Let's Play Monster Quest Part 25
Now for Ephraim's route-
-uh-oh.
Er. Looks like I'm going to be promoting Ephraim manually ASAP and trying to get him as many levels as possible before the plot-promotion happens. Which... means feeding him boss kills and thief kills if at all possible, basically. Plus Entombed kills.
I knew the readme said the patch was really designed for Eirika's route, but yikes.
Anyway, when we left Ephraim in the lurch in the original version of events, he was heading off to...
.... this fortress that gets played up as having never been taken in the history of forever, so the game can pretend Ephraim is a super-elite tactician who is utterly without peer etc etc.
To Sacred Stones' credit, this is one of the only castles in the entire series that actually gets used as a defensive fortification with a killzone and everything. Most of the time when castles show up in Fire Emblem, they're either buildings one whole dude gets to stand on top of for defensive benefits, or they're a structure you actually enter and for no obvious reason the enemy forces rush out to attack you, completely wasting any possibility of using a fortress as a fortress. So honestly, it kind of is correct that this is a super-hardcore defensive fortification, it's just that's 'by Fire Emblem standards', where defensive fortifications mostly get used to sally from instead of used to defend with. Think of how often reinforcements have been spawned from Forts throughout this game, only to go running off to attack my units. That's pretty typical.
This is probably rooted in historical Japanese belief of how to use castles (In short: as glorified barracks to sleep in, with any actual fighting occurring outside them), but for the most part Fire Emblem uses an aesthetic clearly rooted in European castles. Giant fortresses of stone with crenelations and arrow slits and all those other things that were centered under the assumption that you're going to be murdering hundreds of people throwing themselves at your nigh-invincible walls. A culture building that kind of fortress is a culture that's expecting to use them as a bastion against which the enemy's tides of blood wash against it repeatedly, not one that sees the enemy coming over the horizon and goes 'eeeeeh you know what let's completely abandon our murderfortress of death and go get chopping them in their faces where they can stab us back effectively'.
So what I'm saying is I'm pretty sure I know why Fire Emblem utterly misuses castles and the answer is 'the development team is letting cognitive biases in their culture overrule the facts of the cultures they're pulling from'. Aaaargh.
Anyway, the mission.
Well, actually, first:
I promote Ephraim, because there's literally no reason not to with his Experience being unable to rise further. It's going to be a pain to get him more levels before he gets plot-promoted, but on the plus side I'll be able to take advantage of his superior movement speed and Canto access in a bunch of missions I normally wouldn't have access to them. Now that I think about it, that'll probably be really appreciated in the very next mission, but it's going to be helpful in this one too.
I hate this Archer. The Longbow is annoying and he's got the gall to be carrying something you have to Steal. The other Archers in the area are carrying Bows with the normal range, and if one of them had this Red Gem, the killzone would be way less of a pain to deal with.
It's particularly irritating since the killzone is actually kind of competent but the game (By which I mean base Sacred Stones, not Monster Quest) still feels the need to add in this additional, highly obnoxious hurdle where if you want as much money as possible -and money is more important in Ephraim's route- you have to be ridiculously sub-optimal. And that's before accounting for Amelia being a part of the killzone!
Speaking of.
Hi Amelia.
She's exactly the same as when we met her in Distant Blade, but this time instead of dealing with a timer until she leaves she's going to be part of the death rush once we open a Gate just south of the screenshot.
Funny thing is, normally this is a nightmare to deal with in Ephraim's route, but in Monster Quest's case it's not going to be a big deal. First of all, her *Slim Lance is still Range 1-2, so she'll prefer to poke at my units without risking being killed by a retaliation. Second of all, since I've promoted Ephraim, he'll be able to talk to her and then Canto right back out of the thick of things instead of being trapped in the killzone like he would be in the base game.
Mind, I don't really intend to use her in this Ephraim run, but I want her stuff regardless and I trend toward completionism so not recruiting her would drive me up the wall too.
Anyway.
Killing Edge jerk.
Physic+Sleep jerk.
Boss jerk.
Compared to a normal Ephraim run, he's gained +1 HP, +6 Skill, +8 Speed, +3 Luck, +1 Defense, +3 Resist, and he's replaced an Iron Axe with a Short Bow. Which is mean, since it means it's not possible to get in free hits in on him unless you bait him into using his Killer Axe and then use Rescue shenanigans to keep getting in ranged attacks without anybody ever being in Range 2 during his turn.
On the plus side, the Tower of Valni has been opened up, so if I found Gheb to be a huge hurdle I could just go grind and grind and grind. Still, this is pretty nasty given how ragtag my forces are right now.
Also, like Eirika, Tana joins us here;
Somehow she got ahead of Ephraim's group and got herself captured. I've never really gotten why Sacred Stones did this. It's weird enough to have Tana chase after whichever twin you choose to follow with no attempt to justify the change in decision -though it's not the most ridiculous example in the game- but then the game has this baffling imprisonment situation. How is this supposed to have happened, exactly? I can buy that Pegasus Knight Tana got ahead of the convoy on her flying magical horse because she gets to totally ignore terrain and all, sure, but why would she get far enough ahead to end up captured by patrolling goons attached to Fort Rigwald? It's supposed to be a famous castle, Tana is an educated royal, and the castle is clearly meant to be reasonably large. It's not like she could've accidentally flown nearby without noticing it while looking for Ephraim's army.
Worse, the narrative tells us that Ephraim is supposed to be carting along a large army from Frelia. Where Eirika is genuinely supposed to be operating with more or less just the characters you recruit, in Ephraim's case he's supposed to have a proper army, the kind of army that would be impossible to miss from the air, and it's just the gameplay ignores this. So... seriously, how is this supposed to have happened? Why didn't she just show up with my forces at the start of the mission the way she does in Eirika's route?
Being a prisoner, she shows up with nothing, but among other things the Heavy Spear she brings with her in Eirika's route gets handled by a random enemy in this mission dropping it on death, so the only thing I'm missing out on here is that I have one less fighter than I did in Eirika's version until the mission is nearly over.
Oh, and if you're wondering what the B/W/L is about on the bottom; because I've beaten the game once, from here on any file I play on this over-save will display the number of battles my units have participated in within a given save file, and tracks how many were wins and how many were losses. I'm... not sure what the metric for deciding a battle is a 'loss', honestly. It certainly can't be getting killed. I don't really get the point? It can be kind of interesting to, for example, notice that one of your units has a much lower number of battles than another person they're the same level as and they both started at a similar level, since it tells you that you had one of them grind out experience through a lot of fights while the other probably snatched kills a lot and maybe had a disproportionate number of boss/Thief/Entombed kills, but beyond that?...
The empty room with a cracked wall is where Tana spawns in at the start of the mission.
Also, this is my starting force and formation; I'm inexplicably missing the unit screen screenshot, but this is Kyle, Forde, Gilliam, Vanessa, Lute, Artur, Ross, Garcia, Colm, Neimi, and of course Ephraim.
I'm going to be focusing on units I didn't promote in Eirika's route as much as I can, hence the Baels all being brought along.
I start out with a bunch of movement, with Gilliam placed to bait out that Knight.
Bait successful.
I missed the shot, but Gilliam actually doubled the Knight but missed on his second swipe. Eh.
My turn.
I get started on training Garcia, but to no effect thanks to an improbable miss. Eh.
Neilonmi gets herself some free experience.
Gilliam goes for the kill, only to miss again. Really?
But okay, Forde needs experience, so this works.
I end turn looking like this, with Gilliam incidentally placed to bait out more people.
A Fighter takes the bait and blows are exchanged.
Followed by the Archer missing. Nice.
My turn again, though notice a couple Cavaliers closed in, complicating this.
Neimi instantly crit-kills the weakened Fighter I'd intended to feed to Garcia or Ross. Oi.
So Garcia settles for weakening the Archer.
Followed by Forde.
Gilliam walks ahead onto the Pillar to protect Forde and hopefully tank the incoming attacks, healing himself.
After poking around at my options for a bit, I finally conclude my best option for finishing off the Archer is to riskily have Vanessa finish it off with her Javelin. Nobody can get into melee in front of it, and I'm trying to minimize harm since I have no healers and I realized somewhere now-ish that I'd intended to go buy a bunch of Elixirs and Vulneraries before doing this mission but completely forgot. Basically, if Vanessa did die here I'd just reload, go buy the healing items, and start over.
But she didn't, so here we are.
Ephraim and Forde start up a Support relationship since I'm planning on using the Baels all throughout Ephraim's run no matter what.
I end turn looking like this; notice that Ross and Garcia are next to each other, and same for Lute+Artur and Colm+Neimi. I'm trying to build those Supports. I'm going to be using Colm no matter what, Neimi is by far my best shot at a Nidhogg user and it's amazing in Monster Quest, and while I'm going to try to promote Ewan it's unlikely he'll actually end up my Excalibur user whereas Artur is my earliest Light option. I'll probably drop L'Arachel for this run and try to ensure Artur ends up with the ion cannon.
So: Support grinding since I don't have anything better to do with a lot of these people this turn.
Enemy turn opens with Garcia exchanging blows with this Fighter, which could've ended badly. Ouch.
Ephraim tanks a hit and then critkills his tormentor...
... followed by crit-killing the other guy who thankfully missed.
Then this Archer misses Ephraim.
Yeah, Ephraim could've died this turn. Oops.
But wait, we're not done yet!
Turns out I missed that this Priest is also a Sleep Staff Jerk. And of course he got Forde first try. Dangit.
Oh well, there's no actual time pressure in most of this mission. It's irritating, not disastrous.
Lastly, these three Cavaliers in the southeast spawn in.
Back in my area, Neimi softens up the remaining Fighter.
Vanessa softens up the Archer.
Which lets Gilliam and Garcia land finishing blows, netting Gilliam a pretty dang good level, even considering he's got more than 100% HP and so the HP isn't anything special. Frankly, I don't mind Gilliam lacking Speed and Luck for the moment -his Defense is so monstrous he genuinely doesn't need either of them right now!
Moving forward happens and I end turn.
Kyle dodges a Sleep attempt, thankfully.
After some thought, I back up Ephraim, and end looking like this.
This lets Kyle get a depressingly poor level, and gets me the Heavy Spear I was mentioning earlier. At least he got Defense; he's not far behind Gilliam's crazy Defense, and that much Defense goes a long way.
The next Cavalier actually survives fighting Kyle, but he also couldn't hurt him so hah.
The Sleep Priest has another go at Kyle, but Kyle continues to blow off napping. There's people to be killing, he's much too busy!
My turn, and I open by having Kyle plug the entrance... while missing. Eh. He can shrug off 3 damage at a time for a while.
Garcia takes a potshot at the inner Cavalier for lack of anything better to do. I don't care that he didn't hit: it's a free experience point.
Gilliam charges forward to soften up said Cavalier.
Ross makes his own futile toss at the Cavalier -I was hoping he actually would get the kill, that would've been really useful. Oh well.
Instead, Vanessa gets the job done, and gets a depressing level out of it. Resist is nice, at least?
I end turn looking like this. Still working on Supports where convenient.
Kyle takes another 3 damage and this time lands his hit.
The other two Cavaliers join in the fun with Javelins.
Aaaand then inconveniently the Sleep Priest finally puts Kyle to sleep. Dangit. That's... awkward timing.
Also this Shaman spawns in. Whatever.
Lute vaporizes the melee Cavalier to open up space.
Gilliam takes advantage, swapping in Kyle's Poison Claw so he can murder Cavaliers effectively.
Neimi wipes out the Shaman for an okay level that has me wondering if maybe I need to give her the Juna Fruit in this run as well. Nice that she dodged his retaliation, though.
I end turn looking like this, not wanting to have much of anyone get into ranged fights with the Cavaliers.
The Cavaliers keep picking on Kyle. He's fine.
Aaand Garcia is taking a nap now. That's... wonderful. He really desperately needs experience. He started this mission at level 4!
My turn again, and Gilliam softens up a Cavalier.
Artur finishes off the one that was already weakened for a mediocre level, though Magic and Defense are the most important stats so it could be worse.
You can also see a Shaman spawned in that I forgot to separately screenshot.
Neimi once again handles the situation with grace and aplomb, except this Shaman has an extra HP so it lives.
Whoo! Free kill for Colm!
I end turn looking like this.
If you're wondering what the heck is up with the Cavalier's sprite, that's Poison bubbles.
He takes another potshot at Kyle, but Kyle rolls over in his sleep and so avoids the Javelin.
Then one Soldier rushes out to miss Gilliam, who doubles it and misses back on one hit. I'd complain, but this is actually convenient!
Gilliam finishes off the Cavalier.
Then Ross gets a perfect level out of finishing off the Soldier. Awesome.
Lute and Artur get their Support to B.
I end turn looking like this, half-expecting that Soldier to charge forth.
Nothing happens.
Another turn...
... and then another turn.
Oh, and Kyle woke up, that's good.
Finally, action on the enemy's turn, with this Knight plinking at Gilliam and getting doubled back for a third of its life.
Garcia woke up too, and now him and Ross have their C Support. Huzzah! Fire+Fire Supports are really lethal.
Artur softens up the Knight...
... which lets Gilliam land the finishing blow for a quite nice level.
Which leaves me ending turn like this.
Unsurprisingly, nothing happens.
So I train Ross and Garcia, finally netting Garcia a level. And it's a pretty dang good one! He really needs Luck, but otherwise this is quite good. I suppose I'll probably be slapping a Goddess Icon on him at some point.
Oh, and the Soldier drops a Door Key.
Okay, so opening this Gate triggers the killzone. Those Knights and Mercenaries plus Amelia and a Soldier just north of the screen all charge you, while the ranged units wait around hoping you'll walk into the killzone so they can shoot you. The correct thing to do is thus to open the door and then back off, so you can reverse the killzone on the enemies.
I'm an idiot, so that's not what I did.
Yep.
At least I didn't put anyone in reach of any of the ranged attackers, not even the Longbow jerk.
Yeah, Kyle getting doubled for four damage each time was when I realized this has been rather reckless.
Gilliam does better.
Then the Knights get in on the action with ranged attacks, though they don't accomplish anything.
You can also see the Soldier advanced. Amelia also advances right after this Knight moves.
Additionally, a couple of Cavaliers spawn up north who are going to come down to join the killzone.
On my turn, I start with Kyle retreating and using an Elixir to heal -you can tell it's an Elixir because of how huge the healing bubble is.
Neimi and Colm get their Support to B.
And then general retreating occurs with me now trying to use the reverse-killzone properly -mostly because I was worried something would happen like the Knights blocking off ranged options so Amelia walks into point-blank range.
Mind, I can't actually back up enough to do so without screwing up the reverse-killzone at this point, but at least retreating means I'm not attacking and risking opening up an opportunity by killing a Mercenary during the enemy turn.
So enemy turn; Forde does a poor job of tanking hits -he's got 3 less Defense than Kyle, unfortunately.
Gilliam is fine, by contrast.
A Knight gets in on the action of beating up Forde, the Soldier having blocked the way for them to waste their time on Gilliam.
Additionally, more Cavaliers have spawned in up north, and you can see the initial batch advanced as I said they would.
I open the turn by having Artur soften up one Mercenary.
Neimi goes to finish them off, getting an unnecessary crit in the process. Whatever.
Vanessa chips the other Mercenary...
... which opens the way for Gilliam to finish the Mercenary off himself.
Ross softens up the Soldier with his Hatchet.
Forde backs off, takes the Elixir Kyle is holding, and heals himself.
Lute works on one Knight, and thankfully avoids the retaliation.
Kyle gets back in action to clear out the Soldier, which leaves me with one last step to clear the way to Amelia...
... but I decide not to risk Garcia, as he hasn't been healed yet, and instead end turn at this point.
Turns out my plan is smarter than I thought; you can see the wounded Knight is fleeing. I'd forgotten, but you do occasionally see enemy units elect to retreat to healers when badly wounded in Sacred Stones. It's just enemy healers are rare and the point at which enemy units choose to retreat is sufficiently low that you'll often not drop them into it without killing them. Not only that, but the other knight went after Lute instead of going for a safe attack on a Bael!
Which means...
... Amelia is free to safely attack Kyle instead of committing suicide.
Whew. One of the hardest parts of the mission is done.
My turn again, and I open with having Gilliam finish off the near Knight -I'm wanting Gilliam's experience up for a few different reasons.
Ephraim talks Amelia into joining the party...
Die, evil horrible human!
Turns out I'm enough of an idiot to assume that a woman in Gradosian military uniform charging me with a spear while yelling death threats must be a random civilian in need of protection.
This so completely throws me off my belief that you're a cunningly evil individual I end up vaguely talked into joining your army, turning on everything I've ever known and loved because my enemy is an idiot instead of evil.
Why do non-narrator people keep calling me an idiot?
Well, you're clearly not blind, so I'm not sure how else to explain you overlooking my uniform and clear intent to kill.
Hey, maybe I'm just overwhelmingly gallant!
There's Troubadours and Mage Knights down this route. Are you planning on befriending all of them, too?
...
That's what I thought.
The fact that this is occurring within one of the missions that tries hardest to sell the player on Ephraim's brilliance is what always gets me. Exactly how brilliant can Ephraim be if he can't tell an enemy combatant trying to kill him is a hostile?
Some more shuffling about happens, leaving me in this formation.
The cavalry finally starts participating in the reverse-killzone, netting Lute an... okay level? I'd like some Magic, but this could certainly be worse.
A Mage follows up, and for once I manage to catch Thunder's bit where it reduces a lot of the screen to white, but not all of it.
You can see Lute is dodging the hit, though.
Then it's my turn, and I open with Gilliam softening up a Cavalier in back -he's the most able to risk being hit by the Archer on the other side of the wall.
Ross softens up the forward Cavalier so Garcia can take a bit of a risk of grabbing the kill. Garcia really needs experience.
Kyle gets a level out of finishing off the Mage, and it could've been a worse level but I was wanting Defense more than Strength for him, honestly.
Strictly speaking, it was possible he could've missed and been instant-crit-killed, but it's sufficiently long odds I was okay with that, especially since the killzone is pretty difficult to make manageable without straight-up grinding.
Also the Mage dropped a Chest Key for some reason. Whatever.
I considered having someone attack the remaining nearby Cavalier, but wasn't comfortable with putting any of my possible options forward. The Mogalls are too fragile, Vanessa would take dire damage from the Longbow Archer, and Ephraim is about half-dead and not very durable. Better to let the Baels tank things.
First up is a new Cavalier wasting its time exchanging misses with Gilliam.
Notice the Knight and the Cavalier that already made contact are fleeing. The Knight is in reach of the Priest's movement range, now.
Archers get started on breaking their Bows on Gilliam's hide.
I'm not actually going to do that, it would take forever and I'm not that patient, but I could solve this situation by mashing End Turn repeatedly once the aggressive units are all dead.
The last Cavalier, surprisingly enough, takes a Javelin potshot at Garcia, driven by the AI's lust for crit-kills no matter how unlikely.
Lastly, Priest heals the Knight.
My turn opens with Lute exchanging blows with the Javelin Cavalier, because I don't have a lot of good options for dealing with it.
This lets Kyle secure the kill, bringing him ever closer to being Actually A Good Bael one day. Hopefully.
Then Gilliam softens up the remaining nearby Cavalier. I was expecting him to miss, honestly, so this is a pleasant surprise.
And it lets Garcia secure the kill after some shuffling is done to ensure that if he misses the Cavalier can't kill him. Almost to his second level ever!
I end turn like this...
... and Archers futilely try to kill my Baels.
Though Forde's Defense is so awful for a Bael the Longbow guy actually does kinda-real damage.
The Priest heals up the Cavalier that ran away, this time; notice that the Knight is still in retreat mode. The AI doesn't exit retreat mode until it hits max HP.
I start out this turn by getting Lute's HP back, perhaps a bit wastefully but I actually have way more Elixir uses than Vulnerary uses right now.
Then Neimi tries to crit-kill this Mage and fails. Dangit.
In retrospect I could've arranged to get Colm closer for the Support bonus, but eh.
Rescue shenanigans occur to get her out of reach of retaliation.
Garcia finally heals up.
Once again I end the turn with cautious positioning.
I don't even bother properly screenshotting the futility of the Archers flailing uselessly at Gilliam starting from here.
The Mage Neimi tried to kill flees and gets healed by both the western Priest and Gehb's personal Priest via Physic Staff. Okay, whatever.
I do some shuffling to try to be in position for baiting people out and stuff.
Gilliam continues to accrue feathered decorations.
And the Cavalier gets more healing.
Nothing else actually happens, surprisingly.
Neimi removes the first of the western Archers, though still no crits even though this time Colm is making doe-eyes at her as best he can while one is dangling. Fine, whatever, the Archer is dead so it works.
I end turn like this, still trying to bait people out and all.
I honestly don't remember if this was a deliberate risk or if I'd just failed to realize the Longbow would have range on him there. I'm guessing it was the latter, but I don't remember.
Gilliam takes damage from an Archer firing on him, oh no! Two whole points! He could die in fifteen or so turns at this rate!
Additionally, the Cavalier joins the fun of lobbing projectiles at Gilliam, but Gilliam doesn't care about his contributions.
Lastly, the Priest heals the Knight again.
Gilliam visits his wrath upon the Cavalier. So close to a level!
I end turn like this -this time having someone in range of the Longbow is deliberate, because I want Garcia that close to the Cavalier but don't want it attacking him.
To my surprise, the Longbow guy goes for Gilliam in spite of the futility. The Steel Bow guy also goes after Gilliam, and it's also futile this time.
Also the Cavalier ran away again to have the Priest kiss his booboos byebye.
The sheer annoyance factor of this kind of thing is probably why the Fire Emblem series tends to shy away from the AI properly using healers. This isn't actually a threat or anything, it's just making things take longer, not to mention giving me more experience.
Once more into trying to bait things out in certain ways.
(If you don't remember: I haven't slaughtered the Longbow guy because he has the gem I want to steal)
Kyle draws the attention of the Longbow guy this time.
Gilliam continues to shrug off the Steel Bow guy's efforts.
I mean, yeah, there's damage, but it's trivial.
Then Gilliam charges forth to try to kill the Cavalier who has come back for more, and even though he misses the chipping experience he's been getting from being shot at means this one experience point is enough for a nearly perfect level. (Remember: Perfect for him would be +2 HP) Excellent. This is promising as far as his future utility in this run.
With Steel Bow guy baited out and Gilliam out of the way, Neimi finally crit-kills someone.
Rescue shenanigans ensue to ensure nobody can attack her and we end looking like this.
Stupid Steal-only gem on the Longbow guy. If I could just straight-up kill him without loss, this would be way less of a pain to do.
Knight wastes time flinging his Javelin as another decoration for Gilliam's carapace.
Longbow guy is just as futile.
I'm caught off guard by the Cavalier electing to take a pot-shot at Colm, but it's fine.
My turn now, and it starts with Kyle wearing the Cavalier down. He's even nice enough to dodge the weak retaliation.
The attempt to feed Forde another kill doesn't work out, but while I missed the actual dodge Forde doesn't take a hit either so whatever.
I throw my hands up in the air and let Lute land the final blow.
Rescue shenanigans ensue to pull her out of reach of retaliations and Gilliam retreats; I didn't take a screenshot of it, but having him attack the Knight at their current position would put him in range of a Mage just off-screen. Not an ideal result.
Forde ends up with more firepower coming his way than I'd been expecting, but survives just fine.
I have him finish off the Knight on my turn, in fact, netting him a level that isn't really helping. i mean yeah 10 Luck is a noteworthy threshold, but he needs Defense more than Strength given I can equip him with anti-armor and anti-cavalry gear for damage output.
Neimi takes advantage of the unexpected Mage-baiting, and while she fails to get a crit and even gets whacked in the face, she also gets a pretty dang good level so that works.
Ephraim initiates a Support with Kyle as well-
You're a pal, Kyle. We're like brothers or something.
I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that.
And stuff like that is why you're a pal.
-plus Rescue shenanigans pull Neimi out of the line of fire, leaving only Gilliam in reach of the Longbow.
All that happens in the enemy turn is the Longbow continuing to be futile.
This is Plan: Bait Out Mage So I Can Kill Him.
It doesn't work. The Archer is ahead in the turn order and inexplicably insisting on firing at range 2.
Forde heals up...
... while Gilliam shuffles a bit. I'm not really expecting this to work, but hey.
For whatever reason, this time the Archer does fire from range 3, which means...
... the Mage is successfully baited forward!
Though it also means Gilliam takes some Almost Actual Damage.
Thus the way is cleared for Neimi to once again murder someone with a crit that didn't help any.
Finally. Nearly done with the killzone.
Colm is advancing, because I need Colm to do the theft.
Fortunately, he's dodgy, tougher than you might expect even if they do manage to hit him, and carrying a Vulnerary.
This jerk of a Shaman unfortunately means I can't actually steal from the Longbow guy in safety. Uuuugh. Fine, more baiting and delaying.
I end turn looking like this, with Kyle moving up to join the group.
The Longbow continues to miss Colm.
One more turn!
One last dodge!
THE GEM IS MINE!
Kyle promptly gets started on dismantling this jerk.
Meanwhile, literally everybody else is dogpiling in. (Vanessa is just barely out of range of the Longbow)
The Longbow finally lands a hit on Colm, not to mention he's moved to where anybody attacking him in melee will be risking both the Shaman and the Soldier attacking.
Jerk.
Garcia is so pathetically weak he has to break out the Killer Axe to be able to finish off this Archer, and even then he's unlikely to hit. The RNG surprises me by letting him have the kill and even giving him a really good level out of it! Like yeah it would be nice to have also gotten the Skill and the Resist, but he's probably never going to have enough Resist to really matter and he's still got wiggle room for Skill to rise down the line. The Luck is especially appreciated with how random enemies keep having 1-2% chances of crit-killing him.
Then Rescue shenanigans ensue to pull him out thanks to Ross.
Next turn, I set up so that Lute can bait out this Shaman...
... because the Shaman has Luna and so I'm worried about crits.
Artur would've been at triangle advantage and so only taken 10 damage and been unlikely to be hit, but his lower Luck meant he was at risk of an instant crit-kill.
I send in Garcia again, mostly because he needs experience and is highly likely to get the kill result he got. I'll make a fighter out of you, yet!
Well, a Cyclops instead of a Fighter, but whatever.
Some more shuffling happens, leaving me looking like this.
The Soldier predictably suicides on Garcia, and Garcia gets another great level! 5 Luck in particular is a huge relief, but the other stats mean it'll be a lot easier to feed him more kills down the line.
With that done, we're past the most pain in the butt part of the map. I celebrate by having Amelia waste a turn missing this Priest.
I'm actually undecided whether I'm going to use her or not. I would ideally have someone to cart around Audhulma, after all.
Ross and Garcia's attempts at the Priest go better, netting Garcia even more experience.
I end turn like this, expecting nothing to happen.
I hadn't actually forgotten this Priest has Sleep, but I wasn't expecting this much range on him and hadn't double-checked.
Whatever. It's not like I was really that invested in getting Amelia experience on this map.
This opens up the opportunity for Ross to chip them down.
In retrospect, if I'd been smart I'd have used Rescue shenanigans to let Garcia and Neimi follow up, and a lot of pain would've been saved. It all worked out in the end, but I was pretty sloppy here.
To be fair, I really feel like Rescue Shenanigans are a terrible part of the series' design that Should Not Be, so I tend to shun it as dumb and exploitive nonsense, but I already know by now Monster Quest expects more of me than Sacred Stones did, so it's kinda dumb of me to handicap myself like that.
In any event, we're in the timeline where I'm stupid so I end turn like this, Priest still alive.
(To be fair, I tend to forget that Status Stave Jerks prefer to back off from your forces, because they don't crop up often)
Kyle successfully baits out and murders a Soldier I never bothered to show existed, taking minor damage in the process...
... and dodges a Sleep attempt on him, which is nice.
Having confirmed this Knight isn't going to move, I start Garcia on wearing it down for experience.
Colm loots some Gold.
And I end turn ready to receive attacks and whatnot.
I apparently missed the initial shot, but this is the Mercenary in the northeast flailing uselessly against Gilliam. Awesome.
The Sleep Priest goes for Kyle again... and succeeds this time, which is going to soon be quite problematic.
Additionally, reinforcements are showing up -a Cavalier in the northeast, and three more in the southeast, all aggressive.
Neimi takes a potshot at the Mercenary...
... which turns out to just barely be inadequate for letting Gilliam secure the kill with the Rotten Claw. Eh. The Mercenary will kill himself on Gilliam just fine, it's just a question of whether the Cavalier will charge forward or get its turn first and decide to hold still.
Garcia continues working on the stubbornly immobile Knight.
And I adjust my formation in the south to prepare for the Cavaliers down there.
Also to hopefully bait out the Shaman currently covered by the Seize Throne objective.
Mercenary suicides on Gilliam first thing, that's convenient.
Then the Cavalier joins in on the 'use a sword as a backscratcher for Gilliam' fun.
Shaman baiting successful, and Artur even dodges their attack. Awesome.
Aaaaand now Forde is asleep too. That's... a problem, given how poor his Defense is and all.
And even more reinforcements pour in.
Neimi softens up Gilliam's Cavalier...
... letting him take the kill experience.
Garcia fails to finish off the Knight, which is meh. Really, I should've sent him down south last turn.
Artur finishes off the Shaman, remaining untouched. Awesome.
And this is how my south formation looks: terrible.
Seriously, why did I insist on keeping Garcia on the Knight?
Anyway, enemy turn, starting with Forde luckily sleep-dodging.
Ross also dodges, which is good given his poor defenses.
Up north the new Cavalier flails uselessly against Gilliam.
And a Cavalier takes a potshot at Forde successfully.
Followed by the Priest missing Ross with their Sleep attempt. Whew.
Lastly, even more Cavaliers show up in the northeast and southeast.
Gilliam chips the Cavalier down some more...
... so Neimi can take the kill. She needs Real Experience too.
Garcia, meanwhile, finishes my stubborn insistence on him killing this Knight, and gets a solid level out of it. Nice.
Also they drop a Door Key so I can free Tana, I guess.
Though it's not like you need to. She'll still come with you after the mission even if you leave her locked up, and she's not going to contribute much to this mission. It's probably smarter to just leave her in there.
As has been established, I'm an idiot, so I waste the Door Key on her next turn.
Ross does chipping damage for experience.
Then I go really stupid and send Ephraim out to get himself killed by the Cavaliers through overwhelming ability to kill them.
I don't bother to make a separate screenshot for my end-turn state.
One more fight, Gilliam! Just one more for another level!
Ephraim... dodges a ranged attack? Okay.
A melee suicider provides a really good level for Ephraim, albeit one lacking Defense.
Also I seem to have lost a screenshot somewhere in here because Ephraim managed to lose HP somewhere in here and my current screenshots don't account for it. I think there was another Cavalier that went into melee with him and managed the hit.
And... that's it. Ephraim's fine, surprisingly enough.
Gilliam finally gets that level, and it's great.
Neimi finishes off the Cavalier.
Down south, I persist in being suicidally stupid with Ephraim, emboldened by things having worked out last time, never mind that there's more troops and I've made Ephraim even more exposed this time.
Okay and also I'm trying to protect Forde at this point. (Kyle's fine, he's got tons of Defense)
Lute joins the fray.
Aaand that's all I do, aside having an attack of sanity and Rescuing Ephraim out of the fray with Ross.
Forde takes some hits, dodges one.
He's gonna die next turn if I don't kill, like, all but one. And Ephraim wasn't dropped off, so I won't have him available this turn. Eeeesh.
Fortunately, Kyle is awake at last!
Also Colm loots a Juna Fruit. I was wondering if Monster Quest had bothered to include one in Ephraim's route.
Lute and Artur join in on the push, finishing off the first Cavalier and netting Artur an amazing level. Maybe he'll be more than Lute's cheerleader this go-around?
Lastly, Rescue shenanigans occur to pull Forde out of the way and Vanessa sets up to block access to the Mogalls.
This is a really risky plan and if I'd just not been stubborn with Garcia earlier things would probably be less tenuous.
Enemy turn opens with two bits of good luck: a Cavalier fleeing for healing, and another Cavalier missing Vanessa.
The other Cavalier doesn't miss, and you can see if they'd both hit she'd be dead, so this was really close.
But now the rest of the level is basically gravy!
... kinda.
Oh and the Priest heals the fleeing Cavalier.
Lute gets herself an eh level out of finishing off the melee Cavalier. Speed is good, anyway.
Garcia joins the fighting, and in spite of my hopes doesn't get a crit-kill. Dodging is nice, anyway.
Kyle goes in to soften up the ranged Cavalier and instead ends up taking a blow while having done nothing...
... but Neimi is more successful, even getting a pretty dang nice level out of it.
And this all opens the way for Ross to finish them off for a fantastic level.
I end turn looking like this...
... though I left out that Gilliam was placed to bait out this Myrmidon. They exchange blows, but Gilliam's hilarious Defense means he comes out ahead.
Back down south, the last Cavalier exchanges blows with Kyle.
Which means on my turn Garcia gets to finish them off! Excellent.
Gilliam works some more on the Myrmidon, continuing to take chipping damage. I'm surprised the Myrmidon hasn't gotten a crit already.
I set up like this, hoping to bait out the Mage.
First, up north Gilliam fails to actually kill the Myrmidon, though he still hasn't been crit either and actually dodged a hit so... okay?
Mage successfully baited!
And mauled, because Lute doubled the guy.
Back on my turn, Gilliam successfully kills the Myrmidon, opening the way to the last chest.
I end up giving the Mage kill to Ross, mostly because I don't have many options that have no chance of being crit and the other options are higher level and/or easier to level up.
I apparently either forgot or didn't bother to screenshot my end-of-turn formation, but it baits out this Knight with Kyle, as well as...
... this Archer, due to their overlapping strike zones.
Kyle''s fine.
Back in my turn, Colm loots a mocking Restore staff. Not that I brought any Staff-users, mind.
Since the Archer's Short Bow means I can't actually pick on him freely with melee, I actually open with an exchange with Neimi.
This lets Forde snatch the kill; his lacking Defense is still paining me.
Ross instead goes for the Priest so Garcia can take the kill. Very close to another level!
After some faffing about, trying to see if I can give Kyle the kill, I give up and let Artur vaporize the Knight, looting the Axereaver in the process. That'll help Ephraim.
Now we're down to Gehb and one whole Mercenary.
Speaking of, I use Ephraim to bait out the Mercenary, having gotten impatient. Lucky that the Mercenary misses.
Lute softens him up...
... Ross takes a free potshot...
... and after some consideration I end up just ending the turn with Lute protected, expecting the Mercenary to go for Ross or Garcia.
I have no idea why they suicided on Ephraim instead.
Alright, time for Gehb.
I start by experimenting with having lute exchange blows. It's a terrible plan, so...
... I check some numbers and determine Gehb can't kill Gilliam. Gilliam is too fast to be doubled, and so tough that even a crit with the Killer Axe won't one-hit-kill him. Which means...
... I can start poking him from range, relying on Rescue Shenanigans to pull my ranged units out of reach of his Short Bow before his turn arrives.
I took a bunch of screenshots, but while it was tense while I was actually doing it, it wasn't actually interesting, and the RNG was unusually cooperative. While Neimi didn't do anything like crit two turns in a row, my people hit pretty consistently, and Gehb missed Gilliam a surprising number of times.
Ultimately, I got Gehb down to a surprisingly low amount of HP, and decided I was going to do my original plan of feeding the kill to Ephraim after all:
Thanks, Axereaver! Netted Ephraim a fantastic level.
(Yes, this was risky. I'm going to admit I dropped a save state beforehand just in case, though I didn't end up needing it)
Huzzah! Fort Rigwald conquered after somewhere above 500 screenshots!
I also ended up deciding to give the Juna Fruit to Forde. I'm committed to using the Baels, and Forde is the closest to having balanced stats of the bunch, and in particular has depressingly low Defense compared to his peers, so he'll make the best use of it and needs it most.
I also, off-screen, made a point of actually stocking up on Vulneraries and Elixirs.
See you next mission.
.... this fortress that gets played up as having never been taken in the history of forever, so the game can pretend Ephraim is a super-elite tactician who is utterly without peer etc etc.
To Sacred Stones' credit, this is one of the only castles in the entire series that actually gets used as a defensive fortification with a killzone and everything. Most of the time when castles show up in Fire Emblem, they're either buildings one whole dude gets to stand on top of for defensive benefits, or they're a structure you actually enter and for no obvious reason the enemy forces rush out to attack you, completely wasting any possibility of using a fortress as a fortress. So honestly, it kind of is correct that this is a super-hardcore defensive fortification, it's just that's 'by Fire Emblem standards', where defensive fortifications mostly get used to sally from instead of used to defend with. Think of how often reinforcements have been spawned from Forts throughout this game, only to go running off to attack my units. That's pretty typical.
This is probably rooted in historical Japanese belief of how to use castles (In short: as glorified barracks to sleep in, with any actual fighting occurring outside them), but for the most part Fire Emblem uses an aesthetic clearly rooted in European castles. Giant fortresses of stone with crenelations and arrow slits and all those other things that were centered under the assumption that you're going to be murdering hundreds of people throwing themselves at your nigh-invincible walls. A culture building that kind of fortress is a culture that's expecting to use them as a bastion against which the enemy's tides of blood wash against it repeatedly, not one that sees the enemy coming over the horizon and goes 'eeeeeh you know what let's completely abandon our murderfortress of death and go get chopping them in their faces where they can stab us back effectively'.
So what I'm saying is I'm pretty sure I know why Fire Emblem utterly misuses castles and the answer is 'the development team is letting cognitive biases in their culture overrule the facts of the cultures they're pulling from'. Aaaargh.
Anyway, the mission.
Well, actually, first:
I promote Ephraim, because there's literally no reason not to with his Experience being unable to rise further. It's going to be a pain to get him more levels before he gets plot-promoted, but on the plus side I'll be able to take advantage of his superior movement speed and Canto access in a bunch of missions I normally wouldn't have access to them. Now that I think about it, that'll probably be really appreciated in the very next mission, but it's going to be helpful in this one too.
I hate this Archer. The Longbow is annoying and he's got the gall to be carrying something you have to Steal. The other Archers in the area are carrying Bows with the normal range, and if one of them had this Red Gem, the killzone would be way less of a pain to deal with.
It's particularly irritating since the killzone is actually kind of competent but the game (By which I mean base Sacred Stones, not Monster Quest) still feels the need to add in this additional, highly obnoxious hurdle where if you want as much money as possible -and money is more important in Ephraim's route- you have to be ridiculously sub-optimal. And that's before accounting for Amelia being a part of the killzone!
Speaking of.
Hi Amelia.
She's exactly the same as when we met her in Distant Blade, but this time instead of dealing with a timer until she leaves she's going to be part of the death rush once we open a Gate just south of the screenshot.
Funny thing is, normally this is a nightmare to deal with in Ephraim's route, but in Monster Quest's case it's not going to be a big deal. First of all, her *Slim Lance is still Range 1-2, so she'll prefer to poke at my units without risking being killed by a retaliation. Second of all, since I've promoted Ephraim, he'll be able to talk to her and then Canto right back out of the thick of things instead of being trapped in the killzone like he would be in the base game.
Mind, I don't really intend to use her in this Ephraim run, but I want her stuff regardless and I trend toward completionism so not recruiting her would drive me up the wall too.
Anyway.
Killing Edge jerk.
Physic+Sleep jerk.
Boss jerk.
Compared to a normal Ephraim run, he's gained +1 HP, +6 Skill, +8 Speed, +3 Luck, +1 Defense, +3 Resist, and he's replaced an Iron Axe with a Short Bow. Which is mean, since it means it's not possible to get in free hits in on him unless you bait him into using his Killer Axe and then use Rescue shenanigans to keep getting in ranged attacks without anybody ever being in Range 2 during his turn.
On the plus side, the Tower of Valni has been opened up, so if I found Gheb to be a huge hurdle I could just go grind and grind and grind. Still, this is pretty nasty given how ragtag my forces are right now.
Also, like Eirika, Tana joins us here;
Somehow she got ahead of Ephraim's group and got herself captured. I've never really gotten why Sacred Stones did this. It's weird enough to have Tana chase after whichever twin you choose to follow with no attempt to justify the change in decision -though it's not the most ridiculous example in the game- but then the game has this baffling imprisonment situation. How is this supposed to have happened, exactly? I can buy that Pegasus Knight Tana got ahead of the convoy on her flying magical horse because she gets to totally ignore terrain and all, sure, but why would she get far enough ahead to end up captured by patrolling goons attached to Fort Rigwald? It's supposed to be a famous castle, Tana is an educated royal, and the castle is clearly meant to be reasonably large. It's not like she could've accidentally flown nearby without noticing it while looking for Ephraim's army.
Worse, the narrative tells us that Ephraim is supposed to be carting along a large army from Frelia. Where Eirika is genuinely supposed to be operating with more or less just the characters you recruit, in Ephraim's case he's supposed to have a proper army, the kind of army that would be impossible to miss from the air, and it's just the gameplay ignores this. So... seriously, how is this supposed to have happened? Why didn't she just show up with my forces at the start of the mission the way she does in Eirika's route?
Being a prisoner, she shows up with nothing, but among other things the Heavy Spear she brings with her in Eirika's route gets handled by a random enemy in this mission dropping it on death, so the only thing I'm missing out on here is that I have one less fighter than I did in Eirika's version until the mission is nearly over.
Oh, and if you're wondering what the B/W/L is about on the bottom; because I've beaten the game once, from here on any file I play on this over-save will display the number of battles my units have participated in within a given save file, and tracks how many were wins and how many were losses. I'm... not sure what the metric for deciding a battle is a 'loss', honestly. It certainly can't be getting killed. I don't really get the point? It can be kind of interesting to, for example, notice that one of your units has a much lower number of battles than another person they're the same level as and they both started at a similar level, since it tells you that you had one of them grind out experience through a lot of fights while the other probably snatched kills a lot and maybe had a disproportionate number of boss/Thief/Entombed kills, but beyond that?...
The empty room with a cracked wall is where Tana spawns in at the start of the mission.
Also, this is my starting force and formation; I'm inexplicably missing the unit screen screenshot, but this is Kyle, Forde, Gilliam, Vanessa, Lute, Artur, Ross, Garcia, Colm, Neimi, and of course Ephraim.
I'm going to be focusing on units I didn't promote in Eirika's route as much as I can, hence the Baels all being brought along.
I start out with a bunch of movement, with Gilliam placed to bait out that Knight.
Bait successful.
I missed the shot, but Gilliam actually doubled the Knight but missed on his second swipe. Eh.
My turn.
I get started on training Garcia, but to no effect thanks to an improbable miss. Eh.
Neilonmi gets herself some free experience.
Gilliam goes for the kill, only to miss again. Really?
But okay, Forde needs experience, so this works.
I end turn looking like this, with Gilliam incidentally placed to bait out more people.
A Fighter takes the bait and blows are exchanged.
Followed by the Archer missing. Nice.
My turn again, though notice a couple Cavaliers closed in, complicating this.
Neimi instantly crit-kills the weakened Fighter I'd intended to feed to Garcia or Ross. Oi.
So Garcia settles for weakening the Archer.
Followed by Forde.
Gilliam walks ahead onto the Pillar to protect Forde and hopefully tank the incoming attacks, healing himself.
After poking around at my options for a bit, I finally conclude my best option for finishing off the Archer is to riskily have Vanessa finish it off with her Javelin. Nobody can get into melee in front of it, and I'm trying to minimize harm since I have no healers and I realized somewhere now-ish that I'd intended to go buy a bunch of Elixirs and Vulneraries before doing this mission but completely forgot. Basically, if Vanessa did die here I'd just reload, go buy the healing items, and start over.
But she didn't, so here we are.
Ephraim and Forde start up a Support relationship since I'm planning on using the Baels all throughout Ephraim's run no matter what.
I end turn looking like this; notice that Ross and Garcia are next to each other, and same for Lute+Artur and Colm+Neimi. I'm trying to build those Supports. I'm going to be using Colm no matter what, Neimi is by far my best shot at a Nidhogg user and it's amazing in Monster Quest, and while I'm going to try to promote Ewan it's unlikely he'll actually end up my Excalibur user whereas Artur is my earliest Light option. I'll probably drop L'Arachel for this run and try to ensure Artur ends up with the ion cannon.
So: Support grinding since I don't have anything better to do with a lot of these people this turn.
Enemy turn opens with Garcia exchanging blows with this Fighter, which could've ended badly. Ouch.
Ephraim tanks a hit and then critkills his tormentor...
... followed by crit-killing the other guy who thankfully missed.
Then this Archer misses Ephraim.
Yeah, Ephraim could've died this turn. Oops.
But wait, we're not done yet!
Turns out I missed that this Priest is also a Sleep Staff Jerk. And of course he got Forde first try. Dangit.
Oh well, there's no actual time pressure in most of this mission. It's irritating, not disastrous.
Lastly, these three Cavaliers in the southeast spawn in.
Back in my area, Neimi softens up the remaining Fighter.
Vanessa softens up the Archer.
Which lets Gilliam and Garcia land finishing blows, netting Gilliam a pretty dang good level, even considering he's got more than 100% HP and so the HP isn't anything special. Frankly, I don't mind Gilliam lacking Speed and Luck for the moment -his Defense is so monstrous he genuinely doesn't need either of them right now!
Moving forward happens and I end turn.
Kyle dodges a Sleep attempt, thankfully.
After some thought, I back up Ephraim, and end looking like this.
This lets Kyle get a depressingly poor level, and gets me the Heavy Spear I was mentioning earlier. At least he got Defense; he's not far behind Gilliam's crazy Defense, and that much Defense goes a long way.
The next Cavalier actually survives fighting Kyle, but he also couldn't hurt him so hah.
The Sleep Priest has another go at Kyle, but Kyle continues to blow off napping. There's people to be killing, he's much too busy!
My turn, and I open by having Kyle plug the entrance... while missing. Eh. He can shrug off 3 damage at a time for a while.
Garcia takes a potshot at the inner Cavalier for lack of anything better to do. I don't care that he didn't hit: it's a free experience point.
Gilliam charges forward to soften up said Cavalier.
Ross makes his own futile toss at the Cavalier -I was hoping he actually would get the kill, that would've been really useful. Oh well.
Instead, Vanessa gets the job done, and gets a depressing level out of it. Resist is nice, at least?
I end turn looking like this. Still working on Supports where convenient.
Kyle takes another 3 damage and this time lands his hit.
The other two Cavaliers join in the fun with Javelins.
Aaaand then inconveniently the Sleep Priest finally puts Kyle to sleep. Dangit. That's... awkward timing.
Also this Shaman spawns in. Whatever.
Lute vaporizes the melee Cavalier to open up space.
Gilliam takes advantage, swapping in Kyle's Poison Claw so he can murder Cavaliers effectively.
Neimi wipes out the Shaman for an okay level that has me wondering if maybe I need to give her the Juna Fruit in this run as well. Nice that she dodged his retaliation, though.
I end turn looking like this, not wanting to have much of anyone get into ranged fights with the Cavaliers.
The Cavaliers keep picking on Kyle. He's fine.
Aaand Garcia is taking a nap now. That's... wonderful. He really desperately needs experience. He started this mission at level 4!
My turn again, and Gilliam softens up a Cavalier.
Artur finishes off the one that was already weakened for a mediocre level, though Magic and Defense are the most important stats so it could be worse.
You can also see a Shaman spawned in that I forgot to separately screenshot.
Neimi once again handles the situation with grace and aplomb, except this Shaman has an extra HP so it lives.
Whoo! Free kill for Colm!
I end turn looking like this.
If you're wondering what the heck is up with the Cavalier's sprite, that's Poison bubbles.
He takes another potshot at Kyle, but Kyle rolls over in his sleep and so avoids the Javelin.
Then one Soldier rushes out to miss Gilliam, who doubles it and misses back on one hit. I'd complain, but this is actually convenient!
Gilliam finishes off the Cavalier.
Then Ross gets a perfect level out of finishing off the Soldier. Awesome.
Lute and Artur get their Support to B.
I end turn looking like this, half-expecting that Soldier to charge forth.
Nothing happens.
Another turn...
... and then another turn.
Oh, and Kyle woke up, that's good.
Finally, action on the enemy's turn, with this Knight plinking at Gilliam and getting doubled back for a third of its life.
Garcia woke up too, and now him and Ross have their C Support. Huzzah! Fire+Fire Supports are really lethal.
Artur softens up the Knight...
... which lets Gilliam land the finishing blow for a quite nice level.
Which leaves me ending turn like this.
Unsurprisingly, nothing happens.
So I train Ross and Garcia, finally netting Garcia a level. And it's a pretty dang good one! He really needs Luck, but otherwise this is quite good. I suppose I'll probably be slapping a Goddess Icon on him at some point.
Oh, and the Soldier drops a Door Key.
Okay, so opening this Gate triggers the killzone. Those Knights and Mercenaries plus Amelia and a Soldier just north of the screen all charge you, while the ranged units wait around hoping you'll walk into the killzone so they can shoot you. The correct thing to do is thus to open the door and then back off, so you can reverse the killzone on the enemies.
I'm an idiot, so that's not what I did.
Yep.
At least I didn't put anyone in reach of any of the ranged attackers, not even the Longbow jerk.
Yeah, Kyle getting doubled for four damage each time was when I realized this has been rather reckless.
Gilliam does better.
Then the Knights get in on the action with ranged attacks, though they don't accomplish anything.
You can also see the Soldier advanced. Amelia also advances right after this Knight moves.
Additionally, a couple of Cavaliers spawn up north who are going to come down to join the killzone.
On my turn, I start with Kyle retreating and using an Elixir to heal -you can tell it's an Elixir because of how huge the healing bubble is.
Neimi and Colm get their Support to B.
And then general retreating occurs with me now trying to use the reverse-killzone properly -mostly because I was worried something would happen like the Knights blocking off ranged options so Amelia walks into point-blank range.
Mind, I can't actually back up enough to do so without screwing up the reverse-killzone at this point, but at least retreating means I'm not attacking and risking opening up an opportunity by killing a Mercenary during the enemy turn.
So enemy turn; Forde does a poor job of tanking hits -he's got 3 less Defense than Kyle, unfortunately.
Gilliam is fine, by contrast.
A Knight gets in on the action of beating up Forde, the Soldier having blocked the way for them to waste their time on Gilliam.
Additionally, more Cavaliers have spawned in up north, and you can see the initial batch advanced as I said they would.
I open the turn by having Artur soften up one Mercenary.
Neimi goes to finish them off, getting an unnecessary crit in the process. Whatever.
Vanessa chips the other Mercenary...
... which opens the way for Gilliam to finish the Mercenary off himself.
Ross softens up the Soldier with his Hatchet.
Forde backs off, takes the Elixir Kyle is holding, and heals himself.
Lute works on one Knight, and thankfully avoids the retaliation.
Kyle gets back in action to clear out the Soldier, which leaves me with one last step to clear the way to Amelia...
... but I decide not to risk Garcia, as he hasn't been healed yet, and instead end turn at this point.
Turns out my plan is smarter than I thought; you can see the wounded Knight is fleeing. I'd forgotten, but you do occasionally see enemy units elect to retreat to healers when badly wounded in Sacred Stones. It's just enemy healers are rare and the point at which enemy units choose to retreat is sufficiently low that you'll often not drop them into it without killing them. Not only that, but the other knight went after Lute instead of going for a safe attack on a Bael!
Which means...
... Amelia is free to safely attack Kyle instead of committing suicide.
Whew. One of the hardest parts of the mission is done.
My turn again, and I open with having Gilliam finish off the near Knight -I'm wanting Gilliam's experience up for a few different reasons.
Ephraim talks Amelia into joining the party...
Die, evil horrible human!Turns out I'm enough of an idiot to assume that a woman in Gradosian military uniform charging me with a spear while yelling death threats must be a random civilian in need of protection.This so completely throws me off my belief that you're a cunningly evil individual I end up vaguely talked into joining your army, turning on everything I've ever known and loved because my enemy is an idiot instead of evil.Why do non-narrator people keep calling me an idiot?Well, you're clearly not blind, so I'm not sure how else to explain you overlooking my uniform and clear intent to kill.Hey, maybe I'm just overwhelmingly gallant!There's Troubadours and Mage Knights down this route. Are you planning on befriending all of them, too?...That's what I thought.The fact that this is occurring within one of the missions that tries hardest to sell the player on Ephraim's brilliance is what always gets me. Exactly how brilliant can Ephraim be if he can't tell an enemy combatant trying to kill him is a hostile?
Some more shuffling about happens, leaving me in this formation.
The cavalry finally starts participating in the reverse-killzone, netting Lute an... okay level? I'd like some Magic, but this could certainly be worse.
A Mage follows up, and for once I manage to catch Thunder's bit where it reduces a lot of the screen to white, but not all of it.
You can see Lute is dodging the hit, though.
Then it's my turn, and I open with Gilliam softening up a Cavalier in back -he's the most able to risk being hit by the Archer on the other side of the wall.
Ross softens up the forward Cavalier so Garcia can take a bit of a risk of grabbing the kill. Garcia really needs experience.
Kyle gets a level out of finishing off the Mage, and it could've been a worse level but I was wanting Defense more than Strength for him, honestly.
Strictly speaking, it was possible he could've missed and been instant-crit-killed, but it's sufficiently long odds I was okay with that, especially since the killzone is pretty difficult to make manageable without straight-up grinding.
Also the Mage dropped a Chest Key for some reason. Whatever.
I considered having someone attack the remaining nearby Cavalier, but wasn't comfortable with putting any of my possible options forward. The Mogalls are too fragile, Vanessa would take dire damage from the Longbow Archer, and Ephraim is about half-dead and not very durable. Better to let the Baels tank things.
First up is a new Cavalier wasting its time exchanging misses with Gilliam.
Notice the Knight and the Cavalier that already made contact are fleeing. The Knight is in reach of the Priest's movement range, now.
Archers get started on breaking their Bows on Gilliam's hide.
I'm not actually going to do that, it would take forever and I'm not that patient, but I could solve this situation by mashing End Turn repeatedly once the aggressive units are all dead.
The last Cavalier, surprisingly enough, takes a Javelin potshot at Garcia, driven by the AI's lust for crit-kills no matter how unlikely.
Lastly, Priest heals the Knight.
My turn opens with Lute exchanging blows with the Javelin Cavalier, because I don't have a lot of good options for dealing with it.
This lets Kyle secure the kill, bringing him ever closer to being Actually A Good Bael one day. Hopefully.
Then Gilliam softens up the remaining nearby Cavalier. I was expecting him to miss, honestly, so this is a pleasant surprise.
And it lets Garcia secure the kill after some shuffling is done to ensure that if he misses the Cavalier can't kill him. Almost to his second level ever!
I end turn like this...
... and Archers futilely try to kill my Baels.
Though Forde's Defense is so awful for a Bael the Longbow guy actually does kinda-real damage.
The Priest heals up the Cavalier that ran away, this time; notice that the Knight is still in retreat mode. The AI doesn't exit retreat mode until it hits max HP.
I start out this turn by getting Lute's HP back, perhaps a bit wastefully but I actually have way more Elixir uses than Vulnerary uses right now.
Then Neimi tries to crit-kill this Mage and fails. Dangit.
In retrospect I could've arranged to get Colm closer for the Support bonus, but eh.
Rescue shenanigans occur to get her out of reach of retaliation.
Garcia finally heals up.
Once again I end the turn with cautious positioning.
I don't even bother properly screenshotting the futility of the Archers flailing uselessly at Gilliam starting from here.
The Mage Neimi tried to kill flees and gets healed by both the western Priest and Gehb's personal Priest via Physic Staff. Okay, whatever.
I do some shuffling to try to be in position for baiting people out and stuff.
Gilliam continues to accrue feathered decorations.
And the Cavalier gets more healing.
Nothing else actually happens, surprisingly.
Neimi removes the first of the western Archers, though still no crits even though this time Colm is making doe-eyes at her as best he can while one is dangling. Fine, whatever, the Archer is dead so it works.
I end turn like this, still trying to bait people out and all.
I honestly don't remember if this was a deliberate risk or if I'd just failed to realize the Longbow would have range on him there. I'm guessing it was the latter, but I don't remember.
Gilliam takes damage from an Archer firing on him, oh no! Two whole points! He could die in fifteen or so turns at this rate!
Additionally, the Cavalier joins the fun of lobbing projectiles at Gilliam, but Gilliam doesn't care about his contributions.
Lastly, the Priest heals the Knight again.
Gilliam visits his wrath upon the Cavalier. So close to a level!
I end turn like this -this time having someone in range of the Longbow is deliberate, because I want Garcia that close to the Cavalier but don't want it attacking him.
To my surprise, the Longbow guy goes for Gilliam in spite of the futility. The Steel Bow guy also goes after Gilliam, and it's also futile this time.
Also the Cavalier ran away again to have the Priest kiss his booboos byebye.
The sheer annoyance factor of this kind of thing is probably why the Fire Emblem series tends to shy away from the AI properly using healers. This isn't actually a threat or anything, it's just making things take longer, not to mention giving me more experience.
Once more into trying to bait things out in certain ways.
(If you don't remember: I haven't slaughtered the Longbow guy because he has the gem I want to steal)
Kyle draws the attention of the Longbow guy this time.
Gilliam continues to shrug off the Steel Bow guy's efforts.
I mean, yeah, there's damage, but it's trivial.
Then Gilliam charges forth to try to kill the Cavalier who has come back for more, and even though he misses the chipping experience he's been getting from being shot at means this one experience point is enough for a nearly perfect level. (Remember: Perfect for him would be +2 HP) Excellent. This is promising as far as his future utility in this run.
With Steel Bow guy baited out and Gilliam out of the way, Neimi finally crit-kills someone.
Rescue shenanigans ensue to ensure nobody can attack her and we end looking like this.
Stupid Steal-only gem on the Longbow guy. If I could just straight-up kill him without loss, this would be way less of a pain to do.
Knight wastes time flinging his Javelin as another decoration for Gilliam's carapace.
Longbow guy is just as futile.
I'm caught off guard by the Cavalier electing to take a pot-shot at Colm, but it's fine.
My turn now, and it starts with Kyle wearing the Cavalier down. He's even nice enough to dodge the weak retaliation.
The attempt to feed Forde another kill doesn't work out, but while I missed the actual dodge Forde doesn't take a hit either so whatever.
I throw my hands up in the air and let Lute land the final blow.
Rescue shenanigans ensue to pull her out of reach of retaliations and Gilliam retreats; I didn't take a screenshot of it, but having him attack the Knight at their current position would put him in range of a Mage just off-screen. Not an ideal result.
Forde ends up with more firepower coming his way than I'd been expecting, but survives just fine.
I have him finish off the Knight on my turn, in fact, netting him a level that isn't really helping. i mean yeah 10 Luck is a noteworthy threshold, but he needs Defense more than Strength given I can equip him with anti-armor and anti-cavalry gear for damage output.
Neimi takes advantage of the unexpected Mage-baiting, and while she fails to get a crit and even gets whacked in the face, she also gets a pretty dang good level so that works.
Ephraim initiates a Support with Kyle as well-
You're a pal, Kyle. We're like brothers or something.
I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that.And stuff like that is why you're a pal.-plus Rescue shenanigans pull Neimi out of the line of fire, leaving only Gilliam in reach of the Longbow.
All that happens in the enemy turn is the Longbow continuing to be futile.
This is Plan: Bait Out Mage So I Can Kill Him.
It doesn't work. The Archer is ahead in the turn order and inexplicably insisting on firing at range 2.
Forde heals up...
... while Gilliam shuffles a bit. I'm not really expecting this to work, but hey.
For whatever reason, this time the Archer does fire from range 3, which means...
... the Mage is successfully baited forward!
Though it also means Gilliam takes some Almost Actual Damage.
Thus the way is cleared for Neimi to once again murder someone with a crit that didn't help any.
Finally. Nearly done with the killzone.
Colm is advancing, because I need Colm to do the theft.
Fortunately, he's dodgy, tougher than you might expect even if they do manage to hit him, and carrying a Vulnerary.
This jerk of a Shaman unfortunately means I can't actually steal from the Longbow guy in safety. Uuuugh. Fine, more baiting and delaying.
I end turn looking like this, with Kyle moving up to join the group.
The Longbow continues to miss Colm.
One more turn!
One last dodge!
THE GEM IS MINE!
Kyle promptly gets started on dismantling this jerk.
Meanwhile, literally everybody else is dogpiling in. (Vanessa is just barely out of range of the Longbow)
The Longbow finally lands a hit on Colm, not to mention he's moved to where anybody attacking him in melee will be risking both the Shaman and the Soldier attacking.
Jerk.
Garcia is so pathetically weak he has to break out the Killer Axe to be able to finish off this Archer, and even then he's unlikely to hit. The RNG surprises me by letting him have the kill and even giving him a really good level out of it! Like yeah it would be nice to have also gotten the Skill and the Resist, but he's probably never going to have enough Resist to really matter and he's still got wiggle room for Skill to rise down the line. The Luck is especially appreciated with how random enemies keep having 1-2% chances of crit-killing him.
Then Rescue shenanigans ensue to pull him out thanks to Ross.
Next turn, I set up so that Lute can bait out this Shaman...
... because the Shaman has Luna and so I'm worried about crits.
Artur would've been at triangle advantage and so only taken 10 damage and been unlikely to be hit, but his lower Luck meant he was at risk of an instant crit-kill.
I send in Garcia again, mostly because he needs experience and is highly likely to get the kill result he got. I'll make a fighter out of you, yet!
Well, a Cyclops instead of a Fighter, but whatever.
Some more shuffling happens, leaving me looking like this.
The Soldier predictably suicides on Garcia, and Garcia gets another great level! 5 Luck in particular is a huge relief, but the other stats mean it'll be a lot easier to feed him more kills down the line.
With that done, we're past the most pain in the butt part of the map. I celebrate by having Amelia waste a turn missing this Priest.
I'm actually undecided whether I'm going to use her or not. I would ideally have someone to cart around Audhulma, after all.
Ross and Garcia's attempts at the Priest go better, netting Garcia even more experience.
I end turn like this, expecting nothing to happen.
I hadn't actually forgotten this Priest has Sleep, but I wasn't expecting this much range on him and hadn't double-checked.
Whatever. It's not like I was really that invested in getting Amelia experience on this map.
This opens up the opportunity for Ross to chip them down.
In retrospect, if I'd been smart I'd have used Rescue shenanigans to let Garcia and Neimi follow up, and a lot of pain would've been saved. It all worked out in the end, but I was pretty sloppy here.
To be fair, I really feel like Rescue Shenanigans are a terrible part of the series' design that Should Not Be, so I tend to shun it as dumb and exploitive nonsense, but I already know by now Monster Quest expects more of me than Sacred Stones did, so it's kinda dumb of me to handicap myself like that.
In any event, we're in the timeline where I'm stupid so I end turn like this, Priest still alive.
(To be fair, I tend to forget that Status Stave Jerks prefer to back off from your forces, because they don't crop up often)
Kyle successfully baits out and murders a Soldier I never bothered to show existed, taking minor damage in the process...
... and dodges a Sleep attempt on him, which is nice.
Having confirmed this Knight isn't going to move, I start Garcia on wearing it down for experience.
Colm loots some Gold.
And I end turn ready to receive attacks and whatnot.
I apparently missed the initial shot, but this is the Mercenary in the northeast flailing uselessly against Gilliam. Awesome.
The Sleep Priest goes for Kyle again... and succeeds this time, which is going to soon be quite problematic.
Additionally, reinforcements are showing up -a Cavalier in the northeast, and three more in the southeast, all aggressive.
Neimi takes a potshot at the Mercenary...
... which turns out to just barely be inadequate for letting Gilliam secure the kill with the Rotten Claw. Eh. The Mercenary will kill himself on Gilliam just fine, it's just a question of whether the Cavalier will charge forward or get its turn first and decide to hold still.
Garcia continues working on the stubbornly immobile Knight.
And I adjust my formation in the south to prepare for the Cavaliers down there.
Also to hopefully bait out the Shaman currently covered by the Seize Throne objective.
Mercenary suicides on Gilliam first thing, that's convenient.
Then the Cavalier joins in on the 'use a sword as a backscratcher for Gilliam' fun.
Shaman baiting successful, and Artur even dodges their attack. Awesome.
Aaaaand now Forde is asleep too. That's... a problem, given how poor his Defense is and all.
And even more reinforcements pour in.
Neimi softens up Gilliam's Cavalier...
... letting him take the kill experience.
Garcia fails to finish off the Knight, which is meh. Really, I should've sent him down south last turn.
Artur finishes off the Shaman, remaining untouched. Awesome.
And this is how my south formation looks: terrible.
Seriously, why did I insist on keeping Garcia on the Knight?
Anyway, enemy turn, starting with Forde luckily sleep-dodging.
Ross also dodges, which is good given his poor defenses.
Up north the new Cavalier flails uselessly against Gilliam.
And a Cavalier takes a potshot at Forde successfully.
Followed by the Priest missing Ross with their Sleep attempt. Whew.
Lastly, even more Cavaliers show up in the northeast and southeast.
Gilliam chips the Cavalier down some more...
... so Neimi can take the kill. She needs Real Experience too.
Garcia, meanwhile, finishes my stubborn insistence on him killing this Knight, and gets a solid level out of it. Nice.
Also they drop a Door Key so I can free Tana, I guess.
Though it's not like you need to. She'll still come with you after the mission even if you leave her locked up, and she's not going to contribute much to this mission. It's probably smarter to just leave her in there.
As has been established, I'm an idiot, so I waste the Door Key on her next turn.
Ross does chipping damage for experience.
Then I go really stupid and send Ephraim out to get himself killed by the Cavaliers through overwhelming ability to kill them.
I don't bother to make a separate screenshot for my end-turn state.
One more fight, Gilliam! Just one more for another level!
Ephraim... dodges a ranged attack? Okay.
A melee suicider provides a really good level for Ephraim, albeit one lacking Defense.
Also I seem to have lost a screenshot somewhere in here because Ephraim managed to lose HP somewhere in here and my current screenshots don't account for it. I think there was another Cavalier that went into melee with him and managed the hit.
And... that's it. Ephraim's fine, surprisingly enough.
Gilliam finally gets that level, and it's great.
Neimi finishes off the Cavalier.
Down south, I persist in being suicidally stupid with Ephraim, emboldened by things having worked out last time, never mind that there's more troops and I've made Ephraim even more exposed this time.
Okay and also I'm trying to protect Forde at this point. (Kyle's fine, he's got tons of Defense)
Lute joins the fray.
Aaand that's all I do, aside having an attack of sanity and Rescuing Ephraim out of the fray with Ross.
Forde takes some hits, dodges one.
He's gonna die next turn if I don't kill, like, all but one. And Ephraim wasn't dropped off, so I won't have him available this turn. Eeeesh.
Fortunately, Kyle is awake at last!
Also Colm loots a Juna Fruit. I was wondering if Monster Quest had bothered to include one in Ephraim's route.
Lute and Artur join in on the push, finishing off the first Cavalier and netting Artur an amazing level. Maybe he'll be more than Lute's cheerleader this go-around?
Lastly, Rescue shenanigans occur to pull Forde out of the way and Vanessa sets up to block access to the Mogalls.
This is a really risky plan and if I'd just not been stubborn with Garcia earlier things would probably be less tenuous.
Enemy turn opens with two bits of good luck: a Cavalier fleeing for healing, and another Cavalier missing Vanessa.
The other Cavalier doesn't miss, and you can see if they'd both hit she'd be dead, so this was really close.
But now the rest of the level is basically gravy!
... kinda.
Oh and the Priest heals the fleeing Cavalier.
Lute gets herself an eh level out of finishing off the melee Cavalier. Speed is good, anyway.
Garcia joins the fighting, and in spite of my hopes doesn't get a crit-kill. Dodging is nice, anyway.
Kyle goes in to soften up the ranged Cavalier and instead ends up taking a blow while having done nothing...
... but Neimi is more successful, even getting a pretty dang nice level out of it.
And this all opens the way for Ross to finish them off for a fantastic level.
I end turn looking like this...
... though I left out that Gilliam was placed to bait out this Myrmidon. They exchange blows, but Gilliam's hilarious Defense means he comes out ahead.
Back down south, the last Cavalier exchanges blows with Kyle.
Which means on my turn Garcia gets to finish them off! Excellent.
Gilliam works some more on the Myrmidon, continuing to take chipping damage. I'm surprised the Myrmidon hasn't gotten a crit already.
I set up like this, hoping to bait out the Mage.
First, up north Gilliam fails to actually kill the Myrmidon, though he still hasn't been crit either and actually dodged a hit so... okay?
Mage successfully baited!
And mauled, because Lute doubled the guy.
Back on my turn, Gilliam successfully kills the Myrmidon, opening the way to the last chest.
I end up giving the Mage kill to Ross, mostly because I don't have many options that have no chance of being crit and the other options are higher level and/or easier to level up.
I apparently either forgot or didn't bother to screenshot my end-of-turn formation, but it baits out this Knight with Kyle, as well as...
... this Archer, due to their overlapping strike zones.
Kyle''s fine.
Back in my turn, Colm loots a mocking Restore staff. Not that I brought any Staff-users, mind.
Since the Archer's Short Bow means I can't actually pick on him freely with melee, I actually open with an exchange with Neimi.
This lets Forde snatch the kill; his lacking Defense is still paining me.
Ross instead goes for the Priest so Garcia can take the kill. Very close to another level!
After some faffing about, trying to see if I can give Kyle the kill, I give up and let Artur vaporize the Knight, looting the Axereaver in the process. That'll help Ephraim.
Now we're down to Gehb and one whole Mercenary.
Speaking of, I use Ephraim to bait out the Mercenary, having gotten impatient. Lucky that the Mercenary misses.
Lute softens him up...
... Ross takes a free potshot...
... and after some consideration I end up just ending the turn with Lute protected, expecting the Mercenary to go for Ross or Garcia.
I have no idea why they suicided on Ephraim instead.
Alright, time for Gehb.
I start by experimenting with having lute exchange blows. It's a terrible plan, so...
... I check some numbers and determine Gehb can't kill Gilliam. Gilliam is too fast to be doubled, and so tough that even a crit with the Killer Axe won't one-hit-kill him. Which means...
... I can start poking him from range, relying on Rescue Shenanigans to pull my ranged units out of reach of his Short Bow before his turn arrives.
I took a bunch of screenshots, but while it was tense while I was actually doing it, it wasn't actually interesting, and the RNG was unusually cooperative. While Neimi didn't do anything like crit two turns in a row, my people hit pretty consistently, and Gehb missed Gilliam a surprising number of times.
Ultimately, I got Gehb down to a surprisingly low amount of HP, and decided I was going to do my original plan of feeding the kill to Ephraim after all:
Thanks, Axereaver! Netted Ephraim a fantastic level.
(Yes, this was risky. I'm going to admit I dropped a save state beforehand just in case, though I didn't end up needing it)
Huzzah! Fort Rigwald conquered after somewhere above 500 screenshots!
I also ended up deciding to give the Juna Fruit to Forde. I'm committed to using the Baels, and Forde is the closest to having balanced stats of the bunch, and in particular has depressingly low Defense compared to his peers, so he'll make the best use of it and needs it most.
I also, off-screen, made a point of actually stocking up on Vulneraries and Elixirs.
See you next mission.
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