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Welcome back! Can you believe we're just a few chapters away from the endgame? I sure can't.
We rush to Narube River as a bunch of Shamans take out the Frelian army...
...as Syrene the Gorgon herds civilians onto an island.
"Obey me, Fomortiis! Destroy Ephraim!"
...What the fuck kind of universe am I living in where Syrene's Defense is her highest stat?! It's too bad that she has the same base HP as Knoll, because otherwise she would be very serviceable.
One of the upshots to Syrene being a Gorgon is being able to use Stone. It not having a weapon rank jogs my memory of something...
I can't believe it took me this long to try this out, but the glitch that lets anyone learn dark magic through Stone technically works with Mogalls also, but you're locked to what you equip in that case, as only Stone has a programmed weapon rank gain. Assuming Syrene hasn't wasted all her charges of Stone by the time I get her in the party, I'm going to give it to Kyle as well so that I can have an actual dark user.
Anyway, it's time for more promotions, starting with Vanessa because I totally blanked on doing that during the last battle. I'm going with Ranger, because Hawkeye is very good for offsetting the low accuracy of swords.
Promoting unfortunately does nothing to fix her sprite, but these gains are pretty nice!
Another trip to the armory to sell the Knight's Crest and extra Elysian Whip goes towards a Master Seal for Artur. Given his skillset, this is an obvious choice.
Lethality Swordmaster, baby! It's like I'm playing a ROM hack from 2008.
It's a goddamn shame I didn't end up with any Manaketes. Just look at those stats!
Tana reads the latest edition of How To Hit Things in order to shore up her Skill, and last but not least...
...I finally crack open that Skill Scroll I've been carting around for over half the game and give it to Lute, on the grounds that she has one skill less than a human class at her level would. As far as the skills go, this one is pretty good!
Now, normally, the civilians wouldn't be in immediate danger as the enemies would have to break down the snags first... but one of them is now a Pegasus Knight that gets juuuust enough movement to reach this kid. Fortunately, Tana is on the front lines and can rescue him out of the way.
Now, if only he could fend for himself with this...
And then Kyle starts putting the two Rescue staffs to work. Neither Syrene nor the other civilians are in immediate danger, but better safe than sorry... plus it's good experience.
I don't know why that peg knight didn't try to attack Tana (or even the snag), but I'll take it. Oh look, another pegasus is parked right in front of Vanessa!
Hmm... No, it doesn't look any better in motion.
Syrene is in a position where these enemies can crush her next turn, so let's make sure that doesn't happen.
I'm a little sad that her defense growth isn't higher with how high the base is, but meh. Probably not going to use her after this chapter anyway.
Now, as nice as this damage output is, these Generals have Life and Death, and also Syrene's Elbow Room is giving her +3 damage for fighting on "open" terrain. Without either of those, it's not much to write home about.
This sprite was brought to you by Mountain Dew.
Kyle then Rescues her to get basically the only stat he ever gets.
So close to the coveted "NO DAMAG" 
Oh boy, it's doing the thing again where a bunch of slow-moving reinforcements crawl down mountains at a snail's pace. Hooray!
Another flyer with poor survival instincts finds themselves in Vanessa's sights.
Oh, right, Ewan is here too. Couldn't think of anyone to fill the last deployment slot, so why not?
This dude is a promoted Journeyman, and as such does not have Life and Death. Instead...
...he has the classic Sol.
I realize the other flyer can still reach that civilian Kyle rescued, but Vanessa puts a stop to that with help from Ross.
Speaking of Kyle, here he is using Evil Eye. Let's not think too hard on the implications of him effectively using a Mogall as a weapon and instead focus on the fact that shit like double Life and Death lets him deal 40+ damage a pop.
Then Tana takes care of the wight Sniper for an okay level.
And on the next turn, Ephraim hits the level cap from killing a human Sniper.
I was going to have Lute visit the armory, but this motherfucker is right in range of it, with a pretty annoying new skill and Lethality and Pavise to boot. Note that Foresight doesn't prevent criticals like the Hoplon Guard would, but I believe it negates the extra damage from it and activated skills like Luna or Impale.
It's a good thing, then, that Lute can just one-round her so nobody has to deal with any of these skills going off.
Instead, Artur checks out the armory, partially so I can show off some weapons I didn't get a chance to earlier. The Lancereaver would almost be okay if, again, it wasn't for the accuracy, and the Killer Axe is just... bad. But this shop finally gives me a chance to buy an Axereaver of my own, which I do with delight. I also grab a spare Steel Sword and a Killer Bow.
More defense! More!
More of the Shamans come for Lute, but she's more than a match for them.
Joshua is still out here getting 100+ damage on deck with crits like it's nothing.
Then Ewan has a lance-off with a Gargoyle to cap strength! He's probably gonna get an early promotion too, given the rest of his levels will most likely be "HP and maybe one other stat if I'm lucky".
This is... not an ideal position to be in. I need some kind of distraction for these guys...
...and this should do quite nicely.
I'm not quite sure what happened to his sprite, but more importantly, his survivability is already so much better with the +4 HP alone.
Stone gets used for its intended purpose as I realize the General is also in range of, and can likely one-shot, Ephraim.
I'm not sure what this joker thinks he's doing.
This one at least had a chance of hitting.
Ephraim fights off the first of his doppelgangers, and another one gets stoned.
Ephraim fails to kill this guy only because his Javelin broke, so Eirika picks up the spare to max out.
Back by the start of the level, Joshua's levels continue to underwhelm me. At least he hits A in axes, so now he can use that Tomahawk I've had sitting around forever.
Another pair of Generals spawned from Lyon's castle, and... yeesh. That would have one-shotted a freshly-promoted Ephraim, because I didn't think to top off his HP somehow after he promoted.
Strength is Strength, though.
Tana takes out the General that Kyle made into a lawn ornament and caps Speed.
Well, this is getting... crowded.
It's practically a shooting gallery for Vanessa, though!
And the reinforcements don't stop coming. These guys need to die like, immediately.
I do at least remember to (partially) plug up these forts. Ewan parks on the other one after this fight.
Lute, Tana and Kyle all take out the reinforcements by Lyon. You'll notice I'm taking care to not park anyone in Lyon's range.
That's because fuck Lyon. Orson was statistically imposing, but he could at least be cheesed by virtue of having no ranged options. No such luck here (unless I get lucky with Lethality). He has less HP and Speed than when you'd normally fight him at this point, but to compensate, he has capped Magic, higher Defense, and a bevy of skills to make this fight way harder than it needs to be. His personal skill, Black Magic, gives him a Skill% chance to leave the enemy with a random status effect, up to and including Stone, plus Sure Shot and Bracing Stance, giving him an effective Defense and Resistance of 29 and 21 (counting the Gate as well) unless we're countering him. A good portion of this fight will be praying he gets neither Black Magic nor Sure Shot off.
Oh, and instead of Fenrir and Nosferatu, he has Luna, so he's dealing a straight 30 damage at all times with a nonzero chance to crit. Having to deal with this and the reinforcements would kind of really suck, so I'm going to wait out the reinforcements before even attempting to deal with this asshole.
Speaking of reinforcements, Artur is continuing to impress me as he deals with the parade of Shamans.
Pictured: a much less scary encounter with a Luna tome.
Come on, Kyle, I'd expect this kind of level from Ewan, not you.
Pavise kicks in on this Druid who ends up surviving Tana's attack, but she gets a really good level out of it!
Dealing with these guys is such a crapshoot to anyone not named Vanessa.
We're almost finished dealing with the reinforcements, and Lute is getting good gains out of it.
Kyle is, too! And he gets a skill for hitting level 5 promoted. Remember when I pointed out a certain skill on the Mage Knight all the way back in Chapter 10?
Because I sure didn't! 
I'm getting an Amnesia Scroll for this ASAP, because Kyle is strong enough that he can kill himself from full health with this shit.
Vanessa's hunting trip is also going well for her.
Is there a smilie that conveys the opposite of 
?
The last of Vanessa's targets go down, so at this point we can finally take on Lyon.
Ewan is not making a particularly good case for himself, but someone needs to fill that last slot on the roster.
Well, that actually works out pretty nicely. Because of Bracing Stance, I just have him wait so Lyon can attack him on the enemy phase instead.
A crit speeds things up, and now we only have to get through 7 HP on his high defenses as opposed to 35.
And with Eirika and Ephraim up to their B support, that goes down quickly, too!
Beautiful. And that's the chapter!
With how the Sacred Twins have been so far, I fully expect this to be a Devil Axe and a Mine or some shit.
A third Body Ring in place of Nidhogg. I'll decide on someone that these will all go to eventually, I swear.
And Vidofnir -- yep, that's about right. Though at least Kyle can use this to build up his Dark rank.
Or not! This is my reward for keeping the villagers alive.
How sad is it that out of Garm, Audhulma, and Vidofnir, a weapon with stats like this is the best of the S-rank weapons I actually have? Neimi can at least use this, because she hit S in lances during the chapter, and it'll be good against monsters and the final boss.
NEXT TIME:
Which came first, the Gorgon Swordmaster or the egg?