Bethany Plays: RD Chapter 4-2 Preparations: Stay Positive

I think at some point, they say outright that they give Tibarn the longest route because "it's Tibarn".

King Daein and Queen Crimea, in the same team at last.

Well, that's... fortunate. I presume that's about to stop soon, though.

This is a very fitting name for the content of the opening of this mission.

It seems they have other issues to deal with.

It's on us this time, though.

Obviously, if Pelleas is dead, it's just Almedha. There are good reasons for both happening.

Good reasons or no, Tibarn is sick of it.

Elincia is not going to let Tibarn leave them to the wolves. As tempting as it might be sometimes.

At least Reyson can use the chance to take a break.

...Although he's gotten better.

Reyson's physical fitness is not due to practice, sadly.

All the Order in the world has strengthened him. Being so sickly is a product of the Chaos environment being harmful to herons directly- turns out if you removed that as a factor, things would go just fine.

Reyson isn't too terribly excited about the fact that his strength is built directly on the corpses of others.

Elincia's also thinking about this matter from her own perspective- that after so long hoping for peace, taking stands against conflict as a rule, she's now in a world where she has it. And it's not at all the world she envisioned. To make this world peaceful without hard work and dramatic reform is to literally rob all the people within it of their agency. Sure hope that golden ending looks nice.

Cuts where it hurts. Although "ruined hers" is putting too much blame on ourselves. It's her standards that led to this mess as much as it was our actions.

Elincia:
皮肉なものですね…
ベオク、ラグズ…
そのほとんどの者が
石になってしまったこの世界は――
確かに、こんなに静かです。
空気は澄み、少しの澱みも
感じることはありません。

Reyson:
この静寂は…
かつてセリノスの森に
あったものによく似ている。
争いも憎しみもない…
とても穏やかな空気だ。

Elincia:
女神の愛したといわれる
セリノスの森……
いまのこの状態こそ、
女神アスタルテの望まれた
世界の姿なのでしょうか。

Reyson:
オレたちは…
この美しい世界にとって
調和を乱すものでしか
ないのかもしれませんね…

Reyson:
…おそらく…そうなのだろう……

Tibarn:
………

Reyson compares the Order-filled air of the silent world with the burned Serenes Forest. There's also a general air of "maybe we're just the ones disturbing the harmony".

Janaff, Ulki, depress us less.

The paranoia is killing Tibarn. If Janaff and Ulki are in other armies, I think it's Ranulf who spots them.

Ranulf himself doesn't seem to mind not being harassed by the Disciples. It reduces the odds of somebody dying.

Tibarn gives a very Tibarn response.

Honestly, Elincia, "he's Tibarn" is answer enough.

He thought a little harder about it than just "Tibarn want fight".

And it's an argument even Elincia seems to like. Or at least entertain.

Tibarn is of the opinion that Chaos is good for the world. Up to this point, we know we have a goddess of Chaos on our side, but we don't really stop and ask ourselves "why are we supporting this cause?". This is where the game starts to dwell on the nature of Yune and why she's a good thing to have around.

It helps that Ashera has given us something unequivocally evil to oppose.

Ranulf understands what Tibarn is talking about. This whole "not being attacked" thing has gotten them complacent. And when the battle is literally between Order and Chaos, there's something to this thought.

War generals have lots of Chaos. With Order hanging heavy, those same people are no longer the people they started as. Think about how the laguz emotions rise to a fever pitch with Chaos. That aspect of themselves is just... gone.

Which also means they are intelligent enemies, and not just the pure hive mind fanaticism of the Disciples of Order we have faced already.

This conversation is heavily dependent on Pelleas's survival, obviously. Serenes's script doesn't seem to list what the alternative is.

That would be because there is no alternative. I should've known "Almedha cries about how she lost Pelleas" wasn't going to be enough to carry a conversation.

Pelleas doesn't seem to be as fond of Almedha's mothering as he once was. Considering 3-E's opening, I wouldn't say this is too unexpected.

"Always" such a sickly little boy? Is this, perhaps, referring to Pelleas as a baby?

Pelleas doesn't want to be a burden on Tibarn and co. For all his faults, he always was very much a man who wants to do the right thing.

Almedha has a different opinion.

She certainly has a huge opinion of herself. Perhaps that's why she didn't care much about helping Daein.

An unironic usage of the semicolon!

Pelleas pushes Almedha away.

...Literally.

...

Well, that's some family friction to worry about.

That is to be expected considering how much EXP she got, but I feel like Nailah kinda deserves it more? I'm clearly not the judge of it.

Two Base conversations today, and both are exactly what you expect if you follow the pattern.

Reyson is the guy running around digging for treasure.

...Although it sounds a lot more hilarious coming out of his mouth.

Even Tibarn is like "you wot?"

Of course, of all the herons, Reyson totally would be the one who could talk to Yune. He's the most Chaos-resistant of the bunch. Ironically, Reyson's version of the heron class has the lowest Magic cap, so he's the worst Card user.

Another Satori Sign. All three battles gave us one of those- Mist found a Holy Crown, but there was still a Satori Sign hiding nearby. Who does the game think these are for?

Tibarn wanted to go treasure hunting too! Or probably just making sure Reyson doesn't get jumped by Disciples of Order.

Cute. I can see the shipping.

Tibarn honestly feels insulted he got outfoxed. Even if "outfoxed" means "Reyson didn't wake him up by moving around slightly". Perhaps he's been relying on Ulki to pick up audio cues too heavily. Doesn't sound like him.

Reyson tells him to get some sleep like a healthy person.

...Well, that certainly can't help. Nightmares or anxiety? I think Tibarn's probably more the latter kind of guy.

At least the Order helps his optimism. For a given degree of such.

Into the convoy with you! I don't think these can be sold.

The Twins refer to, of course, Jorge and Daniel. Aside from not splitting up your twin characters, this also ensures the JP Forging mechanic still makes sense, as much as it needs to when the rest of the inventory management is so wild.

I'm sure one can guess what this gift is going to be.

Not that Elincia is in much hurry to take it for free. She seems just as concerned about the merchants' needs as her own.

Which is exactly why she's getting the gift! How very self-sustaining!

I'd say something about supporting the economy, but how much have I actually bought recently?

And Elincia gladly accepts it.

The SS Fire tome.

So valuable, even Elincia can tell. To be fair, she does use staves, that's more than most non-mages.

Yune's protection, most likely. I wonder who else was in there that wasn't named. Those random soldiers are probably very confused right now.

...Wouldn't Elincia be in that building? She'd probably be somewhere rather than cooling her heels in the snow and hoping for everyone to stop beating each other's brains out.

...Somehow. You better not just be stealing those!

That, we can do, though.

Tibarn is technically the Lord here, but Elincia is the character who has actually held the Lord stick. This Part is honestly where trying to ascribe "Lord" status gets hairy.

This baby is Sanaki's ultimate weapon. (Not pictured, +3 Spd for equipping). It is also an option for Calill and Tormod, and that is the rub of bringing one of them to the Endgame. Because of the way Endgame works, it's kind of expected that every character has a powerful unique weapon to call their own, and if you want Calill or Tormod to bear Rexflame, Sanaki has to choose something else. Ilyana and Sanaki, in contrast, can wield Rexflame and Rexbolt without stepping on each other's toes.

There's the spare Discipline! The other one was on Calill, but she can keep that, she still needs it. This one is going elsewhere.

Laura is also one of the last Tier 2 characters we have to worry about. The second-to-last one, to be precise.

Let's fix that. (No extra Defence, but that's actually not that big a deal.)

Another character who somehow got less swish on promotion. Despite yellow being my favourite colour, I think the blue fit Laura better.

25 Speed. And this woman is fast. Welcome to raising Laura.

Also, that was the easiest canonisation ever, I didn't even need to be anywhere near a church. Or dead. I wonder if Yune's word counts for canonisation...

Well, she's keeping Discipline, but I'm sick of this.

Say hello to what happens when you get a level 30 homegrown laguz tribe. Brute-forcing Parablossom isn't just "doable", you can do it while also bringing 30 more capacity in the bargain. Some of this Capacity is supposed to be for your Mastery skill, but why would I bring Rend when I can have Provoke Parablossom?

The six skill limit is probably partially designed just to make sure the laguz royals can't pull this sort of thing. Nailah, especially, with Glare, Formshift and Savage locked into her skillset, she doesn't have room for exciting builds like this.

This is also our first chance to harvest Tibarn of his two skills. That's our first Saviour scroll as well as Pavise- if you thought we should have one by now, it's the one Fiona comes with.

Resolve+Vantage is a weirder choice, but Lucia needs something to keep up her survivability while she finagles her way through the unpromoted levels. Vantage hopefully means she can crit first.

Another Wyrmslayer for the pile, if you want one. I don't.

If I wanted to stand behind this, I probably should've done it by now. I guess it's better late than never.

Finally, something for this army to fight!

They sneak past Janaff and Ulki with their teleporting trick, but they're not always here anyway, so it's not something they explicitly need to account for.