And a face scar to match the rest of them. Well, a helmet scar.
"The blood-stained right hand". I guess that's true, but it's not a particularly obvious connection.
Because Micaiah spared Jarod in the first place.
Jarod decides to spite Micaiah at all odds.
Oh, this gets so funny later. Still horrifying from a general perspective, of course- not because it's someone from Begnion, but because he's just going completely rogue.
Very Rhea of you. Imagine destroying the lives of the citizens in your capital building just to spite your enemy.
At least this is less destructive than fire.
But still... those are our families in there.
Well, not lost for words, we have words to say.
"Endgame", that's how you know this will be the final Daein map, no more surprises. I suppose a first-time player doesn't know the game will be using this, so they don't expect the fakeouts to be fake.
So much for 'lost for words'.
The general sentiment, of course, is still there.
And we're back to 1-8, where Micaiah is asking Pelleas to approve a mission where Micaiah saves the people that Begnion is senselessly sacrificing.
And Izuka is back to his "we must win over this insanity" opposition.
Sothe has no idea how Izuka can be so heartless. The working theory is that he tore it out of himself long ago.
Well, if it worked the first time...
Give us one good reason, Izuka.
It turns out, though, that Izuka does have one good reason.
Yeah. That.
Micaiah has been... perhaps a little too independent.
- Izuka:
- ああ、助かったとも！
それでその娘は自分の名を
これでもかというほど上げた！
【暁の巫女】！
誰もが口々にそう言って
この娘を救世主だと祭り上げている！- Sothe:
- それは元々、
あんたがそう企んだから…- Izuka:
- 愚か者め！ この娘１人がそうなるよう
誰が企んだというのだ！
見てみろ、軍の兵士たちを！
もはや誰も王子を見ておらん！
今後、この国を統治するのが
誰であるのか完全に忘れておるのだ！！
Sothe's like "dude, wasn't the whole reason we were hired to put Micaiah's name on this thing", at which point Izuka points out that he didn't mean "EXCLUSIVELY Micaiah's name."
The game helpfully flashes back to a quote from Jarod that highlights the issue.
Micaiah is the rallying symbol of Daein, not Pelleas.
Which is bad news when Pelleas gets crowned, because the people will still be looking towards Micaiah as the head with all the power.
And if they think Pelleas is too weak, they might try to cut out the middleman entirely!
That would be a civil war and a half, even if Micaiah had no intention of engineering the circumstances that led to it.
Pelleas dips out. Either he can't stand the attack on Micaiah's character or he doesn't like the idea that his people think so little of him that they'd kill him to have more Micaiah.
I love the blink frame on Micaiah.
Izuka points the accusation for how things have gone down at Micaiah deliberately, and this is when he stops sounding sane. That first point, though, that doesn't change regardless of Micaiah's intentions.
Sothe is starting to worry about Izuka's power desires.
Pelleas asserts himself. For once.
He knows full well that he doesn't measure up to Micaiah.
Uh... Izuka, you're the one who made the point.
I wonder how competent Pelleas is in combat right now. He's a potentially recruitable character and he's higher levelled than our core crew right now, but lore-wise, he honestly strikes me as the sort of person who's never so much as seen a real battlefield.
Micaiah, on the other hand, has pulled Jarod into a half-nelson and used her legs to kick the rear end of his battalion with no help whatsoever from the Black Knight.
But if Pelleas is going to become King, something has to change.
Pelleas will do what is right.
And that is... stand and give a speech to the army.
...He's not doing great.
Dear goddess, it's worse than we thought. Izuka, is it really so bad if we just quietly make Micaiah Queen now and save us the headache?
(To rub it in, the Daein soldiers all audibly laugh at this line.)
Pelleas's meagre confidence has failed him.
This is very bad.
The Black Knight has a solution!
He taps his sword to the ground and the Daein army all stands at attention. Faintly audible mutterings all quiet down (there has been no music in this scene so far.)
…And so, beloved friends and comrades dear. With thanks to you, our capital lies close! And if we do not act, if we turn back, the war still ends with us the victors proud, and Daein’s rule still falls back to our hands. And if we choose to fight and free this town, we may enrage the empire once again. Thus Daein’s fortune turns to sorrow swift. But while I speak, Nevassa’s hardship grows! Our brothers suffer, our sisters die, and…
The Black Knight certainly did a lot in one sword movement.
The Daein soldiers slowly contemplate it, before...
One spearman leads the cheer.
And the rest of the lance users follow. The myrmidons have no cheering animation.
The Black Knight's job here is done.
親愛なる解放軍の諸君！
３年以上にも及ぶ、
苦しき時を乗り越え…
僕たちはいま、王都を目前にしている。
このまま何をしなくとも……
帝国の視察団が到着すれば、
我々は再び
国を取り戻すことができるだろう。
だけど、本当に…
それでいいんだろうか！？
駐屯軍の最後の抵抗によって
いまこの瞬間も、
我々のネヴァサは蹂躙されている！
同胞たちの命が奪われている！
しかし、ここで…
駐屯軍に手を出せば……
もしかすると……
再び帝国との関係に
わだかまりが生じるかもしれない。
そうすれば…デインの復興は
難しくなる可能性だってある。
それでも、ぼ…いや、
わた…いや、もう僕でいい！
それでも僕は、目の前の惨事を
このまま見過ごせない！
１人でも多く、デインの民を救いたい…！
だから力を……
みんなの力を貸してもらえないか！？
Pelleas's speech in JP. I think he says something about if they make the wrong choice, they could make their relationship with Begnion rather frosty after the fact.
I don't even know why I bothered checking. We all knew the result.
...Now that's sloppy of me, I didn't show off the Base conversation screen. Valuable real estate is being taken up by that MVP Record! Fiona and Volug are the only people who want to speak to us, and both of them have treasures.
Fiona has a Light tome she would like to give to Micaiah.
To Micaiah's surprise. This is an odd response.
Fiona is happy to be here, despite her skill level.
Snorts. Well, OK, we'll be singing a different tune later on, but right now, Fiona is one step above "active liability".
At least Pelleas did the right thing.
Hopefully to laguz and Branded and not just beorc! Don't get your hopes up.
Micaiah is proud all the same.
Fiona has faith in Micaiah.
Look, the game made its choice when it decided the Support library didn't fit, but Micaiah is the sole female-only Lord in the series continuity to not be sapphic as hell. Her major conversations with Vika in 1-8, Jill in 1-9 and Fiona here have tried their best.
Micaiah has a faster Support speed with all of them, but on the other hand, she has a faster Support speed with quite a lot of Daein characters. I do notice, though, that she's more choosy about which men she has an increased rate with compared to the women. She literally has a heightened Support speed with every single character I am actively using.
Fiona, where the hell did you get that, and were there more of them? This is the only spare Thani you get, but at least it makes up for how much we had to use it in the earlygame. With that said... I don't see Micaiah getting through both Thanis before we reach the end. I'm probably conservative enough that she'll still be using the first.
So what does Volug have for us?
[I got it from the ruins in the desert.]
Micaiah can understand Ancient just fine. Well, she spoke it in the opening, but this is the first time we see her demonstrate. Somehow. I don't think Volug has actually spoken aloud unless you got him a Support conversation. If you can read Ancient (I doubt it, just use the translations), Volug's Supports are great.
[No, not quite.]
How non-specific of you.
Micaiah picks up on that.
[You should keep it.]
Funny you should phrase it like that.
[I’ll catch up to you later.]
That's a phrasing too.
It's Volug, don't question it.
Look, I won't turn down the money, but you went all the way back to the desert for a Blue Gem?
...Now that I think about it, it's very slightly strange that this is given to us in Gem form when we could've just gotten cash instead. Yeah, we did get 10000G last chapter and had no real reason to spend it there, but, well, it turns out that receiving a Gem, specifically, has some fascinating strategic implications.
There's no real reason to, but I harvest Rafiel's Blessing scroll anyway. If you're playing in the North American version, the Blessing Scroll is called "Sky Boon", because the devs didn't expect you to remove them and didn't update the name from the original literal translation.
Also, yeah, Blessing isn't the Heron's "Occult" skill anymore. I'm not sure what is, though, I've never actually tried giving a Heron a Mastery in this game. I imagine it's just outright impossible.
I also harvest this Guard from Nailah. Not only is she not going to get much use of it, but considering she has 65 Capacity for two Skills, she doesn't care about having an innate. The most expensive freely editable skill has 25 Capacity, and laguz can't even equip it!
What, did you think we'd get the Black Knight as a permanent party member? I think the most hilarious part of this screen is that the Black Knight we eventually fight is a different character to this one internally- you can't feed this one stat-ups to make the later one harder (if, for whatever reason, you wanted to do so).
Aimee has extra stuff in her Bargains today. Arcfire is a B Rank Fire tome and Arcthunder is an A Rank Thunder tome, both with the purpose of being the equivalent of Heavy weapons to fit between El-tome's "Steel" and Tornado/Bolganone/Thoron's "Silver" (Shine is the equivalent for Light magic). I do not snap these ones up. The Master Seal is similarly a bad idea. I do like that Olivi Grass, though.
Steel Heavies have been added to Muston's regular inventory. I also snap up some of these for the regulars. The full setup, though, I'll share once we're done.
Micaiah very obviously puts herself under Pelleas.
Pelleas reminds Micaiah not to kill herself saving the people.
Our objective is set. Let us march to meet it.
And a bunch of people who won't be joining the map follow Micaiah. This panning sequence goes all the way out of the camp, and every time the end of the line passes some new Daein generics, they join in. Of the people with faces in this, only Laura will be in the mission.
Begnion has spotted us!
...Being a good person?
You just got here.
It is worth noting that Jarod walks out of that doorway before he starts speaking.
If the latter doesn't happen so quickly you do not experience the former.
Until you either die miserable and alone or get dragged back into option 1.
The camera has been slowly panning down through the soldiers as they've been lined up.
Jarod may be the worst kind of bastard, but he owns his role and doesn't hide behind excuses. Even now his people have abandoned him, he will maintain principles to the last.
If you're playing on a slower text speed, the soldiers will wait to start moving to their deployment positions until "Now GO!" appears.
This will be Jarod's final battle, for real, this time.
They just didn't come up with an excuse this time. Not sure why Tauroneo can't come when Nailah and the Black Knight can.
Our party of ten seven is untouched. Sothe and Volug are just pushing Nailah out of frame, no one else.
Leading the charge is Micaiah, unchanged from last mission. She'll go back to not actually contributing, because of the whole "gains zero EXP" deal she suffers from as a Lord. What's left of Ellight has gone to Laura, although she can't use it.
Jill will be using the "extra" movement to fly up the gaps and wreak havoc. Some more Javelins to shore up her Lance rank, but she's got more or less enough.
Fiona has one specific purpose here. These stats haven't gotten any better since the last time we looked at them.
Also, to show it off, indoor maps like this one reduce mounted unit's movement by 2. This is also affecting Jill, but Celerity balances it out. The game doesn't show -2 and +2 for her.
Laura gets the Paragon scroll. Honestly, she kinda wants Discipline, since she's a ways off from Ellight (Ellight is a C Rank tome).
Ilyana gets her inventory filled with Gems, things that are basically Gems, and a Skill I don't care about (and don't expect her to use). This isn't going to be very subtle from me, but Ilyana is not going to be sticking around the Dawn Brigade. Yes, I am intentionally pulling "so long and thanks for all the gear".
Meg gets Discipline. I guess her Lance Rank was really in the dumps. Armour Knights are actually decent picks for Renewal because of their high HP and Defence, and Meg has the Resistance to really seal the deal. With that said, it's still 3 HP a turn.
Vika also won't be staying with the Dawn Brigade, but she packed both Olivi Grasses anyway (hey, if the Dawn Brigade doesn't have female laguz...).
My goal is that when Vika leaves, she will have S Strike for her next appearance.
Nailah's stats are the same as when we last saw them (well, halved, because she doesn't start transformed). Nailah will also be leaving the Dawn Brigade, but I gave her Pass anyway so she can follow Jill and mess up key targets if necessary. The Dawn Brigade will not miss Pass in the future.
And, in the spirit of Endgame (and possibly having too many images anyway), we'll be doing the combat in a separate post.
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