Thanks re: the sixth plague – I assume it’s in the northwestern part of the southern map or the southwestern part of the northern map, south of Footracer Province, since that’s the only area I haven’t been yet.

BUT I forgot that I’m not quite done with the giants quest – I went to the Concealed Tunnel to bring down the energy barrier between Castle Troglo and the giants’ dungeon, the one with the light-beams puzzle (my fingers typed “trouble” there).

At first I was excited, as (a) optics was one of the two parts of physics I was remotely competent at, the other being electronics – I got a D in the class; I think it was just too abstract for my unformed tenth-grade mind to grasp, and I’d like to try another class sometime. I know from experience I understand it better now; (b) there’s a similar puzzle in SaGa Frontier that’s one of my favorite bits of the game.

BUT with the isometric perspective it’s sheer hell: I can’t even with the fog-of-war effect and decoding the directions (I’m extremely non-visual and am for all purposes retarded at visuo-spatial intelligence, the unfolded-cubes problems in IQ tests and the like) and maneuvering the mirrors. I’ll be consulting either a forum or AI for a step-by-step solution, probably the former because I’m a ’90s/’00s kid and a social butterfly.

I’m sure this puzzle was much easier in * Exile 3* because of the tile perspective.