SS Chapter 12 Eirika: Valley of Gargoyles

As previously mentioned, this comes right after last chapter. You do get to save, but you don't get to do any map navigation. If you're playing this game as you would any other classic FE, this doesn't change your strategy at all.

Everyone is continuing their climb up to Caer Pelyn: we haven't arrived yet.

Eirika's... not taking well to the climate.

A good suggestion. Do the people of Caer Pelyn have to worry about the dangers of low oxygen, or do they get accustomed to it? I'd ask if Ewan ever had to deal with this, but that strays dangerously close to "does Ewan ever run out of steam", and the answer to that is always no.

...You know, as he says this, it's vaguely implied that Caer Pelyn is at the other end of this map. So does this map take half a day in-universe to complete?

...As maps go, I could believe that.

Seth's the one that suggests taking a rest here.

And Eirika tries to turn down this suggestion. I'm not nearly enough of a mountaineering expert to be certain, but I'm fairly sure this is one of those times you just go along with the people fretting over you.

Even Innes is struggling! Or rather, even Innes is letting it slip he's struggling. That's a bit more of a surprise for his character.

Their sprites aren't crossing the actually precarious parts of the mountain, but that doesn't mean a conventional fall isn't going to hurt. Have you ever actually tripped? Falling to coarse, rough terrain at speed hurts even if it's only from your body height.

Well, these ones. I'm sure the ones closer to home are more habitable-

Never mind, they're Buddhists. Why do they always congregate on barren mountains?

It's in capital letters, it must be important!

...We'll get to that later.

A valid question, but I feel like if Caer Pelyn was normally home to monsters, the people that live there would make a bigger deal over it.

If you want to fight some monsters and you live in peaceful times, you want to head over to Darkling Woods, where the climactic battle with the Demon King occurred.

The fact they're here is bad news.

Not to worry, Eirika's winded state is not mechanically supported, and we can treat her as we always have.

Saleh has brought himself along for this map, however, and we can't throw him on the bench yet. Luckily, we can filch his stuff first.

Saleh is Eirika's other exclusive character, and he desperately wants to be Pent from FE7. If you want him as a fighter, you can do worse, but he doesn't quite have the obscenely high base staff rank to lean on- he only starts with C, no higher than a freshly promoted Bishop Artur. If you're using Lute, he's probably not very appealing, and I can hardly say he's a must-use if you have other mages on your team.

This map is ugly when it's all mountain tiles. For anyone who is not on a pegasus, they have to make it through those narrow passageways up to the north. Well, they would, but this is a rout map and we win when all the enemies are dead- so it doesn't really matter where we are, but for the enemies in the north that refuse to hunt us down.

The mountains are filled with all three mountaineering monsters- gargoyles, mogalls and baels. Baels can't cross mountains fast, but we will have to deal with them- and they get the insane evasion boosts of peak tiles.

Up here, we can see we have an Entombed guarding a shop, and also two new species of monster- well, two related species.

In the front, we can see Tarvos, the monster equivalent of an axe-wielding cavalry unit. As a result, these guys are indeed weak against any anti-cavalry weapons you have on hand.

And our boss is the promoted Tarvos, Maelduin. Aside from facing the other direction, they are capable of using Bows, but are otherwise basically the same. This one won't move around and exercise his giant movement, though, and his weapon selection comes off as a bit wanting.

Saleh, thinking he's in FE7, pipes up briefly to mention "oh hey, I'm in the party now, here are my motives". Most characters did this in that game because of the Tactician, but here it's just kinda weird.

At least we get to see what happened to Ewan.

Ewan, the only character to try diplomacy on monsters.

Somehow I doubt he would've got far if these were humans.

He hid in one of those tiny houses. Despite being tiny lore-houses, their red roofs denote they give goodies. Also, since they're tiny, no enemies can burn them down- not that monsters are ever shown with that capability.

Here's Ewan acting like he's in a zombie movie.

He's just been attacked by a revenant, that might not be too horrible a thought.

Ewan is not going to leave that house until we give him the all-clear. Note that it does not have to be all clear when we do so.

Starting off, here's Marisa one-rounding a revenant. Is it bad I'm proud of her for this?

Tana's going into the south mountains and hassling whatever she finds there.

Vanessa, the north. North is more lucrative, which plays to Vanessa's favour, although because of how this map works, it's also inherently risky. We can handle that, though.

Everyone else is just piling in to a small space and preparing for a map of basically this.

Stupid gargoyles.

Stupider mogalls.

Whatever. Tana doesn't really need to be fighting these guys- I'd rather they went for Amelia and Marisa, but not all at once.

Speaking of "all at once", this map actually has reinforcements that spawn based on how "far" up the mountain you have travelled.

Sending Vanessa north has spawned them all earlier than the designers intended.

WTD? What's that?

L'Arachel pays zero attention to positioning and heals Marisa anyway.

Marisa'll be going forward.

Eirika wants to be standing next to L'Arachel, so in the chokepoint she goes.

Saleh cannot escape behind L'Arachel, however. This is not good news.

Lute goes to dispatch this bael, and look at that accuracy. Not the worst thing in the world, but when you're used to 100, that is a low number. Peaks are serious business. Ironically, these spiders are probably completely harmless once they escape.

I'm fairly sure that revenant can't reach her.

Never mind, that's just not going to be an issue.

Neimi brought Saleh back here, for lack of places to put him down, while Amelia tries starting on the doogs.

She gives better than she gets, but I still kinda resent her gives.

Vanessa plunges even further afield. Well, amountain.

You're lucky Tethys doesn't use swords.

Tana is not benefitting from peak terrain- she's just that dodgy. Baels are also kinda innaccurate themselves.

Down came the rain and washed the spider out.

These guys will not be missed. By either side.

Yoink. This is much better against human horse-riders than Tarvos, though.

Marisa's made some friends with the doggies. Also her HP is much higher than I thought it was.

Neimi drawing the attention of the puppers.

Fortunately, the one that goes for Amelia is the damaged one.

The ones with Javelins are the most irritating.

That's enough of your shenanigans.

L'Arachel, there's such a thing as too far ahead. Also, I'm not sure what the plan is for that revenant.

The Mag/Avoid is fantastic, though.

That is a choice. Not sure why I didn't even move L'Arachel first to get Marisa next to her.

At least I know who I'm healing.

...Not with Lute, I have too many other staffers who need the EXP.

Like Natasha. This is where I start regretting saving her promotion for now.

L'Arachel's coming back down here to help Neimi.

And Amelia, for want of the ability to stand next to Neimi, goes for the forest instead.

And even further north goes Vanessa.

She's doing just fine with her own spiders.

It's been ages since Chapter 6, and being scared of a bael on a peak is so old news.

...Mostly.

Well, if this isn't a fortuitous circumstance! Swords were the way to go here. Not that Lances would've been much worse.

This side is surprisingly harmless for being "the front side".

These two still being annoying.

Right, that's enough out of you.

(Go Amelia!)

More healing...

And it looks like we'll be keeping the wall here.

L'Arachel not healing anybody this second turn, just moving back next to Eirika.

And no, Marisa wasn't planning on retroactively ruining that plan.

Good thing, too, because Natasha can't go in to heal her either.

Tana's done in the south, though, so she's on hand to ferry people around these mountains if need be.

Vanessa's still working on hers.

Your time will come, doog.

Your time has come. That is a lot of crit.

Vanessa throwing a Javelin on player phase was her cue to throw some at Mogalls on enemy phase. This fight could not go any more perfectly.

Amelia doubles this one! That natural variance screwed her over.

Natasha is in with the rear guard now.

Fortunately, Amelia and Neimi can drag her northward.

SO MUCH FREEDOM! And yet I can't reach the bael.

I can reach this one!

Well, someone's getting fed a kill.

Not this one, though.

Marisa starting to dodge these puppies.

Look how far Natasha has made it in one turn.

Amelia gets the feed. Mostly because that bael is now off the mountains and she's probably going to be the one killing it.

As proven by Neimi pulling back rather than building more Support in melee range. I'm fairly sure the bael doesn't have enough move to go around and bite anyone- it doesn't have that much movement on the plains.

Like so.

Vanessa is running out of targets up in the north, so she's coming back southwards.

And Tana's just rocketing up the mountains without a care in the world.

Even on terra firma, baels need glasses. It must be hard finding an optometrist who'll prescribe one with eight lenses. And who'll also not run out of the room screaming in terror.

Eirika found her own bael. See above about its accuracy.

Annoyingly, it's in my way.

Not anymore it's not. Wish L'Arachel got more healing opportunities.

Marisa is getting in some fight scenes.

And I assume this is the limit of that bael's attack range?

Vanessa visits one of the houses.

The Great Dragon is a figure of religious significance to the people of Caer Pelyn. And honestly, that may just be to their detriment. Often.

...No? Barrier can be cast on a unit to give them +7 Res, decreasing at one point a turn until it wears off. Helpful against the Mogalls, I guess, but it's kind of terrible, really.

That is, except for one unconventional use: We have a staff that can be used on a full health unit infinitely. 17 EXP per cast on 15 casts, and this can be bought- just not in normal stores. This is L'Arachel's ticket to being a powerhouse unit.

Marisa taking damage is a universal constant, it seems.

Amelia finishes off her bug.

And gets a ton of points for it.

The doogs, at least, I expect to hit me.

At least I get healing out of it.

If the baels could hit you, we'd have words.

Right, this chokepoint is a thing.

L'Arachel is here for that point of healing Amelia needs.

And with Tethys's help, she can get started on her Barrier practice.

One down, 14 to go.

Once you visit a village, you are no longer able to cross the doors. This is maintained with the small houses, and it's probably more ridiculous here.

L'Arachel feels pain for the first time in her life and has no idea what to make of it. She also bonks the bael on the head with her staff.

Eventually, I'm going to start dodging these.

Killing the baels, on the other hand...

Wow, she got dropped to 1 HP? That Bael got the most of its screentime.

This is getting ridiculous. Also, at some point, I really do have to visit the house.

This is a long process just to get Eirika and L'Arachel to stand adjacent.

Tethys sends Vanessa to go check on Ewan.

On seeing someone from Eirika's party (which, impressively, he will recognise anyone), he volunteers to join the fighting. Something's telling me this kid has issues. We're just going to ignore every single one of those, by the way.

We just recruited our third child soldier, what of it?

The only reason Ewan isn't the worst unit in the game is because he uses magic to attack, which gives him free rein to a) avoid hits and b) deal enough damage to scratch enemies for kills. With that said, Ewan's still a hard sell- he joins so late that you've probably already picked your team out, and training him is so difficult without grinding- and even with it's not exactly child's play- that you're probably not getting a good unit out of him. A trained Ewan can be one of four classes, and he's pretty good at all four of them, but a trained Ewan is a luxury for the post-game, and why not use Lute instead?

Tarvos is also pretty inaccurate, although he is trying to hit a sword user. Also has some not-bad bulk- on the other hand, it's Marisa.

Eirika finishes.

Marisa continues to be the spearhead marching highest up the mountain. Also another Tarvos down in the east.

L'Arachel in the narrative: Cower in fear, monsters, for I am a queen and I shall crush you under my heel!
L'Arachel in gameplay: Two Barrier casts down, thirteen to go...

Tethys's Speed cap for Dancer is not 20, so she can still get dodgier.

For now, she's just healing Tethys.

L'Arachel is going to be so awesome once she gets a real weapon.

Here's Tarvos taking a swing at someone who doesn't have dodging issues. Also Amelia can one round, assuming she scores the double.

...Not sure why the camera is over here, but I do know there should be some more mountain reinforcements soon-ish.

Ah, yeah, right on cue.

Amelia's apparently going for the Entombed. We're starting to reach the point they don't give 100 EXP to everybody, so the unpromoted characters get first dibs.

Marisa gets the actual enemies.

Although Tethys is one square too far back for Support.

Vanessa's going to try and keep the gargoyles away.

Marisa is just fine against Bonewalkers, of course she is.

...

Vanessa is doing just fine for herself, although the margins are razor thin here.

Also Amelia found a gargoyle, not sure where she picked it up from.

He's not going to be a problem for either of us.

Especially since, you know, all the gargoyles are gone now.

So long, and thanks for hitting me.

L'Arachel lends a hand here.

And that's her out of the danger zone.

...So, you know, let's put Natasha there for no good reason. In hindsight, I have no idea why I did this.

Vanessa runs away from the gargoyle.

Tana gets Natasha out of the danger I put her in. This turn did not seem well planned.

Visiting the shop, we can find the usual sorts of stuff. Thunder and Shine are my preferred bread and butter tomes, while Mend is a bit too much for too little benefit.

...Does this guy just not move?

Marisa takes the gargoyle, for reasons I'm sure made sense to my past self.

This guy wasn't terrifying to Marisa at all.

...My past self does not get credit for this plan.

POWER OF THE RAPIER!

And also this ridiculously awesome level up. Eirika's got one more.

Also a Steel Bow drop. It was this or a Halberd.

Natasha finally got that level up. Not really worth going for the next one.

Dance her, heal her, and...

It's time for her to promote.

Natasha can choose between having a horse and having the Slayer skill.

Maybe I should've given her the horse for utility, but that would also require using two characters of the same class later and that would just be visually confusing.

Yay? Natasha is going to stick to staff-botting.

Play compare and contrast between L'Arachel and Natasha.

Now Lute is getting some points in healing.

Amelia scores the one-round!

Amelia has truly come into her own.

That's the map over, and it's time to get to Caer Pelyn. This really looks like a Seize map, but no, its Rout.

Say hello to the Elder of the Caer Pelyn people. Her name is unmentioned in the story, but datamining suggests it's Dara.

Saleh didn't find the Great Dragon where they thought she'd be.

And then Dara notices the people Saleh did bring with her.

Innes takes point on introductions, as if this is a game with a silent protagonist.

Look, she's talking!

Despite Saleh's suggestion, Caer Pelyn is proving to be a little discriminating. Well, OK- Dara is discriminating.

She means this really literally.

She can say that, but I'm sure it's not going to materially affect anything in our party dynamics. After all, we're not staying long.

Fortunately, that was good enough.

Fortunately, she has something for our battle injuries. Or possibly whatever happened to Eirika in the narrative.

Stares at her last level.

Someone may have to sleep on the roof.

It will probably be Seth.

Innes saying this is intended as "you don't need to house us, we're just passing through."

And Dara tells him not to kill himself.

Or Eirika.

Saleh called you Elder. I'd rather not call her Grandmother, but that's going to be what we see.

All right, these people are clearly Lore Keepers of some description, so what is it they know?

Let's talk about the Great Dragon.

She says this about Eirika, despite knowing Ewan. Is she really that young?

The Great Dragon is the object of Caer Pelyn's worship, although whether it's a god or not is still not clear from just this line.

It turns out the Great Dragon is connected to the legend of the Sacred Stones! Of course she is.

Oh hey, someone in the lore actually addresses the hero as Grado. We know the name from the narration, but otherwise the names of these legendary heroes go unmentioned. They really don't care about these four in this game. In Tellius and Fodlan, the identities of the Legendary Heroes and what they did are fundamentally important to the narrative in some way.

In this game, the Great Dragon is the only character from the Legendary Heroes era to still be alive and contributing to the story. Most other Fire Emblem games meet a medium between these two- one of the Legendary Heroes did something important, but they're still dead.

...It's been eight hundred years, lady.

From what I understand of the full tale (they don't go into full detail on the topic), it's really not that far from the truth.

The Great Dragon did something important here- he probably had a hand making the Sacred Stones or something- but only with Grado's strength was the actual victory secured.

I'm sure the Great Dragon was as happy for the human's help as the humans were for the Dragon's help.

And yet L'Arachel raises no eyebrows for being a monster hunter.

...OK, she raises lots of eyebrows because she oversells her competence, but no one questions her need to actually fight monsters.

Yeah, Dara is not one of my favourite characters. I'm not really sure if we're supposed to think Dara is in the wrong for this exchange, but she's a pretty poor argument for her position and while most characters who might care about her are sympathetic to her, they do like to give her a berth where possible.

Eirika points out what I did, in a politer turn of phrase.

Ephraim route goes into more detail on this phenomenon, but this is where we talk about it some more for Eirika route. We just need to mention it exists for now, though.

Hey, just like Myrrh!

Saleh went along as a bodyguard, because apparently Saleh is any good as such.

There are few conditions where Saleh is helpful for the Great Dragon's safety. This was one of them. Saleh was of no help.

Saleh lost the Great Dragon, so Dara tells him to go look for her. As if Saleh wouldn't do this of his own accord.

Eirika: "...Wait a second, I think I remember this foul energy coming up in this story before!"

And now comes the time to ask that question- so is Myrrh related to Great Dragon?

Apparently, not only is Myrrh the Great Dragon, but it is offensive to call her a Manakete. Well, in front of Dara. Myrrh didn't seem too fussed, nor will she ever really mind the fact the game considers her personal class to be "Manakete". In Archanea and Elibe, "Manaketes" are specifically dragons that transform into human shapes (as opposed to dragons who did not do this), and... actually, despite "Manakete" being a Fire Emblem trademark, I think this is the only continent where Manaketes are just dragons.

All right, let's stop pretending Myrrh isn't the Great Dragon.

She says "took the form", but I don't think this means anything except maybe Dara doesn't know as much about Myrrh as she claims to.

Myrrh is just fine, she's hanging out with her new friend.

...Now that I mention it... Ephraim isn't exactly the safest place to be on the continent.

He'll... probably be fine?

Never let it be said this woman doesn't have her priorities.

Saleh probably just wants to get out of this room.

...It is? That's... well, I'll take your word for it- Renais probably isn't the best place to go visit.

Saleh's going to travel with us until we get to Jehanna because it's probably safer for all involved. Everyone wants to reunite with Ephraim's travelling party at some point, although "when" is down to circumstances.

Fortunately, Saleh thinks things through. Well, fortunately for the people who want to play as him.

He also does this on Ephraim route. Eirika and Innes alone are less safe company than if everyone else came, but Saleh's a good addition to keep everyone safe.

Better than "Grandmother", I guess.

I am so grateful for that: Myrrh is so much more reasonable.

Saleh, helpfully, also knows how to get us to Jehanna.

At least she's helpful.

Saleh is indeed a little unapproachable at times, but I wouldn't really say he's so hard to talk to that it's part of his personality. Maybe Saleh tries to avoid her often.

Next time: Eirika does an Ephraim.