Gabomba Statue

The Gabomba Statue (ガンボマ像 Gamboma Statue) is a large statue with clockwork innards, worshipped by the people of Kibombo. It can be accessed by an ancient cave from behind, or through the tongue of the open mouth after clearing the dungeon. The dungeon inside can potentially be a very confusing one, and has been known to stall players, because they lose sight of where they are going. Deep inside the statue there is an entrance to an even larger cave system called the Gabomba Catacombs.

Walkthrough
The ultimate entrance into the dungeon of Gabomba Statue is a tile of cracked ground to the right of the physical statue itself in the north screen of Kibombo. This tile, flanked by three stones, reveals itself to be a stairwell when the Scoop Psynergy is cast on it. Once inside, follow the long and winding underground cave trail until you get to a point where a pair of giant, red, rotating fan blades spin in the area just above a climbable ladder. You'll find that these propel you forward as soon as you climb up the ladder. Climb up the subsequent ladder to the upper left to enter the dungeon proper.

In the green-floored maze-like screen you immediately climb up into, go up and right along the north wall and get to where there are no less than four separate downward paths to choose from. The leftmost path leads down to a chest that reveals itself to be a Mimic, which rewards you with a Hard Nut when defeated. The second path down winds around counterclockwise to a chest containing the Bone Armlet artifact, which is most assuredly a large defensive upgrade to either of your two "caster" Adepts. After returning to the four branches, go down the rightmost branch to climb up a ladder into the next floor.

In the gear and fan-filled room you next emerge into, go along the room's perimeter clockwise until you get to a coiled rope and a spinning blue gear with a small pole to it; you're supposed to open up your Psynergy menu while the pole is at its leftmost point so that it will remain stationary as you select and use the Lash Psynergy on the rope, tying it to the pole and making the gear - as well as all the rest of the mechanics in the room - grind to a halt. Now you can go back down and enter through where the pair of rotating red fan blades had previously prevented you from going up; they don't anymore, so go up and climb the ladder on the wall to the next room. The following room is a relatively simple clockwise trek to yet another ladder against a wall leading up another floor; ignore the Venus Djinni in visible sight for now.

The next room is filled with multi-colored cogs and gears. Travel downward until you get to an upward ladder to the next floor, but bypass that as you go back upward through the "left path" bordering abysses. As you follow this left path, Felix will suddenly stop and watch a brief, scripted scene as a mouse climbs up a vertically rotating gear to climb onto and hop across the horizontally rotating gears, demonstrating that progression through this dungeon will have you doing the same. At the moment, however, you are better off going into the left part of the screen to climb down a ladder into a hole. Climb down the next ladder in the subsequent small room, and in the resultant hallway you climb down into, go down the path right of your ladder, then take the leftmost of the three forks below that. You will get to a special central mechanism where there are two Pound-able pillars flanking an elevated, flashing cog; Pound the left pillar you can, then retrace your steps back up to the cog-filled room.

Time to reenact the scene with the mouse from earlier; standing from the right side of the red vertical gear, push left until you jump onto the gear, then press up so that you end up hopping onto the rotating blue horizontal gear. While you spin around on gears you're standing on, hold right and run to hop left to a thin green cog, hop down, go right across a second blue cog, hop right, hop up onto a third blue cog, hop right twice across green cogs, and hop down once onto another red vertical gear that drops you off onto the ground level. You can now make your way into the rightmost area of the screen, and go down ladders through two sets of floors. In the floor with a fork left and right via a "U"-shape, take the left fork to get to a chest with an Elixir, then take the right fork to get to the right side of the flashing cog from earlier, and cast Pound on the right Poundable pillar.

When both pillars flanking the flashing cog are Pounded, the cog itself will lower down and literally reverse the direction of every spinning cog and gear in the dungeon. Retrace your steps back to the room with the many spinning cogs and gears, and get back to the red vertical gear that you were dropped off from before you had gone right originally. Note the pair of pink vertical gears immediately to the lower left of that cog that now seem to be spinning in the direction into the abyss below; from the top of the left pink gear, press down so that you ride the gear and fall down into the abyss below. You land in the room below, where you can now fight and earn the Venus Djinni Steel (be sure to save at this spot beforehand). After getting it, use Lash on the coiled rope and make your way back to the cog-filled floor above, and from there, go up the ladder at the bottom part of that floor into the next floor above. The pair of spinning red fan blades here will push you forward so that you can climb up to the next floor (they would have otherwise pushed you back had you not reversed all the gears). And finally, in the floor beyond that, ignore the unique-looking statue at the center top of the room as you climb up the ladder at the upper right corner of the room into the top floor of the dungeon.

As soon as you enter the top floor of the Gabomba Statue, a cutscene automatically triggers with Akafubu performing his ritual outside, where a puzzle with unique mechanics suddenly presents itself. The idea is to rotate the highlighted beige tiles so that when Akafubu attempts to present the Black Crystal to the Great Gabomba after a set amount of time, one each of the different colors of sparks that travel along the ground will gather at the little idol in the center. Akafubu will try an unlimited number of times, so you may take your time. To rotate the tiles, use Pound on the Poundable pillar at the top of the screen, and all of the tiles will float out above of their sockets in midair for until you manually Pound each floating tile back into its socket. The two floor tiles on either side of the pillar are buttons that rotate all currently floating tiles ninety degrees in the pictured direction, and the idea is to rotate the tiles until they are in their correct directions and Pound each one back in so that you can rotate other tiles to their correct positions and Pound them in.

If on the next time Akafubu activates the traveling spark mechanism neither color of spark reaches the center idol, the cutscene outside will merely be a repeat of the initial outside cutscene that was viewed as part of when you first entered the chamber. If a Blue spark reaches the central idol bot not a Red spark, the cutscene outside will have the Gabomba statue produce a bizarre effect with its eyes in that they will jitter and be of an odd black and blue color scheme, which shocks the ritual dancers outside, but Akafubu assures that the Gabomba is merely not pleased. Similarly, if a Red spark reaches the central idol, but not a Blue spark, the Gabomba statue outside will terrify the villagers by spewing out fire from its mouth, but Akafubu assures them that the Gabomba is "angered by the presence of wicked thoughts" and continues the ritual. The simplest way to get both sparks into the center idol, and therefore the story progression you want, is to first Pound the pillar, immediately pound the straight tile closest to the lower right of the pillar, step on the right floor tile to rotate all other tiles ninety degrees clockwise, and Pound all the rest of the tiles into their sockets.

When the red and blue sparks enter the center idol, the full set of cutscenes you trigger soon place you at the floor below, where the statue's mechanical "tongue" is now extending outside. Before going up into the newly revealed doorway, you may want to exit the statue via the tongue to find some comedic reactions among the dancers outside, then reenter the statue through its open mouth via its extended tongue. Enter the newly opened doorway and follow the linear series of halls and elevators until you get to the spot where the Black Crystal is in the lap of a small model of the Gabomba Statue. Interact with it to trigger another cutscene that eventually brings you back outside to Kibombo in the daytime, and the dungeon is now technically complete.

Later on, after receiving the Cyclone Chip from Madra, you may return to the interior of the Gabomba Statue via entering its open mouth via its tongue, and return to the last point where you had gotten the Black Orb. A ladder is now open, leading you access to the Gabomba Catacombs optional dungeon, whose valuable collectibles can only be gotten with the Cyclone Psynergy.

Collectibles
Steel: Visible in one of the central rooms; to reach it, after having reversed the directions of all the gears in the dungeon, in the floor above this one, climb onto the left of two pink gears that seemingly "lead down into an abyss". You will fall right next to the Venus Djinni, where you must battle it to earn it.

Bone Armlet: In the chest in the first green-floored room up your upwards trek through the statue's interior, in the same room as the Mimic. Elixir: In the chest at the bottom level of the right wing that leads to the area where you may reverse all the gears.

Story
Upon reaching Kibombo in search of Piers, the party finds that it is night time, and the whole village is captivated by a ritual being performed by the next witch doctor, Akafubu. After climbing the posts and houses themselves, and coming onto the ritual grounds, the party finds that the ritual is taking place in front of a large statue, and the Black Orb that was stolen from Madra, that was owned by Piers, is there upon the statue also. They locate Piers, who is also looking upon the ritual, troubled as to what to do to get his orb back. After proving that they can be of help, the party and Piers decide that they need to help the ritual progress, so that they can hopefully ask for the orb back.

Heading into the statue from a secret entrance in the back, they travel through it, even having to reverse the clockwork itself, and soon come to the Statue's head, and learn that the ritual, which has been done over and over, eventually leading to the theft of the Black Orb, has not been working because in the head of Gabomba, there is a system of pathways that allow Psynergy to travel through them to a central node, and one of the tracks was broken. After rearranging the nodes, and causing the ritual to succeed, they run downstairs to the mouth, which was opened during the completion of the ritual, in search of the orb. However, they realize that it fell through a slot in a small idol in the back wall. The now witch doctor comes into the statue, and they plead with him to let them have the orb back, and he says he will return it for them.

Upon following Akafubu behind the idol as he opens it, he seems troubled as to what to do next, and tells them to take the orb he has no need of it. Upon attempting to, the apparent Spirit of Gabomba awakens, and bestows upon the witch doctor the head dress and clothing of the Witch Doctor, and is about to give him the powers of a witch doctor, but the man leaves too hastily, and thus has to in the end work for his power. After Kraden converses with the spirit, the party learns that they too can retrieve the power if they wish, and then take the orb after the spirit goes to sleep, and eventually leave the statue, en route to Piers' ship.