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10: Some Light Reading
For her little cameo last time, I gave Alma some gear not normally available yet. Rest assured I won't be using it in real battles... at least until I can buy it legally. I will, however, do the usual thing and immediately steal her barrete,
...and, more importantly, the red shoes, which will probably be in use until the end of the game. Right now, they go on Alfador, allowing him to at least temporarily overcome his -1 MA penalty compared to a female character of the same class.
Beating Elmo adds some more goods in stores, including this which I won't be buying because it has the same power as the Ancient Sword I'm already using on my geos. There's also another stick upgrade with the customary +1 WP over the previous one - I bought a couple, but no one's using them right now.
Then there's this little number, which... well, just look at it. It goes on my geomancers immediately.
For everyone else, the old battle boots have been made obsolete by the Germanias ones which add +1 jump with no drawbacks (well, other than the additional 4000 bucks they cost).
+1 PA and instakill immunity makes this a very nice shirt, but everyone's enjoying their +2 MA from the wizard robes so much right now, I don't actually equip any. I've bought a couple, though, just in case I want them later.
Holy Mitres are a straight upgrade over Triangle Hats. I get them for all my caster-types, but the geos keep their Twist Headbands. Variety.
I can't get into any calc-Holy-on-everything shenanigans on this run, so this isn't as useful as it could have been, but I get one of these as well for future use.
And finally, I did a couple of propositions to get some more skills learned. According to the barman, I am now a level 1 'Treasure Hunter'. I don't think I really care, but still, JP's nice.
So very, very nice.
That looks like it hurt.
I did a couple of random battles because having Ramza run around as a geomancer with only Hell Ivy is boring as fuck. In the end though, there's not much to report - lack of JP Up kind of does that. Hell, it's slow enough grinding JP with the boost. I wonder if setting the JP cost for all abilities to zero would make things more fun - keeping in mind that also means enemies would have access to everything from the beginning. Or maybe keeping the cost for advanced skills, but removing it for a basic skillset? But that'd mean defining "basic skillset" for every class...
...Or for a complete rewrite, I could see characters having access to the full skillset of their active class, but having to purchase skills in order to use them as secondaries.
Well, that's neither here nor there, and a challenge run isn't the best place to experiment, I suppose.
Imagine Ramza running around punching a black mage for several minutes while a single frogs hops about, getting single-digit damage in every round.
Except after a few minutes of that, Ramza decided it was enough and punch-crit Alfador hard enough to knock him out, and since I don't run item on Ramza I had to kill the frog before he went and crystallized.
Here's a random knight who spawned in another fight I got into. His level is above ours, but his gear is kinda outdated! I'm expecting they expected my levels to be a bit higher at this point.
I swapped Jessica and Eliza's classes so they can get some variation going. No other changes.
Now, on to the interesting bit. The underground book storage is a three-battle gauntlet, all of which have some new threats.
Ramza might have been better off keeping that for himself...
Truly, with your holy sword skills, you are better than most men.
Ramza chases after Izlude, but he gets away and leaves some new enemies for us to fight.
Battle one out of three! I've put my characters in the back, because, are you tired of my whining that they're slow and squishy yet?
Lancers are a hard-hitting class, Jump makes them hit even harder, and spears are pretty nice 2-range weapons. ...However, none of these guys have enough jump to actually reach me on their turn.
What a dick.
The lancers approach, and we can all get spells off before they move again. I figure I'll overwhelm them with a hail of lightning and not have to worry about that.
I shouldn't have figured that.
Seriously, they've a 15% dodge rate, I should not be seeing this fucking many guards!
So of course they murder poor Nancy.
This makes Ramza mad.
From there on,
...things actually go the way I hoped.
I revive Nancy,
...and nuke the enemy.
That's really all they manage after that.
How's it feel to be on the other side of that message?
Take a stick to the face.
And then we're just one spell from killing the last lancer. I should probably have kept him around and seen if the corpses had anything fun, but, eh.
...put that back, we're never going to use it.
Battle two out of three!
Meet Izlude. Izlude is a dumb meanie poopie pants.
Deserving of a 
Izlude runs closer and the archers murderize my casters, same old.
And then the fucking summoner gets to go before us, too. Fuck me.
Ramza Carve Models a knight, because he can. No petrify, sadly.
Knights with magic skillsets. 
I bet you wish you had gone for, like, Sing or something instead.
Got the summoner! ...after he Shivas us. That hurt.
Izlude comes with Jump as his secondary skillset. That means he can hit anyone he likes from eight squares away. Izlude is a jerk.
The archers keep sniping, Ramza keeps Elementaling for nowhere-near-enough damage.
...I guess he's not exactly wrong...
But he's still a jerk.
And I'm outnumbered and he's still a lot faster.
It doesn't help that Alfador's damage is shit against him.
Izlude takes another turn.
Well, fuck.
New strategy: Green Berets.
Seriously, look at this asshole, eight speed, ignore height on a map with a lot of wall-ish things, and maintenance so you can't even take away his stuff. Jerk.
The summoner tried Shiva last run, but uses Ramuh this time.
He's a lot less successful now.
Unfortunately for him, Alfador had him targeted with Bolt 4,
...which oneshots him.
That's all Alfador will be good for this map, but hey, that guy needed to go away.
With a lot less people getting Shivad and a little more clever positioning,
...we manage to Elemental Izlude to near-death. If I actually had to kill him, he'd probably have won this round too, but fortunately he goes away on his own if you just knock him around a bit.
Ramza was dead when that happened, but he got better.
And now, for the finale.
Of course, Alma is getting kidnapped because she's an NPC.
Izlude is a jerrrrrkkkkk. And sadly, we can't just go after him because
Wiegraf is here, too!
Guess who's about to underestimate us 
This is another assassination mission, and he's coming for you.
He is going to nail someone with a Holy Sword skill, so just hope you can take it and not get Stop or something.
And of course there's an archer right behind him who snipes out Ramza's last remaining health before he can act (...).
Wiegraf's aggressive AI can work in your favour as well. He does have Counter, so he's a tough nut to crack in close combat... good thing we don't need to get into close combat! Oracle + stick + Attack UP is a pretty sweet combination.
You may also have noticed that all the other characters were casting. Nancy was casting Flare. It gets close to one-shotting Wiegraf, even at our levels.
You've already lost!
Bah.
Does he look OK?!
Anyway, Izlude runs off with Alma...
...and Wiegraf sells his soul to (Velius,) the Devil. You know. Same old.
Velius mocks us for a bit and then warps away, never to be seen again.
Simon hands us Germonik's Happy Heresy Funtimes Scripture...
...and then,
...he dies.
But that's okay, no one really cares about Simon. Next, though, some of my favourite characters start showing up.
Death tally: VI
(Goug x2, Golgorand, Gafgarion III, Queklain, That Fucking Asshole Izlude)