The Sunken Desert

(Note: This is the side-quest of "The Fated Hour", to see the location, go to: Sunken Desert)

The Sunken Desert is a side-quest in The Fated Hour chapter.

Walkthrough
The players (Crono, Marle, Lucca, Frog, Robo, Ayla, and Magus) must train themselves to become more powerful so they can defeat Lavos. They take the Epoch to Fiona's Villa in the Middle Ages. Fiona is in her house with her husband Marco, saying everything she plants dies, but that little sapling on her table can help restore the woods. She says there are monsters in the Sunken Desert.

Tip: Let's flashback to when the players were at the Zeal Palace. There was a woman at the palace with a little plant. She asks the players if they liked plants, she says she likes them too, and that it was a gift from Melchior, saying that it'll restore the Earth's trees, and plants, but Queen Zeal says she must burn the plant. She'll ask the players what she should do. If they tell her to just grow it in secret, she'll do that, and Fiona will end up having the plant. If you don't talk to this lady in Zeal Palace, you can still find her in Antiquity in the Last Village Commons only the dialogue will change and she will ask if she should put it out of its misery or try to grow it. If you tell her to just burn it or put it out of its misery, then this side-quest will not be available.

Time to go into the sunken desert, and kill those monsters. Once you get down there, there's treasure in every corner of the first room, but beware the Sandragos, and Vilepillars. These two enemies hate water and ice, so have a water or ice character with you. The next room has the monster responsible for the ending life of the forest. This room also has treasure in each corner of the room, and even the middle. Perhaps it's good if you get the treasure before fighting the boss. Time to fight Melphyx.

Tip: Here are tips of how to kill Melphyx. First, be sure to have a character that has water magic, like Marle, Frog, or Magus. Now, be sure you have a strong physical character with you too, like Crono, Robo, or Ayla. Also, have a healer character like Marle, Frog, or Ayla. Now, for fighting the Melphyx, you must destroy it's Core first, in order to make him vulnerable use a water attack on it first, because Melphyx can absorb energy from it. Once the Core is destroyed, time to kill the Upper Body, and Lower Body. This enemy is hard to kill, if it is attacked by a physical attack, it raises it's defenses, that's not all, it's immune to all magics. To weaken it's defenses, have a water character in the party, and let it use a Water type Tech, then physical attack it with a tough attack, like Crono's Frenzy, or Cleave; or Ayla's Boulder Toss, or Triple Kick, also Ayla can use Charm to steal items from Melphyx. Just keep hitting Melphyx with water, then physic attack it several times, and be sure to heal yourself in the middle, and then you might be able to kill it. For another take on the tip try not destroying the core go for either the head or legs and keep hitting it, the destroy the other one.

Once Melphyx is dead, time to escape the Sunken Desert. Be sure to get the Magic Capsule from the first room before you leave. Talk to Fiona, and she thanks you for killing the monsters, but she thinks it might take ages to revive the woods. If Robo is in the party, he wants to stay, and help Fiona out. If you agree, Robo leaves the party, and starts working on the Desert. Head back to the Present, and you can see that big desert from before is now a huge forest. Go into Fiona's Shrine to pick up Robo. Once you get to Robo at the other side of the chapel, Robo is all crappy, and dirty looking, and worn out. Robo reactivates, and sees the players have returned. Robo wants a 400 year reunion after his hard work. A few hours later, every playable character is together inside Fiona's forest. Lucca is repairing Robo, and Robo talks about the Gates might not have been created by Lavos, although it had a roll in every era. Robo thinks a certain entity wanted all this happen. Everyone except Crono got into the conversation. Then Marle just brought up asking Lucca is there a time she wants to return to. Lucca says she doesn't want to talk about it. Once the talk is over, everyone starts sleeping. Lucca wakes up, because she hears a strange machine. She finds a Time Gate at the other side of the woods. She got transported to the year 990 AD, when she was a little girl, and Lara had her legs not working. This may be Lucca's only chance to change time, and get her mom to walk again. Lara wanted to dust off that dangerous machine, Taban was working on, but her skirt got stuck on the machine, and the machine started running, getting her closer to a dangerous spot in the machine. Present Lucca must shut off the machine, go up to the console that gleamed and input the password, the password is L-A-R-A, the woman's name. Press those keys into console to shut off the machine. It is possible to fail, and end up having time not changed, but if time changes, nothing to Lucca will change about her study of machines, but what she does change is Lara can now walk, and not end up in a wheelchair (even though a wheelchair wasn't around in the game). Once Lucca returns to the Present, Robo awaits her, and he gives her a Green Amber, which can revive a KO'd ally once they get knocked out. End of Side-Quest.