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Welcome back. Let's see what our other protagonist has been up to.
Today on Valter's Incredible Transformation Journey, he's a Paladin. Given his character, you'd expect him to be the Gorgon 
Looks like we have a bow lord! And Forde and Kyle kept their original classes. Ephraim, Forde, Kyle and Orson have their little chat...
...and then they go off to Renvall, where Ephraim becomes his own sister and Forde and Kyle transmogrify into Baels. The thought of two giant spiders bodyguarding Ephraim like this is hilarious to me.
"Prince Ephraim, I keep telling you, you're hallucinating. We're not giant spiders!"
Looks like we're up against a Pirate for the boss. This'll be great if Ephraim keeps his class!
Oh. Oh no. Forde and Kyle are troubadours, which means Ephraim and Orson will have to duo this map.
They'll find a way to, I'm sure...
There's a lot to take in, here, so let's go over one character at a time. Ephraim is very good, other than his crap HP. He has a very high growth in it, though, so over time that won't be a problem. However, his weapons for this chapter are a steel lance and a spear, both of which weigh him down considerably (the spear less so, but it has half the durability so I don't want to get too carried away with it), so he's not going to double much of anything, and is in very real danger of getting one-shotted. For his skills, he has Axefaire (+4 damage when equipped with an axe; again, useless on him) and Celerity, which gives him +2 Move. 
Forde... 
Where do I even start? 1 magic on a healer, with a 20% growth? 11 HP? 2 Speed (effectively 6 due to Swift Stance, but still)? The fact that the game gave him Shove of all things as his personal skill?
Kyle, by default, is much better, and has a better magic growth than even Gilliam. Plus he has an actual defense stat! Except, uh, he got Life and Death as a personal skill, with no way to take advantage of it until he promotes. So far, we're three for three on units that can (and probably will) die within one round of combat. 
Orson somehow has 4 Speed as a level 3 Swordmaster. What, did he promote from level 1 or something? These stats are horrible for his level! He has good growths, but that doesn't matter because he leaves after this chapter. His skills are... interesting, and do a bit more to make him usable. His first new skill is Lunge, an attack command that makes the user switch places with the enemy after fighting, and the second new one is Crit Boost, which gives a flat +15% boost to his crit rate. These combined with Barricade+ and Pragmatic make him serviceable, but if anything it just makes me annoyed that he doesn't stay in the party. Especially when he has far and away the highest defense of anyone in the party so far! 
Oh, and the very first enemy on the map is this Bael. Yes, this is enough to one-shot anyone not named Orson.
It's gonna be a rough ride, so let's strap in.
Ephraim kind of needs to land this crit. If he doesn't, this Bael is very likely to stroll up and casually one-shot any of him, Kyle, or Forde.
Nope. 
Well, let's brace for impact and hope the Bael goes for Orson instead.
He takes a hit from this Mogall, but manages to kill it in response...
...but that leaves him weak enough for this mage to finish him off. Yeah, this isn't looking like a good run.
One reset later, and Ephraim's inventory has randomized into things that will actually let him double. Also, it seems this randomizer also has some degree of randomness in terms of levels each time you reset. Their stats all stayed the same beyond Ephraim gaining a point of HP, but Ephraim and Forde gained a level, while Kyle lost one.
Also, Orson now has not one, but two Runeswords! The Bael becomes a lot less scary with only 12 HP. However, now his crit boost doesn't mean a damn thing, because Runeswords can't critical.
I honestly really love this palette. It's like if Stefan from the Tellius games decided to wear white.
There we go! All problems solved forever.
...except for the part where both this mage and the mogall go after a surprisingly normal-looking Forde, but he dodges the Mogall. He'd have lived anyway, thanks to Swift Stance, but hey.
An even greener Kyle heals him up.
RIP this Mogall.
Runeswords being counted as magic makes Orson kind of a poor choice against mages, but there isn't much choice. Then the Mage went for Ephraim on his turn and it was the last thing he ever did.
This Pirate ended another run early due to him having a 100% hit chance against Ephraim. He can't kill him, but it's enough for either the Mage we just killed or the Monk behind him to run up and finish the job, so Orson doesn't even give him a chance here.
We're probably not going to get into the treasure room, but this fighter isn't going anywhere, so why not?
At least we've found an enemy that isn't capable of putting our party in the dirt in one hit.
Maybe this is why. Why is it that the only good axe so far is the Iron one?
He gets the kill on the enemy phase, for a minimal but good level.
We may not be able to get into that room, but the guards inside don't exactly put up a fight anyway.
Even with Ephraim and Orson's forces combined, they can't kill this mighty fighter.
Well, not on their turn, anyway.
Orson steps up to bait out the Recruit, given she has both a spear and a toxin lance and I'd rather take ranged damage than poison damage.
The spear weighs her down so much that even Orson can double her. That's kind of sad.
And Pragmatic means that now she can't even deal any damage.
The big, scary upgrade to Evil Eye seems to be neither big nor scary.
+9 weight, -1 power, and -35 accuracy compared to Evil Eye. I really hope Moulder isn't forced into using this on promotion...
Oh, now you crit!
It's really telling about how bad most weapons are when the Javelin is my power option.
Orson breaks his first Runesword against this Bael, the second enemy to ever actually deal damage to him (with poison).
And he did just enough for Ephraim to finish the job.
Orson pushes on down the hallway, where not-Ewan tries to hit him from the throne room.
I, uh, think he's in the wrong class. When will we get a bow trainee?
Then, all of a sudden, I get an idea.
Fun fact about Lunge: It works from a distance.
My amusement by this fact goes away when I realize that oh god all three of those Baels have Sharp Claws 
Uhh... I'm sure he'll be fine! Let's just take care of this other guy for more experience.
Only one of the spiders actually goes for him, fortunately, but another fighter takes him from the other side.
Honestly, that one point of defense from Pragmatic can save lives.
Before I do that, though, Ephraim valiantly charges forward to take care of this Monk stuck with the world's worst tome. The fighter and mage near him have a poison axe with crap accuracy and the mage has elfire, what's the worst that could happen?
...I really need to stop asking questions like that.
Let's not charge forward this time, shall we?
The monk comes to us this time, then Ephraim pulls back to bail Orson out from the Bael. 
For now, Orson is just going to chill in the corner, given he has only 4 attacks in him for the rest of the chapter.
Well, Forde at least has some usefulness in tanking magic, I guess...
Ephraim continues to make it hard for me to choose which of the siblings to stick with.
I was gonna have Forde bait out the Mogalls, but because Journeymen all have Life and Death as a class skill and this one could kill any of my guys from full health anyway, I decide not to risk it and have everyone just kinda hide right out of his range.
After that, Forde baited out the first Mogall for Ephraim to kill. He took a hit, but that's what Kyle's there for.
Second verse...
Same as the first.
And a third for good measure, because it's not like we have anything better to do on on this map.
Kyle heals them both. More magic!
The Baels aren't so scary now that Ephraim has a few more levels in him.
The last enemies on the map besides the boss are these two Troubadours. I could use the Javelin on them, but I want to save a use or two for Zonta.
The numbers keep going up.
And to celebrate this milestone, he gets... one of the worst skills in the goddamn series. If this were on a Jeigan, this would be nice, but not on a main character!
Though he still gets this kill. 
She drops a vulnerary, which is always appreciated.
I end up using the Javelin on the other one, which does more than enough damage to one-shot her, and it actually does. I don't remember the original Mercy being trigger-based, so maybe it's just bugged?
Anyway, he treks back to the throne room, made much easier by his 7 move , to face off against the mighty Zonta.
For a certain definition of "mighty". He would actually be a scary boss if not for his 11 HP... and also his 0 skill, which completely neuters his scariest skill. Luna has a (Skill)% chance to treat an enemy's defense as 0 when attacking, but there's nothing to worry about here. The other skill here is Charisma, giving all allies within 3 tiles of him +10 accuracy and avoid.
The one thing he has going for him is that his Defense is high enough that Orson can't do anything to hurt him, so Ephraim kind of has to solo this.
Kyle and Forde start their support, because why not?
oh god i hit wait instead of attack
Oh, Mercy is a command. I remember it being automatic in Radiant Dawn, so I'm glad they changed that. Now, it's just a war of attrition until Ephraim lands enough hits to kill him.
And there we go!
Kyle heals Ephraim for more experience, and that's all she wrote.
Then they run out of the castle, where Valter the Cerberus greets them. Maybe he's like a demon that takes the form of something that'll be the most scary to whoever he's talking to, or something.
But we'll get back to them later. Join us next time for your regularly scheduled Eirika party weirdness!
NEXT TIME:
