Romancing Saga 2: But, is there Chicken in the Barn?

So yesterday I found out that there's trouble at the Komuruun Volcano, and so I'm going to march right up there and see what's happening. Because we're adventurers, and thus don't know enough to be walking away from whatever the danger may happen to be. Seems to me the first thing to do is visit the ice wizard's tower...

...which is now full of monsters. GREAT.
The courtyard is all dogs, including the fairly vicious Toutetsu that is mainly manageable by the insta-kill greatsword tech that Shusaku inherited from Jubei. As I hoped, Liza's bow proficiency's coming up fast, but so far she has yet to learn any new techniques. Inside the castle we've got gargoyles and skeletons, and a little thing in the hallway where when you walk between a pair of statues a bunch of enemies appear or disappear. Very strange. But Liza learns an insta-kill bow technique, so that's something new at least. The price is 1 LP for Tirpitz, who only had 9 to start with, and 2 for Hase who had 19.

The wizard is not home. Uh-oh. It seems like there are parts of this place we can't get to, places with snakes standing on very specific tiles, but as usual I'm utterly clueless on how I'd do it, so unless our flimsy excuse for a search turns up anything here it's off to the volcano. The good news out of all this is that Shusaku is indeed every bit as hard to pin down as Jubei was. I don't think he's been hit by a group attack yet. He does go down once as we search, but that was a lucky pair of single-target shots that wouldn't have had time to land if he weren't out of Tech Points.

Anyway, it's off to the Volcano! On my way up, I learn something interesting about Lego: he has built-in Regen! He only gets back 90 HP a round currently, but it's still going to come in handy, I bet. He's also resistant to poison, though terribly weak to lightning. I'm pretty sure at this point that the insta-kill bow technique is the Grim Reaper's specialty, as like all weapon-specific techniques it's permanently at the bottom of the list. But Liza also learns a better group-damaging skill called Arrow Rain on the way up, so I'm not complaining.

There's a pair of dogs waiting for us at the summit, so let's greet them.

Actually it's a trio. And though Shusaku says something about energy, I don't seem to be able to do anything here yet. But there has to be a way. Revisiting Zemio turns up nothing, so I stop into Tsukijima to catch a nap.

There's a couple people I can talk to, but with everyone else there is a whole lot of shakin' going on. And I have to presume they ain't fakin'...