cshed.