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Back to Part 4: Blue Whistle

As a Moon Whistle, you can now fast travel to the 3rd Layer. What’s more, it now uses less HP and fullness to fast travel. And if you so much as poke your head into the 4th Layer, you’ll be able to fast travel there, too. This part of the guide focuses mainly on your adventures as a Moon Whistle in the 3rd Layer. You won’t be able to fast travel out of the 3rd or 4th Layers until you are a Black Whistle, and that’s still a way’s off.

For one thing, you have another batch of quests at the Guild HQ which encompass the 3rd and 4th layers. Accept them all.

The supply shop carries a lot of new items, but are mainly either lighter or somehow more effective. You can actually get a lot of mileage out of the weaker weapons, but you might want to bring one or two different varieties of stronger weapons to switch between for stronger enemies. There’s also new armor sets: the Mesh set and the Bone set.

Laffi’s shop sells more indredients and items, the best of the new options probably being Adult Onigiri, as it’s light and gives more energy, which is great if you run low on energy while climbing. Other than that, you’re still well off relying heavily on Boiled Eggs and Crumbled Boiled Eggs. But make something unusual if it appeals to you, as you do have plenty of options available.

The Caravan Fleet has begun stocking the Warm armor set, as well as Special level charms. If scanning primordial creatures is your thing, a Telescope is now available, which can scan from longer distances, and can zoom.

Now for the Skill trees. Under Cave Raid, spring for Gatherer first. It’s more awesome than the description implies. You’ll get double what you forage from plants and other miscellaneous pickups. You’ll get enough to craft a rope from one Rhombus Thorn Plant, and each Broken Mail Balloon you find will give you enough materials to craft a Mail Balloon. You’ll also get to enhance the ability to wall climb, to the point that the walls in the earlier layers will become nearly trivial. Really, all skills in the Cave Raid tab are must-haves.

Under Craft, the 3-Star Items allows for upgrades to the Mesh set, while Relic Synthesis (Low Class) allows for crafting relic weapons, which are heavy and hit hard. Maybe you’ll want one, which can help big against powerful enemies such as Foreign Cave Raiders, in the event that they ambush you. It also allows you to craft Relic armor. Again, I don’t bother much with crafting ammo because you can just buy it and that seems like less trouble.

For Battle, prioritize upgrading Dodge and whatever weapons you prefer. If your melee weapon of choice is the pickax, focus on that, and if your range weapon of choice is the Bow, focus on that.

For recommended armor, I’d say go with the Mesh set and its upgrades, aside from Marulk’s Hat if you prefer it for its illumination. The Warm set upgrades are heavier, but provide not much more defense. Relic armor looks impressive, but doesn’t provide much defense relative to its weight and the resources that go into them, which include relics and the already-upgraded Cook set. Considering that it’ll become obsolete once you hit Black Whistle, the Relic armor set probably isn’t worth the trouble, and you’ll probably find yourself preferring the weight allotment of the Mesh set for longer dives.

Now be warned: The 3rd layer can be confusing for those who don’t know it well. And making matters worse is that there are many vertical locations, so the map isn’t going to help much in some cases. But it helps to have a route memorized, and if you can find that route, getting back to the second layer (and thus the surface) becomes much easier.

s gwilly on YouTube has an unlisted video in which he demonstrates a route from the room where you battle the Boss to the second layer, which requires 1 Rope to complete. Here is the URL to the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NUDVFpGvIg

If you can memorize that path, you’re going to be in great shape. And don’t worry, the 4th Layer is going to be much easier.

There is a quest that can be activated at Seeker Camp in which you search out herbs with Marulk. Because you can fast travel to the 3rd layer, you can easily access Seeker Camp from Heaven’s Waterfall by simply turning around at the entrance to the 3rd Layer. As part of this quest, you’ll have to fight an Ottobas. Run away to avoid its charge, and be cautious about attacking from the side, as it can get on its side and roll. It’s not much trouble if you have a Relic Pickax, and defeating it takes a quicktime event. It doesn’t provide much time window, so pay attention. This is a great opportunity to complete the quest from the guild to defeat an Ottobas. Once Marulk’s quest is cleared, Marulk will give you another optional quest concerning finding a cave raider lost in the 3rd Layer. There isn’t much need to worry about it.

But if you’re up for something to worry about, you’ll get an optional boss battle if you were to go to Ozen’s Room and talk to her.

OPTIONAL BOSS: Ozen the Immovable
You can make any number of attempts at this boss until you win, and if you lose, it’s not a Game Over. But don’t get the idea that this battle is easy, as the typical player won’t be ready for this, even with the optimal gear available at this point.

Ozen can speed towards you, then grab you with her arm. If this connects, she’ll throw you straight up, high enough to inflict the strains of ascending. You’ll take damage upon contact with the floor, and lose stomach contents. Sometimes, the strains don’t kick in. I’m not sure what affects this, but may have to do with the fact that this battle takes place on a slope, and running about on it might increase susceptibility to the strains when thrown. Ozen can also lift boulders, and what she does with them determines how she attacks. She can just throw the boulder, which is easy to avoid. But if she crushes it in her palm, she’ll fire a conical spray of debris, which can be avoided with an emergency dodge.

At this point, Ozen’s damage output is too high, and yours is too low. It’s probably a better idea to come back to this after you become a Black Whistle. But the rewards for completing this battle are great. For one thing, you get Ozen’s Umbrella, the best hat in the game, even if it’s a little heavy and doesn’t have a light. You also get a Thousand-Men Wedge, an item that pushes your Attack stat into the sky when equipped, making even your weakest weapons catastrophic. It may even make the rest of the game too easy. You also get a replica of Ozen’s whistle, which increases HP when equipped.

Whether you go for this battle now or later is your call, but you’re probably better off putting it off.

There are a few optional quests that start appearing at this point. One involves a boy in the classroom who lost his father’s keepsake, another is from Jiruo, concerning a relic in the second layer, and Laffi has a quest for delivering a letter to Seeker Camp. None of these concern going deep into Hell’s Crossing, so they should be simple enough.

Anyhow, this is about the time in which you may start running into Foreign Cave Raiders. They’re enemies that appear in groups, and have access to weapons such as pickaxes and guns. Like most enemies, there are spawn points where they may randomly appear, but they won’t appear unless you’ve triggered them. Whether they appear at a spot is determined randomly each time you enter the Abyss. When defeated, they tend to leave some nice drops, such as sophisticated weapons and prepared meals. But if you’d rather not deal with them, then try to memorize where you bump into them, and try avoiding those spots.

When you get the quest for High Temp Ecology Study, it helps to know that there’s actually an alternative entrance to the 3rd Layer that leads directly to the Cold Heat Layer. When fast traveling to the 3rd Layer, go back through the entrance to Heaven’s Waterfall. If you climb down into the fault, you’ll find an entrance to another location on the 2nd Layer called Updraft Wasteland. You can access the 3rd Layer’s Cold Heat Layer from there. As dangerous as the place looks, avoiding the lava spouts is no problem, just keep an eye out for the boulders. It’ll take a couple ropes to get you to the quest point, but by this time, you should have a stock of about ten ropes in your standard kit without being told to bring them. At this point, their weight and the funds needed to buy them are becoming increasingly trivial, so be in the habit of having plenty on you and replenishing them between dives.

Once you enter the small room, you’ll be unable to leave until you defeat 6 Mountain Spinner (Ice). If you didn’t bring enough weapons to complete the task, you’ll be stuck. A Relic Pickax is recommended, here.

The 3rd Layer introduces a new vexation that thankfully only appears in The Great Fault, Trapped Pirate Ship, Quadruple Pit, and Rock Slide Hall, and only outside: the Madokajacks. These things make climbing in these areas a nightmare, unless one doesn’t spawn near you. Because of these, you don’t want to waste time climbing. They are hard to avoid, thanks to the fact that they have hit boxes that are too big for their frames. They do a lot of damage, and if you’re climbing, you’ll probably take lethal damage from the fall. You can try killing them, but they have a lot of health, and you’ll pretty much need ranged weapons. So, for the most part, you’re better off avoiding them unless there’s some trick to them that hasn’t been figured out.

Anyhow, onto the first Main quest of the 3rd Layer: Investigate the Third Layer. First, head to Quadruple Pit. You can reach here if you continue on from your Hight Temp Ecology Study quest. Just continue from the Cold Heat Layer to Glass Layer. Near the bottom of the room, you can climb to a narrow corridor that’s blocked by ice that’s destroyed by simply sounding your whistle. Remember the boy who lost his father’s keepsake? You’ve found it. Just avoid the Crimson Splitjaw and climb up to a room with an ice block in the middle. Sounding the whistle again will start a small cutscene that will reveal the way to Quadruple Pit. Just inside, you’ll find Detchuanga (indicated by the yellow whistle on your map). Continue the video above from 8:30 if you want to return to the surface from here. The journey is short, but complicated enough that a visual guide helps more than an explanation.

The next point point of interest for Third Layer Investigation is in Trapped Pirate Ship. Reaching it is mostly simple. Fast travel to third layer, but turn around back to the 2nd Layer. Remember how you could then go down from Heaven’s Waterfall to the Updraft Wasteland? There’s another entrance to the 3rd Layer if you keep going down from the entrance to Updraft Wasteland. This leads to The Great Fault. Oh the left, along the wall, you’ll find some caves. The furthest one over leads to Trapped Pirate Ship. Make a rope, and go down into the cave below to initiate a cutscene with a couple familiar characters.

The Main quest Third Layer Investigation and High Temp Ecology Study converge in the Freezing Hot Mines, which is accessed via Rock Slide Hall. To get there, you’ll need to climb down lots of walls where Madokajacks may appear. It takes some exploring the internals of Rock Slide hall, but you’ll be on the right track when you follow a long tunnel down.

Shortly after entering the Freezing Hot Mines, you’ll be unable to escape until you defeat 1 Mountain-spinner (Fire) and 3 Rock-lickers. After that, your ecology research and the request from Jiruo will be complete!

Your Third Layer investigation concludes with a boss battle, which initiates when you access the yellow whistle on the map.

BOSS: Interference Device #3
This one is airborne, and will fly about. It will occasionally stop, and make pillars of lava appear, which are indicated by red circles as warning. You can damage this boss by jumping and swinging your weapon, but sometimes you’ll be able to hit it from the ground without jumping, despite the appearance of distance. This one isn’t too hard, but don’t get hit, as the lava inflicts red poison. Red poison can make you incrementally lose HP. As with the previous Interference Devices, it will be automatically added to your Notebook.

As your reward, you’ll gain access to the 4th layer, and your Main quest becomes Fourth Layer Investigation. Hooray for progress!

If you do enter the 4th Layer and travel a short distance, you’ll initiate a quest line that you’ll be unable to end until it’s completed, so unless you’re willing to commit to it right away, just poke your head in to make a fast travel point, then follow the route in the video above to quickly return to the surface.

To Part 6: Moon Whistle (Part 2)