Konpa Ruins

The Konpa Ruins (ゴンバ遺跡 Gonpa Ruins) are a dungeon in Golden Sun: Dark Dawn. It is located near Konpa Gate, which is how Matthew, Tyrell, and Karis get here.

Story
The Konpa Ruins are the remains of an ancient temple that appears to be dedicated to the elements, Earth, Wind, and Fire being prominent. The Ruins not only house the Grip Crystal, which bestows the Grip Psynergy to a Venus Adept, but also the Glyph Book, which the ancients left so that future generations could read and translate their language, which is important to exploring many dungeons.

Matthew, Tyrell, and Karis travel through the Ruins on their way to meet Kraden, as it was the only open way to cross into Bilibin. Along the way, Matthew collects the Glyph Book, which grants him the ability to decipher the ancient glyphs and progress further into the dungeon. They eventually enter the Konpa Caves, where they encounter not only Kraden and his two  pupils, but two enemies, Blados and a mysterious masked man. Matthew and his party are forced to travel south, after Kraden's pupil Rief is kidnapped. Blados then triggers a trap, which seals off the exit, trapping the Adepts in the Ei-Jei region.

Walkthrough
Examine the place and you'll soon see that the chest in the upper left corner requires someone to freeze a puddle (which you'd be familiar with if you played the previous Golden Sun games).

Head into the ruins to find several doors and some pillars with some info on them. Keep heading straight and the game will tell you to put the flower pieces into place. You can push the first piece in now, and find the others.

Head up the stairs to the right, and take the far right door. In here, jump over the gap and continue onto the far right door again. In this room, the game will tell you that the orb must be in place to unleash the power of earth. Move the orb forwards to bring some much needed life to this place.

Move to the glowing sigil in the corridor now, and you'll open up all the doors down this path. Head down it and enter another room. Move the statue in front of you to the right to bring up some stepping stones. Now move the statue to the left in place to bring up more stones. Move the right statue now. Jump north past where that statue was to the next statue and move it to the left to open the way to the door.

Go down this corridor to the next room, where you can bring up some more stepping stones and push down a rose piece.

Go out the southern door on the left and hit another glowing switch to activate some stairs. Now go back up and use the southern door on the far right to get to those stairs. Follow the path and the ensuing corridor to another room. This room requires you to use whirlwind on the orb, so do so. This will not only put a bunch of glyphs on the floor, but also activate some fan lifts in the main area.

Now you want to whirlwind these glyphs so you can jump across to the door on the left.

In the next room, Whirlwind the bottom left set of three glyphs and use them to jump to the column. Push the column down and move it right and down one. Now get all six of the lower glyphs up and use them and the column to get to the column on the far right.

Whirlwind the southern left set of glyphs and the three vertical glyphs north of those to get to the treasure chest. You can get an Elven Shirt.

Now move the right column up to match with the two glyphs aligned with the door. Move the left column to the upper right corner. Now just whirlwind the two glyphs by the door and then whirlwind the southern left set of glyphs to make yourself a path to the door.

Follow the path up the wind elevator and around to another door on your right. This leads to another room where you can push another rose piece down. Go back and ride the elevator down so you can get to the fan elevator on the right side of this area. This will take you to the last rose piece, so push it down.

Now you can go back to the main area and complete the rose picture. Once you do, you'll be instructed to go sit in the statue's hands, as the game promptly shows you. You'll get the Glyph Book. With the book in hand, go check out the tablet in the rose room. The tablet give you another easy puzzle: When the four statues point to the center, the flower will rise.

Push the upper left one down, the southern left one right, the southern right one up, and the upper right one left. This will turn the flower blue and let you ride it to a higher level. Take the left path and make your way up the exterior of the ruins. You'll come across another glyph that you can step on to open a door. Enter this room grab the chest to get the Grip Crystal. Equip it to gain the Grip Psynergy. The room transforms and locks you in. Use your new psynergy to grab the column on the right and then use it to grab the Stone Key. Go back the way you came and use the blue key to exit this room.

Walk to the right, climb up the stairs and ladder to the north. Use Grip to get across and the Djinn will run away. Chase it to the left and up the ladder. What you do is get it between you and a column, so you can use grip to quickly close the gap. After this you'll have to fight it as well, but after the battle you will claim the Jupiter Djinni, Jolt.

Now make your way east and across to the next screen on the right. To continue this way, we need a water adept again, which we don't have, so go down the steps to the left (take the lower path). Before going into the door, you can go down the vine here to make your way to that chest from earlier, which is housing a Psy Crystal. Head back to the door and take the right door. Go straight ahead through another door and through the corridor that follows. This is the mars room, where the game will tell you to essentially use a fireball on the orb. Do so and you'll see a few things light up. Head back through the previous corridor and Fireball the glowing red block. It'll explode, so continue past it and ride the flower back down. Fireball the other glowing red block and it'll blow up too. Make your way down to Konpa Cave.

Konpa Cave
Konpa Cave (ゴンパ洞窟 Gonpa Cavern) is an ancient part of the ruins that seems to be a Psynergy Stone-rich cavern, similar to the Abandoned Mine. Go down into the basement and follow the path through the first room. In the second room go forward and grip your way past the first gap. On the slope, grip your way to the middle ledge and push the rock column off. Go down and move it one space left, then go get on the middle ledge again. Now you can grip your way to that treasure chest and collect the Elven Rapier in it.

Go through the northern exit to continue, and keep going forwards to see a scene. It's Kraden! We'll also meet his two apprentices, all of who are busy examining a vortex down in the caves. Before getting a chance to examine a peculiar looking machine, some weird soldiers will pop out of nowhere, right behind Matthew and his group. Boss Fight!

After the fight some shadow figures will start talking to us out of nowhere, and it seems that they have kidnapped Rief as well. The shadowy figures become Blados, Mystery Man, and Tuaparang Soldiers. They plan on leaving Rief at one of the two exits. They instruct you to head south.

Head out the south exit and push the log to cross the gap. Push the next log to get past it, then go push down the log on the right. After that push the bottom log back up, then push the left log down. Go across your newly-made log path and exit.

You'll meet Blados out here again, and he'll blow up some rocks above the door you just used, rendering back-tracking impossible. This marks the first Point of No Return. He isn't being aggressive, he just wants you to continue.

Exit and you'll rescue Reif from a box, gaining a fourth party member and a Water Adept. He also comes with the Mercury Djinni, Sleet.

Enemies

 * Note: Amazes and Skeletons do not appear in areas accessible before obtaining the Glyph Book.

Collectibles

 * Glyph Book
 * Grip Crystal
 * Stone Key
 * Psy Crystal
 * Jupiter Djinni Jolt
 * Elven Shirt
 * Elven Rapier
 * Mercury Djinni Sleet (joins with Rief)

Name Origin

 * Gonpa, the Japanese name of the place, is a word for the most exquisite Buddhist Monasteries throughout the Himalayas, stretching from western Tibet and Pakistan to Bhutan. The Gonpa Ruins, therefore, would simply be the ruins of a Buddhist Monastery, at least in name-origin.  Seeing as Weyard doesn't quite practice Buddhism, but it has concepts similar to it that are understood as forms of Alchemy and Psynergy, the Goddess-like statue in the Ruins seems to be a worthy replacement for a central Buddha statue.

Trivia

 * There is an inaccessible area with a gaping hole and a vine leading to it on the ruins' roof, and it's set up so a nearby puddle of water could in theory be turned into an ice pillar with Cold Snap, therefore granting access; but Cold Snap isn't acquired until later in the game, and by that point Blados has sealed the exit back into Konpa Ruins. If, however, you return using the Endless Wall glitch later in the game, you'll find that it actually can't be frozen at all.