ITEMS TO GET: Ether Guard, Aquasol DX (x2), SurvivalTent, Rose Tabard, Beastly Robe, King's Helm, Ether Doubler, Trader Card

   There's a few bits of dialogue, and then you end up in the second Anima Dungeon, a pyramid-ish location. Johnny is here again, with the same stuff as before. However, you'll probably want to use different characters in here (specifically, Rico and Maria) as it's a Gear dungeon, so you may need to buy more stuff.

   Sad to say, it took me an hour just to figure out how to get past the first room. First, jump down the stairs to the bottom of the cave. Grab the Ether Guard and Aquasol DX from the chests, then jump back up to your starting point. See the big rock against the north wall? Get to the west and north of it and start pushing it south and east to try to roll it away from the door it's blocking. Once it locks into position, get out of your Gears and go through the character-sized door it was blocking.

   This is a weird little room. Read the four inscriptions on the wall, and the three on the north sides of the pillars. After you have read them all, move to the southwest corner and keep walking around pushing X until a block falls down. Go jump on top of that one, then just keep jumping around that are and hitting X until another block falls down. Push that up against the center pillar, and use it to jump on top of the pillar. Jump up and hit X and the third block will fall. Now push all three blocks onto the switches to trigger an earthquake outside.

   Leave the room and you'll see that the two pillars have fallen towards each other. Use them to jump across to the other side of the canyon. Go east to the next screen and follow the land around the side of the lake. You'll eventually a point where the path becomes too narrow to cross on your Gears; get out and walk the rest of the way to the door, which leads inside the actual pyramid.

   Head north and east and jump on the ledge you see at the bend. Grab the SurvivalTent from the chest, then jump back down and keep going east. Ignore the door to the south and go through the door to the east. The next room is rigged with pit traps, so watch out (if you fall in one, though, just go west to get back to where you were). Jump on top of the first chest, then drop off it and open it for the Rose Tabard. Jump to the next chest and open it in the same way for an Aquasol DX. Now just walk east until you fall in a pit. HOLD RIGHT as you fall and you should land in a secret passage. Go through the door and leap to the center platform. The ceiling will start to fall, but just stay still. There's a hole in the middle, and you're safe there. Once the ceiling stops falling, jump onto the top of it and let it carry you back up. Get off at the door you find up there and go east into a really aggravating puzzle room.

   First of all, since the directions are not only hard to find (they're the little bits of text on the wall) but vague as well, here's what you're supposed to do so that you can try to solve the puzzle on your own. There's two tanks, and two buttons. If you examine one of the tanks, you can choose which one is the active one -- one is 3 gallons, and the other is 7 gallons. Then, you can push one of the buttons in the center to change the water level by that amount (either 3 or 7). The left button adds water; the right button subtracts it. Your goal is to get the pond from 10 gallons to 5 gallons. Make sense?

   If you can't solve the puzzle, though, or are just plain lazy, then here's what to do: Activate the 3-gallon tank, then hit the left button three times to remove 9 gallons of water (leaving the pond with 1). Now, activate the 7-gallon tank, and press the button on the right to add 7 gallons (bringing the water level up to 8). Switch back to the 3-gallon tank and subtract another 3 gallons to bring it down to 5. All the water will then drain, and a bridge will appear where the water used to be. Cross it to the door and go through into the cave area. Head south and push the boulder west, allowing you to climb down. Before you do, go further south and get the Beastly Robe from the chest. Then head down the boulder path and go west.

   Return to where you left your Gears and get back in them. Now that the pond has been drained, you can drop down it. Open up the two chests for another King's Helm and Ether Doubler, then go east through the door. There's a save spot here; be sure to save. Now it's time to do a bit of re-equipping. Equip all your Gears with Lite Ar and Magnetic Coats / Old Circuits to boost their speed and response. You might also want to equip Silver or Gold Armor to boost your Gel defense, or a DeathBlower 3 to use a last resort if Infinity Level fails. Once you're all equipped, continue northeast until you get to the Anima Relic room.

   The Anima Relic will upgrade Rico's Stier into a really cool-looking new version. You'll then automatically head out, only to encounter Hammer, now merged with a Gear. Sadly (he was my favorite character!!), you're forced to fight him.

   This battle will require some tricky manuevering if you want to be able to get the Trader Card. Fei, as usual, should use System Id and pound on Hammer with Kishin. Siebzehn and Stier, however, should not use ANY Deathblow -- just have them attack with X button attacks to build up their Attack Level. Once you get to Attack Level 3, keep using X button attacks to try to hit Infinity Level (see Infinity Level under Playing The Game if you don't know about how it works). The idea is to have all your characters at Infinity Level when Hammer turns red.

   Once you've done 28,000 or so damage to Hammer, his Gear will sit down and start to glow red. This means he's about to self-destruct, and will kill your party when he does so. You can either just run away (in which case you don't get the Trader Card), or stay and fight. You'll need to do another 22,000 points of damage to kill him, though, and that's not easy -- you'll need Infinity Level attacks from all your characters (if you're not in Infinity Level, use a Level 3 Deathblow instead), and one character may need to attack twice (since each IL attack hits for a little less than 5500). It's doable, but not easy -- if Hammer's MAD SKILLZ are simply proving too much for you, just run away from instead -- you miss the Trader Card, but it's not essential (all it does is boost the chance that you win items after battle). If you're like me and need to get everything, though, just keep trying until you win. Oh, and in addition to the Trader Card, you also get about 110,000 EXP per character if you can kill Hammer.