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Welcome back. After the last update, seeing other people discuss their runs in the thread made me realize I've been running on an outdated version of the randomizer this whole time. 
I've since updated to the latest version, which has a few notable changes. For one, the option to randomize only class skills has been replaced with only turning on personal skills. More interestingly...
There are two new items for sale in the battle prep shop, which can also be dropped by enemies/found in chests. Skill Scrolls teach a random scroll to the person who uses it, while Amnesia Scrolls delete a skill.
There's also a bonus mode that can be accessed by putting "776" anywhere in your seed name when you start the game. As you might guess, it emulates Thracia 776, by giving Capture to everyone as a personal skill and, more interestingly, restoring the one-RNG system it uses. For those unfamiliar with Thracia 776, that game used a single random number when calculating accuracy, instead of the two numbers with a weighted average that every game after it uses.
Capture works similarly to how it did in 776, also. By starting a fight with the Capture command, you fight with a penalty to your stats, but if you defeat the enemy, you capture them (like Rescuing but on an enemy) and can take everything from their inventory as if they were one of your party members. I might do a few bonus updates that better show it off once I can find a decent seed that doesn't have Eirika and/or Seth struggling to kill things in the prologue.
(Her other skill here is Rally Spectrum, a command skill that gives +2 to all stats except Move, Con and HP for all allies in a 2-square radius from her.)
Anyway! All that out of the way, let's get onto today's chapter.
This is a pretty fun chapter in vanilla Sacred Stones. Are we gonna have fun today?
I'll be the judge of both of those phrases, thank you very much. 
Well, he was... almost right, she's a Troubadour. Yay, she's still a healer! And Joshua will make our first trainee, I was wondering when we'd get one.
Glen shows up, talks to Saar, and has some musings about Grado. I didn't catch their classes at first, but...
...Cormag is a cleric and Glen is a Hero. This is already different from Chapter 3. I really wonder why this keeps happening to characters in cutscenes... But let's talk about our characters now, shall we?
So... uh... Remember when I said last chapter that Eirika had competition when Artur showed up? Because Gilliam sure doesn't have competition. Yeah, she has more defense and HP than him but she starts with 0 Magic and has about half the growth rate in it that Gilliam does. And she started with a Heal staff instead of Mend, so her healing might as well just be throwing Vulneraries at people. Lovely! She also comes with an Elixir of her own, which is nice when healing items are in short supply because most of the time they get randomized away.
That said, she does have good skills! Pragmatic gives her +3 Magic and +1 Defense/Resistance when the enemy isn't at full health, and Swift Stance gives her +4 Speed and Resistance when an enemy starts the fight. She's useful in tanking magic, but there's only one mage on this map.
Also, this chapter seemed to decide to start giving enemies some nasty skills. There's 5 Recruits, including one right by where Joshua starts, that all have Bane, which as a (Skill / 2)% chance to leave the enemy with 1 HP...
...Wyvern Riders with Seal Speed...
...and this one particular Archer has Dazzle, which means it can't be counterattacked. 
The aforementioned mage has... 2 copies of Shove... 
Here's today's party. I'm benching Gilliam for today because I really don't want to be running around with only 7 combatants. I don't know why it never occurred to me to give Vanessa the ballista but she's going to have some fun with it. 
And here's everyone's favorite gambler.
And to think he gets an extra 5 levels on everyone else! This would be genuinely scary if we weren't recruiting him. Partially because of the stats, but definitely because of his skills. Not Shadowgift, which lets him use dark magic (though I'm sure there's fun to be had with that eventually... hopefully?), but rather Life and Death, which increases the damage he deals and takes by 10. If he chooses to attack anyone in our party, there's really not much of a guarantee that either will survive. But hey, it's super fitting for his character.
(I had completely forgotten to show Joshua's growths until after this post went live, hence why that image shows him as an ally. Not the worst, but hopefully his extra levels make up for his not-Skill-or-HP growths being so mediocre.)
And even if Joshua's enemy does survive, the poison might finish them. 
Lute starts us off by flying to this house for a Guiding Ring. Gilliam will appreciate this eventually.
Ross dances to keep Neimi moving for another really good level.
And he learned a skill, too! Let's see what-
Vanessa tries to teach this archer a lesson - you don't need to be dazzling to be a good shot.
One of the wyvern riders suicides on Moulder for an even worse level.
Pfft, how bad could a pair of Dancers be?
WHAT
Also, note that they don't have Wary Fighter; I was misinformed on how exactly the dancer crash happened. The new version of the patch also edits the Dancer animation to give it a return to its neutral pose, meaning now they can double! ...but Ross still can't unless I get him an Amnesia Scroll.
Moulder and Lute team up to take care of the Killing Machine.
Hey, now we have a whole three Vulneraries to go around!
Garcia attacks a Recruit that roughed up Eirika and gets some defense out of it.
A bunch of enemies went for Vanessa during the enemy phase. She then runs away for healing, but not before telling this wyvern rider to 
I'll take it!
Natasha's palette translates surprisingly poorly to the Troubadour sprite.
A near-death experience for Neimi results in her still failing to remove the 0s from her stat sheet.
Again, a master tactician I am not.
Lute then bails Neimi out. As nice as Neimi's growths are, Lute's turning out pretty well too.
Have I mentioned recently how good Eirika's skillset is? Because it's pretty good.
Artur kills the Dazzle archer and dazzles me with this level. 
Natasha boldly charges forth to pick up Joshua...
...with help from Ross, of course. I don't know if this is another 1.3 thing, but now there's a little text bubble that pops up when allies can talk to enemies.
Vanessa shoots an archer through the wall for another crap level.
Damn, everyone's making those low percentages count today.
This is... almost a pretty cool look, other than the weird red outline.
Skill! Finally, Critical Force will actually work!
Natasha then runs the hell away from Joshua because the Wyvern Rider would probably kill her by looking at her funny. Lute then flies up to toss some javelins at him.
One thing I always hated about Fates was the fact that Seal skills worked even if you didn't take any damage.
Ross gets the kill on the wyvern for a lance I'll probably never touch.
Life and Death in action. The damage boost is just enough to get him in range of a 1-hit kill, which is excellent.
And 1-hit kill he does!
More reinforcements pop up by the arena. Will this Dancer be another Killing Machine?
Close, but no cigar. Anyway, the map's winding down a bit, so let's visit some of the other houses! Maybe I'll get more boots?
Or I could just get the S-Rank staff, that works too.
Artur hits up the shop to buy some Vulneraries. Again, before this, I only had 3 either from people joining with them or getting them as random drops. The randomizer is not kind to your healing.
I'm going into this expecting it to be a dud. There's no way I can get 3 good house items, right...?
Well, that's not bad either.
Ross dances for Moulder so he can hit up the Arena. It feels like only yesterday I was ragging on him, but he's definitely showing signs of improval.
Mogalls using standard magic looks... weird.
In the midst of all this, Garcia had been dueling with a knight on the left side of the map. As nice as all this defense is, can you please get more strength...?
More Impale dancers show up. Honestly, these are less scary than the Killing Machine one, on the grounds of these guys having such little skill.
Lute saves Joshua from the "Death" part of Life and Death and gets a shitty level for her troubles.
Then Natasha heals him for... this.
Eirika takes out one of the Impalers to become even faster...
...and Artur defies the odds to take out the other one with the Shamshir I picked up last time.
I wanted Moulder to kill this Archer, but he whiffs the second hit, forcing me to be kind of risky in sending Lute in. She hits before he does, though. Now, all that's left is Saar...
...not that we have anything to worry about. Axebreaker is kind of irrelevant as I probably wouldn't have sent Garcia after him anyway - it reduces the accuracy and avoid of any axe user that fights him by 50%.
Moulder visits the last house for a meh reward. Before we finish Saar, I hit up the arena some more to try and bring our party up to around Eirika's level. Who's ready for even more level up screens?
That'll do quite nicely.
Artur manages to get this hit, too. I don't know if all these low percentage hits are dumb luck, or if I somehow accidentally turned on the one-RN accuracy system, but I'm sure as hell not complaining.
Lute pokes him for another decent level,
and Eirika finishes him off to take a pinch more money for herself.
For defending all the houses, we get an Elysian Whip. I don't remember whether or not this would work on Lute, but hopefully it does.
And that'll be all for this chapter! This update ran kind of long, so thanks for reading to the end.
NEXT TIME:
Would you believe that the one person who didn't get his class changed is the best of the four people here?