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Welcome back! No grinding this time, we're just going to jump straight into the chapter.



There's a lot I don't understand either, just, like, generally.

oh wait you're talking about vigarde, right



"Ephraim, is that y- good lord, what happened to your body?! "



Duessel the Paladin and his army of... Priests? Really? run away, as Selena the Gorgon gives orders to Cormag. Sweet, a Bard! I was wondering when I'd get one of those.



SKILLS:
Lunge: Menu command that initiates a fight. User and enemy switch places after fighting, even if the enemy dies. Does not work if the enemy is on certain terrain, like a Gate or Throne, so no cheesing seize maps.
Canto
Camaraderie: Heal 10% of max HP at the start of the turn if there are allies within 2 tiles.
Colossus: Skill% chance to triple Strength for one attack.
Pavise: When attacked with a physical weapon, Skill% chance to negate the attack.

Duessel comes with, of all stats, HP capped, and has nuts high Skill. For once, a stat spread like this actually works out in his favor since both Colossus and Pavise run off of Skill, even if 7 strength is pitiful for Level 10 promoted. But hey, at least he has a fitting Strength stat for his level 23% of the time!



SKILLS:
Seal Defense: -6 Defense to any enemy who survives combat with this unit (regenerates over time).
Dance
Red Death Blow: +6 Magic when initiating battle.

As usual, Cormag's stats don't matter too much, but Red Death Blow helps with his low Magic cap. Plus, Fire has 8 might in this seed, so he has a base damage output of 18 on his turn, which isn't too shabby.

Now, let's count the multiple ways the randomizer is screwing me over with this chapter, shall we?



1) Unless the Brigand AI prioritizes fighting me, this village is fucked. The starting area is set up such that Vanessa would be just out of reach of the village entrance if she tried to fly over to it, and can't block it off from this jackass.



2) Cormag is trapped on this tiny little island without a mount to carry him around, which means either Vanessa or Moulder will have to airlift Tana (because there's not a chance in hell I'll be able to recruit him using Duessel within 10 turns, the way everything is laid out) all the way to the island, drop her in the water, and hope Cormag will try to attack her. It's entirely possible this won't work at all and I'll miss out on him entirely, which wouldn't be the end of the world, but it would suck.



3) Instead of semi-competent melee units, Duessel's force is an utterly pathetic ensemble of Priests and a Monk who are dead on arrival, partially due to their low stats, but also...



4) ...because these Gargoyles immediately start in their range, and can and will kill all of them. Even if they don't...



5) ...not one, but two of the Pupils standing right there are Siege Assholes.



And for posterity's sake, here's Selena. Thank god you don't actually fight her here, but this makes me very worried for Chapter 13. Please don't pick up Shadowshot...



The only mercy this chapter offers is that the Fleets have had their Ballistae randomized away, and now only have Iron Bows.



All that out of the way, I hit up the prep screen armory to - wait, that can't be right...



There we go. Anyway, about half of the Scrooge McDuck-level pile of money I amassed from last chapter goes straight to buying a Skill Scroll in the hopes that it will give Ephraim something to make him not suck quite as bad.



It's... something, I guess. Gives him something to shore up his low defenses, but it doesn't work with Elbow Room.

Well, there's no more putting it off. Let's do this.



My attempt to recruit Cormag gets started right away, with Moulder doing his best to skirt around Siege Asshole territory.



Then Beran shows up. One dark user for another, huh? Knowing my luck, he's probably packing Eclipse.



One of the Brigands is drawn away to Natasha. She takes the hit, but if anything, her being at low HP is good because of Desperation.



Yay, more Magic!



Provoke ends up causing the other Brigand, as well as both Siege Assholes, to target Gilliam instead, who dodge-tanks like a champ.



Oh, look, the first Priest got doubled to death, who could have seen this coming?



The other one eats a Javelin, but...



...Duessel and his very red horse immediately avenge him.



Also that -- Move is bullshit because Duessel totally moved to attack the Gargoyle, and onto a fence which he shouldn't be able to move through, even.



Vanessa locks up the first village for a free Torch staff, and everyone else shuffles forward.



And that's the last of the generics dead.



Meanwhile, Duessel gives zero fucks.



Moulder and Tana make it to the island. All Tana has to do here is not die and she'll be able to get Cormag on our side.



Vanessa takes out one of the Pupils for this beauty of a level.



Ephraim is here, too.



Kyle follows behind him, getting a crap level out of taking on another Pirate.



One of the Siege Assholes nets more strength for Joshua...



...and the other is Elfired with extreme prejudice.



One of Cormag's cronies suicides on Moulder for... this... and then I'm suddenly glad neither he nor Tana have ranged weapons equipped because he totally would have done the same on one of them.



What actually happens is worse. He doubles Tana...



...as does the other one. One reset later, and- actually, you know what? Now feels like a perfect time to demonstrate a certain easter egg put into the randomizer.



If you enter the Konami Code (minus the Select, so Up, Up, Down, Down, B, A, Start), this message pops up.



Now, any time you move, this Skip option shows up. Pressing this will immediately end the chapter and take you to the post-map cutscene, but it won't auto-recruit Cormag and Duessel, so we're not going to do this.



The game did say "Enemy Control", so now we can control all the enemies on their turn!



Enemies can also properly visit villages, but it causes glitched-out portraits to show up (based on the last portrait you've looked at). You get the item for it, but the game treats it as if it was stolen from a chest ("A Hero Crest was pilfered").

So, why exactly am I showing this off, then? Because Cormag is pretty much impossible to recruit. He and the other Bard can kill Tana at the drop of a hat, and because of the terrain I can't get the two of them to just refresh each other and swim to the other shore.



So I have the Pegasus Knight pick him up and fly him closer to the other shore. I'll have to do the glitch again next turn to Drop him, but I'm pretty much in the clear now.



Oh, no! Those klutzy Gargoyles have all dropped their weapons into the sea! How unfortunate!



Also you can totally have enemy units crash into your units, if you're so inclined (I am). Natasha splatters this guy and gets the same level as before I reset - HP, Magic and Luck.



This guy had a droppable Vulnerary, so I made him drop the Vulnerary. Now...



Thank you kindly for your generous donation.



Cormag is dropped off, and Tana can talk to him next turn. I still need to recruit Duessel and I could skip to the end after that, but all the dick moves in this chapter are pretty much taken care of, so I'll play through.



Bard acquired!



And growths, for posterity. That Speed growth isn't really inspiring, but he's okay as far as refresher units go, I guess.



His sprite manages to look even worse now that he's playable!



Joshua's level from taking out the other siege asshole is worse than the original HP-Strength one.



These guys are still flocking around Duessel's unit, as I remember what happened with Gargoyles and villages last run. Oh, don't make me have to turn on enemy control again, I want that Hero Crest...



I do the code again after this just to be safe, but first,



The Gargoyles then mysteriously fly away from the village as a Bael throws itself against Moulder to give him a better level than pre-reset.

Okay, enough fucking around, now I'm doing the rest of the chapter legitimately.



There we go.



Go away.



Gilliam takes a swing at the other one for... this.



Can you please get out of the way? I have a Paladin to talk to.



That'll do quite nicely, thank you.



And then Tana takes out the other Gargoyle to keep on impressing me.



These things are a complete nonissue without siege weaponry.



And now, we can finally recruit Duessel.



Go figure that his highest growth is in the stat he already has capped. His growths are nothing special, but they're not awful.



This sprite looks even better on the player side.



These reinforcements aren't much to write home about stats-wise, buuuut all of the Monks have Counter like the NPC one does, meaning anyone who isn't Natasha or Cormag will take a hit unless they one-shot them.



Natasha takes a good shot at one of them, at least. Another one of them...



Again with the early Aura! And this time, it's almost threatening, but can't hit worth a shit.



He puts up a 0% hit chance against Natasha and just gives her more of what she's already got enough of. Except magic, because you can never have enough magic.



Then Joshua finishes off the first one for a good level!



And Vanessa helps clean up down by Beran.



Moulder says fuck your Counter.



I inadvertently left Garcia in a really bad position here, so Duessel comes along to be his bodyguard.



Hmm, the level's nearly over. Can we make it to Beran in time?



Hopefully, with some finagling to ensure enough people get chances to fight (even Ephraim).



Natasha also aids with this clusterfuck from afar.



Alright, almost there. Kyle nearly died thanks to that goddamn Bard, but we've pulled through. Everyone cleans up the remaining enemies...



...leaving us with Beran and only Duessel to fight him. He's not that bad, honestly, but I don't see myself being able to do much of anything against him. He's packing Luna, which I believe is set up such that it always has 0 might - he's not at all a threat offensively, but even if I wasn't fighting him at the absolute last second it'd have been a slog.



Maybe I can at least proc Colossus...?



Nope. I can't use Lunge, either - like I mentioned earlier, it doesn't do anything if the enemy is on terrain like a Gate or Throne. What a note to end on after everything else that went on.







Yeah, well you've betrayed me by not telling me how you can break out of not being able to move the way you did! Seriously, I don't think I've ever seen that happen before. Anyway, the Knight Crest from this will be nice once Tana can promote.



Oh, boy. Given how fantastically this chapter went, I can't wait for the phantom ship.

NEXT TIME:


Ephraim undergoes a miraculous(?) transformation.