Bethany Plays: SS Chapter 12 Ephraim: Port Town Aero Dive

It's time to land at our destination. Well, our destination: Not sure where L'Arachel was planning on going, but she's with us now.

Oh hey, look over there, a generic blue soldier! Haven't seen one of you since the prologue!

No soldiers at the docks? Clearly this is an ambush, since there's not much place Ephraim could go after escaping to (and being spotted in) the ocean.

"A simple path" is not the same as "an easy one". Hell, dealing with Grado in the open just invites more warm bodies.

Well, until we kill the generals.

We're cutting away after this.

Saleh and Ewan have made their appearance here, for Ewan's recruitment.

Marisa is also here, for ridiculous (in a fun way) reasons.

Ewan's here to clean up after some idiotic error.

They put Marisa in the wrong army, on the opposite side of the continent to where her mercenary mates are.

There's putting her on the opposing army to Gerik's deployment, and then there's this.

There are a number of things that can go wrong if Ewan doesn't do this, although which ones you worry about differ from person to person.

Saleh's going to go back to Caer Pelyn to go join Eirika's party.

If he had stayed, perhaps he would've seen Myrrh. Maybe.

Ewan: Will join our army and be as reckless with magic as Ephraim orders.

He'll stay in this house until you visit it.

Myrrh noticed something- and I don't even think it's Saleh. Although it'd be cool if the random cutaway to Saleh was directly relevant.

Ephraim is engrossed in dealing with whatever it is Seth is proposing. Reservists appear to be the portion of the army that spend most of their lives as civilians, training occasionally to refresh their skills, so an army can pad their numbers in the event of an emergency.

...Where did we even get reservists? Are these Renais, Frelia or Grado recruits? Fire Emblem does its best to skirt around where all the generic people who turn our group from "a war party" to "an army" come from, mainly so the player doesn't spend too much time worrying about them.

The Warriors protagonists do just fine. And hey, we're already a good chunk of the way here.

It's called "we brought that convoy for a reason."

Abandoning our convoy is a risky gambit that requires us to win and seize the enemy's resources, or we just screw ourselves over with no backup plan.

...And considering Ephraim's been through that situation in Act 1, I can't blame him for trying to avoid that.

Seth is trying. He's just far too set in ways that aren't really helpful, but he's in the sort of world where they're encouraged because the downsides don't hurt too badly.

He seems to be putting a lot more emphasis on Ephraim's life than the reservist's, and Ephraim makes it his job to make that as hard as possible.

Ephraim has finally noticed Myrrh's been hovering over his shoulder.

Mood. I do this all the time.

Myrrh goes and runs off to try and handle things on her own.

If I knew why she did this, I'd sort this out in my own life.

This is an alarmingly bad time for Myrrh to run away and deal with her own demons.

I don't really think this is a "trap", though. I think we sailed into port fully aware this was probably going to happen.

We have a job to do: Get off the boat.

Well, OK, the "getting off the boat" part is the easy part. The hard part is going to be establishing a beachhead. If there's one thing you learn from playing Advance Wars, it's that it is incredibly difficult to turn a beachhead into a proper assault.

This map is indeed a breather mission after Chapter 11, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have any methods of making your life harder than it needs to be. Also, there's a map-defining set of reinforcements to worry about.

Fighters and shamen over on this boat.

And a compilation of everybody over here. And two archers, to make any attempt at flying in to go seize Ewan harder than it needs to be.

The square I'm hovering over is an "Inn", which is a weird mechanic that appears twice on the GBA and I don't understand it either time. It doesn't do anything mechanically, though.

Ewan's house, a Vendor, and an Arena up here.

And up here, we can see Marisa and the boss... a Hero.

Hello, Caellach. I dunno about you, but that feels a bit out of my skill level right now.

Don't forget to keep your eyes out for some Killer weapons.

There's also a Guiding Ring on one of these Shamen.

These two lovebirds team up on this front.

While Joshua aims more towards the pirates.

Cormag is taking the left, with the axes as backup. This is where I make a sheepish admission: My notes for which Support pairs I wanted were admittedly not formatted the best, and thus it's not until the end of Chapter 14 that I realise I want Artur and Cormag in a mechanical Support. I'm not sure who I thought Cormag was supposed to be Supporting instead, but prepare to see Artur and Cormag non-adjacent while still fighting together and this bothering me I didn't work on it sooner-

Caellach doesn't have any fondness for Grado, apparently. Not the greatest trait for a general to have.

Imagine being a mercenary for all your life, wanting to have the recognition and reputation of a proper organisation, finally getting it... and finding out the soldiers aren't as well disciplined as your former mercenary friends.

I'd probably be a little annoyed too.

There are worse fates. Still pretty embarassing, but the man has earned his reputation.

Caellach is the most sane of the new Imperial Six members, but never forget he's still a little twisted. There's a reason he joined with Riev and Valter.

Artur may not completely slaughter human enemies, but he is still Lute-lite.

Ephraim is just wiping these out.

...The ones that engage in melee.

After his first volley, Riev shows up to say hi to Caellach.

He has noticed that Caellach's job was to destroy the Sacred Stone of Jehanna and here he is in Grado.

Now what Riev is doing here, on the other hand...

Caellach is convinced that his cunning plan is doing itself. And to be fair, I think it is. Depending on what parts of the plan we see he's already done.

The desert country throwing mercenaries around as its main economy has a less-than-stellar political structure that is vulnerable to subversion? Woooooow!

To be fair, Caellach is not only a former Jehannan, but he happens to have come from a place where he might be more exposed to these problems than most people.

Riev has shown up to tell Caellach he's screwed up by not babysitting his evil plan.

Successful on its own or not, he probably should've done that anyway.

I thought the fruit wasn't very edible as Caellach describes it.

...The capital? But Caellach is needed in Jehanna!

At no point has Riev set the blame for this on either Glen or Valter. Caellach jumped to that conclusion on his own. To be fair, as far as he knew, dealing with Eirika and Ephraim was their jobs, and look who's dealing with Ephraim now.

Valter is still useful enough to Riev that he doesn't entirely appreciate the thought of killing him on the spot.

Recall that Glen is dead, so he won't be useful to anyone.

That's what Valter said. Although he didn't want to win against us. For reasons only he can be clear on.

Why are you keeping him around?

Riev reinforces Caellach's men for him.

...You know, I'm not sure who this "certain someone" is. The Emperor, perhaps? Might be something that makes more sense in Japanese- Caellach is notoriously not particularly interested in making friends.

Caellach is swayed by this argument, making his departure.

And the map is filled with monsters. The big guy with an axe in his former position is our new boss.

Spiders down here...

Gargoyles back there.

This was a monster map in Eirika route, and it's a monster map now.

This is a moderately satisfactory means of handwaving the oddity of both human and monster enemies fighting under the same banner- I'm fairly sure this is the only mission in the game where this happens. Obviously, the fact Riev is leading the monsters is probably helping the humans, but the monsters are surprisingly well-trained.

Fire Emblem wouldn't have a proper "two enemy factions that are hostile to each other as well as the player" until Three Houses.

It says a lot I was worried about this. But yeah, Joshua can deal with Fighters in one round now.

And with luck, that should keep up.

Cormag is doing just fine.

...He just needs the healing.

Ross switches positions to take point against the gargoyles.

And Artur heals up Cormag's injuries.

Colm weakens a cavalier for Tana. That's a plan and a half.

...You mean Tana didn't dodge either?

I could run in and heal, but those Fighters are going to be an issue.

Leaving it for next turn it is.

If nothing else, Joshua is in no danger, it's purely a question of time how he's going to handle this boat.

Ross, somehow, is in even less danger.

Well, he took one hit, but apparently this shaman ran out of 2-range spots and decided to get hit with some iron.

The axe was no problem for Tana. Because of course it wasn't.

No idea what you expected.

Yay, Cormag isn't in so much danger!

...I suddenly feel like Tana dodged a bullet as well as some Fluxes. Those were not horrible odds of dying.

Adorable.

I think that mercenary is new. He's going to cause some problems.

...Also, everything over here is 2 range except him.

Ephraim, taking point by killing the Fighter.

Colm's job is to help Joshua cover this boat- he's only one man.

L'Arachel is just fine.

And Tana's going to be throwing some javelins around at some mages.

...So much for that guy.

That's a pegasus knight level.

I suddenly notice this guy is going to be a problem for Cormag... and child's play for Ross. Although I would prefer Cormag to be getting the kills.

He goes back to deal with the last gargoyle anyway.

Good to see Joshua's doing fine against the mercenaries, too. I think his jitters might not be an issue.

...This mercenary is showing off some interesting smears bouncing off Ross.

It'd be nice if Cormag had some Defence if he's not going to dodge. I don't like him losing 8 HP on a physical hit.

Exploiting a Reaver weapon never gets old.

Joshua is going to be having a lot of fun over here.

...Tana, less fun.

Also, Colm has a hostile crit rate on him. Granted, that's a Short Bow...

All right, plan of attack. (Note that Tana didn't kill a mage on her turn, but well...

We have bigger problems behind him.

No more Short Bow.

Colm stands here and Vulneraries, a thought process that in hindsight, I am very confused by. He probably couldn't kill the archer.

Ephraim takes the time to switch Joshua off the one-use Iron Sword, mostly so I can keep that.

Tana would Rescue-ferry him to the front lines, but right now we need to make a tactical withdrawal anyway.

Healing time.

Ross oneshotting a Doog when he can't double it.

Without having Garcia Support.

Cormag makes a tactical withdrawal- he can kill the gargoyle anytime, I'd just rather he be closer to the rest of the action when he does.

It says a lot about either Colm's underlevelled-ness or these mercenaries that Colm is not only not dodging, but it wasn't in his favour that he would.

...I think the more surprising thing is that there was a spider over here at all. I don't think I screenshotted it?

This one, we knew about.

Colm may not do it well, but he is not dying, so he's doing it well enough.

L'Arachel takes a hit. Natasha hit the bench and Artur's on the other dock, so we're stuck with this for the foreseeable future. Better hope we don't need to take another hit.

Right, you need to go.

This feels like it solves no problems.

This helps.

...Wait, did Tana not finish her bael? Panic mode induced.

Thank goodness for this.

He's doing his best!

He, on the other hand...

Can you believe I still have the Hatchet?

Garcia gets to fight a bael.

Garcia gets to beat the bael. He's not that different from Colm, looking at the stats, but axes and Ross Support really bring him up.

Tana starting to make sure this goes better. Although she's still not actually killing the baels.

...Er, apparently never mind? This is a different monster, though, so I expect one's still out there.

There is no fire element, those fangs are no different from any other kind of Fang the Doogs can throw at us.

...Of course Tana can't kill these. They must be real fast.

Colm making my job just that little easier.

I'll be taking this, please.

"Smite him, oh mighty smiter!"

Colm is nothing but speed and he's not doubling. He's not capped, but that says loads.

I love oneshots.

The boat is down. Time to move on.

About that far. That archer is less of a threat as long as Tana stays out of his range, although what happens next depends on whether he moves up.

This guy must've been a reinforcement.

That brief time away from Garcia Support made Ross take a hit.

Hey, he's running out of numbers to go up.

Could've been so much more convenient than this...

(Why didn't I move Ephraim up for Support?)

Everyone else makes their way up in due course, although Joshua will take his time.

The archer apparently decided Ross was the way to go. Bold move.

And Artur heals up his many injuries.

This is getting ridiculous.

Tana's setting up for the mages, so why not engage at range here?

Although I wonder how much I should've bothered with this formation...

Cormag's taking the bonewalker.

Ross Visits.

This is our first encounter with Ewan on Ephraim route, as opposed to him being someone we already know, and while Ewan manages to be Ewan no matter what, he is more circumspect around strangers.

Although it makes the fact that he joins our army all the weirder. Ross and Amelia have more concrete reasons for being child soldiers, while the game doesn't seem too weirded out by Ewan going "I can totally use magic like a real combat mage, can I help beat up the bad guys?" (He doesn't even have enough ideological standing in this war to know which side is the bad guys and why).

As an aside, Ephraim route Ewan brings a Dragonshield instead of an Energy Ring.

Artur is making it back over to this side, and not a moment too soon. I'm worried L'Arachel might be taking another hit in the near future.

Also I may need multiple healers to deal with this.

...Wait, you're not using a Javelin?

Ephraim: "See, Tana, this is how you fell a bael!"

Also, here is Ephraim being not-very-concerned about a Killing Edge. Is what I would say were it not for Ephraim's already massive wounds meaning this would actually have brought him to scary levels of health had it crit.

He's still getting buffer.

At least we can dodge bonewalkers with Toxin weapons.

Yeah, see, Ephraim was also dancing with this guy, which is why I was concerned with the first Killer weapon. To be fair, assuming all the other attacks went as they did this turn, the only way Ephraim dies here is if both killing weapons land their crits: Ephraim would survive a crit and a normal hit.

Also, Tana gets to take out the mages because the Killer Bow attacked from the north.

Oh wow, Artur needed healing too. That probably helped him come here.

L'Arachel's first level on the Ephraim route, and she's getting started on preparing for when she gets a weapon.

Killing archers with pegasus knights never gets old.

Nor does Tana getting Strength and awesome levels.

As impressive as it was he could have survived that onslaught had it been more severe, he does need the rest of his HP.

Yay, Defence! 9 Defence is fairly impressive for a magic user in this game.

Colm kinda getting ahead here...

Ah, hello, Ewan is here to show us that this Inn can be Visited.

We get some generic man tutorialise Tethys (come to think of it, I don't think Eirika route has its match, which is somewhat surprising), which is perhaps somewhat disturbing when we send Ewan there, but otherwise nothing interesting happens. Inns are basically Houses, but big. The Inn in FE7 actually did have a special function, but it is so remote as to be more of a fun trivia point than an actual gameplay tip (if you visited it, an NPC would appear in the next map to tutorialise something important and easy to miss). Here, it's just a cool map feature.

Someone went to the trouble of actually adding a tile descriptor for "Inn".

Anyway, onto map features that do something for us.

Obscenely powerful soldier is no match for Cormag!

And the enemies here start marching our direction. I don't think the boss moves at all, which is good, because killing him ends the map.

One of the shamen got to Colm! Fortunately, it was only a Luna shaman.

I don't know which side of this encounter is more embarassing.

Found all the good stats this guy had.

Ephraim marches boldly ahead.

With Tana not far behind.

We reach the part where we have to actually be aware of what Marisa's range and make sure we stay the hell out of it until Ewan can get in range.

Also this guy. He's going to be unpleasant, but fortunately, we have options.

Such as this square.

Cormag's done with the Arena for now, he wants to contribute.

And if he doesn't do it now, all the junk enemies will be gone!

Now there is no more archer.

Kinda wish Colm didn't attract these guys, though.

Those bonewalkers that have started moving up have Javelins, so finding places to stand to make them no longer obstacles is going to take some doing.

...Also, the archer bonewalker is still there? Ross, you had one job.

Cormag has to take it seriously, since it can now attack that top row.

Right, Colm can just barely take this guy.

(And enough of that "just barely" business.)

While Josh takes the other.

Most of the bonewalkers are going to converge around here.

And Artur taking the time to heal up L'Arachel's injuries, since she is unable to do that herself.

How polite of them to engage without trying to get WTA on me. Granted, little difficult for a bonewalker to get WTA on Tana.

...Tana?

At least we got this out of the bargain.

...You're not even throwing hatchets? What cunning plan is this?

...I was not expecting this.

Right, clearly she needs this.

Entombed in Sacred Stones Hard Mode are characterised by absurdly high HP- most characters probably aren't going to one-round one. In contrast to Entombed in Shadows of Valentia, which have low HP and are pure EXP bags.

We've also got people attacking the human enemies still near Marisa.

Cormag even kills this one!

...I wonder what Joshua's EXP was at that him not killing this guy made sense.

Cormag also found the other Fighter. This was a productive, if risky, square.

Got him.

At least Artur is doing a lot of healing Cormag.

Ephraim is the one who will be attracting Marisa's attention. Also, I notice the Entombed survived last turn. I would've thought it'd get killed on counterattack.

Ross takes the kill- he's very close to a high level.

And Ewan takes all Ephraim's gear, so he doesn't kill Marisa.

Since we're approaching the point where we care, here's the boss. Cyclopes are a unique kind of monster that doesn't have a promotion- although apparently the game has both "unpromoted" Cyclopes and "promoted" ones that differ only by maximum Axe rank. They are gigantic tubs of HP and Strength, held back by some terrible accuracy, and are basically the Warriors/Berserkers of the monster family. No heightened crit rates here.

Could Marisa humiliate herself any less?

I wish one monster was enough to give Ross the EXP he needs to get that last level-up.

He'll go scratch the boss some.

Honestly, as cyclops fights go, I think this might be one of the more accurate ones.

That is certainly a level up. To be fair, those are the two most annoying stats to cap...

Ewan recruits Marisa.

Marisa was busy doing her job.

Unfortunately, some other guys in suits weren't.

Marisa: "Gerik's not here, but I'm going to keep stabbing the people these guys told me to anyway". I'm sure that looks great on her record.

...I'm not sure if Ewan has a map he's pointing out, because "over there" is a very vague statement when he's talking about Carcino.

I know I said I like "you know what that'll do to your reputation, right?" "Uh huh.", but this version of the joke doesn't land. Probably because it's not trying to be charming about Marisa's attraction.

I love how we still haven't actually formally hired either of these two.

Ross takes the time to promote now. If he was a Fighter, he'd need to use a Hero Crest, but as a Pirate, he takes the Ocean Seal instead. Both Amelia and Ewan promote with just the one promotion item regardless of their first choice.

(This is a Garcia from another run). Fighters can promote into either Heroes or Warriors, allowing them the choice of using Swords or Bows. I kinda feel like Bows are the superior choice here, although the accuracy of Swords is nice. Hero also gets some Speed on promotion, something Warrior lacks.

Pirates, on the other hand, are presented with the choice between Warrior and Berserker. Warrior gives up the Pirate class's ability to walk on water, while Berserker supplements it with some Peak crawling and a +15 to crit rate.

If you're not raising Ross to be a Berserker, you're missing the point.

(With that said, Hero Crests are kinda tight on this run, so maybe giving Ross the Ocean Seal was a good strategy regardless of my choice.)

Ross Smash.

Now that we're out of non-boss enemies, the Arena shall be resumed. Wow, Cormag does not like this fight.

That's certainly a cavalier.

Wow, a shaman out-bulking you?

I guess he is a pretty high level. The more insane fights happen if you're closer to promotion: grinding up Amelia and Marisa goes well when they're in the single-digit levels, but Cormag's got an uphill battle at level 15.

Artur got a lot of healing, although whether this translates to Support is another matter.

As for Tana... things look a little more even, if strange.

Go L'Arachel!

I'm not sure which flier I think is better at this job right now. I also don't think these are the same wyvern.

Wow, look at Tana doing fights damageless.

...And dodging crucial hits.

She's doing perfectly.

Also, the huddle to get everyone in and out of the Arena is really peculiar.

This might be my cue to stop.

~~So let's throw Tana at a Cyclops!~~

Hey, it got us this.

Ephraim picks up a Support rank.

...And Colm thinks he's helping.

He actually was. Somehow.

Joshua thanks him all the same.

Good thing he didn't use this on us. The Swordslayer has WTA and is super-effective on Myrmidons, Mercenaries, and their promotions. Also possibly Thieves. It turns out that the Swordslayer bonus does work on Heroes using Axes, so just steer clear.

That's this mess sorted.

"And do it legally, if you can."

...OK, I wasn't expecting him to say exactly that.

Sounds reasonable.

Ephraim has a plan.

On an unrelated note, here's Myrrh.

Bye, Myrrh!

(Yes, she's shown flying off, but that's a bit hard to screenshot.)

So... where does that leave us?

Exemplary guards. Imagine being unable to identify Myrrh as anything more than "a young lady".

Also, "unsteady on her feet" when she flies. This was probably not even Myrrh.

With that said, if Myrrh has gone, she's probably gone east anyway.

Seth tries to object to this plan, and Ephraim immediately responds with a counterargument for him.

It's a little hard to put into words the exact difference, but there's a very clear difference between the way Eirika and Ephraim treat and are treated by Seth. Although he may object to their respective plans where objecting sounds reasonable, Eirika would never drag the conversation in this direction.

In saying that, Eirika's also not been making many decisions, hare-brained or otherwise, for a while.

Ephraim starts going off about his responsibilities as King.

Yeah, uh, you aren't ready to be King and will probably never have the temperament with that attitude. The game is aware Ephraim makes a poor King, but whether it's aware of this is another matter.