Toggle Background Color
We're in the home stretch, here, and past the point where grinding is really necessary.
The remnants of Grado's army kick NPC ass even harder than they did in Run 1, not that the cutscene NPCs are particularly interesting. What is interesting...
SKILLS:
Hex: -15 Avoid to adjacent enemies.
Canto
Liquid Ooze: Attackers trying to gain HP from this unit lose it instead.
...is how much Syrene bulked out between runs. 
If you'll remember, last time, she was a shitty Gorgon with 11 HP and nothing else going for her besides giving Kyle ranks in dark magic. She actually stands a chance against the enemies and won't need to be Rescued on turn 2, which is much more than could have been said for her Run 1 counterpart.
Also, Neimi's Warp spam from last chapter has earned her a promotion to Sage (on the grounds that I already have a Bishop and I don't want two units locked to magic that's absolute dogshit). Look at that, she more than doubled her defense!
Also, some of the enemies around here have horrible stats for whatever reason, especially compared to the unpromoted ones. Did the remnants just decide to field all of their Jeigans today?
There's also this, uh, skill on every Mage Knight and Great Lord. I'm surprised I haven't seen Nice Thighs come up in this run yet.
Here's the party for today. Ephraim has lost access to monster weapons, but this matters in approximately zero ways.
Just like last time, one of the civilians is now in immediate danger thanks to one of these enemies becoming a flyer, meaning someone's going to need to bail him out (that someone being Vanessa).
Also, by an amazing coincidence, the kid has a Wyrmslayer in his inventory again. If only he could actually use that effective damage...
It's immediately after doing this that I realize the Wyvern Lord can reach one of the other civilians, so I need to get someone else there ASAP. Cormag can't get Ephraim there (or get a good level, for that matter)...
...but Neimi can, with even more judicious Warp usage.
Most of the actually dangerous enemies are on the left side of the map, so Kyle goes on a river-fording adventure to draw their attention.
Meanwhile, L'Arachel makes her glorious return to combat. 
Speaking of effective damage and that Wyvern Lord, this could have been ugly... 
Ephraim one-shots him, and the combination of Paragon and him being level 1 again means he gets a full 100 experience from the fight.
Having a nice personality doesn't make this guy any better at fighting, evidently.
I realize that Kyle was maybe not the best choice against Mage Knights given he still doesn't have great resistance, but he's still able to whoop their asses. Artur and Tana help clean up, too.
The Enemyrika drops a Shamshir, which has the exact same stat line as the Wyrmslayer but with crit.
With the civilians safe for now, let's get Syrene onto our side.
Her bases aren't the only thing that bulked out, god damn! 
L'Arachel really has competition now.
Syrene immediately gets to work by showing this Paladin what's up.
She even has a pretty nice-looking sprite!
L'Arachel is fighting to keep her spot in the endgame party.
Aura is still bad, details at 11. Meanwhile, on the west side of the map...
Not pictured: S in lances off of this. 
Eirika is basically a SNES-era Mage Knight at this point. She also gets B in anima/swords from this, but I'm probably not going to give her any swords beyond Sieglinde and the Rapier.
Innes has finally seen enough combat to get a level. I really want to use him more, but we'll have to see if he can make the final cut for the endgame party.
I feel like it really speaks to how far this party has come that this is the only thing that's left of the enemies by Lyon, and all the ones on the bottom have already been cleared out by L'Arachel. This is only turn 4...
Here, on the other hand, things are going slower.
But having an unbreakable legendary weapon definitely speeds things up!
Eirika's Great Lord sprite has somehow become much darker than normal. Not pictured: Her being in a magic class before this has broken her animations, as all that happens here is that she raises and lowers her sword, gains experience, and then the enemy disappears from the map.
After completely failing to be effectual, the Valkyrie gets offed by Syrene, and also drops a Silence staff, which is very nice.
Then Knoll dodges poisoning, and it's a good thing, because...
...this isn't the good thing.
Anyway, it's a good thing he dodged, because he then took this claw to the face.
These promoted enemies are still bad. Innes even triggers Pavise on the Paladin, so he comes away totally unscathed.
For lack of anything better to do on the next turn, Joshua hits up the armory and picks up a very good Killer Axe to go with the three others that Kyle carts around at all times, and a Lancereaver because I don't think I've ran into one yet. It's okay, just underpowered.
Taking no damage from a general is a beautiful sight.
This is... less so.
still bad
I'm liking this, though.
If I had known the reinforcements from the southern forts would be rangers, I wouldn't have brought L'Arachel to deal with them.
Especially not by herself! 
Hopefully Innes can be a good enough distraction, otherwise I'll have to blitz Lyon down and end the chapter early.
Not helping the usual mountain slog is the fact that most of the enemies this time are archers, and Kyle's hit rate with the hand axe is bad enough that it makes more sense to just use the 
button on individual enemies instead of trying to counter everything that comes his way.
In case things go badly for L'Arachel and Innes, Syrene kicks off my contingency plan to blitz Lyon down by poking at his reinforcements.
Suddenly, L'Arachel isn't making that strong of a case for herself.
I left Ephraim in range of Lyon without thinking, but...
There's nothing to worry about here.
Lyon is utterly pathetic this time around. The only thing he has going for him is Pavise, because Hex doesn't matter at all if you have ranged attacks and Swift Stance doesn't do anything to save him from physical attacks. I guess Syrene stole all his stats between runs...
Anyway, since I'm in a better position now, Innes and Ephraim clean up the Rangers, getting me a Brave Sword of my own. Ephraim caps Skill, too!
Eirika fares better level-wise dealing with the enemies coming out of these forts...
...and Joshua fares worse with the ones by Lyon.
The thing that speaks the most to these Assassins being god-awful is the fact that Cormag, the Bard, can one-round them.
And one-round he does, to great effect!
And then Neimi crits the Paladin so she can get even more speed.
I also finally get a chance to take a look at the Vendor at the start of the map. It's really sad that Divine is the best light magic there is. Nosferatu isn't good either, but at least it's lighter than the vanilla version...?
I've stalled long enough that the reinforcements have stopped coming, so let's deal with Lyon and get out of here. Can Knoll get some glory after Valter robbed him of it in chapter 15?
Yes!! 
No!! 
For beating the chapter and saving all the villagers, I get a third Nidhogg, a free Rescue staff, and Vidofnir, which while not quite as ridiculous as Garm, is still pretty good and a great fit for Tana.
NEXT TIME: ...Actually, you know what? This chapter was short enough and the next one is ridiculously short when you don't have to deal with Gorgons. So...
Let's keep it going. Yadda yadda looking for Lyon, yadda yadda eggs.
Given the boss, it seems we're dealing with spider eggs instead of gorgon eggs, which is again not as dangerous given the lack of siege tomes. It's still in my best interest to break as many eggs as possible because I do not want to deal with the high stats of this boss on every enemy.
Knoll has earned his promotion as well, to - oh, god, what happened to that horse?! There isn't much else that happens before the chapter proper, other than Syrene taking L'Arachel's place for this fight.
There's still very little to say about this chapter other than "I break a bunch of eggs and my guys level up a lot". This part of the update serves as more of a level montage than anything.
Tana is the first person to actually get a skill when they're supposed to after promotion, and uhhh between this and Lumina I'm almost wishing she had started in a magic class even if it meant not bringing Run 1 Neimi back.
Yet more enemies that can't reach us, but we can reach them. Yet another universal constant of randomizers.
More speed is always good, but you couldn't have hit your 70% and 75% growths too?
Silence goes to good use in trivializing this map even harder.
The legendary weapon train keeps on rolling as Tana takes Vidofnir out for a spin.
It feels like it's been forever since I've used Artur, but Slayer really helps on maps with lots of monsters!
So does getting more speed!
He then gets another level from making himself a spider omelette, and also gains Spur Resistance (-4 magical damage to adjacent allies), which is... something, I guess.
Elsewhere, yet another Paragon-fueled level makes Ephraim even stronger.
Inside of Innes' Kinder egg is a decent level and Provoke (makes enemies more likely to target him), which is actually really good on a unit with Counter and Pavise.
Hey, look, the Triangle Attack still works!
...Kind of. Syrene's palette is really wonky, though.
And then I forgot that Pupils have Foresight and are immune to Triangle Attack. 
The boss is kind of imposing statistically, but there's enough effective damage to go around that it goes down pretty easily.
This time, I was slow enough in getting up here that some of the eggs hatch on their own (not like last time where they opened because I stalled for them).
The hatched monsters are of absolutely no threat to Kyle, which I'm sure comes as a huge shock.
And here's some of that effective damage at work. Eirika got a crit, which is nearly impossible to convey with her broken animations.
But hey, if it gives her levels like this, who am I to complain?
With the boss down, all that's left is a few eggs and one Elder Bael that's about to die anyway. Joshua takes one to get some more strength, which is always nice.
Vanessa ends up being the one to take out the Elder Bael, also gaining Intimidate (-10 Avoid to enemies within 2 tiles). Not bad!
Neimi and Knoll (who didn't get a level) break the last of the eggs, and that's all she wrote.
NEXT TIME:
You obviously can go a round, get off your ass and help me