Final Fantasy I Walkthrough

15. Way Too Much Lava

Right away when you enter, you’ll notice a lot of lava on the ground. You can walk across it, and although you’ll take damage, you won’t have any encounters while walking on it. In many situations, you’ll have to take the damage. In the first room, simply walk across to the northwest area of the room to find some stairs leading down.

In this second room, you’ll realize right away that there is a lot of treasure to be had here. All in all, you can net two Mythril Helms, 13925 gil, Mythril Gloves, two Potions, Tent, Antidote, Mythril Shield, Mythril Axe, and a Claymore scattered throughout 18 chests. When you’re done carrying all that, go to the bottom left to go to the next floor.

There’s nothing to the west of the entrance, so ignore that area and save yourself some health. Instead, head east to the next staircase. In this fourth area, there is a lot of lava. It’ll drain a lot of your health, but fortunately, you won’t be encountering enemies as long as you’re on it. The next staircase is in the bottom right area of this room.

In this fifth area, there is again a lot of lava, with little areas where you have to walk on ground, where you might encounter enemies while you’re weak. There’s no treasure here, so from the entrance, go west until you can go south, then go south all the way. After that, head west, and you’ll be at another staircase.

Make sure you heal up here, because you’re bound to be pretty weak from all the lavawalking. In the small room right by the entrance, you can find a Gold Needle and 2750 more gil. Travel further and grab 1760 gil from another little room. If you travel west from there, there’s another room with five chests, and you’ll get one Antidote, 8220 gil, Ice Brand, and a Flame Shield. Backtrack to the intersection and travel south to another small room, where you can get a whole 165 gil. East of there is another small room with Cottage and 2000 gil. Backtrack and head south, where you’ll find another small room, complete with 1250 gil and a Staff. Head south from there, and there will be another staircase. You’ll be in a room with eight directions. Head all the way west and nab the Flame Mail, guarded by a Red Dragon. After that, you’re free to take the southwest path, where you will meet Marilith, the Fiend of Fire.

Marilith	HP	Attack	Defense	Magic Defense	EXP	Gil
	1200	40	50	183	2475	3000
	Damage		Status		Special Attacks
	40-80		None		Fire2FogBind
	Weakness			Ineffective
	Locations
	Mt. Gulg

Marilith is very tough, because you’re likely very weak by the time you reach her. The key to this battle is blocking her physical attacks by casting the white magic Shld2 multiple times. If you don’t have this, make sure you’re doing a lot of damage per round and healing enough. After a few castings of Shld2, she won’t be able to hurt you much at all with physical attacks, and as she uses those more than her fire magic, you should be good to go.

After the battle, reactivate the Fire Crystal and use the teleporter to get out of the dungeon. Travel back to Crescent Lake, where you will no doubt need to restock on Potions and Antidotes, sleep, and save.