Placing a Sigil During the First Guardian Encounter
Channel: Cid
Date: 2023-01-12

I have long known that it was possible to place a sigil at the end of the first Guardian encounter, but it involved a lengthy setup and so would not save time in a speedrun. It turns out that the pedestals become active as soon as the teleportation sequence starts, so as long as you get close enough to a pedestal and grab the sigil from your tool belt before the effect starts you can place one sigil and save the time of having to do it during the second encounter, which is not on a set timer like the first.

It turns out that many NPC's can get tempted to sit on a chair if one is located in their proximity, and the Guardian is no exception. I imagine he was originally intended to sit on his throne, but they didn't get it to work or decided to have him stand. In fact if you go out of bounds in the throne room you can see a chair placed underneath the throne, seemingly there to make the throne work (?). In any case if the Guardian manages to sit down, it greatly messes up the second encounter and makes the game unbeatable.

One thing I didn't show in this video is luring the guardian out of the throne room before starting the first encounter. Was hoping it might complete the cutscene and activate the pedestals without teleporting us out, but it doesn't do much besides make the cutscene look fun, as the Guardian is missing.