Guide: How to Find and Kill the 6 Dragons/Unlock the Vampire Asterisk in Bravely Default
Most of Bravely Default is pretty straightforward, but one side-quest in particular had me a little stuck. It's not necessarily something you won't be able to work out on your own, but before you've unlocked the Vampire Asterisk you may find yourself a little confused. So here I present a guide (with only very very minor spoilers) that I hope will come in handy if you aren't quite sure exactly what you need to do and when.
F.A.Q
Dragons? Yup, six of them. You won't have to worry about them until a blue bubble appears above Vampire Castle (top left of the map, roughly 30 hours into the game) indicating that the optional side-quest which eventually unlocks you the Vampire Asterisk is now available. Once you reach the castle a short cutscene will play out, but the door won't open as you're missing six keystones which are required to unlock it.
So how do I open the castle door? You'll need to find six pillars dotted around the world map. At each one you'll fight a dragon, and once it's defeated you will be rewarded with a keystone.
And where are these dragons/pillars? There's a map below with their locations.
Any tips for defeating them? Yup, see below. There's also a boss at the end of Vampire Castle, but he can be defeated using similar strategies, and if you're able to beat the dragons then you shouldn't have too much trouble here.
But I'm not a high enough level and I've done everything apart from enter the pillar of light? This confused me a bit. When you reach the Pillar of Light the game warns you that you're about to cross a point of no return, but don't worry. You can still complete this side-quest once you've entered the pillar. What's even better is that doing so will also unlock some new opportunities for levelling up, so it's easy to make your party stronger if you're having trouble.
What level were you when you fought them? All my party was level 64 when I started dragon hunting, I think I made it to level 65 in the process. The battles weren't too hard, but I wouldn't recommend being a much lower level.
Is there anything else I need to do? Once you've defeated the dragons you can open the door to Vampire Castle. Here you've got a seven floor dungeon followed by a boss fight. After this you'll be rewarded with the Vampire Asterisk.
The Map
Here's a map showing the locations of the six dragons (the big dots). From left to right the dragons are as follows:
Earth Dragon, Fire Dragon, Dark Dragon, Wind Dragon, Water Dragon, Light Dragon
Each dragon has the same amount of HP (75000) and the same three attacks but under a different element. Some can cause status effects meaning that the Wind Dragon and Fire Dragon are potentially a little easier than the rest, but to be perfectly honest if you can defeat one then you can defeat all of them.
General advice: I'd recommend having both a Spiritmaster and a Templar in your party. Once levelled up the Spiritmaster will be able to use the Stillness and Enigma abilities whilst the Templar can use Rampart. These will allow you to greatly protect your party, and easily recover from/prevent high damaging attacks. Rampart in particular is invaluable when facing the boss at the end of Vampire Castle, and without it there's a risk your entire party will be wiped out in one turn.
Using these skills as necessary you can shield yourself from physical attacks with Rampart and elemental attacks with Enigma. Then when your HP is running low you can use Stillness to allow yourself time to recover fully.
Hopefully there's enough here to help with any problems you might have had, but if you're still stuck or need some extra advice please use the comments section below and I'll do my best to help.
