Plot Synopsis of 8-Bit Theater
Template:Spoiler The plot of the webcomic 8-Bit Theater is based on that of the video game Final Fantasy I. While it stays true to most major plot points, the ways they come about are often radically different.
Corneria
Game Plot
Upon starting a new game, the player chooses four out of six available character classes (Fighter, Thief, Black Belt, White Mage, Red Mage and Black Mage) as playable characters. These four are the legendary Light Warriors, destined to save the world. The game begins with all four warriors just outside of the city of Corneria, each carrying a dark orb. Their first task is to rescue the Cornerian princess Sara from the evil knight Garland; once this is accomplished, Princess Sara gives the Warriors a lute as a gift, and the King has a bridge built, allowing the player to proceed to the mainland.
Comic Plot
In the comic, the characters' classes are also their names. They are given individual character traits, whereas in the game they were solely defined by their respective abilities. Character development was not featured.
The story begins with adventurers Black Mage and Fighter on a fruitless search for an item called the Armor of Invincibility, hidden in the Cave of no Return. Upon arriving at the city of Corneria, they discover that the king is in search for the four legendary Light Warriors rescue Princess Sara and defeat Chaos, who has been kidnapped by the dark knight Garland. Together with a thief named Thief who has secretly been following them, Fighter sets up an audition for potential team members. Outside a magic shop, Black Mage encounters White Mage and instantly falls in love. White Mage finds him and his crude pick-up lines repulsive; however, when Black Mage asks her to join the Light Warriors, she gladly accepts. The arrival of a fifth warrior, Red Mage, necessitates a secret ballot to determine whether White Mage or Red Mage has to leave the team. White Mage comes out the loser, and the Light Warriors - Black Mage, Fighter, Thief and Red Mage - are formed. They immediately introduce themselves to King Steve of Corneria, who gladly accepts them as official Light Warriors (ironically neglecting the arrival of the actual legendary Light Warriors who arrive at Corneria just a bit too late).
Meanwhile, Garland unveils his plan to Princess Sara: to summon Dark Lord Chaos. However, being a kind and gentle person, he is actually very bad at being a villain, and as Sara has been kidnapped multiple times and thus knows more about it than he does, she agrees to help him become a better villain.
Before the Light Warriors set off, they decide to buy equipment and rest up. A visit to a weapon store gives Fighter an idea: Sword-Chucks, two swords linked together by the hilts on a chain. Meanwhile, Black Mage reserves hotel rooms at the inn, where he is enraged to see White Mage together with her new companion and sworn protector, Black Belt. During the night, the Light Warriors have odd, prophetic dreams - Black Mage dreams about the powers a Nexus of magic holds and Fighter is visited by Dr. Swordopolis, the incarnation of all things sword, while Thief and Red Mage dream about the reasons for their own travels. The next morning, the Light Warriors start their quest and soon arrive at the Temple of Fiends. Unknown to them White Mage and Black Belt follow closely behind them.
Sara and Garland capture all six warriors, planning to throw them into a vat of acid the next day. However, the acid is replaced with Mountain Dew by mischievous forest imps, saving the group's lives. Black Belt attacks Garland, but Sara escapes and decides to revert to her princess identity. Red Mage and Thief dispose of the Mountain Dew in the Backyard of Fiends, causing ecological devastaion while the other members of the group search the castle. Garland, who survived Black Belt's attacks, manages to escape as well.
Outside the temple the Light Warriors and White Mage part ways. In return for rescuing Sara, King Steve decides to build a bridge to the kingdom of Prontera and name it "King Steve's Kick Ass Bridge." The group is decidedly unthrilled by this reward.
Matoya, the pirates and the crown of Elfland
Game Plot
On their way to Pravoka, the Warriors of Light meet the witch Matoya who had her crystal ball stolen. They liberate Pravoka from the pirate Bikke and, using his ship, sail to Elfland. The prince of Elfland has been in a magical sleep for one year, and a king in a decrepit old castle tells the Warriors that the dark elf Astos has stolen the royal crown and hidden it in the extremely dangerous Marsh Cave. The Warriors retrieve the crown, only to find out that the king is Astos himself in disguise. They defeat Astos in battle and find Matoya's crystal, in return for which Matoya gives them a herb to wake the sleeping prince. The prince gives the Warriors a magic key, which gives the Warriors access to treasures including powerful weapons and armor for this point in the game. Among the treasures is a stick of dynamite, which allows a dwarf named Nerrick to finish digging a canal so that the Warriors can leave the Aldi Sea and sail to Melmond.
Comic Plot
The Light Warriors reach the town of Prontera (a city not featured in Final Fantasy, but in the MMORPG Ragnarok Online), where they are greeted by Baphomet, Lord of Demons, whom Chaos has sent to destroy the Light Warriors. Black Mage tells Baphomet that the Light Warriors are in Prontera, and Baphomet sacrifices himself to destroy the town. Taking shelter from the resulting rain of blood, the group finds Matoya's cave.
Matoya poisons the Light Warriors with a nightmare-inducing poison to blackmail them into retrieving her Crystal Eye from the pirate Bikke in Pravoka. The group grudgingly accepts the quest. Before they leave, Fighter, who believes to have found the Cave of no Return, asks for Matoya's Armor of Invincibility. Mishearing Fighter's request, Matoya gladly gives Fighter her Armoire of Invincibility, which Red Mage soon decides to put into a summoning materia (actually a hypercube) to make transport easier.
Meanwhile in Pravoka, Bikke the Pirate has been hired by Garland to ambush the Light Warriors and defeat them in return for a large sum of gold from Garland. This plan is severely hindered by the fact that Bikke was too cheap to buy oranges for his crew, leading to them suffering from severe scurvy. The Light Warriors are easily able to dispatch the sick pirates, and Bikke decides to give the Light Warriors his ship and reveals that he sold the Crystal Eye to someone in Elfland. The Light Warriors start their journey across the Aldi Sea to Elfland. Attacked by sea monsters, Black Mage uses a Hadoken to to speed the boat up. The elves take the ship approaching at a high velocity as an indication of aggression and deploy the "Giant Cannon," a cannon that literally fires giants. The missile hits, and the resulting wave tosses the ship right into the womans' barracks of Elfland Castle. Disguising themselves as female Elves, the Light Warriors manage to escape the castle, but soon are arrested by the royal guard while searching for the Elven black market.
In Elfland Castle, Doctor Malpractice and Chancellor Usurper of the Sahn'Ta Clan discuss the condition of the Elf King and Prince. The Elf King (who is sire of the Khee'Bler Clan) is bedridden and unaware of the world around him, and the Prince suffers from a mysterious disease. If neither of them are fit to take the throne within two days, Chancellor Usurper will become ruler of Elfland. Encountering Chancellor Usurper and Doctor Malpractice in court, Thief reveals himself to be the Prince. To help curing his father's sickness, he has been travelling foreign lands, sending money to Doctor Malpractice. Malpractice had set up a decoy so no one would realize the prince was missing; however, he also has been receiving bribes from Usurper to make sure neither the king or the prince would ever recover so Usurper could take over the throne and has put the funds Thief sent into his own pocket. Seeing his scheme come apart, Malpractice flees from Elfland.
Usurper sees his plans of becoming king in danger a mere two days before he was slated to take over and hatches a plan to dispose of Thief. He informs Thief that the Royal Crown was stolen by Malpractice, who tossed into the depths of Marsh Cave, a dangerous dungeon that only the Light Warriors could possibly survive. On the way to Marsh Cave the Light Warriors are ambushed by a near-extinct species of giant spiders and are taken to Marsh Cave, where they meet the spiders' master. It is the Dark Elf Drizz'l, a swordsman equal to Fighter. The Light Warriors manage to defeat Drizz'L and trek back to the surface with the Royal Crown of Royalty and Drizz'l's swords in hand. Meanwhile, Garland and Bikke find Drizz'L's unconscious body, and decide to recruit him once he pulls through.
Upon returning to the Castle, Thief reveals that he knows of Chancellor Usurper's plans, and the next morning the group confronts Chancellor Usurper an hour before the crowning ceremony. Usurper commends the Light Warriors for uncovering his plot to cast Elf Land into a civil war and reveals himself to be the Dark Elf King Astos, the father of Drizz'L. Black Mage unintentionally kills Astos with a heartbreakingly stupid pre-battle taunt ("Astos? Mo' like yo' ass is toast!"). Upon searching Astos's person, Fighter finds a complex alchemist formula for an antidote for the King's illness, which only Matoya can brew, as well as Matoya's crystal eye.
The Light Warriors' eventful journey back to Matoya's cave is unintentionally undone by a wizard doing time/space experiments, but they manage to bring Matoya her crystal eye back and get the antidote for themselves as well as the cure for King Elf. To return to Elfland, they visit an airship proprietor named Jeff, whose airships are actually deathtraps. The Light Warriors decide to buy a deathtrap from him, which allows them to travel over the Aldi Sea exceedingly fast. Unfortunately, the Elves once again take this as an act of aggression and fire the Giant Cannon, bringing the deathtrap down and nearly crushing Black Mage under a giant.
After dealing with the giant, the Light Warriors visit the King of Elfland to complete Thief's quest by restoring his father's health with Matoya's antidote. Thief announces that he must now leave the Light Warriors, and after saying good-bye, the Light Warriors make Fighter their new leader. Black Mage, however, immediately pulls a military coup and makes himself leader.
The Orb of Earth
Game Plot
The Warriors of Light reach the town of Melmond, where they find the earth itself has become infertile and rotten and learn of a sage named Sarda who lives nearby. However, the road to Sarda leads through a tunnel blocked by a titan. The only other option to visit is the Cavern of Earth, where the Warriors defeat a vampire and find a ruby, as well as a heavy stone plate blocking the path deeper into the cavern. The Warriors travel back to the Titan's Tunnel and give the titan the ruby in exchange for passage. From Sarda they receive a magical rod, enabling them to lift the stone plate and continue exploring the cave. On the deepest floor they encounter the elemental fiend Lich, the one responsible for the earth's rot, and defeat him, relighting one of their orbs.
Comic Plot
Even though the king has reclaimed his throne, Elfland still has problems. The earth itself is rotting, and Thief learns he must recover the Orb of Earth to stop the process. He rejoins the other Light Warriors and is reinstated as leader. Believing that the Dwarves have the Earth Orb in their possession, Thief leads the Light Warriors into the Land of the Dwarves to get it back. Although Black Mage and Thief joyfully burn down every Dwarven city the group visits, they finally learn that the Earth Orb is being kept in Dwarf Castle's keep.
The Dwarf King is informed of the fires that are striking Dwarven towns and decides to recruit the legendary Bearded Warriors for assistance. The Light Warriors, disguised as dwarves, are recruited by the Dwarf King and learn that the Earth Orb is no longer in the King's possession. The King reports that it has been stolen by a horrible manifestation of darkness that stormed the castle and took the Earth Orb, killing everyone that got in its way.
The Light Warriors travel to "667 Darkness Lane" where it's said the "night creature" lives. Upon entering the house they're greeted by Vilbert, a vampire and wannabe Goth. Vilbert is quickly incapacitated as the Light Warriors use the Armoire of Invincibility as a stake to drive through his heart; unfortunately, the Earth Fiend Lich, Vilbert's father and the creature who actually stole the Earth Orb appears soon after.
Lich reveals that he put his soul in the Earth Orb as to become an invincible ruler of the dead. He then throws Black Mage into the Armoire, snapping his spine and killing him. While Fighter attacks Lich in a fit of anger, Thief and Red Mage discover that Lich dropped the Earth Orb when Fighter attacked. Thief quickly steals first the Earth Orb itself, then Lich's soul from the orb, and Fighter pushes the soul back into Lich's body, reducing him to a mortal again. Black Mage, who has overthrown Hell and become its king, emerges and has demons drag Lich into Hell.
Black Mage explains that he has overthrown the demons of hell and removed their spines to ensure there would be no counterrevolution and announces his intent to torch his former body, eliminating all potential vessels for his soul. Just before he does this a demon appears with a message to Black Mage. It turns out that Lich repaired everyone's spines and is now the new leader of Hell's armies. With that, Black Mage is pushed back into his mortal body, bringing him back to life, much to his extreme anger.
The Orb of Fire
Game Plot
After defeating Lich the player may travel to the village Crescent Lake where they meet the Circle of Sages, a group of wise men who explain that the four fiends must be defeated to relight all four orbs and save the world. The Warriors of Light are given a canoe, allowing them to travel to Gurgu Mountain where they defeat Kary, the Fiend of Fire. (At this point they may also go to another dungeon to obtain the Floater, which allows them to access the airship.)
Comic Plot
The Light Warriors arrive at the city of Melmond, where Black Belt and White Mage convince them to visit Sarda the Sage, a seemingly onmipotent wizard who lives in the nearby Circle Cave. Sarda sends the Light Warriors away to retrieve the Fire Orb, the conduit for all thermodynamic activity in the world, from Gorgu Mountain. The order of Red Mages has been seeking this Orb for a long time. The Light Warriors quest far and wide until they approach the summit of Gorgu Mountain. There, they learn that due to Sarda's bad penmanship they travelled to the wrong volcano and actually need to travel to Gurgu Mountain on Crescent Lake Drive. Upon exiting Gorgu Mountain, the Deathtrap lands on Black Mage, and White Mage and Black Belt emerge, explaining that the Dwarves fixed it in a matter of two weeks. The Light Warriors take off to Crescent Lake.
Meanwhile, Garland hatches his master plan: to vanquish his foes and rule the world with an iron (yet caring) fist. He and the Dark Warriors, by this time including Vilbert as well, try to link the Light Warriors to acts of terrorism and falsely label the Dark Warriors hideout as a haven for Light Warrior supporters, leading unsuspecting victims to drown in their moat.
In the forest near Crescent Lake, the Light Warriors are greeted by an individual who introduces himself as Generic Half-Elven Dual-Class Ranger and his cohort Berserker, a Dwarf who immediately attacks Thief. Ranger leads the Light Warriors to Gurgu Mountain where he bids them farewell so that he and Berserker can continue their search for their missing comrades Cleric and Rogue, who departed for Dwarven lands long ago. Black Mage and Thief trick Berserker into thinking Ranger was the one who destroyed Dwarf Land, causing bad blood between the two.
The Light Warriors find the entrance to Gurgu Volcano locked and covered with ancient mystical runes. Fighter deciphers the riddle on the volcano door, only to discover that Black Belt has already made his way inside. He explains that Gurgu was his training ground before it turned into a volcano.
After dealing with a fire dragon, the group is captured by Kary's minions and taken to the Fiend of Fire. The hot-headed Kary kills all of her minions in a fit of rage, leaving just her and the Light Warriors. White Mage orders Black Belt to fight Kary, who turns out to be an easy match for Black Belt and kills him in mere seconds. While the rest of the group is shocked, Fighter picks up Black Belt's nunchucks and uses improvised Sword-Chucks to fend the six-armed Kary off. While Kary is distracted, Thief steals the Fire Orb. Red Mage hatches a plan: he traps Kary in Thief's Bag of Infinite Holding and casts Ice-9, an ice spell capable of freezing the entire universe, into it. His plan is to trap Kary in the bag until she can be defeated, but an enraged White Mage destroys the bag and thus everything in it, Kary as well as Thief's loot, much to his horror.
After Kary's death, the volcano explodes and gives the Light Warriors a quick exit. Outside, White Mage builds a shrine to Black Belt so they can all pay their respects; all except Black Mage, who makes cruel jokes about Black Belt's demise. Three days of travelling later, the group makes their way back to the airship. During the flight, Red Mage discovers the source of the Hadoken's power: every time it is used, it drains some love from the universe. Black Mage writes a heartfelt note to White Mage saying sorry for his actions and consoling her about Black Belt. White Mage is genuinely impressed, but soon rediscovers her loathing for Black Mage when she learns that Black Mage's Hadoken was obtained by sacrificing nine orphaned children.
After the Deathtrap crashes once again, Sarda summons the group to him. White Mage pleads with Sarda to resurrect Black Belt, but he refuses and sends her to a pocket dimension to shut her up. Red Mage presents Sarda with the Fire Orb.
Sidequests
The Ice Cavern
Game Plot
The player may travel to a cave of ice, where they must defeat a miniboss known as the Eye and retrieve the Floater. Using the Floater, they may power an airship, which allows rapid, monster-free travel across the entire map.
Comic Plot
Black Mage demands the rewards for the retrieval of the orbs, but Sarda sets them another quest instead. They are to travel to the frozen wastes and retrieve an item of great power.
Meanwhile, White Mage finds out that the pocket universe she is in is actually the universe prior to creation. She accidentally creates the universe, just before a young Sarda arrives. It turns out Sarda had planned to create the universe himself, but White Mage's arrival has made this impossible. White Mage wishes herself back to her own time, and Sarda spends millennia in isolation and frustration, planning to send White Mage away to a pocket universe if he ever meets her again.
The Light Warriors make their way to the icy wastelands by ship, along with the Dark Warriors, who have disguised themselves as the ship's crew and plan to kill the group. The ship crashes on the shores of the ice continent, and the groups are separated from each other. The Light Warriors soon collapse into a hypothermia-driven sleep and are found by a yeti, who brings them to his cave for food. The Dark Warriors arrive, kill the yeti but consider the Light Warriors defeated and leave them to wake up some time later. Below the cave, they find a network of tunnels, and, trying to escape this way, are captured by an apocalyptic cult.
Their leader, Mrr'grt, decides to sacrifice them to their god, a hideous eye that can remove people from reality and put them into an alternate dimension where space and time are one. This, however, enables Red Mage to build an army of billions of Light Warriors. The group manages to break out and kill the entire cult. They escape the caves, happen to come across a ship carrying mysterious cargo and set off back to Sarda. Back in civilized lands, the mysterious cargo is revealed to be the Dark Warriors. They decide to scout out the city, coming across the Light Warriors. Garland learns the weaknesses of his enemies through Fighter's incredible naïvete.
Sarda teleports the Light Warriors back to his cave, and asks for the powerful item - a cold fusion generator, which is a piece of arcane machinery that powers the "space helicopter." As the Light Warriors failed to find it, they instead get their old Deathtrap back.
Class Change
Game Plot
In the game the class change can be obtained at any time after the player has found the airship. The warriors of Light must travel to the Castle of Ordeals to obtain a rat's tail guarded by a zombie dragon. They may then use the airship to reach Bahamut, the king of a race of dragons who live in holes on a series of islands known as Cardia. Bahamut upgrades the character classes as follows: Black, Red and White mages become Black, Red and White wizards, respectively, Thieves become Ninjas, Fighters become Knights and Black Belts become Masters. The class change greatly improves the characters' combat abilities.
Comic Plot
Sarda orders the Light Warriors to travel to Cardia and receive a Class Change. Following another crash landing, the group arrives on the Isles of Cardia. Fighter, Black Mage and Red Mage fall into a deep hole while searching the island and end up in a cave. There they meet the dragon godking Bahamut, who decides to test the warriors by sending them on a quest to find a Dire Rat's tail. The three of them leave the cave and reunite with Thief.
Before they can begin their search, they meet the Other Warriors - Ranger and Berserker reunited with their friends Cleric and Rogue. Berserker immediately attacks Thief again, prompting Cleric to contact the Trickster God to resurrect Thief. Thief signs a contract with the trickster god to get out of his own personal hell, while Red Mage finds out that the other party is also searching for the tail of a dire rat. Red Mage attempts to get rid of the other party, and after the groups split, the Light Warriors fix their ship and leave.
At the Castle of Ordeals, they quickly are separated from each other. Every member of the group has to face and beat their own personal ordeal here: Fighter is confronted with the ordeal of Sloth, Black Mage is confronted by the ordeal of Atrocity which appears as himself and Red Mage meets the ordeal of Hubris. Only Thief does not face his ordeal (Greed) as Black Mage accidentally kills it as well. After passing the ordeals, the Light Warriors join forces again and meet the final Ordeal, a Zombie Dragon. Thief defeats the Dragon and the warriors find a Dire Rat's tail. Returning to Bahamut, they discover that he reason he wanted the tail is to use it as an aphrodisiac (to be made into a soup by his girlfriend, Matoya). They are granted a reward, but nothing seems to happen and they leave the cave.
Back at the Deathtrap Black Mage becomes angry with Red Mage and attacks him with a Hadoken, destroying the airship in the process. However, Red Mage not only survives, but manages to cast the Hadoken back at Black Mage. One by one, the class changes are revealed: Red Mage has become a Mime and can copy one action he sees used. Fighter becomes a Knight and is able to block attacks from hitting his comrades, while Thief becomes a Ninja, gaining the abilities to use items/people as throwing weapons and counterattack at blinding speed. Black Mage does not seem to change at first, but is soon visited by a Dark God, who fully unlocks Black Mage's potential, turning him into a Blue Mage. Black Mage is now able to learn special attacks from opponents - if he survives them first. All these abilities are taken from character classes that featured in later Final Fantasy games.
The Orb of Water
Game Plot
The player must buy a bottled fairy from a desert caravan. The fairy can extract a substance called oxyale from a spring in the small town of Gaia which allows the Warriors to operate a submarine and reach the sunken Sea Shrine, where Kraken, the third fiend, dwells. In the shrine the Warriors meet mermaids, retrieve a stone slab of unknown purpose and defeat Kraken.
Comic Plot
Sarda tells the Warriors that their next task is to recover the Orb of Water, which lies in a temple at the bottom of the sea. To help them with this he gives them the "Water Deathtrap", which is identical to the Air Deathtrap and crashes into the small town of Gaia almost immediately after takeoff. In Gaia, Black Mage meets White Mage again, and due to a mix-up Fighter, Thief, Red Mage and White Mage take off with the repaired Deathtrap, leaving Black Mage behind.
Pleased that he has got rid from the others, Black Mage violently takes over a local business. His murderous disposition soon leads him into trouble with the town guard, and he escapes the situation by propelling himself away with a Hadoken. Meanwhile, the others arrive at the town of Onrac, a town whose economy has gone steeply downhill since the famous Sea Shrine sunk. To help the town they build a community center into which Black Mage happens to crash shortly after completion, destroying the building and killing several villagers. Fearing White Mage's wrath, he urges the other Light Warriors to go onboard the Deathtrap and flee underwater.
At the bottom of the ocean the group arrives at the sunken Sea Shrine. There they are captured by the same cultists they met at the Ice Cave. They are quickly dispatched by Black Mage after his plan to join them goes wrong; in the process, he finds their formula for the end of the world. Trying to decipher it, the Light Warriors accidentally summon Kraken (known mostly in the comic as Ur, the diminuitive of Jnn'efur), the cultists' new god and the third elemental Fiend. While the fiend, who is at first nothing but a chaotic mass of tentacles, engulfs Red Mage, Thief steals the Orb of Water. The group then battles the fiend until he explodes, revealing a separate tentacled creature of human proportions, the actual Kraken, inside. Black Mage tries to befriend him, but Kraken is quickly defeated when Red Mage, who turns out to have survived the attack, uses a sword to cut himself free from within him.
The Light Warriors raise the temple from the ocean, causing a tidal wave that destroys Onrac completely and floods the area. They meet White Mage on the open seas, who suggests they use the Orb of Water to make the water recede and save at least some people. Black Mage initially disagrees, but then his evil side and atrociously evil side point out to him that this is an opportunity to look good in front of White Mage, and that he should give the orb to her. Just before he can do this Sarda summons them once again. White Mage is left behind, holding on to some floating debris, while the Light Warriors deliver the Orb of Water to Sarda. Sarda orders them to bring him the Orb of Air. Red Mage asks if they can at least have some lunch before they go. Sarda makes them sandwiches which have teleporting turkey in them, causing the Light Warriors to teleport to a random location in the air.
The Orb of Air
Note: This is a story arc currently in progress. Information is subject to quick changes.
Game Plot:
After finding a strange robot and receiving a mysterious cube, the Light Warriors must give the stone slab found in the Sea Shrine to a linguist named Dr. Unne in order for him to teach them the Lefeinish language, used by a secluded civilization in the far north. The people of Lefein will give them a chime that enables them to enter the Mirage Tower, where they can use the cube to ascend to Sky Castle. There they will meet and defeat Tiamat, the draconic Fiend of Air, and relight the last orb.
Comic Plot:
The real Warriors of Light have helped Dr. Unne decipher the ancient language, but the work was soon destroyed by Black Mage, who sets Dr. Unne's house on fire, along with the entire town of Melmond. Soon after, they're scammed out of everything they have by a person who claims to be "Not Akbar".
The Temple of Fiends/Chaos
Note: This part of the story has not yet occurred in the comic.
Game Plot:
The Warriors, having relit the four Orbs, return to Garland's chamber at the Temple of Fiends and open up a gateway to 2000 years in the past. There, the younger temple is not the ruin they know, with several stories above and below ground. They climb to the topmost floor and defeat a Phantom guarding a plate, then use the flute (a lute in the original NES game) given to them by Princess Sara to shatter the plate and pass through. The passage the plate blocked led down to the temple's lower areas, which the Light warriors must defeat stronger versions of the Four Fiends in order to pass through.
After defeating the Four Fiends again, the Warriors descend to the lowest level of the temple, where they encounter none other than Garland. Garland reveals a plot devised by himself and the Four Fiends to create a time loop so that they could gain infinite power. This time-loop has changed the somewhat feeble first boss Garland into the immensely powerful Chaos. The Warriors must defeat Chaos to win the game.