Glad you're working on a patch for this, since I managed to get myself stuck down there as well.
I'm the biggest fool though. When I came to the Abyss, I heard the line about needing to be brave to explore without a light source, saw the bioluminescent fish that followed you around and decided it was a puzzle dungeon. After a long time of carefully leading fish around and having a screenshot of the map up on another screen I'd explored the whole Abyss, killed the King Jellyfish, gotten some treasure, plowed through the barrier and gotten suck trying to free Li from the bubble. I only have Energy, Beast, Fish and Nature forms at this point.
That's what I get for making things more difficult than they need to be, I guess.