Let's Play Monster Quest part 12

This is such a weird name, honestly. A "revolt" is a popular uprising against an authority -the plot of this chapter is a single member of the authorities -Pablo- going against everyone else's desires, and successfully making it happen because... um.

... this has honestly always bugged me, how Pablo has armies and armies and armies of mercenaries to throw around and the entire rest of the Carcino Councilors are completely useless and helpless because... reasons?

I have no idea if it's just sloppy writing or if the writers had intended something a bit different originally and didn't fully account for their own changes (Maybe they originally intended for Pablo to have successfully kicked off a populist revolt?), but the result is just weird. To a certain extent, it's a video game and so it's not really acceptable to have competent allies because they'd just take away from the play experience -there wouldn't even be a mission here if the plot was "Pablo tries to go against the Council and is promptly put down by the combined forces of the other Councillors"- but that doesn't mean that having Pablo overwhelm the other Councillors for no sensical reason whatsoever is narratively satisfying.

Anyway. Let's take a look at our new, soon-to-be allies.



Surprising probably no one at all, Innes is indeed a Wight and does indeed have access to Swords and Lances. The only concessions to his classic Sniper-ness are that his weapon skill ranks are heavily biased toward Bows and that he has the Bow Wight map sprite rather than the melee Wight map sprite. Interestingly, his Silver Bow has been replaced with a Poison Bow, and the Poison Bow has unlimited uses. Poison Bows are a thing in the game normally, but they're normally only available to enemy units. They also don't normally have unlimited uses. Monster Quest is interesting.

Stats-wise, Innes has been hugely improved, with literally every non-Move stat increased by a minimum of 3 points. (Well, HP is actually only up by 2 points) Yes, I'm including Constitution in there. In conjunction with having picked up non-Bow weapons -and also Short Bows are a thing anyway!- Innes is considerably more appealing than in the base game.

(Specific stat modifications: +2 HP, +3 Strength, +3 Skill, +5 Speed, +3 Luck, +6 Defense, +4 Resist, +3 Constitution)

I'm probably not going to use him for a while, if ever, just because I strongly prefer to use non-promoted units, and I'd prefer to show off all the character graphics the hack has made, so I'll want to get everyone promotable promoted, but wow, Innes is actually good in Monster Quest. Innes is a much-hated character normally, and it's pretty much entirely because he has the gall to be a pre-promote Sniper in a game where Archers can promote into Rangers, which are far superior units.

Neat. I like it.



Gerik is my third Bonewalker, and continues Innes' Poison theme, with a Poison Sword. (Everything I said about the Poison Bow applies) Normally he brings a Steel Blade, so his damage output is going to be lower, but eh, I'm not a fan of Blades anyway. His Sword rank is better than his Lance rank in a concession to him originally being a Mercenary, but he's still picked up Lance access, so he's better than ever, and he was always a good unit.

Stat-wise, he's overall just a little bit better, with most of his stats a point or two up, but not all of them -Luck and Constitution are unchanged, for instance. That's fine, because Gerik, again, has always been a good unit.

(Specific stat modifications are: +2 HP, +1 Strength, -1 Skill, +3 Speed, +2 Defense. What is with Monster Quest and lowering Skill?)



Tethys has

WHOA WAIT WHAT

... Tethys has picked up Staff access, and is carrying a Recover Staff to go with it (Replacing a Vulnerary she normally carries), providing a really early Recover Staff and making her my first worthwhile Staff user, as... well, I'll say it now: she's still got the Dance command.

Somewhat disappointingly, I've determined that she's considered to be a promoted unit, just like Moulder and Natasha before her, but come on, Dancing Staff user!

Stats-wise, she's gained 5 Magic and, for some reason, 3 Skill. A bit odd, though not technically meaningless, as offensive Staff effects in part use Skill. Otherwise her statline is unaltered -but note her caps. All of her core stat bars extend as far right as they can go. That means she can go to 30 in those stats -at least 30, I should say, because the game doesn't provide visual support for caps that are higher, even though the game itself can absolutely support higher stat caps. Fomortiis' class -Demon King- has 50 as its caps for all the core stats except Luck and HP. (Which cap at 30 and 60, respectively, on everything, aside AI units instead having an HP cap of 120 as far as I can tell)

The Dancer class doesn't normally have this high of caps, either -its Skill and Strength/Magic stats both cap at 10 in the base game. This is something new to Monster Quest.

Tethys is going to be awesome.


Lastly we have Marisa, whom fails to surprise me by being another Mauthe Doog, like Joshua before her. Like Gerik, she mostly has small stat boosts, though a little higher overall. She's also carrying a Hellfang in addition to a Fiery Fang, though we won't be able to work out what the actual parameters are until we have her for ourself. Normally the Hellfang is just a Fiery Fang with slightly lower Accuracy but much higher Might -13 compared to 5- and weighing a bit more, but given the Fiery Fang is super critty in Monster Quest I'm guessing the Hellfang is going to be a bit more interesting than that.

(Specific stat modifications are: +3 HP, +2 Strength, +3 Skill, +2 Speed, +1 Luck, +3 Defense, +2 Resist, +2 Move, and +1 Constitution)

She's probably going to replace Joshua, in all honesty. Even though she's 6 levels behind him right now... well, let's look at Joshua's last level-up back in Distant Blade.


So, in spite of a 6 level advantage, his Luck is identical, his Resist and Defense are only one point ahead, he's only 4 HP ahead, he's only 2 Strength ahead, and his Skill and Speed are 4 and 3 points ahead, respectively. (Okay, then I stupidly gave him a Dragonshield, so he's actually 3 Defense ahead of her) It's extremely likely that Marisa will pull ahead of him, and she'll level faster than him for the moment while being only slightly weaker, so cycling her in probably makes sense regardless.

Anyway, looking around...


The enemies aren't really notably different from the unmodified game. This Myrmidon has a Red Gem I'll need Colm to steal, but that's normal for the mission.


... however, at some point cycling through the enemies, I noticed that the Slim Lance Soldiers had way too much crit, and then double-taked and realized their Slim Lances have a different graphic from Amelia's.

So apparently Monster Quest has two different Slim Lance items -Amelia's one, which is a weak Javelin, and this one, which is basically a Killer Lance-lite. This is unnecessarily confusing, why would you do this?

Also it means these Soldiers are going to have a crit chance on pretty much all my units, which is horrible. Fortunately Gilliam is tough enough to completely ignore anything they do, so I have a good option for baiting them out, and they don't have range 2, so that's something.


This is the group I start with, the formation I start with.

I consider this mission to be something of a breather mission compared to the previous one. There's pressure to get down to Innes and company as fast as possible, but once you've met up with them the mission tends to be pretty easy -and honestly my biggest motive for rushing to reach them is that I don't want them wasting experience. They're pretty good about not dying on their own. It may come as little surprise therefore that I only restarted the mission once -I botched the first couple of turns, had a bad starting formation, that's all. The mission isn't that hard, and in particular doesn't have anything important and heavily luck-based.


First things first: we need to get to Innes and company as fast as possible. As such, I'm going to be a bit aggressive here. Vanessa helps things a little by crit-killing this Fighter with her Axereaver -he would've died regardless, but the crit saves a weapon use and ensures they don't get to retaliate, so that's cool.


Tana then flies up and Trade-manipulates Vanessa into holding an Iron Lance instead of the Axereaver, so she's back to weapon triangle advantage against the Mercenaries in the area.


Colm moves up to provide Support for Neimi -he can't move far enough to reach anybody himself- and she uses a Killer Bow on a Mercenary. She gets the crit, thankfully, so that's two guys down.


From there I don't have anybody else capable of reaching an enemy and attacking, so general moving up happens and I end the turn.



The two surviving Mercenaries both go for Neimi, but they can't double her. Concerned about the Mages, but we'll see how it goes.



Turns out the Mages don't hit hard enough to kill her. Neimi is tough.


The second of the Mages, because he actually attacked Neimi from within her attack range, gets retaliated -and critkilled. Neimi is on a roll today.


A couple of Brigands spawn in the eastern Peaks. I tried to get a clearer shot of them, but the Seize gate objective was always obscuring one or the other of them. Oh well.



My turn, and Joshua utterly fails to crit the Mage. On the plus side, they missed him, but seriously, Neimi keeps critting on 40~% odds and Joshua keeps not critting on similar odds.



Artur and Lute wear down the west-most Mercenary and then Gilliam uses his Rotten Claw to finish them off. You can also see that Vanessa and Tana have headed southwest. There's an Archer down there, but he can't kill either of them.



Neimi goes for the crit-kill on the Mercenary, but doesn't get it. Colm follows up, my intention being that Franz will finish them, but Colm obviates the need by laughing before tearing the Mercenary in half. He even gets an okay level out of it, though I'd really like more durability on him.


So hey I'm trying to get use out of Ross again. He finishes off the Mage that Joshua mauled, netting a quite nice level out of it. A little concerned about his Speed, though -Monster Quest has a lot more high-Speed enemies than the base game.


Franz softens up the last Mercenary, and I try to have Eirika finish them off with her Killing Edge, but it doesn't work out. The Killing Edge is too heavy for her to double him, but anything she can double him with won't kill him without a crit. Too bad. Our turn ends on this slightly low note.


Bafflingly, the Mercenary goes for Colm. The Mercenary barely survives the ordeal.


The Archer I mentioned earlier goes for Vanessa, whom I equipped with a Javelin in preparation for this. They both land their hits. This is the last notable move of the enemy's turn.


It's time for the green team's turn. Gerik starts out by killing this Soldier and taking a weak hit in the process.

This isn't necessarily what Gerik looks like, incidentally. Green units use a green palette irrespective of whether the unit is a generic unit or a specific character. This will be especially clearly illustrated by Tethys in this mission, and is also illustrated by the fact that I thought Garcia was green-furred based on when he was on green team and then when I recruited him he was brown-furred.


Innes proceeds to tear apart another Soldier.

The wasted experience makes me sad.


Also two more Brigands spawned over in the eastern Peaks.


Tana moves closer to the green team while Vanessa finishes off the Archer. She gets an okay level out of it, given that she's already capped Speed. Strength is good.


Artur finishes off the Mercenary that attacked Colm, netting him a nice level.

I think I wanted to have Amelia finish this Mercenary off, but discovered she would literally do no damage? I might've simply forgotten about her.


Anyway, Franz moves to hit that Fighter to the east, who annoys me by landing his retaliation on fairly poor odds. Now Franz is potentially in real danger. Great.


I have Lute finish off the Fighter, who drops a Killer Axe he was carrying.


Amelia takes a pot-shot at the Myrmidon, and her damage here suggest that, yes, the earlier Mercenary was simply too tough for her to harm, as the Mercenary had 11 Defense. Meanwhile Eirika moves up to below Franz and uses Trade shenanigans to get his Iron Lance equipped by him, and I decide to have her take his Shadowkiller for the moment so she can save weapon uses on other stuff/have a weapon in her Constitution range that isn't just the Rapier.



Neimi softens up the Myrmidon with her Bright Bow, and then Colm follows up. I botch the screenshot twice -first when trying to catch the laugh, and then a second time when trying to catch the red burst effect that all critical hits produce- but Colm actually gets another low-odds crit that matters!

Joshua, everyone is better at getting crits than you, what is wrong with you??


I have Gilliam start a Support with Franz, and then I end turn looking like this -note that Joshua is heading off to help down south.



The western Soldier goes for Franz, which was a possibility I was worried about -I'd remembered for sure that the eastern Soldier refuses to move and is holding a Door Key, but I wasn't sure whether the western Soldier would move or not until he did- but thankfully Franz continues to be a dodging machine. The damage he dishes out nets him a decent level, too.


Down south a Soldier attacks -uh, Gerik. Okay, sure. I was expecting him to target Innes. The AI tends to prioritize hitting targets that can't fight back. I guess the weapon triangle advantage was too appealing?

Whatever the case, Gerik murders the Soldier out of hand.


Meanwhile, back to the north, a Mercenary goes for Eirika. She chips him back twice over. Eh.


The enemy turn ends on the note of Marisa and the band of thugs with her being ordered to move out.



Team green's turn comes around, with Gerik retreating to use a Vulnerary, Innes utterly slaughtering a Fighter, and Tethys wasting a use of that Recover Staff on Gerik.

... oh man, she looks like she's shrugging in this screenshot.

Like, I guess I can heal you?


Even more Brigand reinforcements in the Peaks to the east. This is silly.


Tana finally talks to Innes, whom promptly goes and talks to Tethys. I consider having Tethys talk to Gerik... but change my mind. Vanessa needs healing, and Innes can recruit Gerik next turn.


Before I do that, though, I pop back up to the north. Gilliam takes a shot at a Mercenary, but misses.

I'm amused they need a Steel Sword to be able to do any damage to him at all.


Amelia finishes off the Soldier that attacked Franz earlier, netting her a level in the process. It's not the level I'd want for her, but at least more Strength means it'll be easier for her to get levels. Not happy with her low Speed. If she keeps not triggering Speed, the Speedwing may go to her after all.

Though maybe it should go to Gilliam?


Anyway, Artur chips the Mercenary some more.


Then I jump back to... oh right, I actually have her give Innes an extra move.

You can quite clearly see that Tethys' graphic has changed considerably by switching from the Green Team to my team, comparing her "whatevs" screenshot to her post-recruitment screenshot.

Innes is subtly different from when he was on the Green Team, his bones more of a blue color and his armor a more orange shade. I think his loincloth is slightly purple, too? It looks okay.


Innes proceeds to kill this Archer, because I don't want the Archer getting into that Ballista. That would be a pretty big problem. Innes even dodges the retaliation, which is nice, even if it's just 1 damage he avoided.


Vanessa instead chugs an Elixir while flying forward to achieve her healing.


Then we bounce back to the north, where Lute breaks out Elfire to finish off this Mercenary.



Neimi advances her relationship with Colm to A, and Franz and Colm heal themselves while positioning to protect other members of the group. I end turn looking like this, with Ross running south to help with the southern fight.

There's some Pegasus Knights and a Falcoknight that are going to spawn soon, whereas this northern area is just guys with Swords and guys with Axes, excepting the one Soldier, so he'll contribute more down south.



Enemy turn, and first one of the Mercenaries charges Lute and -wait, why does he have a 9% crit chance on her? She had 14 Luck before he attacked, and a Slim Sword is only worth 5 crit chance while capped Skill is only worth 10, so it should be 1 at most.

They double her, too, so she was in serious danger. She gets a decent level out of it, though Speed would be nice.



AAAAAH

Bad screenshot timing, but this Myrmidon crit Colm. Thankfully they can't possibly double him due to his capped Speed, so this couldn't possibly have killed him, but yikes.


Down south a Fighter futilely goes for Innes. Ha ha.



Back north the other Mercenary goes for Franz, misses, and a Brigand goes for a ranged attack on Gilliam... and misses. Nice.



An Archer and that southern Soldier both go for ranged attacks on Colm, and if the Archer had hit Colm he'd have died thanks to that Myrmidon getting a crit. Fortunately, they both miss, Colm yawning at their pathetic efforts.

This crit stuff is kind of obnoxious of Monster Quest.


Yet another pair of Brigands spawns in to the east.


Innes moves north to recruit Gerik, but he can't reach in one turn so Tethys gives him another turn.


Then I check the Slim Sword -Monster Quest has given it 15 crit. Well. That's going to be annoying. Killer Edge-lite.

I suppose I should've guessed after noticing the Slim Lance having 15 crit...


I have Neimi finish off the Myrmidon that went for Colm, netting her an amazing level in the process.



Gilliam goes to tear the Soldier in half -and misses one of his attacks. He gets a nice level out of it. Nearly capped Defense, though more Speed would be nice.


Lute backs off to where no one can reach her without a ranged attack and finishes off the Myrmidon that attacked her -and I checked, and she's out of reach of the Ballistae to the northeast.



Colm tears the Soldier in half, and then Franz moves up to attack the first of the Brigands, dodging the retaliation as expected, which is good.


Artur softens up this Mercenary and Eirika heals.


I end turn looking like this.

This whole setup is a bit risky, honestly, and I probably could've handled it better.


For starters, the Brigand Franz attacked had an admittedly small chance of instantly killing Colm.




Then we bop back down south to Vanessa ripping enemies in half with her Axereaver and not dodging their attacks. She could've died here if the Soldier had crit, though admittedly the Fighter really shouldn't have hit her in the first place.


Back up north Eirika is chipped by this Mercenary, which isn't a big deal. Annoyingly, Eirika doesn't crit him with her Killing Edge.


Then another Hand Axe Brigand goes for Lute, and lands his hit.



We bop back south again where Vanessa had tiny odds of dying, again. Instead she gets a low-odds crit that's totally useless. Okay, sure, whatever.


Then we bounce back north to this Archer going for Tana and missing -he would've instantly killed her on a hit. Alternatively he could've gone for Lute and instantly killed her thanks to the Brigand. Yikes.


Lastly, a Priest to the south puts Ross to Sleep.

... unfortunately Ross is already quite blue and I had iffy screenshot timing, so it's not obvious he's been hit, but he was. Annoying.

So yeah, I basically got through this turn on blind luck, albeit one of the close calls was itself caused by an unlikely event and only the Archer going for Tana was a major fail on my part. I'm almost completely certain I could've handled this better regardless, as a lot of the iffiness was caused by my aggressive tendencies -I could've had everyone back up and heal, regroup as the enemies followed, left only my least vulnerable units exposed, and probably gotten through safely with only Vanessa down south at any risk of death. Instead I pushed for kills, which was probably not the thing to do here.


Anyway, my turn, and I start by having Amelia chip this Mercenary. She really needs more experience.



Then I turn my attention to the south, starting out by having Joshua attack this Soldier. Thankfully, he does get a crit, avoiding his usual patterns in this LP. This is vitally important here -Marisa will freely attack any of my troops, even Gerik and Tethys, if I don't recruit her first, and I need to clear the way so Gerik can reach her.



Vanessa goes for the northeastern Myrmidon, chipping them down for a decent level considering her Speed is capped.


Tana follows up from atop the wall to exactly finish them with a Steel Lance. This could've gone really badly.




Gerik recruits Marisa, and I promptly turn her on this Archer -after comparing Fiery Fang to Hellfang. Hellfang is a little less critty, less accurate, and heavier by enough to slow down Marisa by three Speed (Meaning the Hellfang has a Weight of 9), and in exchange does 4 more damage. Eh. I go with Fiery Fanging the Archer -Hellfang could have crit-killed them, but it was unlikely, and I didn't want to leave Marisa vulnerable to the Myrmidon. To my delight, she double-crits him for the kill, instantly proving herself superior to Joshua.

Incidentally, this is one of my favorite recruit conversations in the game.

Awwww no, the guild screwed up. Well, Marisa, what do you want to do?
Well, what would you like me to do, Boss?
Well, obviously it'd be convenient for me if you came to my side-
Done.
Wha- but! Social censure! Reputation! You, you can't just-
'kay, off to kill my former employers.

Paraphrased.


Then Innes heads south and Tethys gets him moving to maim the other Myrmidon.


Done with the south for the moment, we return to Franz killing a Brigand.



Gilliam tries to kill a Brigand too, but finally 60~% odds of hitting fails me. On the plus side, the Brigand misses on their (weak) retaliation.


Artur finishes off the Mercenary that Amelia chipped earlier.


Neimi heals herself, rather than taking a risk and fighting at her low HP.



I try to have Eirika critkill one of the Brigands, but nope, nothing doing even though she doubled them. On the plus side, she dodges the retaliation.

I'm actually trying to avoid using Eirika right now, as she's one of my highest level characters, but I'm trying to get this situation under control first.

I end turn without having anyone else do anything interesting. Well, not anything I screenshotted, anyway.


The first action of the enemy turn is the Myrmidon in the south killing himself on Vanessa.



Meanwhile back in the north, a different Brigand throws himself onto Eirika's critkill blade. (Though she annoys me a little by only getting the crit on the second strike) She gets a very nice level out of it -everything I really care about her getting right now is in it.


The Brigand she weakened earlier decides suicide-by-Franz is the way to go, for whatever reason, and doesn't even land his attempted strike.



The last of the Brigands in reach also throws himself onto Eirika's blade.

If they want to die so badly, I'm ready to oblige them. I just wish they'd stop getting blood on my cape.

Eirika annoys me again by only getting the crit on the second hit. Seriously, this isn't Thracia, there's no bonus modifier to crit chance on the second hit.



A more northerly Brigand goes for Amelia and holy crap he doubles her and could've killed her.

On the plus side, I had Lute Trade-swap her Iron Sword to the top, otherwise this almost certainly would have killed her.


The Archer goes for Eirika, which I find a little puzzling, and doesn't even get the hit.


Meanwhile back down south, the Priest puts Marisa to Sleep.

I hate this Priest, and I hate Status Staves. I don't think it's even possible to have a Restore Staff at this point in the game.



Anyway, the turn ends and a bunch of reinforcements arrive, with the southernmost Pegasus Knight carrying a Talisman I'm not even going to try to Steal. (Which is a bit sad, since mediocre-to-awful Resist is a recurring thing with my units in Monster Quest)

Interestingly, according to Serenes Forest these reinforcements are all triggered by recruiting Marisa. If you kill her, they don't spawn at all. I'd always assumed they spawned on a fixed turn order.



Anyway, my turn, and Joshua gets another first-strike critkill. He needed a crit, so that's good, but a crit on the second hit would've been just as good in this case. Can't you exchange RNG numbers with Eirika, Joshua?

Also the Priest drops a Torch Staff. That'll come in handy next mission.


I have Tethys heal Vanessa after having Vanessa head northward. I don't expect Vanessa to be necessary to handle the south.


Lute heals with an Elixir.


I take a small risk by having Amelia finish off a Brigand that could totally kill her and would even double her. She handles it fine.


Franz goes for the other Brigand, and while they land their improbable retaliation, it's fine. They're still dead, and Franz is still fine.


Gilliam softens up the Archer, and Artur finishes them off.


Meanwhile down south Innes hops into the Ballista and takes a potshot at the Falcoknight.

I don't think I've ever used this Ballista in any prior run of Sacred Stones, even though I technically could.

I end turn with some shuffling I didn't screenshot.


The enemy turn starts with the southernmost Brigand chipping Gilliam and being maimed in turn.

Gilliam is so great in Monster Quest.


One southern Pegasus Knight goes for Innes. Innes is too tough for them.

Just before that, however, the Falcoknight flew west. Out of reach of Tana, I guess? I'm really not sure why they did that. They're still in Innes' reach from his current position, and they didn't use a Vulnerary or anything. They just... flew west one tile. Huh?

It's convenient, but puzzling.



One of the Pegasus Knights goes for Joshua now. In response he double-crits them, which is a bit gratuitous -he needed a crit, he didn't need two of them.

... oh goody, he could actually die now, if other Pegasus Knights go for him with their own Slim Lances and get even one crit.



Another Pegasus Knight goes for the attempt, lands the hit, and is promptly doubled with no crit, netting Joshua a quite nice level.

Only one Pegasus Knight to go.


Running completely contrary to everything I know about the AI, the last Pegasus Knight down here goes for Gerik (Who has been passed the Bright Lance by Tana so he's not at the weapon triangle disadvantage) and then doesn't even land the blow. I'm baffled -normally the AI is obsessed with pursuing attacks that have even the slightest odds of getting a kill, and indeed they will do so even if their accuracy against a target is actually 0, as the game only checks if their maximum damage output, accounting for doubling and critting, is at least the target's HP. I've no idea why they passed up the possibility of critkilling Joshua in favor of (failing at) chipping Gerik.

I'm pretty sure they were in reach of Joshua.

I dunno, whatever, it works out for me.

This is, incidentally, our first decent look at Gerik. It's... not very clear, actually. I'm pretty sure, however, that like Innes he's slightly differently colored than when he was on the Green Team, and like Innes his bones are more of a blue-ish color. I think.


After that it's my turn, and I start by having Tethys heal Colm and Joshua retreat and heal himself. I'm preparing for my forces in the north to meet the Pegasus Knights in the north, too.


Then I have Innes take a shot at the Falcoknight. I'm honestly expecting him to miss -and he kills them instead. Neat. Since they're a promoted unit, he even gets a decent amount of experience out of it.


Then I have Gerik go finish off the Pegasus Knight that tried to hit him, and he gets a completely gratuitous crit.

I missed the actual crit pose, because the Bonewalker Lance crit goes by really fast. They literally just hold their spear for something like three frames and then play their regular attack animation, aside from the red burst/screen shaking.


Back up north, Franz finishes off this Brigand and nets a really nice level.


Then a bunch of moving around happens and I end turn. For some reason I remembered to screenshot the south, but not the north. Weird.


One of the last two Pegasus Knights goes for the easy option of attacking Marisa, and this could end badly.

I really hate low crit chances on random enemies. Really, I hate crit chances on enemies in general, but I especially hate when they have these low odds that will usually not crop up, but can absolutely end a character out of nowhere, with little ability to actually plan around it.


The other Pegasus Knight also goes for Marisa, also hits, also fails to crit. Marisa is safe for the moment.


Back up north, Colm is yawningly dodging a Javelin throw from a Pegasus Knight.



... and then getting hit by the other two.

He'd have survived if they had all hit, but this still boiled down to me not paying enough attention. I thought only one or two of them had Javelins.


Innes takes another potshot with his Ballista, this time at one of the remaining Pegasus Knights. They die. Slightly wasteful of experience, but I'm trying to get this situation under control before any of my units die.

Also, Vanessa has Rescued Marisa out of reach of the enemies. I'll have someone else dump her off in a minute, probably.


Lute chips down the other Pegasus Knight and then Gerik finishes them.


Artur takes a potshot at the northernmost Cavalier and levels in the process. It's not a stellar level, but it could be worse. He really needs more Luck, though.


Up north I have Neimi kill one of the Pegasus Knights. They land their retaliation, but whatever.


Colm goes up to murder another Pegasus Knight, and even dodges the retaliation, conveniently.


Gilliam mauls the last one, and for some reason I don't have the pre-battle report. Odd. Regardless, they can't touch him.


Franz finishes the one Gilliam just weakened, and then Tethys heals Franz.


Lastly, I move around Eirika and Amelia in preparation to meet the northern batch of Brigands that yet lives.



Enemy turn, and a Cavalier goes for Gerik. Conveniently, they miss, and Gerik gets a fairly good level out of killing them.



Another Cavalier goes for Gerik, and this one lands his hit.


Amusingly, then the last Cavalier moves up, unable to attack and preventing the Ranger from making an attack. The AI's fixed unit order causes some weird problems for them.


I start my turn by having Innes chip the Ranger, because they're promoted so he'll actually get vaguely decent experience out of it. Also they're so fast my other units might have difficulty killing the guy.

I failed to screenshot it, but last turn Joshua took Marisa off Vanessa's hands and dumped her to the north.


Also Ross is awake, and I have him exactly finish off the lead Cavalier.


Artur and Lute then take out the next Cavalier.



Then I pin the Ranger in place with Vanessa, Gerik, and Tana. Tana misses on what would've been a lethal blow, but that's okay -the Ranger doesn't have a melee weapon at all, so nobody is in any danger from this guy now.


In the north Neimi and Gilliam gang up on the first of the northern Brigands to get out of the peaks, killing him.


Then Amelia takes a potshot at this Soldier that's been patiently waiting to die for ages. She gets a nearly perfect level out of it.


Tethys gives Amelia another turn to chip the Soldier in, and my turn ends after Amelia's attack.


The most southern of the Brigands goes for Gilliam and misses. Works for me.


Back down south on my turn, I have Tana take first crack at the Ranger. To my pleasant surprise she lands the hit, and gets a solid level in the process.


The south done forever, I have Franz take a shot at one of the Brigands still walking the Peaks. They miss, naturally enough.


Neimi and Gilliam take out the Brigand that went for Gilliam.



Amelia and Tethys do their thing again.



The only things that happen on the enemy turn are that the Brigand takes a shot at Franz, but neither of them hits anything, and then the western Ballista joins the Can't Hit Anything party.


Because it's free experience, I have Colm steal the Soldier's Door Key before I have Amelia finish the Soldier. He would've dropped it anyway on death, but... free experience.


Then I have Tethys heal Colm.


Franz takes another swing at the Brigand in the Peaks, and they miss on the retaliation, big surprise.


Then I do a decent amount of moving up and end the turn like this.



Brigand goes for Franz, dies for his trouble, and the Ballista decides to shoot Gilliam now. What's with that? And why can't they hit him? Last time I dealt with Ballista they prioritized Gilliam over Franz, too, which baffles me.


Artur patches up his dismal luck with Tethys' Goddess Icon. He still needs more, but now enemies need 18-20 Skill to get a crit chance on him without their weapon providing any crit chance itself. If he gets a little lucky with level ups, it will soon no longer be possible for random unpromoted goons to have a crit chance on him on Skill alone.

... this is small comfort in Monster Quest, mind, with all the random crit chance weapons. Still, it'll be nice to stop having heart attacks over Artur as often.



Anyway, Franz kills the Brigand, Tethys heals Amelia, and I have Ross take a potshot at the Mercenary because they have a Lancereaver and so Amelia basically can't do anything to them.

Oh, and I still have delusions that Ross will be useful someday. That too.



Brigands still can't hit Franz. Franz is doubling this one, too. Awesome, that speeds things up.


Also that Ballista takes a potshot at Ross, actually hits, does some damage.

This was the other reason I didn't have Amelia attacking the Mercenary. Didn't want her getting shot at.



Ross plus Tethys doing more damage to the Mercenary and WHOA WAIT WHAT

Look at that level! She gained 2 to Resist and 1 to everything else! Holy crap. Her growths are nuts. Her Resist is over 100%, and I wouldn't be surprised if that's true of all her growths.

... I don't think it's going to be a problem that she only has 19 levels to work with.


Anyway, back in not super-shocking land, Franz finishes off the Brigand and gets a perfect level.

Seriously, I want to know what's up with Monster Quest's growths.

If I actually had any idea how to use the various Fire Emblem hacking/reading tools...



Anyway, Gilliam has advanced enough into the Peaks that the other Ballista gets in on the action. Also Ross takes another hit. Eh. Free experience.




Ross weakens the Mercenary, Tethys heals him, enemy turn, my turn, Ross almost finishes off the Mercenary and gets a very nice level.

He really needs more Speed, though. It's been a recurring thing in this mission that I've considered having Ross fight something and then abandoned it because the target would double him. Heck, this Mercenary would double him if I were letting Ross fight them face-to-face.


Then Tethys gives him an extra move and he actually finishes off the Mercenary, netting me their Lancereaver.



Colm opens the door after Ross takes yet another hit, and Gilliam actually levels off of ballista bolts landing all around him. (He hasn't been hit once yet) Defense is capped, and this is a pretty decent level all around. I'd like more Speed on him, but he's doing quite nicely, really.


The western Archer dismounts from their Ballista, bolts expended.


At this point I'm just tired of the mission and getting really sloppy with screenshots. I moved up people, out of reach of the remaining Ballista, but with Tana positioned to bait out this Myrmidon. She takes a hit and maims him back.


The dismounted Archer, meanwhile, goes for Gilliam, which is an oopsie on my part. I'd intended to bait out this Archer later. This requires a reworking of my immediate plans to accomodate.


I have Amelia take a potshot at the Myrmidon, and she gets a fantastic level out of it.


Then I have Tethys give her an extra move so she can get the kill experience too.


Some shuffling happens and I make sure the Archer can't kill Amelia, and decide to let Amelia bait out the Archer. She misses. Oh well.


Gilliam reaches the Ballista Archer and kills them. I botch the initial screenshot, but they dropped a Longbow. It doesn't seem to have changed from the base game, I don't think. I was half-expecting it to be 2-4 range or something, honestly.



Meanwhile, back with everyone else, Amelia and Ross box in the Archer and both get in a hit on it. I'm genuinely surprised Ross landed his hit.


General moving up happens, and I have Tethys Dance Neimi. Why? Because Tethys gets more experience for Dancing than for using Recover. (10 vs 6, if I recall correctly) Dancing experience is apparently not affected by being considered promoted, I guess? Really, for all I know the Dancer has always been considered a promoted class.



I have a minor heart attack, having completely failed to consider that the Myrmidon can now reach Gilliam. Fortunately, Gilliam can't kill him in one hit -this is the Myrmidon with the Red Gem I need to Steal. Getting it off of him is going to be a bit of a pain, now.

I'm amused that he missed Gilliam twice, though.



Back with the Ross and Amelia Training Game, they both take swings at the Archer. Ross misses, but eh, whatever. 1 free experience point for him.


Meanwhile Tethys heals Marisa and Neimi sets up to bait out the Myrmidon. Also general moving up happens.


Myrmidon successfully (safely) baited out!


Colm yoinks his Red Gem, and Tana grabs the kill because she's still one of my lower level characters.


Amelia takes another potshot at the Archer.


Next turn Tethys heals Eirika. (Previous turn she Danced for experience, and I didn't bother to screenshot it) I'm prepping for attacking Pablo: he's carrying a Divine tome, and as a Light magic tome that's a big threat to everyone else in my force capable of fighting back. So, get Eirika healed up to fight him.


Amelia misses the Archer. I botched catching the miss itself.


Moving up and placing Eirika in Pablo's reach.



He misses, Eirika misses, Eirika hits. Sure, okay.



Neimi hops into the eastern Ballista (Gilliam killed the Archer before it ran out) and takes a potshot at Pablo because she's really close to leveling anyway. She gets a quite nice level out of the hit.


Meanwhile, back with Amelia, she finally kills the Archer, netting her another really good level, identical in fact to her last one. Has me wondering how high her non-Resist growths actually are.



Since Pablo can't kill Eirika even if he hits on my turn and his turn, I decide to have Eirika just attack him now. She gets a crit, dodges, misses on the second hit. Okay, sure, that works.

In fact...



... I have Lute break out Elfire to overcome his obnoxious Resist+Gate defense bonus and grab the kill, netting her a... well, Magic and Speed are her most important stats to gain. Good enough. Also Pablo drops a Guiding Ring.


Tethys dances Eirika to speed things up and gains a second level with holy crap Speed and HP are over 100% in addition to Resist!

Tethys is awesome in Monster Quest.

... now I'm wondering if Moulder and Natasha have been compensated with ridiculous growths. Probably not? It's a possibility. I should maybe investigate it at some point.

Take Gate, talking ensues.

The rescue is appreciated but unnecessary. I was about to implement Plan Theta-Phi, which is far too sophisticated for ordinary intelligences to understand.
... is that the one where you point behind your enemies, scream "What's THAT?!" and run away while they're distracted?
W-what? No, of course not. Don't be absurd.
How did she know??
Ahem, no, it was much more... sophisticated and... intelligent than that. It was guaranteed to succeed, because I'm awesome.
Big brains impress girls, right?
Some girls, sure. Not me.
I'm not talking to you! Or about you! Definitely not about! Filthy mercenary, ugh.
... the reverse psychology was nice earlier-
Reverse wh- uh, yes. Yes, I am brilliant. Definitely.
Is there something the matter, dear childhood friendzoned friend whom I love the same way I love everyone who isn't my brother?
Aaaaargh
Uh I mean no, nothing, nothing's wrong, except -oh, the Carcinite betrayal! That's what's bothering me! Look over there, a convenient distraction!
Oh I'm so glad you're all ri-
TRAITOR
Wha- no, your highness! Pablo is the only traitor! He, uh, he... well, this is embarrassing to admit, but he's infinitely smarter, better looking, richer, and more talented than anyone else on the Carcino council, except for that tiny flaw of being pure evil, so his betrayal of our alliance has... well, the entirety of Carcino's military might at his beck and call.
Oooh, so you'll be completely defenseless after this war is over!
Oh deary me yes, it would just be awful if either of our neighbors decided to crush us after Pablo is dealt with.
Uh. Yes, just awful.
Seth, make notes, after this is over we annex Carcino.
Done m'lady.
Soooo, do you have anything useful to say?
... well, no, not really. I'm an old man in a Japanese video game without the benefit of being an ancient expert in arcane secrets. That makes me useless by default.
I say we kill the dirty traitor.
NOT A TRAITOR
You are too-
Are not-
Hey!
Ewan no-
Oh, is this what humans look like as children? I'd quite forgotten.
Oh absolutely m'am! More importantly, I overheard you saying sometime off-screen that you're trying to get to Jehanna overland! Jehanna's my home, and I know a shortcut!
Your words fill me with dread, tiny male clone of Tethys, but go on.
Tiny path through mountains, renegade monsters nipping at our heels every step of the way! It'll be fun! Also we might meet my teacher, he's awesome, and I'm just not going to mention the tiny secret village of cosmic significance.
The wha-
WHEEE FOLLOW ME I'M RUNNING ON AHEAD HOPE I DON'T GET EATEN BY ZOMBIES SEE YOU LATER
... Tethys? I didn't grow up among humans. Are they... normally like this at his age?
Oh, everyone's energetic as a tyke. Though really he's just wearing some poor redhead's skin.
I meant crazy.
I prefer sanity-challenged.
That's not answering my que-

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See you next mission.