Let's Play Monster Quest Part 24

This has always felt to me like a title drop for the sake of a title drop, honestly. The Sacred Stone isn't terribly relevant to this mission in any capacity.


I screenshotted this entirely because it reminded me of why I actually quite like Fomortiis as a villain, even though he gets barely any screentime: he has no patience for people trying to spin melodramatic meaning into their lives. I don't have much patience for that sort of thing either, for one, but it's also quite sensible for a villain to be utterly apathetic to his foes' woes. It's pretty much either that or be reveling in them, and I usually find that pretty boring and shallow. It ends up lending itself to scenes that fail to serve the story because you can justify any conflict happening anytime by just saying the villain is being cruel again.

An apathetic villain has to be causing harm to others as part of pursuing a goal that can move the plot forward.

Though admittedly Fomortiis isn't truly apathetic, as he's pretty happy to torture Lyon for some reason, and to a lesser extent revels once or twice in Eirika's suffering for... some reason. But while he enjoys their suffering, it largely doesn't seem to motivate his actual decisions. The difference between enjoying a TV show that happens to be on and you can't be bothered to turn the TV off vs actively seeking that particular show out.

Anyway, let's take a look around...



... comparing Lyon to the last time we saw him, the only ways his actual statline have changed is that his HP has climbed so high that he's hit the game's 'stop displaying max HP' point (Normally only achieved by Fomortiis and, if I recall correctly, a few Lagdou Ruins Dracozombies) and his level has actually gone down by 2. The actual change is that he's replaced Gleipnir with Naglfar, which ups Skill and Speed and has a Range of 1-3. Its other stats are actually identical to base-game Naglfar, interestingly enough -I was expecting a bigger buff.

Compared to the base game, this version of Lyon isn't actually that hugely boosted. Mostly he's a lot Luckier and has a lot more HP. He's got some more Skill and all, but he already had Magic and Resistance capped and his Defense was only 4 points away. Aside Naglfar's changes (I'm curious if it'll leech or anything problematic like that), this really isn't as huge a jump over the base game as the previous Lyon fight was.

Which is good, because in the base game this Lyon is probably the nastiest boss in the game. Fomortiis himself honestly isn't that bad given that the Sacred Twins and Bishops are so effective against him and his behavior on the first two turns limits the danger he presents. Lyon is tough, with no weaknesses to exploit whether in the sense of slayer weaponry or in the sense of range limits or anything like that. Having him be tons tougher than that would be crazy-making, even with the Sacred Twins being so good in Monster Quest.

Though notice that he has more than 30 innate Crit. That means you have to have some external crit protection, whether it's a Hoplon Guard, relevant Support, or Nidhogg's +5 to Luck, if you want to ensure he has no crit chance on a given character. By a similar token, his 30 Speed makes doubling him more or less impossible outside Brave effects -maybe Ross would be able to with Garm if I'd promoted him into a Maelduin? He'd only need 1 more Speed cap. So too could Excalibur potentially get natural doubling (ie quadrupling) on a character with high enough Constitution and high enough Speed cap. That's it, though -Lyon is going to be tedious, is what I'm saying.



These two Shadowshot Gorgons are the main thing that stand out, aside the usual two Dracozombies. Normally I deal with them by letting them burn through Shadowshot uses. Can't do that in Monster Quest... so this is going to be a bit of an issue, and not so readily solved by Warping L'Arachel at it.

Anyway...

You do realize I'm adopted, yes?
Well. Yes?
So the royal spidery ichor of Renais does not flow in my veins.
Actually, m'lady, it does.
what
Not enough that Light Magic burns with the harshness of an erupting volcano, but King Fado performed a ritual of ichor-infusion when you and Ephraim were adopted, making you true heirs.
Otherwise the whole thing with the bracelets wouldn't even have worked.
squeeeee
... why was I not told this?
Of course you were. Repeatedly. In the classes we took before ever going to Grado.
I don't really remember those classes.
Of course not. You were more interested in learning the blade than in history, politics, and how they intertwine.
You don't like history?!?
I like the parts where someone is being subjugated and ground under another's metaphorical bootheels.
Oh. Carry on then.
Eirika, that's most of them.
But we've had 800 years of peace since Fomortiis got sealed away by humans!
Tana, we've had 800 years of not going out and crushing other continents. Like that Archaneia place, or that campaign on Valentia that Duma screwed up. We've still been fighting each other the whole time. Why do you think we include such decorated veterans as Garcia if there's been no fighting?
... I assumed he fought bandits and it didn't count?
Bandits? You thought I retired after a long and hard life of fighting bandits? I'll have you know it was your people's blood I had to wade through to secure the border, while Grado's Duessel fought alongside me!
I'm insulted by association. Bandits, really.
Uh. This is awkward.
For that matter, we've got actual mercenaries-
Yo.
-able to get by just fine. Entire guilds of them! How do you think sellswords survive if there's no wars to be fought?
...bandits?
Ahem.
This mission is about me. The villain of the story? Smasher of the Sacred Stones? Invited you in so I can smash the final one you foolishly brought along?
Seriously Tana, I know you're smart, but you need to use your head more!
...
I've decided I no longer have second thoughts about killing any of you.
You won't feel bad about killing even me, mister?
You're a hideous eyeball-monster wearing some poor boy's skin like a cloak.
Maybe a little.

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These are the people I'm taking with me and the starting positions I went with -it's my A-team plus Colm because there's some chests and because he's a fantastic cheerleader to Neimi.

Notice that both Eirika and Ephraim are mandatory. This is A Good Thing in Monster Quest for reasons we'll get to later.

Also notice I'm an idiot and didn't bring the Stone Shard on Colm. It... doesn't end up mattering, but I was kicking myself over it anyway, and it was dumb of me regardless. We'll get more into that later.

Let's do one last overview of these characters.


Eirika is, of course, capped in literally everything, and is one of my best characters. It's really refreshing how consistently good Eirika has been in Monster Quest. In the base game... there's been worse Lords in the series, but Eirika requires a lot of babysitting early on, can easily end up dead weight for a while if she doesn't get early Strength rolls, and her reliance on evasion for protection means RNG is always a factor in her survival. Coupled with how awkward her Support list is -Tana and Forde are her only Supports that aren't either godawful prepromotes (Innes, Seth, Saleh for some reason) or only show up late in the game (Ephraim in real terms plus L'Arachel)- Eirika can really struggle to contribute for much of the game, and tends to require Support grinding if you want to shore up her flaws.

In Monster Quest, she's been consistently powerful but until relatively recently not so powerful that she could solo maps. Useful, not broken. It's been quite nice, and I especially appreciate how Sieglinde being unlimited-use and ranged and so on extends her utility, helps shore up her lacking Strength, and just generally makes for a great mid-campaign boost, enough so that her meh promotion boosts aren't really a big deal.


Ephraim had those two weird glitches with his leveling, but that aside... I like Ephraim in Monster Quest as well. He's already solid in the base game (Enough so that his own awkward Support list isn't really a problem), particularly in his own route, just for the fact that prior to his promotion he's your only unit (Aside Amelia if you're using super-recruits) that uses Lances without having some slayer-based weakness, but he's a bit boring in the base game and once he promotes he's literally just half a Paladin. This applies to Eirika, too, but it's less noticeable for her since her personal difficulties stand out a lot more than 'is half a Paladin'. For Ephraim, promotion almost feels like a downgrade in the base game.

Monster Quest hasn't addressed those issues per se, but Siegmund's overhaul does a lot to make him more useful when you reach the promotion point, even if you're not exploiting his bizarre potential for extra levels.

In practice, I felt Eirika pretty consistently overshadowed him, but... she's really the main character of Sacred Stones anyway, so it feels appropriate.


Tethys is amazing, of course, and I love what Monster Quest has done with her. The closest thing to a complaint I have is it would've been nice for it to have given her a promotion instead of insane super-growths -it was pretty silly how she fairly rapidly shot ahead of the stat curve such that she was basically invincible for much of the game, making her an overly-effective meatshield with no real disadvantage to letting her meatshield.

Still, that's better than in the base game. The Dance command is useful, don't get me wrong, but in the base game Tethys is actually one of my most common characters to end up dying and forcing a restart of a mission, rather than anybody I'm actually fighting with, and it's enough of a nuisance I often find myself wondering if I'd be better off not bringing her at all. I mostly put up with her to train up Ewan in the base game, honestly, because he's one of the best characters in the game by a large margin but he's a trainee when he shows up while you're starting to enter the part of the game you might have a promoted character or two already and so it's difficult to get him trained up if you're not having him steal as many kills as possible.

And Monster Quest Tethys is just plain fun.


For being my original Light magic user, Artur turned out surprisingly underwhelming. He's level 8 promoted and none of his stats are capped, and his Luck is an alarmingly low 15. That's admittedly enough to keep him protected from anything using just Skill to get crit chance, but it also means his accuracy and evasion are a bit poor. With L'Arachel carting around Ivaldi, really the only reason Artur is justifying his presence on my A-team is that he's a good Support with Lute.

This is a bit of a contrast with the base game, where he's almost guaranteed to be your primary Bishop for murdering monsters in this mission/in general. Natasha and Moulder can both easily end up promoted before him due to Staff experience not only failing to scale down but in fact in real terms scaling up due to access to Staves that give more experience, but it's quite a lot of effort to get their Light ranks up high enough they can use the better Tomes. (Though, to be fair, Ivaldi is pretty worthless in the base game, so it's not like reaching S in Light matters)

I am wondering if I just got unlucky with Artur or if this is reasonably representative of his Monster Quest performance.


Lute is a default in my A-team in most runs. She's one of your first mages, Anima is more useful than Light when you're not dealing with weapon triangle or assuming that Light is backed by being a Bishop, and in the longer haul her only real theoretical competition -Ewan- I always promote into a Shaman and so he stops being competition. It's also fairly easy to get her a Support with Vanessa and/or Artur, both of whom are plenty useful in their own right, and since that's 2 Anima Supports and 1 Ice Support, her usually-lacking defenses end up shored up; if she's got an A with one of them and a B with the other, she's got 5 damage reduction, +25 evasion, and +25 crit evasion!

In Monster Quest, Artur was pretty consistently more useful when fighting monsters, but you don't actually fight monsters all that much in Sacred Stones and Monster Quest shifted that only a little bit. And of course Monster Quest has made both her and Artur fliers, so the two of them frequently could pull off almost-map-breaking maneuvers, and that's cool. And of course Excalibur is kind of amazing, so once she got that she became one of my most amazing units. And while Ewan isn't a trainee able to promote into a Dark magic user, he's also not a super-unit if trained up in Monster Quest so he's actually even less of a concern as competition.

You might've noticed, but Lute is also probably my favorite character in Sacred Stones, so... that doesn't exactly hurt.


Colm is here to pick locks and maybe steal things.

In retrospect, I wish I'd made a little more of an effort to get him experience in prior missions. He's only level 4! Though, to be fair, if he got four perfect levels right now, he'd only be ahead on Defense, HP, and Luck when compared to Artur, so his stats are also just kinda... bad.

One thing playing Monster Quest has done is given me a bit more appreciation for the importance of the weapon triangle in the base game. I still think +/-15/1 to accuracy/damage is overly-conservative, but I did notice in playing Monster Quest that it was harder to find good opportunities to give Colm experience because he couldn't get triangle advantage. In the base game, Colm can routinely go up against Fighters, Barbarians, etc, with nearly no chance or sometimes absolutely no chance of being hit, and can also pop in on Axereaver-wielding enemies to be guaranteed safety, and so even though his combat stats are a bit lackluster it's not actually that hard to keep his experience climbing. In Monster Quest, I had a much harder time finding decent opportunities to get him experience -in fact, this was a bit of a problem with all the monster weapon characters.

It's further compounded by Monster Quest not providing anything on the scale of the Sacred Twins for monster weapons. The Stone Shard helps, but the weapon-users get powerful weapons that all give them extended range. The Stone Shard has overall more stat bonuses than any one Sacred Twin, and it does slay both armor and cavalry, but it shows up so late there's not a lot of opportunity to take advantage -no monster has the armor trait, and only Maelduins have the cavalry trait, so the Stone Shard is really mostly going to shine during the assault on Rausten. Maelduins aren't even that common in these last couple of missions; the Stone Shard would have helped a lot more if it slew fliers, or of course if it slew monsters. There's a reason I forgot to incorporate it, and a reason why I didn't bother to restart the mission when I noticed I'd forgotten about it -it's just not that good.

There's one thing I intend to test when I get here with Ephraim, though...

Anyway, Colm himself is honestly mostly going to cheerlead Neimi. As you'll see, he never does Steal anything in this mission, and having him pick locks was unnecessary.


Speaking of Neimi, she's been consistently really useful. The Juna Fruit obviously helped a lot -I'm wincing at imagining what her stats would look like right now if I hadn't given it to her- and Nidhogg obviously made a massive difference in her effectiveness once things got to that point, but Bows have been made a lot more useful in Monster Quest in general, and of course promoting opened up her options thanks to how Monster Quest handles player Wights.

Neimi is a default character in my A-team even in the base game, mind, as she's your only Bow/Ballista user until Innes comes along, and Innes is awful, and critically it's trivial to get her to an A Support with Colm (They start out with enough points to hit C instantly and have a solid gain rate per turn, and Neimi being a Bow user while Colm is melee makes it easy to arrange for them to fight directly adjacent to each other), which gives both of them +3 damage, +15 to hit, +15 to crit, +7 (And a half) to avoid and +1 (And a half) damage reduction. This means in real terms Neimi is noticeably more reliable and lethal than her stats would suggest, and Colm is mandatory since he's your only Thief figure until Rennac shows up. (And A: Rennac is awful and B: often you've already promoted Colm to Rogue by the time you even reach Rennac)

But Monster Quest has taken her from 'might as well, she's usually good enough' to 'one of my best units throughout the game'. It's awesome, especially since Neimi is one of the characters I like most as a character.


Ross is, of course, a default in my A-team in the base game: Axes are the best physical weapon type, he's your first trainee and so the easiest to train up, there you go.

I'm a bit surprised he still ended up on my A-team in Monster Quest, though, since he's not a trainee. Of course, the big thing is that I have very few Axe options -him, Garcia, and Dozla, as Dummy seems to have vanished from my team at some point- and Garm is a Luna Tome with unlimited uses. Prior to accessing Garm, Ross was serviceable, but not that notable. With Garm, he's been consistently my best tool for trivializing the game's most obnoxious challenges. Lyon has so much defense my strongest characters are struggling to scratch him? Whatever, Ross doesn't care about how much defense or resist you have.

If you play Monster Quest yourself, make absolutely sure you train up someone to S in Axes.


In most of my runs, Franz ends up being my primary Cavalier character -Forde and Kyle pretty much always end up inferior to him, and normally I promote Amelia up into being a General. Having Franz fill either the role of a lightning-fast Paladin or of a versatile and reasonably swift Great Knight is useful. It's just too bad his Support list is awkward -no Support with the prince or princess? Really?

In Monster Quest, he was solid for a while there, then fell behind in utility once Amelia showed up, and then pulled back into being useful when I was grinding for the Rausten mission. It's actually pretty nice having some basic, flexible infantry units with no particular weaknesses (Aside Light magic), and it makes me wonder why Fire Emblem is so loathe to provide them.


Tana is normally a bit overshadowed by being your second flier, with Vanessa as your first, but in Monster Quest you've got the Mogalls for fliers so that's not terribly important. She happened to end up pulling ahead of Vanessa in stats overall and reached S in Lances first, so she's been the winner.

The funny thing is that she's one of two characters able to Support with both of the twins (L'Arachel is the other), and I almost never get more than a C with either. She's normally too busy ranging out off into the middle of mountains and whatnot to get the Support grinding done incidentally, and I've never gone out of my way to abuse skirmish maps for Support grinding or the like. It's too bad, because Light/Fire/Wind is a nicely aggressive Support list, with all three boosting accuracy and damage. But the GBA Support mechanics are dumb, grindy nonsense, and it's not like it's necessary -even in Monster Quest there's not been a single enemy I actually needed Supports to be able to beat or beat safely. Just some that would've been less tedious.


L'Arachel is, of course, L'Arachel, and I actually quite like Monster Quest turning her into a combatant. It caught me off guard, but this is the girl who wants to go on adventures in imitation of bardic stories of smiting evil and whose dialogue includes a decent amount building on that, so it's always been weird to me that she was a Troubadour. I'd really think she'd have been some kind of un-promoted horse mage... so Monster Quest turning her into a Light Mogall works.

L'Arachel is actually usually not on my A-team, less because it's a pain to train her up and more because her normal options are mounted mages. Mounted mages aren't bad, but they're not as useful as the dismounted ones, particularly considering that part of the competition is Bishops getting to nuke monsters. I think the only two times she ended up on my A-team was when I did a gimmick run where I was as cavalry-focused as possible and another gimmick run where I was as mage-focused as possible.

And now this Monster Quest run, of course.


I'm a little surprised Amelia ended up as part of my A-team. She normally does, of course, but she's normally a trainee. I'd really underestimated how useful being a flexible infantry unit would be, and she also had pretty good growths overall. If you compare her to Franz, she's got much worse Resistance, but she's got much better Luck and her other stats are pretty similar in an overall favorable way.

She's not going to end up doing a ton this particular mission, but that's mostly because she doesn't have a Sacred Twin. In retrospect, I kind of wish I'd brought Knoll instead, just in hopes of getting him to S in Dark.

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The mission itself is mostly pretty easy in the base game, aside a few specific hurdles, and shorter than you might expect. I took 700 screenshots for the last mission: I took less than 500 for this one, and a number of those you're not even going to see because they're really pretty irrelevant, and furthermore the number is inflated by... stuff you'll see that's not strictly a part of the mission. And that's even though I did the second part all in one go with the first part.

Seriously, it's a bit of an anticlimax in some ways.


Anyway, first turn, a bunch of moving up to bait out enemies happens and Tethys Hammernes Amelia's Short Bow.



A Wight suicides on Tana and gives up its Door Key, and I send the Horseslayer off into the Convoy because there's barely any Maelduins here and anyway they default to using Axes so I'm really not likely to use it at any point.



The second Wight actually survives its exchange with Tana, barely, though it has just as little ability to actually hurt her.



Ephraim has an equivalent experience, though he's less invincible what with Siegmund providing a Strength bonus instead of a Defense one and all. He doesn't get hit, though.

This is going to be a bit of a running theme with this mission: in the base game, this mission has a few stumbling blocks, but is mostly... kinda easy. Monster Quest has bolstered the monsters, of course, but it's also reworked the Sacred Twins into being awesome, so...


I open my turn by having Tana almost kill a Wight that had moved up, striking from safety. She gets a nice level when you remember her Speed is capped.


L'Arachel comes up and completely wipes out a different Wight, and I'd be disappointed with her level but she already has three stats capped and these are the most important of the remaining.


Franz puts in work training his Bow skill and gets a fantastic level -remember, his Strength is capped, so he only actually missed Luck here.


I set Amelia to bait out a Wight in the west.

I'm going to screw it up in a minute, but whatever.


And I abruptly have it strike me that unlimited Hammerne means I can spam siege tomes unlimitedly, and so have Lute wastefully finish off the final nearby eastern Wight with Bolting.

It's really too bad I never bought Purge from a Secret Shop. And didn't manage to get it as a drop when I had the opportunity.


I drop Eirika in range to bait out another Wight, because why not.


And lastly, Tethys fixes up Bolting completely pointlessly.

I don't know why I did this, honestly. Even at the time I was going 'wait, why did I do this?'


Anyway, enemy turn comes and a Wight suicides on Eirika with no possible chance to hurt her.

It dies.


Over in the west, a Wight charges Ross instead of Amelia, because I'm an idiot. Though... it doesn't really matter...

Oh, and the Wight dies of course.


My turn comes along, and I open by having Ross wipe out another Wight that charged forward while himself charging forward, and he gets a fantastic level out it. With his caps, he only actually missed Resist. He may yet reach 60 HP!


L'Arachel nukes a Lancereaver Wight in the east.


I start Lute on Bolting the eastern Dracozombie.

I took the second screenshot because of the black screen. At the time I thought it was because she was attacking from the water -it's only later I finally realized-slash-remembered that Dracozombies have the unique property of forcing a pitch black background. Well, I guess it's almost unique, but we'll get to that.

Dracozombies are also unusual for the fact that they have an actual 'arrival' animation in normal combat -though it's not relevant to these screenshots, as for whatever reason siege tomes skip that animation. Myrrh's transformation is the only other animation in the game that's equivalent, in that she turns into her dragon form before any of the usual combat animation stuff gets to happen, just like Dracozombies get to arrive before anything else. Except... I'm 90% confident Myrrh still starts out un-transformed and transforms when being targeted with a siege tome, so it's a little different.

Anyway, this will trivialize the Dracozombie, which is normally one of the main hurdles. In the base game you either need to cheese the Dracozombies with Purge Bishops or have really high HP people who can bait out/gang up on the Dracozombies once they're baited out and who hit hard enough to cut through their defenses. Bolting is too weak (And so is Purge if it's not backed by being a Bishop) if you don't, you know, have unlimited Hammerne. I mean, you can also kinda abuse Longbows, since Dracozombies are fliers and so are susceptible to bows? But Longbows are also weak.

Moving on, though...


Franz continues  to work on training his Bow skills, in preparation for future plans that... well, we'll get to that... and gets a Chest Key.

I'd honestly feel like bringing Colm was a mistake if it weren't for his Support with Neimi.


Lastly, I place Tana and Artur out to bait those Bow Wights and have Tethys repair L'Arachel's Flux Tome completely pointlessly.

And no, I don't know why I hadn't already dumped the Antitoxin in the Convoy.



Enemy turn, and it opens with a Wight suiciding on Ephraim because I'm an idiot -I'd wanted it to go for Neimi or Ross. Regardless, Ephraim gets a dead level, which isn't a surprise. He could still get Resist, but... that's it, and it's pretty obvious Resist is still one of his low growths in Monster Quest.


Another Wight suicides on Neimi, as intended.

I'm amused at its tiny damage and tiny crit chance while using a Killing Edge.



A Bow Wight goes for Artur and dies for its trouble.



The other one goes for Tana, to the same result. Only it had worse odds to hit and worse damage potential, amusingly enough.


Neimi successfully incidentally baits out the western Gorgon, and since its Stone attempt missed (shock) it proceeds to die horribly.


Another Wight follows in its footsteps.

Then it's my turn, and...


... well, I start by having Ephraim open the door so Colm can make his way to the chest.


Over in the east, Tethys uses Unlock to open the door -her on the right with Unlock and Colm on the left with his Lockpicks was the plan the whole time, in fact- so that...


... L'Arachel can zip in and try to nuke the Gorgon. Unfortunately, while she dodges the retaliation she can't double it -I didn't realize until later in this mission that Ivaldi was seriously too heavy for L'Arachel- so...


... I end up wasting the experience on an Eirika kill.

Oh well.


I do some more moving up. The idea is that Artur will bait out one of the Wights up north and Tana will bait out the Wight to the east.

It, uh, doesn't quite work out that way.


I have Lute Bolting the eastern Dracozombie again, and this screenshot is me seeing the black background again and going 'wait what I thought it was that the swamp water lacked a background'.


And then suddenly it's the enemy turn, with the eastern Wight successfully baited out and shredded by Tana.


Artur instead gets targeted with an off-screen Shadowshot, though he's fine.


And then reinforcements arrive!

Arch Mogalls in the east, Deathgoyles in the west. The Deathgoyles are particularly annoying because I'd been setting up to bait out and kill the Dracozombie this turn, and because this is a Fire Emblem game it of course turns out that the southern Deathgoyle's strike zone perfectly overlaps with the southernmost portion of the Dracozombie's own strike zone. Bah.


First things first: Lute keeps softening up the eastern Dracozombie, while also moving west to support Artur.


Colm loots us a Master Seal I don't care about. I didn't bring along anyone who needs a promotion, and I've got one sitting in the Convoy anyway and... again, we'll get to the other thing.


Meanwhile, Franz loots a much more useful Angelic Robe.

Which it just occurred to me is kind of funny to find in the middle of an ancient temple built to a literal demon king. I wonder if that was intentional of the base game?


Anyway, I do some setting up to bait out an Arch Mogall without baiting out the Dracozombie...


... and go 'screw it' and decide to have Ross bait out the western Dracozombie. He'll be fine.

Also, Eirika's Lancereaver gets repaired.


Ross baits out and kills a Deathgoyle instead. Okay.

It honestly drives me up the wall how reinforcements usually go first in the AI turn order. It's counterintuitive on a number of levels. Like, on a programming level it's not what I'd expect, and on a 'realism' level it seems backwards as well. It does feed into the obnoxious tendency for the series to use reinforcements as ambushes -including that in several cases, such as the prior two GBA games, they actually arrive at the beginning of the enemy's turn and immediately act rather than after everything is done so you get warning- but that just makes me hate it more instead of finding it more intuitive.



Over east, Tana is successful in baiting out her Arch Mogall and crit-kills it... on the second hit... whatever. At least she dodged the alarmingly dangerous hit.


Having gone screw it already, I decide to have the western group get a bit aggressive. I'm fairly confident the surviving Deathgoyle can't possible kill someone in conjunction with the Dracozombie.


Tethys does more repairs, this time of Bolting.


And I have people back off in the east, positioned to bait out a couple Arch Mogalls.




Over in the west, it turns out that while everything is fine I really should've paid more attention because the Deathgoyle could theoretically have crit Ross in which case Wretched Air hitting him would be a kill. Oops.

But it's fine, and the Dracozombie is already nearly dead.



Over in the east, Artur's Arch Mogall survives him doubling it, though it misses him.


L'Arachel's Arch Mogall isn't so lucky.


Lute continues Bolting the Dracozombie. Only one more hit to go!


Artur finishes off his Arch Mogall. I still have dim hopes he'll get to S Dark and I'll get to try out the Tome.


Then I decide screw it, and have L'Arachel finish off the Dracozombie now rather than next turn with a Bolting.



Franz charges forth and I take the opportunity to show off that Audhulma is using Fimbulvetr's animation, even getting both the wind part and the ice part.


Tana takes out the last Arch Mogall, and thanks to a crit skips right past the question of retaliation.



Neimi finishes off the other Dracozombie and gets a perfect level out of it, which leaves her with only three un-capped stats.

I think it's about here I finally figure out/remember that Dracozombies just force the black background.


Anyway, Ross advances and places himself where a Gwyllgi can suicide on him...


... and Tethys repairs Franz's Short Bow.

And I end turn without a useful screenshot because honestly the mission is just BORING right now.



The Gwyllgi gets a a crit, which so doesn't matter, and dies.


Over east, the last Wight in the area flails uselessly at Eirika as intended.


And suddenly it's my turn!

I open with Lute softening up a Gorgon -I'd actually wanted her to target a Shadowshot one, but she couldn't move far enough so I settled for this.


L'Arachel nearly kills this Wight -I was honestly expecting a crit here.


Whatever, more Bow experience for Franz.


More setting up for baiting out, and...


... Tethys heals everyone because I don't see a particularly good Hammerne opportunity. I considered messing around with Convoy+trading to get something in Eirika's inventory to Hammerne, but... who cares?



Tana baits out her Swordreaver Maelduin and kills it by the power of crits, netting her a really good level given her caps.



Ross murders another Gwyllgi, which also totally pointlessly crits him. And dies.


My turn, and Lute starts softening up the eastern Shadowshot Gorgon.


Tethys performs more repairs of Bolting.



And I set up for more attempts to bait enemies out.



Ephraim and Lute both targeted with Shadowshot. Lute is fine, Ephraim is hurt a bit more than I was expecting.

You might also notice Lute is wielding Excalibur: I had Tethys Trade-swap it up for her protection.

And... those two Shadowshots are it. No enemy moves.


So I take things into my own hands...


... which gives us a couple wounded Elder Baels...


... plus gets Lute another level from wiping out the eastern Shadowshot Gorgon. Not a great level given only her Magic is capped, but oh well.

She killed it because it turns out I'm wrong and siege tomes absolutely can double enemies, they're just so heavy it'll almost never happen normally. So... that's something to keep in mind... and has me baffled as to what's up with Gleipnir's behavior in Monster Quest.


I decide to have Lute get started on the next one with Tethys' help.


One more hit and it's dead.

End turn.



The healthier eastern Elder Bael dies to a crit having done nothing.


The western one dies too.


The other eastern one dies.


Lute gets hit with a Shadowshot successfully, but whatever.



Then I'm caught off guard by a Gorgon charging Neimi, though it just ends up meaning it dies sooner. So... thanks, Gorgon!



Slightly more concerning is this eastern one going for Tana, hitting her hard, and dying. I'm half-expecting Lyon to start moving or something.


But nope, it's my turn now! Starting with Neimi finishing off the Shadowshot Gorgon.


Tana wipes out this other Gorgon Lute softened up earlier, so that wasn't a waste of a turn earlier, awesome.


Amelia breaks out her Beacon Bow and doesn't quite take out this Wight.


Lute charges forth into said Wight's reach to tear apart this Gorgon, and since she dodges the Stone it's fine.

I didn't screenshot it, but annoyingly her third hit was a crit. Whatever, it worked out.


L'Arachel wipes out the first of the Wights and gets a perfectly decent level given her caps.


Artur softens up another and gets a... level. At least it includes Magic?


Eirika finishes off Artur's target...


... and Tethys heals us, followed by the turn ending after boring movement happens.


The Wight still refuses to move and so predictably dies to Lute.

That's it.


Well, aside these reinforcements, I suppose.

Now, the thing is, I have a bunch of screenshots of people fighting Lyon and killing off an endless string of various Wights, but there's really no point to doing a blow-by-blow. I do some dumb stuff initially that ends up working out, I get into a rhythm, I discover I probably should have had Neimi fighting Lyon the whole time instead of relying on Ross to do the work, and I get irritated at myself for not only failing to bring the Stone Shard but failing to adequately level Colm because maybe then I could've stolen Lyon's Elixir and so prevented him from healing himself twice and so have sped this thing up. On the plus side, the reinforcements outright run out, so... I didn't miss out on anything, at least.

Also, Neimi dodges all but one Naglfar retaliation and never misses a shot while Ross misses well over half his shots even though he has a more than 50% chance to hit. It's annoying and ridiculous.

The only really interesting thing to talk about is how much of a pain the whole thing is with Naglfar's extended range making it so you have much more limited options for striking at the reinforcements without risking being nuked by Lyon. It's tricky enough I actually occasionally have Lute lob a Bolting in to finish off a weakened target!

Highlights:






Level-ups and loot. Notice that Neimi has capped all her non-HP stats.


L'Arachel using the Angelic Robe.


Some of the more visually interesting shots of Naglfar in action. I'm particularly intrigued by the one on the left, which seems to be interacting with how the background is displayed.


Lyon's second Elixir use and me showing that this is as high as the display goes. Based on the damage I was dealing, I'm pretty sure it actually wasn't fully healing Lyon, which is interesting if so, as it suggests the Elixir actually tries to set HP to 100 or something instead of the actual highest HP of 120. Which would make sense, since in the GBA games 120 is consistently reserved for the final boss, and in none of the games does the final boss carry an Elixir.


Eventually, Lyon hits a point where I know he'll use his Elixir again if I don't kill him now and the least risky option is to have Eirika finish him off -even though it's a complete waste of his experience. Alas.

Though it is appropriate to the narrative I've been spinning...

Which takes us to...

----------------------------------------

There we go. It's done.
Gurk. The lightning... burns... must... drink... Elixir... before dying...
I'm just going to kick that out of your hand. And maybe don't monologue about how you need to save yourself? You'd be fine -well, irritating me for longer- if you'd saved your energy for drinking the thing instead of talking.
... have... a... condition... if... you... must... know...
It's true. It's why he was so talkative when we visited Grado even though he was so shy.
This is another one of those 'yes Eirika, you don't remember it but it absolutely happened' things, isn't it?
.... gurk... yes...
Yep.
It's one of the main reasons he wasn't included in military councils much, yes.
Okay, fine, whatever. Lyon's dead, we've foiled his... plot to do... whatever he was doing...
... gasp... ascend to a higher... plane of existence... as a demon-god... if you must know...
Gasp! That's heresy! Quick, Ephraim, burn his body! No wait, L'Arachel get over here and purge his form before his soul gets a chance to taint anything important!
On it!
ohbythewayi'vealwayshadacrushonyou
You have good taste, but we've never met so I don't believe you.
HER, you idiot-
And there goes his ashes. He's in a worse place, now.
And good riddance. Now we can go back to mourning our lack of the one true Demon King, and try to figure out an alternative-
Aaaaah, after ten thousand years I'm finally free! Time to conquer Magvel! And everyplace else on this forsaken hole of a world. Really, humans are so bad at running things, I'm really looking forward to smoothing out the economies and the-
Oh my goodness! It's Demon King Fomortiis himself! What- how- you're back, sire!
Yes, it is I! I'm so glad to be recognized right off the bat. Whoever was smashing the Sacred Stones and dragging my demonic essence back to the corporeal plane so I could re-unite with my body sure did me a big favor!
... wait, Lyon did something useful?
In his defense, I'm pretty sure it was entirely on accident.
Wait, hold up, let me get my glasses.
...
... you don't look like the walking dead, driven by a remorseless hate of the broken way of things to replace them with a new, better world.
Why, of course not my lord Fomortiis. We're mostly-ordinary humans, here to serve your will. We're so glad to see you!
Oh. Huh. Usually humans run away or charge at me screaming war cries. I didn't realize you could be civil.
We're... not typical, lord.
So... who's in charge right now? It better not be Duma, I don't see Duma but still it better not be Duma. Hey, you! With the eyeball, are you in charge?
As brilliantly as my intelligence shines, no lord Fomortiis.
No, no, the other one, with the shininess.
I'm flattered! But no, this gathering of ours is really lead by the twins who stand before you.
...
...?
I get bound for a few hundred years... and you put humans in charge?! Did no one read anything I wrote down?!?
Well-
I'm going to have to start over from scratch!
That's-
You're all tainted, every last one of you, in fact, why am I even talking to you?
But my lord-
Shut up and die.

-----------------------------------------------------


Unsurprisingly, Fomortiis' stats have been buffed compared to the base game. I'm assuming his HP is unchanged, both because I'm pretty sure 120 is the actual max the game can support and because what happens in the fight itself seems to indicate he doesn't have any more HP than that. However, he has 5 more Strength/Magic, eight more Skill, ten more Speed, 19 more Luck, 2 more Defense, and 3 more Resist.

Demon Light doesn't seem to have been changed any (I've not bothered to calculate what its accuracy would have to be, mind), and as for Ravager... he never got a chance to use it.

As a totally random aside, it's only in making this LP that I finally realized Fomortiis' combat art is supposed to be depicting a tail wending off into the distance -the thing with the pink underside- rather than him having some side-tentacles as I've believed all these years. I'm... not sure how much of that is me and how much of that is the art being genuinely a bit ambiguous...



His gears' descriptions remain as unhelpful as they are in the base game.


I'm actually intensely amused by Fomortiis' personal description. I get that we're probably meant to think 'remake the world' is bad because of an implied 'in his terrible image' sort of idea, but... this is a story where the omniscient narrators tells us Magvel's citizens have had eight hundred years of peace and some character dialogue seems to imply the people of Magvel themselves think of the last 800 years as peaceful, and then all the worldbuilding and some of the personal history of characters paints a bloody history post-Fomortiis.

Put in that context, Fomortiis' sole desire being to 'remake the world'... comes across a bit more reasonable, or even idealistic.

What, you thought I was just joking with Fomortiis wanting to fix everything?

Anyway, I'll be honest and admit I dropped a save state at the start of the second part of this mission. I was fully expecting some really nasty surprise like Fomortiis' weapons having been randomly given the Brave effect, and didn't want to do the tedious and moderately-pointless grind of the prior part if anything like that happened.

Though what actually happened was I got Ephraim killed first turn because I wasn't paying attention to the numbers and so didn't realize Fomortiis would double him and kill him. Which... I feel less bad about now that I've looked at Serenes Forest and confirmed Fomortiis normally only has less than 20 Speed even on Hard.

Anyway, as for the actual playing of the mission...



Eirika is able to easily charge up and exchange blows with Fomortiis. Even with L'Arachel and Ephraim Supporting her, he can potentially two-shot her -admittedly, Ephraim doesn't contribute any damage reduction to a Support is part of the issue. This is still a bit alarming.

Also notice that Sieglinde has bonus damage against Fomortiis, even though it doesn't against monsters. Monster Quest seems to have made Fomortiis into a class of his own and made Sieglinde and Siegmund effective against it -but not any of the other Sacred Twins!

Which... does a lot more than Fomortiis' statistical modifiers to make this harder.


Meanwhile, Tethys helps Neimi pop forward on the idea that Fomortiis won't be able to respond to Nidhogg...


... but it turns out Demon Light ranges out to 3.

I initially assumed that was a change to make Nidhogg less abusable, but no, Serenes Forest confirms it has a range of 3 in the base game. I just never bothered to try to use a Longbow on Fomortiis in the base game, and so never discovered it on my own.

Regardless, Neimi dodged it, and I was okay taking this 'risk' because...


... Fomortiis' first move is always to summon a bunch of monsters.

Interestingly, I learned not long before starting on this mission that this summoning action is a real ability on Fomortiis' class, rather like the Summoner's ability to generate Phantoms. I'd always assumed it was a special scripted event, but apparently not! And another layer of interestingness is that if you hack things so you have a Demon King-class character of your own and use said ability... the monsters that are generated will still be enemies.

Which may well explain why Monster Quest didn't do anything like turn Tethys or Myrrh into a Demon King. That'd probably be a bit more of a pain to figure out how to fix than what Monster Quest was willing to do.

Anyway, my turn, so...



... people get started on killing monsters, mostly because honestly most of my characters cannot safely engage Fomortiis.

Oh and Franz gets a level out of killing an Arch Mogall, I guess.


Ross surprises me by instant-crit-killing the Dracozombie, neatly solving that problem.



Amelia takes out the Gorgon and gets a level out of it.


Colm gets more experience out of hurting a Wight that can't fight back, but fails to trigger Silencer -he never did it when I had him helping kill reinforcements back with Lyon, either. Mildly annoying.


Lute finishes off the Wight with a Bolting shot.


Neimi wipes out a Deathgoyle and gets a perfect level out of it.


L'Arachel and Artur dish out damage.


Tethys heals everyone.


Ephraim finishes off the Elder Bael Artur weakened.



Eirika gets lucky in exchanging blows with Fomortiis.



And Tana instant-crit-kills the Runesword Wight for a... I think it's actually a perfect level for her.


Fomortiis enters step two of his highly-predictable behavior: he uses Nightmare, putting everyone in three tiles of him to sleep. This is what Latona is for in the base game: purge his mass sleep and get right back to dishing out damage.

I'm an idiot, so i walked Tethys right up into his move-and-Nightmare range. To be entirely fair I'd misremembered him as being unwilling to move for the Nightmare use, but this was completely unnecessar-


-wait why is Tethys still awake?

Serenes Forest's page does imply Nightmare uses an offensive Staff calculation, so I suppose I just got lucky here? But personally I've never seen Nightmare ever miss anyone, and I've played through the base game to the end somewhere above 6 times. I'm honestly not sure if this is blind luck or if Monster Quest made Latona provide immunity to status effects or something.

Though it ultimately turns out it doesn't matter...



First of all, Ross doubles Fomortiis for huge damage, thanks to Garm twice over.



Then Tana further softens up Fomortiis.

Then-


Leave my friends alone!
Wait, she actually talks?
Of course she does! She's shy, not mute!
I... apologize?
Wait... friendship? You- you're friends with these humans? You're not... weird traitor-slaves or something?
Of course we're friends.
I'm not.
You're not friends with anyone.
... except you.
Please stop making those eyes at each other, it's really creepy.
I honestly didn't think it was possible for humans to be friends with monsters. I was sure this had to be some twisted thing where you'd filled their heads with awful, poisonous propaganda.
I was raised by monsters, actually. I even have Bael ichor running in my veins, apparently.
... so you do.
Huh.
I... need to go think. You have my profuse apologies for this misunderstanding.
Wait, you're not going to resume your old position of Demon King of All Magvel and lead us in glorious conquest of every other part of the world?
Not right now, at least. Either things have changed these eight hundred years, or I've made some very bad assumptions.
... but we haven't had any peace since you left! We can't put up with each other without focusing on some external foe to conquer and reform!
Look, you've managed to get humans fighting alongside monsters and call each other friends. And if I'm reading your insignia right, every nation from back in the day is represented in your group except Grado-
We've got Gradosians, they just didn't come with us into the temple.
Well then you've already got the continent united, don't you?
Well... we still need to annex Carcino... but that won't take long.
Then go ravaging and conquering in my name without me! I need to think, seriously.
... okay. Uh, my lord. We... we will do that. Gracious, I feel light-headed. The Demon King himself has given me a personal mission...
Okay, good. Now get out of my temple! Finding my center is going to take forever with the arrow through my forehead and all, I don't need you celebrating or whatever in here.
Y-yes, my lord! Right away!































... friends, huh...
-----------------------------------------------------------------

And that's Eirika's campaign done!

Roll credits!


There's a series of images in the credits you'll never see anywhere else, oddly, but this one in particular is interesting to me. It seems to show Fomortiis rising out of smoky darkness in the ground, implying his in-game graphic isn't just lazily vanishing into the darkness because they didn't bother to draw the rest of his body but rather it's a deliberate effect... and it also, oddly enough, seems to be depicting Eirika and Ephraim holding up the Dark Stone in front of Fomortiis. Or maybe the dark part is just meant to represent Fomortiis' soul going into the Sacred Stone? I'm really curious as to what this is meant to be depicting, exactly, as there's no context provided.


He never stopped muttering to himself about oaths and regrets. I'm not entirely sure why.


We made him give Audhulma back to Jehanna of course. He cried out 'but that's my only distinguishing feature!' and then we never did find him again in the mass of skeletons we assembled.


I tried talking him into staying in Renais, perhaps out of a misplaced desire for a replacement father figure after my old spider-father died, but he was too devoted to his homeland.
I suppose it doesn't really matter since we united into the Magvel Alliance...

I'm a little surprised at how many battles Gilliam apparently got into. I thought I didn't manage to use him that much.


Who?


Even the nameless narrator doesn't seem to think Vanessa has a personality. Poor girlgoyle.


He-
My dad is THE BEST!
Get out, this is my fourth-wall-leaning space!
Ahem, he never stopped being a tiny clone of his father who was superior in every way that matters.
Though the transmogrification into a Cyclops made it a little harder for him to keep up that act.


I don't understand this 're-enlistment' concept. Grado is the only nation that doesn't mobilize nobles for its military core.


I try very hard to not think about how a skeleton and a zombie have children.
Though I've no idea who thought 'good-natured thief' remotely describes Colm.


They made a very sweet couple, when Lute wasn't setting fire to the countryside without warning anyone. Their tiny eyeball son is adorable, too.


He was inferior in every way to Marisa.


She still sends Ephraim death threats periodically.
They're always stained with tears, which confuses me.


I had no idea pedipalps could be used so effectively for, er, pedipalp-painting.
TAKE ME BACK I WANT TO HAVE PEOPLE TRYING TO KILL ME AGAIN IT'S LESS STRESSFUL
Stop horning in on my space!


He continued to insist our reality was a farce and he wanted no part of it, even as he diligently did his job.
I'd recommend a therapist if we had any.


The omniscient narrator labeling Tana as a queen of Frelia and her brother as a king of Frelia makes me intensely uncomfortable and I'm going to choose to focus on the strange fact that a girlgoyle keeps making goo-goo eyes at my almost-entirely-human brother because it bothers me less.
Aaaaah, less painful mental scarring burns good.


He found many excuses to send me letters, which became more than slightly ridiculous once we were all in the same tent planning our first invasion.


She was Vanessa, but with even less of a personality.


Since we didn't get her to Support with Duessel because seriously why would you do that, she never found out her mother was actually alive (Well, undead) and so ours is the most tragic of timelines.
Well, for her.


This was good, since we were preparing for an invasion.


We had him executed, obviously.
Seriously, he was openly loyal to Lyon's vision. He was either an idiot or insane.


He-
VENGEANCE IS MINE!
...
'Aloof' is not the word I would pick for this man, omniscient narrator.


If I didn't know any better, I'd swear she was hitting on me.
That's impossible, of course.
I don't think she even knows enough about the relevant concepts to try.


He really quite enjoyed the orbital lasers incinerating our foes, it's true.


He really didn't.
Well, SOMEONE annexed Carcino before I could wriggle out of her clutches! I had no home to go back to!
It's not my fault your so-called 'government' couldn't be bothered to maintain a proper standing army.


We're pretty sure he went to Valentia and got killed by some kid. Named Alms or Palm or something.

You gotta love how the game is telling us about this wonderful happily ever after of peace and reconstruction and love and also business was booming for the mercenary leader. It's one of those stupendously un-self-aware moments of Sacred Stones that's too ridiculous for me to get mad about it.


She single-handedly invented the concept of a 'pop idol'. It was particularly impressive given the crowds were 90% monster and so she had zero sex appeal for most of her fans.


Who the heck is 'Miriel' and why do we keep getting letters from her in Ewan's hand-writing?


Pretty sure it was a Red Sonja th-
If you finish that sentence I tear out your throat.
...
My entire life has been spent training to defeat my father. Your insinuation is disgusting.
... you still on for the invasion?
If Gerik is, yeah.
... oh.


A-anyway!
Oh, yeah, him.
Yeah, last I checked he's still staring at the crater that used to be Caer Pelyn, unmoving.
Not really sure why.


This is entirely because we never got a sequel, of course. I'm quite certain something terrible would've happened to her if we'd gotten a sequel.
I'm still not sure how a tiny village in the mountains was ever supposed to be serving a baby murderdragon hanging out in the woods northeast of said inhospitable mountains.


The narrator never stopped fawning over Ephraim.
Well, not until we got a restraining order, anyway.


The canny among you might notice I don't smile. I'm perpetually locked in a faint frown, just barely glaring at everyone I see.
This is a subtle way of saying my rule was dark and terrible and everyone was very glad when Fomortiis came back and told everyone that butchering populations for being annoying was a no-no.
He still let me lead campaigns into other continents, though, when the time came, so it wasn't all bad.


And that's it for Eirika's route!

... including that, strangely, I wasn't able to create a Creature Campaign save. I'd... been planning this whole LP to check out Creature Campaign -I figured that, since King Fado was turned into a Bael or Elder Bael, Monster Quest must've made all the Creature Campaign-exclusive characters be monsters too, which you would be able to recruit in the Creature Campaign.

I may end up messing around with save file shenanigans or something to see if I can arrange to have a Creature Campaign save under Monster Quest rules or something, or maybe it'll turn out that Ephraim's route can make a Creature Campaign save, I don't know, but for now... we're actually done with Eirika's route, for real.

But next time we travel back in time to...