Final Fantasy V Walkthrough
Written by Djibriel
Contributor
3.8: The Island Shrine; the Wind Tablet
Enemies: Prototype, Mecha Head, The Damned, Executor, Oisearare, Shadow Dancer, Numb Blade, Tot Aevis, Covert, Pantera, Wendigo
Treasures: 9000 Gil, 12000 Gil, 
Beast Killer, 
Circlet, Crystal Helm, Dark Matter, Dragon Fang, Elixir, Ether x2, Hi-Potion, Iron Draft, 
Protect Ring, 
Rising Sun
Blue Magic: 
Level 2 Old, Level 3 Flare, Level 4 Graviga, Level 5 Death, Doom, Off-Guard, ????, Missile, Flame Thrower, Self-Destruct, Mind Blast
In the middle of the World Map there's a large sea. On the southern edge, you can see an island which turns out to have appeared right in the middle of the Big Bridge. The Island Shrine existed earlier, but, surrounded by mountains, you had no way to enter it. Now, the path is open.
Guarding the doorway are two Gargoyles. You've fought them earlier, so you know how to deal with them. Remember: Yes to
Berserk, no to Holy! Thus, 
Excalibur and the 
Holy Lance are out. With Syldra at your side, Faris' old buddy is without a doubt the easiest way of clearing out the battlefield; boosted by an 
Air Knife, 
Magus Rod or possibly even 
Wind Slash or 
Rune Chime, the post-mortem plesiosaurus deals great amounts of damage.The Damned used to hide in Pyramid of Moore chests all the freaking time, but they're loose now. What's the deal with The Damned, anyway? They went to Harvard. They practice law in prestigious New York firms. They're undead pests, vulnerable to
Level 4 Graviga. All this is common knowledge. But deep inside, what really makes them tick?Executor enemies will use every level-based Blue spell, ranging from
Level 5 Death, Level 4 Graviga and Level 3 Flare to Level 2 Old. The Flare variant was slightly problematic to obtain earlier, so you may want to learn it here. All these spells can be Reflected, so that's a good way to defend yourselves if you find your team vulnerable to the 
Death or Flare attacks. Level 3 Flare itself is a great way to get rid of Executors if you want to give them a bun out of their own oven.Oisearare is the source for
Mirage Vests, as you can rarely Steal one from these enemies. They may appear in large numbers, so you should have no shortage of opportunities. Mirage Vests are great in combination with Hermes Sandals, as you'll end fights before the Image status can be challenged twice. "Oiseau rare" is french for 'rare bird'. Considering Oisearare is neither a bird nor infrequent in the slightest, this is a case of dadaist humor not often found in Japanese video games. They can cast Confuse spells on the first turn; Lamia's Tiara, Ribbons, the Genji Helm and Bone Mail protect you from auto-mutilation.The
Mirage Vest sets a one-time Image status on the wearer. (Note that the Blink spell and the Ninja's !Image action ability both set the Image status for the next two attacks, whereas the Mirage Vest just sets one.) In quick battles such as random encounters, they grant physical immunity to some extent; the battle will most likely end before a character can be hit twice. In longer battles, a bug may be exploited; Mirage Vest's Image status is re-loaded every time equipment is switched in-battle; switch a Thief's dagger from the Right to the Left Hand slot, and the Image is back. Try it out, amaze your friends! Remember that by switching equipment in-battle, you also lose the powers of Resist Fire, Resist Ice, Resist Thunder, Resist Poison, Dragon Shield and Elemental Power. Nobody cares!Tot Aevis is a tub of lard. It has 33090 HP, and is both Heavy and protected from Death attacks. It has no elemental weaknesses, but it absorbs Wind. You will be fighting these things for a while. As a common steal, it has the
Aevis Killer Bow, which always scores a Critical Hit on the Aevis type (big birds). Why would a big bird carry its own death warrant? The questions of life are difficult to answer indeed. Tot Aevis may set Petrify with Beak, attack physically and use Breath Wing. Since Tot Aevis strikes hard, Golem is a great way of keeping you Not-Dead, the preferred state. As you can see the Tot Aevis is vulnerable to the Confuse status, but you'll want to resist the temptation, since Breath Wing heals the enemy substantially when turned on itself. When you're done, you get nothing. You lose. Good day, sir. Except, maybe, possibly, you get another Aevis Killer.The
Aevis Killer is far more powerful than the Hayate Bow, and is a decent alternative to Yoichi's Bow seeing as how Tot Aevis enemies appear here and are such a humongous drag. Aevis Killers suffer no abnormal miss chance, so setting Berserk with this Bow will not make it miss. That's a good thing to know.Shadow Dancers will attack physically, but may also use Dancehall Daze to inflict Sleep on a single target. They have a rare
Dancing Dagger for stealing. There is no reason why you should want one, but they're fun and you have only had one chance to obtain it so far.Numb Blade samurai have a rare
Ice Shield for stealing! They're great in Knight Single Job Challenges, helpful against the boss fight of this place and generally good to have. Now that the exciting stuff is out of the way, the Numb Blade sets Paralyze with !Mineuchi. See! The !Mineuchi which the Samurai Job learns after 10 ABP is supposed to set Paralyze. I told you. These Samurai have no other special features.Being able to use !Steal successfully is a great thing in this dungeon, so you'll probably want a Thief around.
Chicken Knife + !Mug is a great idea you might wish to employ. Syldra boosted by an Air Knife is exceedingly powerful at the moment, so use it for crowd control. What's left here is the challenge of the Tot Aevis, so rise to meet it. Buff spells and an Aevis Killer are great weapons. Since this fight takes so long, you might even find use for the buff Songs from the Bard. Prepare against Confuse spells with Confuse-resistant equipment or Reflect Rings that also help against the Executor's spells (but remove the Thief's Gloves as an option).Push through the heavy doors of the Island Shrine to find another apparently featureless room. With Find Passages, you can see a hidden passage to the right which takes you to a chest containing 12000 Gil.
The next room will take you to a pipe, which will suck you in. Here, in the room with the switches, two treasures are hidden from you. On the wall to the left, one tile above the bottom-right tile, you can find a Hi-Potion. In the bottom-right corner, on the right wall, you can find an Iron Draft. Useless items, but they're there and if you miss them you'll have to cry yourself to sleep, I suppose.
The switches you now see behave as follows: Up/Up means back to the entrance. Up/Down takes you to a chest containing an Elixir. Down/Down takes you to a chest containing 9000 Gil. Down/Up takes you further inside.
Raid both the Elixir and 9000 Gil chests before pressing on; get back to the switches room, flip the left one down and the right one up and get into that inviting tube. Here, there's a chest containing either Covert or Pantera. Both monsters are exclusive to being a monster-in-a-box in this specific chest, so you'll never be able to defeat both on the same file (though you can see both by opening the chest and running away a few times). Neither has a Bestiary entry, so no worries there.
The Covert is a red-clad ninja who may attack physically or use either Wind Slash or Blaze. It has 7000 HP. When you kill him, he'll go "Illusion" and summon two of his kind before passing away. Since they overlap perfectly, you won't see the first one die and the other two appear. Now, you'll have to fight two additional Coverts, though you'll only see one on the battlefield. After you've killed the other two, the Covert will say "That's far enough!" and die. Golem is nice.
The Pantera is a super-Coeurl. It attacks physically and may randomly use Blaster, which sets either Paralyze or Death, 50-50 chance. Sadly, the Pantera battle is bugged. See, what was supposed to happen was this. When you allowed Pantera to live for two turns, it would summon two images of itself. "Illusion!" One of them would randomly be the 'real' Pantera and take damage. The other two would be invulnerable to harm. You'd be attacking decoy targets a lot as the real Pantera often switched. Once Pantera would have died, the two images would Flee. Rather than starting this switcheroo, however, the extra Panteras will actually self-terminate as a first turn after multiplying.
Regardless of its guardian, you'll get a
Rising Sun from the chest for you trouble, which is basically an upgraded version of your Moonring Blade: a Thief- and Ninja-specific weapon which deals the same amount of damage from the Back Row. It is not a bad weapon, but it is considerably outperformed by the many other great weapons you've obtained (magic-boosting ones, Chicken Knife, Assassin's Dagger). It is also Aerial, so it will always hit those monsters that cannot avoid Aerial weapons (which includes most Floating enemies). You'll want a Thief in here anyway, and, coupled with the Strength coming from Barehanded, the Rising Sun will deal respectable amounts of damage.Continue for a Save Point. Welcome to the 2nd Floor. To the left, you can find a chest with an Ether. To the right, a secret passage detectable by a Thief will lead you to a chest containing a
Crystal Helm. Both are useless. In the middle of the room is a chest containing either a Mecha Head or a Prototype. The former is one of those mechanical menaces you found in the Pyramid of Moore; the latter was the undefeatable thing you Controlled and Self-Destructed for Dark Matters back in World 1. For whatever reason, bring a Mystic Knight; the Mecha Head will instantly fall against Thundaga spellblade effects, and the Prototype is vulnerable to Petrify, so Break spellblade effects kill it instantly. You'll get a Protect Ring for your troubles; this will be your third if you've been following so far. Press on.The third floor will place you directly before a door. Go in and grab the chest's contents, a
Beast Killer Whip. Lame! We got those a century ago, but it is still a good Whip if you never got the Dragon Whisker. On the rest of the third floor, some trap halls exist which can drop you down to the second floor. Evade them with the Geomancer's Find Pits to protect you from the ridicule of your peers. 
Float does not work against pitfalls. Note that the third floor can pride itself on supreme Oisearare density, so if you're Mirage Vest hunting, here's the place to be.The fourth floor is featureless.
The fifth floor has two chests: another Ether and a Dragon Fang. If you approach these chests directly, you'll find pitfalls instead; go around to grab them and proceed. There are pitfalls around the exit.
The sixth floor is another Save Point.
The seventh floor has two chests: a Dark Matter to the left and a
Circlet to the right. In the middle, however, lies another tablet. This is the tablet that will release the most powerful White spell and most powerful Black spell to you in the form of entrance to Fork Tower. Cid, like Mid told you in Crescent, is trapped underneath the tower, so we could both augment our own power and help a friend in the meantime.Oh yeah, and there's a boss battle. Wendigo, one of The Eleven of the Rift is here to pull off two things Pantera could never hope to accomplish. First, a successful trick of invulnerability and deception. Second, sweet bloody victory.
Wendigo  Bestiary #289 |
Type |
Level |
HP |
MP |
Gil |
EXP |
Speed |
None | 7 | 20000 | 8192 | 0 | 0 | 40 | |
Strength |
Attack Mult. |
Magic Atk. |
Evasion |
Defense |
Mag. Def. |
Mag. Evade |
|
65 | 10 | 10 | 0 | 10 | 20 | 10 | |
Stolen Items |
Dropped Items |
||||||
Common: Dark Matter | None | ||||||
Command Immunities | Elemental Immunities | ||||||
Catch, Control |  | ||||||
Elemental Absorb | Elemental Weakness | ||||||
 | None | ||||||
Blue Magic | Status Immunities | ||||||
           | |||||||
Strategy | |||||||
Wendigo has four targets, but only one of them is real. The real one will move around each time he takes damage, too. However, the first attack you make will always land, so make that first one count big. Since the fight will go more than one round, though, have something that absorbs ice to minimize the damage you take, and stay away from water attacks. | |||||||
I'm not sure what Wendigo stands for. A blue-ish apparition of a naked man with a club and something strange on his forehead. He's like Dr. Manhattan, but a bad guy.
The Wendigo has four bodies, but only one of them is vulnerable to harm. Every time he takes HP damage, he'll jump to a random body and set his current HP to all four targets. For the fake targets this doesn't matter, since they're invulnerable to harm. This will at least ensure that Wendigo has only 20000 HP, and any damage you do to whatever body he's in will count down on the same 20000 HP. Whenever you use a multi-target attack (even those that deal no damage, such as
Flash), all three decoy bodies will retaliate with Frost. An exception here is the Wind Slash katana's Gale Cut attack, but that's not exactly a solid strategic choice. The switching of bodies doesn't start until you first hurt Wendigo, so the first strike will always land. This makes it a decent idea to, say, release a Bulette at the start of the battle in order to hit for a lot of damage. The 'official' Wendigo body (the one whose HP actually matters) will be the one with the most damage taken in this initial attack.The Wendigo may randomly use an attack called
Mind Blast. This magical attack is non-elemental and barrier-piercing, and it sets both Paralyze and Sap. It's a Blue spell that'll be of use later on; it's very cheap, both Paralyze and Sap can hardly ever be set by your characters and, since it's non-elemental, it can't be absorbed (it is Reflectable, though). It's a Blue spell! If you're set on learning it, don't use Carbuncle. His other attacks are not as noteworthy; Hurricane misses very often due to Wendigo's low level, as does Confuse. His attacks look like the Fire Lash, even though he carries a spectral club. How delightfully eccentric!The Wendigo's attacks are little and weak, so it's just a battle against the annoyance of having to target up to three enemies before you hit the right one.
Flame Rings and the Ice Shields you can steal in this very room both nullify and absorb the Frost attack; in the Ice Shield's case, Sap will still be set. Mind Blast (also, Confuse) can be reflected, so Carbuncle is a good idea. This combined with Golem, and you're only a short way from winning the battle. If you're not one for games, apply Resist Ice (Mix a Phoenix Down with some Antidote) or Ice Shields to everybody, then let loose with your best multi-target attacks (likely boosted Syldra and/or !Zeninage). If you'd rather play it 'fair', it's best if you have some power behind your blows; having a Bard buff you during the battle is not a bad idea, specifically since you just got the Bard's Best Song In The World not too long ago. Single-target boosted Black elemental spells are quite powerful.Another status ailment you can set is Sleep. Putting fake targets to sleep will not cause retaliation with Frost attacks, nor will the 'real' Wendigo jump to another body if it is asleep. If you set Sleep to all targets at the start of the battle before dealing any damage and provoking the body-switching, you can just unleash powerful multi-target magical attacks to all four opponents.
From the battle you can learn what could be your second-to-last Blue spell, Mind Blast. Not if you got Carbuncle all up in your business, obviously.
Now that you have the Second Tablet, you can return to the Sealed Castle and obtain three more Legendary Weapons. For the next dungeon,
Sasuke's Katana may prove useful due to its blocking nature while Yoichi's Bow is a powerful physical weapon that allows the Back Row. Since the Holy spell becomes available before you obtain the next Tablet, the 
Sage's Staff is another good option. Note also that the Mirage Vest is a godsend in the Fork Tower; might want to get at least one (you'll get one from that NPC in the Phantom Village).
Caves of Narshe: Final Fantasy V
Version 6
©1997–2025 Josh Alvies (Rangers51)
All fanfiction and fanart (including original artwork in forum avatars) is property of the original authors. Some graphics property of Square Enix.
Version 6
©1997–2025 Josh Alvies (Rangers51)
All fanfiction and fanart (including original artwork in forum avatars) is property of the original authors. Some graphics property of Square Enix.