We have another marshy map, filled with Feral Ones to put to rest. And in the centre of it all..
The madman Izuka.
Here's our deranged lunatic, holding the SS Dark tome Balberith. That +3 Strength bonus is thanks to it. His Speed is low enough that pretty much everyone with prospects can double him, but his Resistance is huge. His Defence is pretty bleh, but his HP is enough that it might take something more than a stiff breeze to deal with him. That's a huge 53 Atk to worry about, too. And yes, he will use that Rewarp staff if he feels like it.
Izuka also has the Flare skill, so you know, either have more than 53 HP, pack Nihil or tread cautiously.
One Authority star, too. Somehow.
The Summoner class is unique to Izuka within the world of Tellius, but it is not exclusive to it. Summoners first appeared in Sacred Stones, where they possessed the same capabilities listed here- Dark Magic, Staves and "Summoning". Sacred Stones Summoners could summon Phantoms, creatures with 1 hit point that were basically as disposable as FE9 Tanith's Holy Guard- one at a time could be placed, but it was infinitely respawnable. Izuka's Summon works differently, as we'll see.
The one Green Independent unit is Volke, hiding in the back. Peshkatz is the S Rank Knife, the best of its kind, and he also has a Stiletto and a Silver Knife in backup. Also pictured: I'm bringing Pelleas for one reason I'll bring up later.
For now, we need to recruit Volke, a deed that can be done with Bastian or Elincia.
Elincia, as a candidate, is... well, I doubt she's particularly prepared for the political world that requires the services of the... "fireman".
Volke responds to... "fireman" more readily than his own name. Probably to avoid arrest, although how well this works when you just have a new identity to track is its own question.
Elincia asks if Volke is interested in pitching in to bring Izuka to justice.
Volke is. ...For a price.
Oh, yeah, by the way, he's not kidding. If you want Volke to join your team, you will become 3000 gold poorer. Regardless of whether you plan to use him, this is worth it.
This may be an excuse to weasel out of paying it later, but on the other hand, Elincia probably doesn't actually have 3000 gold pieces on her person. Well, maybe if you sold things she has on her person, you could easily scrounge up that much cash, but it'd be more convenient to just wait until Elincia has access to her bags of gold than steal her armour and pawn it off later.
With the promise of payment sufficiently met, Volke agrees to perform the service.
Elincia decides to ask what the point of Volke's habit of charging people for everything is. Charging for his services as... "fireman" is good practice. Charging for eating meals with everyone like a normal person is insanity.
Volke, in true Volke fashion, cash-gates his answer.
As Bastian put it last game, whenever Volke doesn't want to do something, he quotes an exorbitant fee and hopes the other person goes away.
It tends to work for him.
Volke is now ours. He'll find a way to not contribute to this map. So what does Bastian have to say to him?
Bastian: Ah, my partner in crime. How shall I convince you to move those leaden feet of yours into action? How much “convincing” will it cost?
Volke: Three thousand.
Bastian: I thought I was the jester. Considering your usual schedule of services, three thousand is negligible!
Volke: I don’t like that guy. Call it a personal discount. Do you want it or not?
Bastian: Of course I shall take your discount! Do as you wish when you see him. Now get to work.
Volke: Understood.
Bastian: I almost pity old Izuka…
This is a beloved conversation of Bastian's, and with good reason. I do have to wonder what Izuka did to make Volke offer the assassination order at such a discounted price. Well, OK, there are several good reasons someone might have for wanting to murder Izuka, but which does Volke take offense to?
If you don't have the cash to cover recruiting Volke, the ending of the conversation changes. Elincia's is pretty curt, but Bastian has plenty of flavour.
Elincia: Ah, I see…Unfortunately, we would need time to prepare that much gold.
Volke: Then negotiations are over.
Elincia: H-hey!
Bastian: Of course I shall take your discount! Do as you wish when you see him. Hmm? Hold on…
Volke: What is it?
Bastian: It seems that I don’t have three thousand on me. May I pay you later?
Volke: That’s not like you, Count of Fayre. No money, no deal.
Bastian: I suppose it was too much to hope for credit. How could I forget? It’s so uncharacteristic of me!
To his credit, Bastian could attempt to cheat Volke in some way, but he accepts his failure to pay in good humour and moves on.
Lyre starts on this guy. This isn't lethal, but it could help...
Oh yeah. Lyre is now basically a Royal without Formshift.
Time for the overkilling mastery skills.
And the relatively pathetic EXP gain. Nailah gets worse, admittedly, although laguz do tend to give a lot of EXP in turn...
All right, time for the last showing of the Wo Dao!
You've gotta be kidding me, really? I guess it's to be expected, but...
Fiona finishes this cat. We need a safe space for Pelleas to stand over here.
Calill can get a few oneshots in with her effective weaponry, but not all of them.
Laura finishes the line over here. OK, yeah, there's a space to her east, but at that point, there's little mayhem the tigers could get up to.
Astrid did have the choice of moving in such a way that she was adjacent to Calill, but that would mean Pelleas would have a harder time doing what he needs to do.
Tibarn picks up Volke and hangs around here. Technically, I think this does manipulate the behaviour of the enemy faction, but considering how this map works, I don't care. (I'm told Izuka can Rewarp to this part of the map and have vague memories of seeing it).
Lethe is going to kickbox her way through the enemy. Beastfoe makes her weapon Effective, and since her weapon is currently rated at 18 Might, that's 54 Atk plus her 17 Strength. Which is how she's able to get so much damage on this guy even untransformed.
Excellent numbers. Speed cap.
Lethe took hits from both tigers, and is now at Resolve range, allowing even her relatively poor speed to double tigers. Cats are a little more difficult, but their lower defence means Lethe should be able to manage enough Atk to oneshot them anyway.
I gave this woman Blossom. Strength cap.
Izuka summons new Feral allies every turn he's not doing something else. These Ferals cannot act on the turn he summons them, and usually (although possibly not always) will not attack on the next turn.
Incidentally, while we're talking about the enemy, Izuka is not a Disciple of Order and thus actually represents a return of the "Bandit" phase jingle- a jingle I don't think plays for anyone else except Pugo and probably Pain & Agony.
Lethe moves forward, and eats a Vulnerary to stay in Resolve. I don't feel this was entirely the correct decision in hindsight.
Without Resolve, Lethe didn't finish one of her tigers, and thus Laura has to do the rest of the work. She does so with a crit, for some reason.
Lyre is going to stick around next to Lethe, making me wonder if perhaps I ought to have kept their Support anyway instead of trying new things. Their Bond means Lyre is still giving Lethe Crit and Dodge, but neither of these things are helpful to Lethe.
This is why I brought Pelleas. Soren's boss quotes were included in text form because bringing Soren was just way too much hassle (especially since both maps he needed to be on to get his secret had full deployment), but this boss dialogue is so big a deal that I almost have to show it visually.
Time for Pelleas to confront his mistakes.
Izuka is still trying to treat Pelleas with the respect his false position should show, but he clearly doesn't respect Pelleas enough to do so.
Considering the working theory is that those who aren't petrified have "power", this is probably an insult. Izuka isn't really working on that theory with the rest of us, but I assume he probably does have an adjacent guess. As a Spirit Charmer, I wonder if Pelleas has any special protections.
And Izuka uses his position of good faith to try and subvert Pelleas and get him to see things his way.
Pelleas knows Izuka is a bad actor now, though, and is no longer prepared to swallow his rhetoric.
Izuka's happy to shed the pretenses. I wonder how much he enjoyed being Pelleas's crappy advisor. He probably hated at least one of those three words.
Bit of an odd comment, but Izuka does seem to be pretty aware he's about to die, even if Pelleas is a pretty bad candidate for finishing him off.
This is the deed that Pelleas focuses on, but Izuka has (somehow) done far worse to Pelleas personally. Although "putting a death curse on the heads of everyone in Daein" is pretty bad.
Good question. The answer is not in this conversation, and in fact, I'm not even sure where Izuka is from. The artbook suggests he is, in fact, Daein, and also that Izuka was promised pardons for his crimes if he worked for Begnion.
Izuka is still hung up on how offended he feels about this. You'd think he'd be capable of the tiniest bit of realisation that maybe people actually care about laguz lives, even if he doesn't think of them as sapient.
I'm sure you abandoned your work when he asked you. Perhaps Pelleas actually enforced it. It'd be the one thing he actually did.
And Izuka confesses something that is of zero surprise to many people: Pelleas was never supposed to be king in the first place. A modern reader might surmise that by looking at him. Even our incompetent government officials do a better job at faking being competent.
Pelleas was not expecting that.
And this is why I showed this conversation off, primarily. Pelleas does figure this out on his own if left to his own devices using alternative clues, but this feels like a line that should have been delivered through other means to having Pelleas take a potshot at Izuka. Although maybe the free Fenrir you get before this map is a hint to try.
"Pass for" is a really important point. Aside from having the same hair colour as Ashnard, the child of Ashnard and Almedha has one fairly distinctive identifying trait, and Pelleas can falsely pass that test.
In a world before DNA testing for parenthood, the only evidence of biological relationships is the word of the parents (usually only the mother, who has one fairly obvious means of proving a given child is her own) and family resemblance, or lack thereof. Almedha's word is the only thing that Pelleas really has to prove his familial connection to Ashnard.
This is a fairly good counterargument. Not only is this fifteen year gap enough to remove Almedha's advantage of "having birthed the child", but she's clearly unhealthily latched onto Pelleas, is this really because Pelleas is her son?
Or did she just want to finally close that chapter of her life and pretend all was well again? Look how badly she's reacting to Pelleas trying to assert some independence for once in his life.
Pelleas can't really do much about it.
Fiona, who has innate Saviour, will take it from here. Pelleas is going to spend the rest of the map on Fiona's horse.
Elincia has some distance to make to reach some enemies, so heals up Calill as she goes.
Astrid and Calill have their Supports as they move to prepare for that dragon in the swamp. For trying so hard to get Astrid out of Makalov-hell, Calill doesn't seem all that interested in being Astrid's new outlet for her knightly feelings.
Elincia and Lucia have a chat, too. Surprisingly disparate, but not in a significant way.
The dragon tribes have three main traits: Hit hard, lots of HP, and bad Skill. Red ones are also physically bulky but magically weak, so Calill with Elthunder is a good choice for getting rid of them.
This is not going to come close to oneshotting him.
...I appreciate Lethe having less pressure, but why Laura?
Oh, Laura doesn't kill you. That point in Magic should straighten things out.
Lucia gets that most rare of outcomes: a critical hit with a Wo Dao!
It's so rare that she had to get a bad level to compensate.
So yeah, Lethe was in a lot of danger over here. With Resolve, she's only getting something like +17 Avoid. Which means these guys had about a 77% chance of hitting.
At least that's some extra Avoid to be working with.
One crit was enough for Lucia this turn.
Lucia finishes the cat off this turn.
There's an Olivi Grass hidden in a 2x2 square in this area, and this is Lucia finding it. Even if Feral Ones had a use for it, AI doesn't seem fond of doing so.
Astrid picks up Calill to ferry her to the combat quicker.
The front lines are moving away from them, and Astrid wants no part in the swamp.
Light rank!
Lethe uses a Concoction this time, to try and keep her strength a little longer.
And this guy really needs to die before he gets ideas about approaching Tibarn. Tibarn's not in range, but I'd rather not risk it.
Elincia and Lucia have this chilling chat. It's hard to think of Lucia referencing "slipping past death's door" without thinking of Execution...
Laura was making sure she attracted the dragon's attention.
Laura pulls out another of her weird crits. Ilyana really has rubbed off on her.
Fun fact: a Laura crit wasn't enough to one-round this dragon. She needs Magic badly. The dragon was left on one HP- it just hasn't finished scrolling down all the way at this point in the animation.
Elincia brings out her sword on some cats while Lucia begs for EXP.
It would be nice if Elincia got a few more stats, but Speed is her most important target right now.
It took me by surprise, so I didn't get a chance to show off another shot of the fourth hit flip, but this is a full combo Astrum.
At this rate, she's going to keep doing them.
Laura also attracted some non-dragon attention.
She's one rounding them fine, and getting some decent stattage while she's at it.
Lethe continues to kickbox.
Blossom. Six stats still available to stat cap. Lethe. Please.
I feel obligated to applaud for the crit, even if this tiger is not actually dead.
Oh. Joy. Birds.
This is a tiger Lethe killed, despite the continuity the images imply. If Lethe somehow doubled a raven with 27 Speed, I would be very concerned about what qualifications these ravens have.
Elincia has designs about attracting that dragon whose range is highlighted, but I also kinda don't want to separate these two girls. There's also some birds I can attract too while I'm here.
Lethe decides she's going to spend the next turn transformed. There's a lot of enemies up ahead, and she's going to need the edge a few rounds of transformed combat will give her.
Laura also heals her up this time. No Resolve, but transformed, that won't be an issue.
Astrid drops Calill. I'd like her to take potshots as she moves through this complicated thicket mess.
Fiona's just attracting the attention of those birds if needed.
Lyre is here for Lethe Support again.
Laura attracts some attention because she has a staff up. Good for Staff rank and comedy.
Lethe is just fine when it comes to fighting cats transformed. The EXP is the concerning part.
Go Lucia!
Actual Strength this time!
Oh, yeah, this. I guess if we somehow sent Vague Katti over to this team (possible if we didn't recruit Stefan), Lucia would need to wait before using it?
She certainly shouldn't be using this sword.
Bye bye, terrible sword.
Look, just because I don't need the crit doesn't mean I won't take it.
And there are those birds.
Elincia wasn't interested in them, apparently.
More Speed! More Strength! This Elincia is going to do some damage.
Frequently, plenty of it!
...Elincia had a lot of anger to get out against the world this turn.
There were two birds that Fiona could've poked, but only one took her bait. The other one went south to investigate the Crimeans.
And Lethe gets another bird.
...Resistance Cap. That's three caps total.
Some more cats, and...
Yeah, there's a reason I transformed her this turn.
She's still going.
HP/Spd caps. That's five caps total now, and now her level ups are going to be a heck of a lot more boring.
Laura also gets to whack another raven upside the head.
She's really getting good work out of this.
Lucia takes on this tiger, and sadly, doesn't really get in better position to let Elincia handle the dragon.
Just pretend that 40 Crit doesn't exist.
Lucia sure is.
Elincia heals her up.
Laura heals Lethe, too. Staves are her main Rank concern.
Lethe's going to continue to kickbox. She has Blossom, technically.
And now we have backup to clean up all the miscellaneous messes being left.
Good stats.
And also some archery for the birds.
This one was just a good idea to shoot with a bow overall, the Effective thing is just a bonus.
Fiona really not doing that bad for herself. She's a good Silver Knight, she's just got huge problems as a Lance Cavalier. Which is... the important part.
Bow rank.
Lyre is done giving Lethe crit bonuses, she's going to go off and do her own thing.
Heal Staves are good for crits. Those crits are not good for dealing with enemies, but it's a true fact.
More Staff rank for hitting tigers on the head!
And Lethe's not really getting into Resolve anymore.
Well, she's not capping Magic.
Elincia did what to a hawk? No wonder the game reckons you're a physical unit and not a magic unit.
Now that we're dealing with Izuka directly, we start seeing the freshly summoned laguz's hesitance to attack on their first action.
Despite not being freshly summoned, this dragon didn't seem interested in taking the bait.
All pretense of keeping these two together goes out the window so Elincia can fix this.
With extreme prejudice.
SWORD RANK! Wait, why am I cheering?
Lyre also didn't wind up attracting her dragon's attention either, come to think of it. She doesn't give this guy as thorough a beating as Elincia did, but she does give him something to think about.
Lethe's going back here. The idea is she takes out those two beasts on that island and then lives on it, her level cap met.
First off, that requires dealing with all the enemies over here.
Astrid got this.
Her omnicaps. At level 12. What you see is literally as good as she gets. Well, we do still need to get the SS Bow in her hands.
Oh boy, this dragon has a hit chance on Lyre!
Oh no!
Not a great sign when you leave something alive after omnicapping.
Lyre is doing just fine, thank you for asking.
Lethe. Lyre can get away with this level up.
Oh, and one thing to show off: the stun you get out of Rend is actually a different flavour to the one you get out of Stun. I'm told this kind is a weaker variant that allows you to attack, and actually PoR Stun does this variety while PoR Roar did the good kind.
Second try's enough to Rend this guy down?
Clearly not. Let's get Lethe in range of these island beasts.
Some more tricky movements to get the priority targets down. We can't let the birds live under any circumstances. Beasts can be controlled.
Not actually a perfect level, but since she doesn't need more than 19 Strength, it might as well be.
Laura takes on a cat at melee.
Meaningful Corona hit. Possibly. 17% isn't much of a long odds for a natural dodge.
Another great level out of Laura.
And Fiona continues to prove her Skill deficiency doesn't mean much. Luck cap.
Elincia and Lucia want to attract attention from the south, but Lucia can't wade through muck at speed.
Damn, this is actually the cat I left alive with the main knot of units. Well, Lethe is wasting a kill's worth of EXP.
Unrelated, but Lyre is also now fighting unshifted.
And Lethe is also using Resolve, but with some pretty high HP.
...Luck cap.
Lethe didn't need to dodge this one!
Lethe is going to stand here for the rest of the mission and tap her palm with a lead pipe to convince Izuka to go someplace else.
By the way, she didn't cap Skill. For some reason.
Lyre heals up with a Concotion. I plan on getting her a full shift next turn if she can take these guys.
Elincia flies up, takes a Feral, and flies back.
Elincia is prospering just fine without Blossom.
Calill takes the chance to crit with Elthunder, which I'm presuming is for a dragon coming up.
Time to make some ground on Izuka.
...I am clearly a former math teacher. How the hell have we gotten this far and I don't recognise a failed kill?
This ought to kill.
And Laura is done with her ranks! Saint is one of the few classes we can get multiple SS ranks. Saints, Micaiah's tier 3 class, Ike's Vanguard, the Black Knight's version of Marshall, and one class we're not going to talk about. Saint, of course, being the only generic one in the batch.
Lyre is doing just fine. This is also giving her tons of TP.
And Lucia attracted the attention of this dragon.
And Lyre gets some more untransformed combat in.
At least this is more than three stats.
Lyre got a kill? 12 Dmg is good, but still.
More Luck. Fittingly.
Get rid of the dragon...
And Lucia doesn't move any closer thanks to the tiger. She had the Wyrmslayer for exactly this situation...
Laura heals up.
And one of Izuka's new summons is being taken down.
Yeah, didn't use two spell casts.
Resistance cap.
Fiona's taking on this bird. We're more or less done over here.
I think she's got five caps, so this isn't horrible.
Lyre is using a Vulnerary? While surrounded by enemies. I'm going to assume she's transformed, because this is dumb otherwise.
Calill gets a crit off, too. This is probably helping Lyre.
Empty levels are a good thing in RD. The only way you can get them is with omnicaps. About the only downside is that other characters will probably still have stats to gain.
Yeah, Lyre is transformed, good.
You already oneshot the raven, did you have to Rend it?
And some more summons this turn, including another dragon! I feel like I should've been counting these, after the point about Ena's "no more than ten" from PoR. Although at this point, these Ferals have to be necromancy just to be consistent with that line.
This dragon is finally down.
And Laura's favourite level up. This is a very special level up!
Skill/Speed caps! Let's talk about Laura's major downsides. 31 Speed.
Say hello to this raven Laura cannot double. 31 Speed is not sufficient to double quite a lot of things in Endgame. Laura... we grinded her. For this. The early Tier 2 phase was her best phase, but... I've brought her to Endgame, but yeah, this isn't worth it. If you have an actual defensive line for 3-6 that doesn't need Laura, don't bother.
Fiona is also not really in doubling-that-raven territory, but the hawks are fair game.
Calill deals with the raven. She can double ravens with capped Speed.
Apparently she can't get good levels with that.
Just keep stabbing things that aren't Izuka.
Some more of the same combat rounds we've been seeing.
Speed! Actually, she could've doubled that raven...
Well, Izuka has Rewarped over to this island. He doesn't Summon on this turn, of course.
Lyre gets closer and Olivi Grasses up to prepare for Izuka's next summons.
Lucia can finally get on land again!
And Elincia has another dragon to take out.
And some more kills to pick off these last Ferals on this island.
Of course the dragon goes for Lyre...
And a round of summons.
Now then, here comes the bad news: left to his own devices, Izuka gets terrified and runs away to the island in the south Elincia tried and failed to bait a dragon on. There's no convenient way I deal with that. He has to die this turn.
Lyre can do this, at least.
Oh yeah, Calill picks this up. It's in a 3x3 square around here, with this being the top-left corner of it. There's also a 2x2 of Olivi Grass in the south-west swamp, but screw it.
Fiona gets one more kill, and...
Elincia uses the Rescue Staff on Lucia.
I want Lucia scoring the kill. Sure, a laguz is probably the most fitting choice, but of Izuka's many, many boss quotes, Lucia is the most fitting pick that isn't "feed it to Elincia again".
Well, OK, she knows quite a few of Izuka's crimes, but not which one got Bastian to put him away.
As a matter of fact, she doesn't know the crime which got Bastian to pull the trigger. And neither does the player. Yes, Izuka gets worse.
Lucia was quite happy to kill him over the laguz thing.
Bold claim, difficult to substantiate.
And Lucia is happy to put an end to Izuka. The worst part is that he can't die multiple times.
Although I'm sure with Lucia putting the dents on him, it's going to feel like it.
Final verdict: Not Mia.
And the world is a better place for it.
Don’t you see? If I am harmed, my knowledge will be lost! Can the human race survive such a tragedy? If you fools cannot see the larger picture, you will have to be destroyed!
Izuka: Ah… You must be the hawk king! Understand that my work was never intended to harm the laguz, specifically!
Tibarn: No power on Tellius will protect you from me. With your death, I can finally lay my brothers’ souls to rest.
I find that very difficult to believe. At least the hawk tribe need not fear Izuka thinning their numbers.
Izuka: Elincia, the Crimean queen! Are you here to seek revenge?
Elincia: Revenge? On whose account? What are you talking about? I am arresting a dangerous fugitive.
Guilty conscience? Izuka has good reason to believe this is Elincia's goal, but it's kinda tipping his hand to suggest it to her.
Izuka: Hm, a heron. I was disappointed with the results of my heron trials. Your frail bodies succumb to the poisons too quickly.
Reyson: Despicable butcher! This forsaken place will be your tomb, and it won’t be soon enough!
I'm imagining a heron Feral and am not even entirely certain how it works. Driving a heron to a constant Chaos state would indeed destroy it from the inside.
Ranulf: I saw the results of your experiments at Gritnea Tower. The mutilated bodies… the rotting flesh… It was the most horrifying experience of my life. I wonder if my nightmares will pass when I kill you?
Izuka: How could you not see the importance of my beloved research? That was my life’s work!
Ranulf: Then it is appropriate that you will pay for those terrible crimes with your life. My long-suffering kinsmen, watch as I destroy your tormentor!
Wow, it must've been real bad, if it gave him nightmares three years after the fact. Good thing we didn't see it for ourselves!
Izuka: Have a care, Crimean count! If my knowledge dies, so does your only hope of saving that man!
Bastian: Hmm… it’s true that your knowledge is a valuable asset.
Izuka: Ah, my noble count! You are most merciful!
Bastian: I have some knowledge of anatomy. Once you are dead, perhaps I will dissect your brain and see if I can identify the root of your intelligence.
Izuka: Y-you monster! What you suggest is unconscionable!
Bastian: Exactly, yet you had no hesitation before doing worse to the laguz. I will speed you now to the afterlife, where you may contemplate your life’s egregious mistakes.
I'm fairly positive that dissecting Izuka's brain to learn anything about what he knows is Hollywood science, but I wonder why Izuka draws the line at brain dissection. Once he is dead, he doesn't care what happens to the carcass, does he?
Izuka: They’ve broken through my Feral Ones! I must create more!
Geoffrey: After the war against the Mad King, I always regretted not capturing you. Prepare yourself for justice!
You're clearly just here because Izuka was your responsibility.
Izuka: You! You’re…
Volke: …under a new contract. Good-bye, Izuka.
Izuka: Feral Ones! Kill him! Do it now!
I have to say, there's a non-zero chance that Izuka somehow paid Volke to let him go and give him a head-start, and that's why Volke's so keen to hunt him back down. Probably complete crack- this is why Volke only takes one job at a time.
- Izuka:
- ひぃっ！
き、貴様は……！
- Volke:
- ……闇に堕ちろ。
- Izuka:
- な…”なりそこない”を……！
もっと…！！
I feel like there's something there, but I just don't quite spot it.
Zihark: Izuka the Cruel… You are the author of this atrocity against nature? What gives you the right to perform your vile works on the laguz!
Izuka: The sub-humans are perfect subjects! What could be wrong with using them?
Zihark: …She always told me not to let anger and hatred get the best of me, not the let them guide my blade… This will be my only exception.
Why exactly Zihark in particular gets a quote is up in the air, but he's a pretty good choice and he makes good use of his screentime. We also get some more content on Zihark's girlfriend. Someone who tells Zihark not to let anger guide his blade is very not laguz-like, which helps make her an interesting post-humous character. It also hints at an off-screen character arc for Zihark where he changed from an aggressive man to his in-game mellow and helpful state. I guess one could describe Zihark as "the main character of a tragic romance novel, but after the events of the story, where he's on the road to recovery and exercising the morals he learnt."
Anyway, we got this. It's not worth anything except cash to us.
When you kill Izuka, all Feral Ones still around instantly drop dead. Of course, dragons have a longer field death animation than tigers, which is why that tiger is fading and the dragons are still keeling. If you use some Rescue staff strat to kill Izuka turn 1, the sight of all the Ferals dying "at once" is cool.
Nothing could kill him enough times.
We've killed him and that's that, though. Dead men don't torture people any further. Unless you let them.
Reyson sings for about half a minute or so. The rest of the loop plays over the dialogue until the next scene... which is about two lines or so.
Whether those were the ghosts of Ferals from PoR or brand new ones, the time has come for their suffering to finally draw to a close.
- Ranulf:
- 狂わされ…利用され……
死んでいった仲間たち………
この歌で…魂だけでも
救われましたかね……
- Elincia:
- …ラグズの鎮魂歌ですね？
- Tibarn:
- 亡くした友のために
流された涙を歌にして捧げる……
そんなようなことを謡っている。
- Elincia:
- ………ベオクの言い伝えでは…
死者は…その者のために
流された涙の分だけ…
女神から安らぎを与えられると……
- Tibarn:
- ラグズも同じだ。
生者の涙は、死者の魂を清め慰め…
女神の元へと還らせる。
安らぎをくれるのは……
どっちの女神なんだろうな？
- Elincia:
- 【正】の女神アスタルテ
【負】の女神ユンヌ………
この世に神が……
２人もおられたなんて……
- Tibarn:
- ………
Elincia and Tibarn discuss the rituals for the dead that beorc and laguz perform. Both cultures include a bit about the tears that are shed for the dead purifying their soul to be received by the goddess. This last bit is also used to wonder whether the goddess to which they are being received is Ashera or Yune.
Now who could be calling out to Bastian out here?
Ah, yes, Jorge and Daniel were probably not the best choices to keep a grip on this guy. At least Amy wasn't asked to lend a hand.
...I hope.
This is a big deal, and not before damn time, we're getting some answers on who this guy is.
With the question of whether Jorge and Daniel can keep his company asked, I have to wonder how well Bastian can do the job. Bastian is physically more adept than Jorge and Daniel, but he's still a mage and a politician first.
That would be because this man and Count Bastian are old friends!
To be precise, this man is Bastian's old boss!
Elincia's uncle, too. Renning was occasionally referenced in the opening of PoR as the foremost Knight of Crimea and Crimea's best hope against Ashnard. He was said to have died getting Elincia out of Melior and, as soon as Ike and Elincia were sure of this fact, stopped being a relevant character to the story.
However it was he survived, it doesn't look like it was an easy win.
He's not responding to Elincia. Bastian was a better choice because, presumably, Bastian was a more familiar presence to Renning than Elincia. Not that Renning was hands-off with Elincia, but...
At any rate, Izuka has decided to test what the Feral One drug does to beorc on dear old Uncle. Presuming it has something to do with the nature of Chaos within military heroes.
The question of the hour is, can it be undone?
Clearly not by begging.
Tibarn is unfamiliar with Duke Renning, so it's a nice excuse to exposit who he is for the people in the audience who either didn't play PoR or also forgot about a relatively minor character.
This is something that came up in PoR Chapter 5 and was important to the plot of PoR and RD Part 2- Renning was named Ramon's successor before Elincia was born, and Elincia was hidden from the public to avoid the embarassment of Crimea having to change their minds on the subject.
Renning, of course, allowed Elincia to take the throne on account of being believed to be dead.
We've been over this, he's been Feraled.
Although if you happen to know how it happened, that would also be nice to know.
Bastian does happen to know a little bit about that!
Renning was such an excellent knight that he did, in fact, survive his battle with Daein.
This impressed Ashnard so much that he tried to recruit Renning onto the winning team. I'm going to assume Ashnard gave him the choice directly before resorting to this- it sounds like something Ashnard would do. Actually drugging him after all is an uncharacteristically pragmatic decision to bolster his numbers rather than killing people for failing. I guess, strictly speaking, at no point did Renning actually fail anything (other than holding Melior from Ashnard's forces, but clearly Ashnard was willing to overlook that).
And we at last learn the identity of Bertram! This is hinted at by Elincia having dialogue with him and Volke/Bastian A being set for after Chapter 26 and involving Bastian making an urgent discovery he wants help with.
I mentioned, back in PoR Chapter 26, that if you overlaid Bertram's portrait with that of an unused one in the game's code, it would fit surprisingly well. I left out the detail that the portrait was of someone who's design appeared elsewhere in the game. Yes, PoR was datamined before RD's release and this overlap was discovered. There's also a bunch of evidence in PoR's data that Zelgius is the Black Knight, too.
Bastian just cleaning up after all the Four Riders we killed. I presume he also grabbed Bryce's Wishblade, although that doesn't turn up in his hands in this game.
A fair reason not to mention it, although that does leave him with an insane former government official to hide.
Bastian needed him cured, and he went to no small lengths to get that done. At least this isn't the sort of job that requires Volke to kill people. Often.
Izuka was the man in charge of the Feral Ones, and was in no real hurry to hide that fact. In fact, he bragged about it to anyone who would listen.
And he also wasn't exactly keeping a low profile, either. Volke may have been overkill for this mission.
- Bastian:
- 対峙してすぐに気づいたのだ。
狂王の【四駿】ベウフォレスこそ……
我が主君に間違いないと。
それ故、一旦は死したと見せかけ
我がフェールの城に連れ帰って、
密かに治療を施していた。
体の傷はほどなく癒えた…しかし……
精神は混乱したまま、
いっこうに回復する気配もなかった。
そこで我輩は【火消し】を使い、
レニング様を元に戻す手立てを
探らせていたのだ。
手がかりを得たのは、
奇しくも我輩がデインへ
足を踏み入れてすぐのことだった。
- レニング様はイズカなる男の
人体実験により、このような姿にされた。
そしてその男は…
新しきデイン王の側近となり、
我輩の目の前にいると……！
我輩はすぐさま行動を起した。
【火消し】と共に、イズカを拉致し…
フェール城まで戻ったのだ。
Bastian trims a bit of the exposition, as is to be expected, and also makes it more explicit how "him being sent to Daein" was actually a bit of a coincidence as far as this project was concerned: Bastian did not expect to encounter Izuka there, but it was hard to miss him when he did.
So Izuka was kidnapped from Daein after Part 1! Bastian had no interest in subverting Daein's rule, as Almedha suggested (and I maintain that Izuka's removal from Daein improved its capacity for rational thought), but the guess was actually surprisingly close, considering Sothe seemed to be considering "he betrayed us and ran".
Izuka: "This is the most anyone has cared about my precious crimes against humanity!"
- Lucia:
- あきれた人ね……
他国の重鎮を攫ったあげく、
クリミアに戻って来ていたですって？
私たちには、何一つ、
知らせもしないなんて……！
- Geoffrey:
- 姉さん、ユリシーズは……
レニング様を回復させる手段が
見つからなかった場合を考え…
隠しておくほうがいいと判断したんだ。
それで……
Lucia wonders how the hell Bastian got away with doing this in Crimea itself without telling Elincia. They didn't want to raise false hope of success. Which I don't think answers the question.
I mean, considering beorc don't turn into animals and claw anything within range, an obvious deduction. Although Bertram wasn't that far off.
Izuka was still interested in his freedom, for obvious reasons.
Bastian wants Renning cured, but he doesn't want Izuka to be allowed to do things of his own free will.
We never needed an antidote for the condition in the first place. The whole "kidnapping" thing seems mostly to be to find out Renning was Feralled, and then we just needed to go say hi to the herons.
Elincia goes straight to Reyson and requests it. That should be the end of it, right?
Well, there's a catch. To an extent.
Reyson isn't going to demand any payment or anything, it's Reyson's skills that are in question.
It turns out he means this pretty literally.
This is the catch. By all accounts, Reyson should not be able to do this alone. If we had Rafiel and/or Leanne, it would be a few minutes of their time at most. Reyson alone? Needs a little bit more.
Fortunately, that "more" exists in the world- Ashera's Order state is giving the Herons greater abilities than what they usually possess.
Reyson is hoping that, combined with the lower target he needs to hit, he has enough power to do the job on his own.
Tibarn tells him to pace himself. Might be a little bit late on that lesson, King Reckless.
Reyson has drawn a proper rune circle around Renning to perform his magic rite in! Here's the tune he sings.
And everything is better! Ignore the grunting noises, those will pass.
He looks like everything is OK!
He just needs a nap.
Never let it be said we gave Reyson no credit for his work.
Reyson needs a nap too. He looks pleased- probably because the Feral Ones are gone for good from this world.
...Yeah, technically she deserves credit for helping Reyson out.
I wouldn't say that, though.
- Tibarn:
- ああいう光景を見せられると、
そんな気分にもなるがな。
だが…それはまた別の話だ。
おまえ、また
正の気に流されてねえだろうな？
- Ranulf:
- だいじょうぶですって。
オレは…自分を見失いません。
女神が敵だとしても……
戦いますよ、最後まで。
Tibarn has the expected "Don't go soft on her just because of this" reaction here.
You'll have to hear it second-hand, we'll not be bringing you.
Lost a few turns of BEXP, but better than letting Izuka teleporting away. I think this team is fine on CEXP level ups, the BEXP is more valuable, although it could be considered the case that the CEXP is more valuable to some teams, especially in Normal mode.
Next time: The Tower of Guidance.
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