Let's Play Monster Quest Part 8

Before we actually get to the mission, I use the Secret Book on Ross, because he's my only character whom I'm certain won't cap Skill before reaching level 20, and I'm expecting to use him for the foreseeable future.


Victims of Cartoon Villainy, more like... there's literally no military logic to this mission. It's a Bad Guy using hostages without understanding how hostages work in an attempt to collect an object of zero military value.

Incidentally, this is the mission in which Grado breaks Frelia's Sacred Stone. I always want to say they break it before Ancient Horrors, because it would be an obvious and logical course of events for the first Sacred Stone being shattered to make it easier for Fomortiis' minions to walk the land freely, but every time I replay the game reality crushes my naive belief that the game's plot is subtle, clever, and well-written.

The depressing thing is that Sacred Stones is one of the better-written games in the series.


So here's the only thing I can arrange to see prior to deployment, as well as me confirming that Colm is (still) a source of enhanced line of sight. All that's left is to confirm that he can still disable traps -if he can, then Revenants are full Thieves.


Here's how I actually start the mission. The Gorgon is Natasha and the Tarvos is Ross again.


And here's the entire map, courtesy of Serenes Forest. It's honestly considerably larger than it really needs to be. No idea why.


First I move Colm forward to spot for my other units. I check these units, but they have no surprises.


Then I fly Vanessa forward and have her use the Torch we stole from Amelia that Amelia left behind back in The Empire's Reach. We add a Soldier to our list of visible units, again with nothing interesting on it. Also note that Vanessa is carrying an Antitoxin. There's a reason for that.


General moving up happens, with Gilliam placed to just barely bait out the southern Soldier and the Mercenary.


The Mercenary takes the bait and can't break through Gilliam's carapace.

I'm amused he could potentially crit Gilliam, but can't do any damage.


The Soldier also moved up, to my surprise. I have Colm tear them in half, and annoyingly the Soldier lands a blow. Inconvenient.


Colm moving up reveals more units. To my alarm, several of these can reach him at his current position, and he's injured. This could end badly.


I have Neimi take a shot at the Mercenary, and Natasha visits the Village and gets an Antitoxin.

Given antivenin is made from the venom it's supposed to fight, I'm totally imagining a scared villager apologizing to the snake-woman for the suffering snakes have gone through to get this stuff. Or wait... there's not a single case of snake venom in the entire Fire Emblem series. I guess Baels are where every Poison Axe jerkface in the series got their toxin from?


I decide to have Vanessa clear out the Mercenary in hopes of using Gilliam to protect Colm, and she gets a good level out of it. I'm faintly amused that she would be able to double the Mercenary she just killed, thanks to the level she got off of him.



To my pleasant surprise, Gilliam can actually double the Fighter! (Presumably the weight of their Steel Axe is too much for them) As such, he uses the Sharp Claw to take them out, and gets a solid level out of it.


Then a bunch of general moving up happens, and now it's just hoping Colm gets through the enemy turn intact. Er. Alive. Undead? Above 0 HP, whatever.

Note that I've placed Ross so that he's in reach of the southern Soldier, but not any other units.



One Knight chips Gilliam's carapace.

He doubles them and kills them.


Knight the second piles onto Gilliam, and is also doubled and killed.

I have no idea why they considered Gilliam to be a more tempting target than Colm, but I'm glad for it.



Then the northern Soldier continues the dogpile, and is also doubled and killed for his trouble, netting Gilliam a really great level.

More Speed would be nice, but he could still theoretically cap it before promotion.



To my annoyance, the Soldier I'd hoped to go after Ross decides to go for Colm. He misses, and Colm doubles him and kills him.

Doesn't he just look so happy when he's dodging? Also, a clearer illustration of Revenants only having one eye, though in this frame the dangling eyeball appears to be resting solidly in its socket.


The Mercenary contributes to the Gilliam pile-on, and Gilliam mauls them. I don't even care that Gilliam wouldn't be at risk of a crit if he'd gotten Luck on his prior level-up -he's too tough for it to matter, even if they double-critted him.


Lastly, the Shaman decides to take a shot at Colm, and misses. He couldn't have killed Colm anyway, which was a relief, but damage avoided is still nice.


Now that it's my turn again, the first thing Vanessa does is fly east. I need her over there anyway, and she's a less risky scout than Colm now that she's used the Torch.


Then I move Colm to safety -okay, not to safety.

... I hate Fire Emblem fog of war maps. I'd probably hate them less if the AI was actually held to the same line-of-sight rules as the player, admittedly, but really, fog of war is kind of a horrible thing to do in a game where player units die permanently when killed/the player only has a limited number of units over the course of the game. The fact that the AI cheats is just the icing on the cake.

Fortunately, Sacred Stones is one of the less awful games in the series about fog, with only 3 (4 technically, but two of them occur when the siblings go their separate ways, so you only get 3 in a single run) campaign missions that actually occur in fog, and in the last fog mission every AI unit is either aggressive or refuses to move no matter what. The worst thing about fog of war is walking into what amounts to traps -AI units that won't move until you're in reach, but will once you're in striking distance, never mind that they shouldn't be able to see you because unit vision range is almost always worse than their movement range.

This mission has a particularly good (By "good" I mean "horrifying") example of that, actually, but I'll cover it when we get to it.


Anyway, I have Neimi cripple the Shaman. He lands his hit, but that's not horrible.


Then I have Artur-

oh of course he gets a crit.


Anyway, I have Lute finish off the Mercenary that attacked Gilliam earlier, getting his Iron Blade in the process. Not sure I care -I rarely use the Blade series of weapons, as their weight is tolerable only on a handful of units, since Sword-wielders trend toward low Constitution, and a Blade's damage advantage over an equivalent Sword is rarely enough to justify it on characters with worse Constitution, as they'll very often cease to double the target, often actually dropping their damage output.

Besides, most of your damage output is normally from your Strength score. An Iron Blade sounds nice when you frame it as "9 Might vs an Iron Sword's 5 Might" -after all, that's nearly double the damage. In actuality you'll be going from 10 damage to 14 type of thing.

It doesn't help that the most heavily armored enemies tend to be weak to specific weapon types. You could break out the Iron Blade against a Knight... or you could break out an Armorslayer. (Or Rapier, if you're Eirika)

I don't really expect Monster Quest to make the Iron Blade more appealing, either. In the unmodded game Gilliam would normally appreciate the Iron Blade down the line once he's promoted, especially since Blades provide double the usual weapon experience, making it a good tool for getting his Sword mastery up to a good level. Here? Gilliam's a giant spider. Similarly, I don't know what Gerik is yet, but it's entirely possible he'll be something that's not a Bonewalker -Gerik is normally one of the main units that actually likes Blades, being a Sword wielder with high base Constitution. Garcia, Ross, and Dummy are unlikely to appreciate Blades either, as I'm guessing their promotion options are going to be Maelduin (Axe+Bow) and Cyclops. (Pure Axe) Normally Garcia and Ross could promote into Heroes and thus appreciate Blades. I really doubt they'll be able to promote into Wights.

Still, the Iron Blade is the most likely of the Blades to be worth using -the Silver Blade is only 1 point of damage over a Silver Sword, and the Steel Blade is only 2 points of damage over the Steel Blade. (Of course, the Steel Blade is also only 4 Weight over the Steel Sword, where the Iron editions are 12 vs 5 Weight...)


Anyway, enough about how Blades are dumb and even more limited in Monster Quest. Movement happens, with Franz and Ross meatshielding for  Colm so he's not susceptible to death-by-Cavalier and Gilliam helping ensure Ross doesn't get ganged up on himself, and I end looking like this. (You can just barely see the top of Natasha's sprite below and between the Mogalls and Vanessa)


On the enemy turn a Soldier runs out of the fog and fails to die to Vanessa, though he also fails to get in damage. She does double and hit him, it's just the first hit she misses. Oh well.


Then the Cavalier I was worried would hit Colm targets Franz while two other Cavaliers run out of the fog from the west.

Great. I thought those Cavaliers were a turn slower than this to arrive, but I guess not.


Start of my turn, and some reinforcement Cavaliers show up from the western edge of the map. (The screen moves to enemy reinforcements even if the player lacks line of sight on them) I can even see one of them. You can also see that a Troubadour has shown up from the north, but I don't expect her to be a problem.

This is probably my least favorite map in the entire game, if I'm entirely honest. It's really easy to have characters die here, but the map itself isn't particularly difficult or interesting. It's just the fog makes it impossible to be clear what's a good decision and what's going to get someone killed. The other fog missions of the campaign are much better designed, in my opinion.


Anyway, enough whining about fog. Vanessa flies to the east, still on a mission. I don't even care that she's in reach of that Knight -if this was the unmodded game, that would be a concern, but Vanessa The Gargoyle is insanely durable.


I have Neimi kill the Soldier.


Natasha heals Gilliam, and I finally fail to capture the energy ball. Natasha honestly looks like she's trying to scare off Gilliam here.

Back! I have a snake, and I'm not afraid to use it!



Trusting in Franz's ridiculous durability, I have him go run onto a forest next to the two northwestern Cavaliers and attack the one holding an Iron Sword. He dodges the retaliation and gets a level out of it. I would rather have more immediately relevant stats, but this isn't a bad level.


Eirika vaporizes this guy with her Rapier.


I want the Troubadour dead, and if I didn't know better, I'd send Ross to do the job so he could get experience.

I do know better, so I send virtually-invincible Gilliam up to do the job instead. I'm pleasantly surprised when he lands the hit with his Sharp Claw, instantly killing the Troubadour.


They drop an Elixir, too.


Then I move Colm up to the Fort and YOU

This Fighter? I hate this Fighter. This Fighter is Intelligent Systems crapping on the player, deliberately, knowingly, intentionally.

If you're a new player, you might be feeding tons of kills to Seth, not understanding that he's basically wasting tons of experience, in which case this Fighter is going to spring out of nowhere and instantly kill him even though Seth is basically invincible in the early maps like this one. With the rest of your party under-leveled and Seth dead, the entire rest of the game is going to be a horribly difficult slog, assuming you don't just reset, which honestly you should at that point.

If you're a bit more experienced with the series, or you're a new player but have already figured out that Seth killing things is a waste of experience, it's still tempting to disarm him and use him as a nigh-on-invincible scout, rather than leaning on Colm, who has all the durability of wet tissue paper... in which case this Fighter is going to spring out of nowhere and kill Seth.

As the cherry on this cake of hatred and loathing, the fact that the Fighter will have switched to his Halberd will mean that, if you accept Seth's death and carry on (Maybe you're holding yourself to an ironman challenge), instead of this Fighter dropping an actually useful Halberd, he'll drop a thoroughly redundant Iron Axe.

Oh, and even if you know he's coming and plan for him -like I am here- he has an obnoxious habit of breaking out the Halberd on non-cavalry targets anyway, so he still denies you that Halberd.

If this were not a fog of war map, I'd applaud Intelligent Systems for sending oblivious players the memo "don't rely too much on Seth" -in my opinion, if you're going to send Seth out to bait foes without even bothering to check what the enemies are wielding, you deserve whatever happens to him.

But. This is a fog of war map, so it's a trap you have no way of anticipating, beyond general paranoia.

Since I'm doing Monster Quest, this guy's existence isn't nearly as loathsome right this second, but I still hate him and whoever all was involved in placing him here in this way.

Incidentally, this guy is why I didn't have Ross attack the Troubadour -because I knew he was at risk of this Fighter instantly killing him.


Anyway, back to the mission. Colm is in reach of too many dangers, so I have Artur Rescue him. Annoyingly, Lute doesn't have enough Constitution to take Colm and then drop him elsewhere.


See?

Anyway, this is the setup I end on.


The eastern Fighter hits Gilliam, and lands his Poison Axe hit. Gilliam's so tough it's not a big deal, but it's annoying.


Then Mr Halberdier Of Hatred comes along and, exactly as I said, breaks out the Halberd on a non-cavalry target, ensuring that when I kill him all I get is an Iron Axe. Why didn't they make him a dedicated Halberdier, ensuring you'd get the Halberd? Oh yeah, because he's made of hatred and loathing.


Note that the Halberd is incredibly heavy, so Gilliam doubles the guy.

Gilliam even gets a disappoint-

wait +2 HP.

Well, that's confirmation that the hack has modified growths. Myrrh is the only character in the base game to have a stat capable of getting +2.

Still kind of a disappointing level, especially since I doubt this hack has managed to increase the player's HP cap. If they haven't, Gilliam will cap HP no later than level 10 promoted (Probably earlier because you usually get HP on promotion) at which point his more than 100% HP growth will be a dead growth.

If they have raised the player's HP cap though... this could be cool.


Like I said, Iron Axe dropped even though the Halberd was the green item earlier.


Anyway, back with Franz, he dodges an Iron Blade swing that would've actually hurt if it hit him.


The other Cavalier next to him takes a shot at Eirika, and dies for the crime of injuring her Dark Highness.


The Knight tosses a Javelin at Vanessa, but misses.



A Soldier and Archer pop out of the fog to do exactly nothing to Gilliam.


Another Cavalier pops out of the fog, missing Franz.


Another Cavalier pops out of the fog, leaving me annoyed that I didn't have Ross break out the Hatchet.


Lastly, a Priest pops in and heals the Poison Axe guy. Whatever.


Neimi can't reach any enemies, so I have her pull Colm out of Artur's nerve-tentacles and drop him off.


Vanessa flies onward to her mission, uses her torch to re-expand her line of sight, and spots the enemy Bael dead-set on killing the civilians.

I like the Bael-as-timer idea as far as its gameplay goes, but as a plotpoint it's always been... ugh. I guess we're supposed to assume that Novala is a knowing servant of Fomortiis and so has control of the Bael? But the way Eirika and company react implies that Baels wandering the mountains and coming down to snack on random people isn't really anything absurd-sounding, so we're sort of intended to believe that Baels wandering across half a mountain range to eat some humans is totally plausible. I can maybe try to attribute this to Malevolent Biology, that Baels are supposed to be Fomortiis' creatures and so engineered to seek the evilest action even if it's otherwise woefully impractical, except then we're running into the issue that monsters are reacted to as myths when we first encounter them so either Baels are not thought of as Fomortiis' minions -and there's a few other bits of the game that suggest the designers intended Baels as something more like fantastic fauna than demonic monsters- or... Eirika being surprised that monsters are real is sort of inconsistent.

It doesn't really add up, no matter how I look at it.


Anyway, Gilliam vaporizes the Solder.


Then Artur softens up the Fighter.


Lute weakens the Fighter further, gaining a solid level that, if she'd had the level before she attacked the Fighter, would've led to her doubling and killing him. Annoying.


Then Eirika finishes off the Fighter with her Iron Sword. I'm amused that she does exactly his health in damage.


Natasha heals Eirika, because she's running a real risk of dying if I don't heal her.

This is a good shot of how the "arm" snakes aren't actually coming from where shoulders should be, but rather are coming from the head and placed to look like they're coming from shoulders. (That don't actually exist)


Ross hangs out on the Forest tile and lobs his Hatchet at the Cavalier who attacked him earlier.


Lastly, I move Franz to the Mountain tile just west of Eirika and end the turn.


One Cavalier comes for Franz, but he misses, so we're still good.


The Knight pursues Vanessa and misses again, and you can see the Bael will be in range of the civilians in three turns.


The Archer moves to hit Colm for whatever reason, and gets the hit. Eh. Nobody else can reach Colm right now.


Another Cavalier goes for Franz, and also misses.


For some bizarre reason, Ross' Cavalier decides to attack Neimi. He lands his hit, but Neimi gets a not-very-good level out of it. Speed is appreciated anyway, I want her doubling things.


My turn. Colm tears apart the Archer and gets a good level out of it.



Artur softens up the Iron Blade Cavalier so Eirika can one-shot him with her Rapier and avoid a retaliation, and she gets another really good level out of it, missing Strength for I think the first time in three levels.


Lute softens up the Cavalier right next to Franz.


Ross breaks out his Iron Axe to take out this Cavalier.


Somewhat reluctantly I have Natasha heal Neimi.


Neimi chips this Cavalier so Franz can finally finish him off.


Lastly, Gilliam crosses the Mountain to completely miss the Cavalier. Oh well.

... the heck is going on in those motion blurs? That looks like a really horrifying monster, instead of a giant spider motion-blurring.



Anyway, Vanessa engages the enemy Bael, and to my incredible surprise not only lands both of her hits but dodges the retaliation between, dealing with it in a single turn and obviating the need for her Antitoxin.

All right then.

Also, Bright Lance putting in work. This couldn't have gone this fast in the unmodded game, as Vanessa is stuck with either a weak Slim Lance or an Iron Lance that's too heavy for her and not that strong anyway. Normally I bait the Bael out away from the civilians so somebody else can actually kill the thing.

Looking at the Bael's sprite here, I'm sort of surprised I never noticed that Baels are fuzzy prior to this Let's Play. Weird.


Enemy turn: this Cavalier throws a Javelin at Eirika. Whatever.


We're in the final stages of this map, by the way. All that's left that we can't see is the boss and a few weak goons.

I have Vanessa chip the Knight, because he can't possibly kill her. He hurts her though, which is a little vexing.


Colm rips the Priest to shreds.



Neimi chips the last Cavalier, dodges the retaliation, and, critically, reaches C in Bows -she can now use the Killer Bow I stole off of Seth a while back.


Ross chips the Cavalier and Franz exactly finishes him off.


Lastly, I have Natasha heal Colm before general moving up happens.


The Knight takes another shot at Vanessa, misses.


A Mage runs out of the fog and misses Eirika. I dislike this Mage, as his Thunder Tome means he often has a crit chance against an obnoxious portion of your forces, but he's otherwise not really a threat. He's basically a more general but less reliable version of the Halberdier -sometimes a run will just end because a character with low Luck happens to catch his attention and he actually rolls a crit off of what will usually be like a 1-2% chance, but most of the time he's only modestly threatening.

In fact, the very first time I played Sacred Stones, he killed one of my guys with such a crit. Aggravating.


Anyway, Lute wanders over and instead of killing this Knight misses the second hit. At least she dodged his retaliation.


Artur takes the kill instead.


Colm moves up, and now we can see all the enemies left on the map, including Novala. For whatever reason the hack has given him an Evil Eye instead of a Flux Tome. It's 5 points more accurate and 2 points lighter than a Flux Tome, with the same damage. I'm not sure why the hack did this. It does mean you can't force him to break his weapon, I guess?

Weird choice.


Anyway, I take a small risk and have Gilliam Sharp Claw the Mage, but I'm not sure any other choice would've been better. Fortunately, he lands the kill.


Then I end the turn like this.


Next turn, and Artur weakens this Soldier to get a disappointing level.


Lute finishes off the Soldier.


More moving up happens.



Finally, I have Neimi engage the boss. My hope is that she'll instagib him with the Killer Bow on one of her hits. She doesn't crit on either attack. Also I grabbed a screenshot of Evil Eye in action.

I'd intended for Artur to chip the boss, but his Luck is so awful that Novala had a crit chance on him. This was the least risky move available to me, in fact.



That's fine, because Colm swoops in and kills Novala, netting another fairly good level. I am now strongly confident that the next Thief I encounter will be getting his Lockpicks stolen by Colm.


For ensuring that no civilians died, I get an Orion's Bolt, which I assume will be Neimi's promotion item.

Then some more talking ensues.

Seth, why does Grado want my bracelet?
Well, instead of mentioning this back when I was sure Colm stole your bracelet-
Photographic evidence says otherwise, ya jerk!
-I will now reveal crucial military intelligence that you really ought to have known earlier, but which I did not reveal because reasons.
My military adviser explicitly refusing to provide me crucial military intelligence before in no way strikes me as an inappropriate course of action, and I will forevermore trust him implicitly to make good decisions that enhance my quality of life, even though he clearly can't be trusted to do so on his own initiative.
Now spill.
Your bracelet is paired with Ephraim's as a key to the lock that hides the Renais Sacred Stone.
Oh yes, because we're twins, of course there's mystical twin significance going on, completely coincidentally. Wait, but the Sacred Stone is on display at-
Fake.
Er. Why?
Because we happen to be the only nation that thinks ancient artifacts of importance should be kept safe from harm.
... really?
Apparently.
I think I just lost some respect for 80%-
Carcino.
-72.5% of the world.

Odd thing is, Rausten's Sacred Stone is the one that survives to the end of the game, not Renais', pretty much entirely because the plot doesn't move at all except in our hero's immediate vicinity.

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



Anyway, we're on the world map again. Only one map location to go before we reach the plot split.

See you next mission.