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Welcome back. Today, we're back to playing as a Lord who isn't made entirely of glass.
These two creeps have their chat about springing a trap for Eirika.
"...She has a paladin?"
Fun fact: On a test run I did for this LP, Seth actually didn't withstand Valter's attack. 
As funny as it would be, it's not a game over if he dies, Seth comes back to life in the next scene just before the actual prologue map.
Blah blah ambitious minor villain, things always end well for guys like him
This is our second myrmidon boss. Why can't Eirika just warp around like this guy can? 
I forgot that Novala calls this "a delicious idea". Yeah, I know a thing or two about giant spiders, alright! 
Anyway, here's our party for today. Gilliam comes off the bench so I can have a decent healer again, and Joshua is also coming along. Colm might be better for this map, but eh.
Speaking of Joshua, I took him to the armory to check, but it turns out Shadowgift doesn't actually work unless you can use magic to begin with. I figured as much, but it's a damn shame. Look at these stats!
Before this update, I hit up the shop from last chapter to buy a few more iron axes, one for Garcia and one for Joshua, and another heal staff for Gilliam. From this shop, I bought an Amnesia Scroll. 
The way Amnesia Scrolls work is that you use them on a character like you would a stat booster. This brings you to a black screen with a message saying "You got bonked on the head!" and then it lets you delete a skill. Note that you can't delete personal skills, or skills baked into classes like Shove, Dance or Canto. I'm using it on Ross here so that he can actually take advantage of his excellent speed and be able to actually be of use in combat in addition to dancing... until he hits his cap of 10 magic, but still.
Not much else setup to do, so let's get started!
I think I forgot to mention this, but Ross came with a Torch in his inventory instead of a vulnerary. Even if we don't have a thief, we'll still be fine in terms of visibility.
She fires it off to reveal that she's in range of 3 enemies. I was going to have Joshua act as a distraction, but I realized A) that's a stupid idea, and B) she'll probably be fine because Spectrum Stance, so he goes for the village instead.
Everyone else shuffles on down.
Vanessa does the same and also deletes this Journeyman because I really don't want to be on the receiving end of Life and Death.
It's hard to capture in screenshots, but the AI seems to really take its time during the enemy phase, moreso than normal. The game was sitting like this for a good minute, and I'm worried that the game hung somehow...
...until the mercenary walks up and suicides on Lute, who doubles him. Spectrum Stance is a very good skill.
After at least another full minute, the Pupil attempts to hit Lute but whiffs. I probably should have equipped the Javelin so she could kill him on the counterattack, but oh well.
Joshua visits the village and is decidedly unimpressed about poisonous spiders.
Meh.
Oh, the civilians' inventories randomize too. A shame they don't have weapon ranks, because I'd love to see this guy try to fend off a giant spider or whatever but fail to ever hit it with this.
Eirika takes out that Pupil for a fantastic level. Defense, glorious Defense!
Lute flies forward to reveal a jackass with a Killing Edge, so Ross gives her a push to get in closer...
...but I go for the Revenant instead because Lute can actually kill it.
And in doing that, she's revealed even more enemies.
They can only hit as far as Vanessa, so my squishier units get behind her, Artur, and Garcia.
Artur shows this myrmidon how to land a crit.
Then he hits a 46% hit rate twice to one-round a gargoyle that comes after him. 
God, it feels so good to be able to double with Ross, even if he whiffs the second shot.
And he gets ever stronger.
It will never not amuse me to see accuracy like this at a weapon triangle disadvantage. 
It will also never not be sad to see Artur putting up hit rates like this despite his relatively high skill. He misses both hits 
Eirika kills the knight, and then I realize I've made a mistake in putting Ross where I did, because Gilliam can't heal Lute this turn. 
She stays put and ineffectually throws a javelin at the troubadour, but she also misses.
Gilliam does bring Ross up to maximum HP to get a solid level out of it. More magic is always nice.
On the enemy turn, more jerks pop out of the fog, including this guy who goes after Eirika and dies, another myrm who goes after Artur and manages to get a hit on him...
...as well as the least threatening person I've seen Life or Death on.
Moulder takes out a Gargoyle and a Cavalier attempting to poke him in the eye, and then this dick comes out of nowhere and poisons him. 
Garcia managing to double with the iron axe is
Moulder steps out of the massive clump of units to take care of this guy,
for a not-great level.
But this is pretty good!
With Ross's help, Joshua gets back into the swing of things. It's a damn good thing the iron axe is so accurate, otherwise this would be a lot scarier.
Hmm...
Beautiful.
He really is the red myrm to Eirika's green, huh?
These lockpicks would be really nice if I had someone who could use them
All that happens on the enemy phase is two cavs running up to Artur and dying, we're getting pretty close to the boss.
Lute pokes the troubadour and gets another fantastic level.
Then Artur gets the kill. Damn, why can't he be the main character instead of Eirika?
I decide to have Lute go into the mountains to see if we can catch whatever's coming down to kill the civilians. She fires off the torch again...
She doesn't find it, but she does find the boss.
Novala is... kind of terrifying! These are easily the highest stats on a boss so far, but fortunately since he's sword-locked he has no ranged attacks. He also has a steel sword, which means he's actually likely to land a hit.
His personal skill is interesting, but useless on him: Inspiriting Tune gives +2 Strength/Magic and Defense to a unit that he refreshes which, uh, he can't do and even if he did, he doesn't move, so...
The other myrmidon goes for Joshua, who manages to tank a Life and Death hit and become even stronger in the process.
For a second I thought this was the spider stand-in, but it's actually...
...an Eirika. Okay.
It's a damn shame she's probably going to switch to this to attack Lute, because it's actually an improvement over the vanilla Brave Sword despite being -20% accuracy.
Anyway, Joshua takes out the wyvern rider, and Moulder goes to assist Lute if need be.
...not that she needs it, because she manages to land a crit. But, for some reason, I don't get a drop from this battle. I was expecting to get the slim sword she was holding, but I didn't even get that... 
All that's left on the map is Novala and a troubadour with a vulnerary, so Neimi takes a stab at the troubadour to get an alright level. But can you please get some defense? It's a little concerning to still have it at 0...
Then Garcia steps in to get some experience.
He, uh, he sure does. 
While that's going on, Vanessa gets started on Novala, who kinda looks like a blonde Joshua.
Lute and Moulder also take some potshots, but only Moulder's lands. He's weak enough now that Eirika can finish him next turn, though.
Joshua gets the kill on the healer and also takes her staff off of her hands.
And here I was so worried about Novala's accuracy. The Death+Duelist's Blow combo is still working wonders.
We get a very nice reward for keeping the villagers alive. This might go towards a Skill Scroll or something.
And that was the chapter! Thanks for reading.
NEXT TIME:
You thought the 5x spiders were bad?