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Chapter 10: From Hicks to Kings
Today, we're going to rewind a little bit, since I forgot to do a few things last map, before Hicks escaped.
First off, Selphina was carrying a Speed Ring, and right now he's probably the one man in our army who can make the most of it.
Secondly, I got him to poke the Forest Knight before killing him. I just wanted to get him to 10, but hey, he got this awesome level, so I'm not gonna complain.
Fergus stuck around for heals a bit, and to give me yet more reasons to be disappointed.
Anyways, this is it for chapter 9, pt 2. Onto Chapter 10.
I really enjoyed making these little scenes. I wish I could have had all 3 looking in the same direction, but the limit on portraits facing the same way is 2.
*impassable
This mission lets us bring a frankly excessive amount of units. I'm guessing that was Thracia trying to incentivize bringing less stellar units so they'll get murdered by ballistae.
Safiya keeps the Muscle scroll, Shiva has the Iron scroll, and Ronan the Magical scroll. Which was kinda silly because those last two won't be seeing direct combat.
Close to the starting point, there's a couple stationary brigands guarding the ballista, a lance knight on the fort, and the thieves have been replaced by sword knights, which doesn't actually help their movement, what with the difficult terrain.
The closest thief has a Stamina Drink, and the farthest has another Accost Manual.
Over near the fort, more brigands, a bunch of lance and bow knights, the other thief knight, and a lone myrmidon.
There's a lot of lances in there, and I'm low on those, so Hicks will have a good time with that. Shame they're stationary, though. Seems I'll have to clean up all the ballistae first.
And then we have these two doofuses. The High Priest is another staff piñata with a cool Unlock, and the Sorcerer is uh...
Well, he's just hanging out, too.
We've got a few name changes in this chapter's intro. Fred > Alfred was purely to give him a slightly less generic name. Dude is a noble, has his own house and everything. He's not like Ralph, basically. “Frederick” is already taken, so we went with Alfred. I think Project Naga's translator, BookofHolsety, was planning to go with Friedrich, which is pretty good too.
Dandrum > Dundrum is because the latter is an area around Dublin with quite the history, and it doesn't sound like dandruff. 
This is another example of the translator drawing a parallel that didn't exist in the script. Largo merely said Kempf's attitude toward Reinhardt was dumb boyish rivalry, but now he compares it to the petty conflicts between North and South Thracia?
Not sure I really see why this was needed but, okay. At least it's not as nonsensical as some of the other ones.
: We've three means of attack:
: First, we could send the majority of our forces to attack the ballistae, then send a small force to capture the fort while they're occupied.
Second, we could storm the valley with all our forces at once, overwhelming the ballistae with too many targets for them to be effective.
: They both have their own crucial downsides... What's the best course of action?
: That would be the third way. Surely you've caught on now that I've told you about the other two—don't tell me you need it spelled out for you, Prince Leif!
“Yes, I do need it spelled out for me. No, I don't know what the third/best way is. I wish Augustus was here instead.” — Comment left by the person who transcribed the JP script.
And uh, I agree. What the fuck is he implying, here? Dorius, you're the worst. 
Let's get this started. I want this guy's Ridersbane, but if I steal it now, it'll be really hard to kill him while on a fort, with no weapon to weight him down. So I need to tenderize him first.
Tenderizing has been successful, and with this level, Macha has now twice her base magic... which is still quite low. But she did reach D Fire with this.
Dagdar hits the guy again, and now, I have another Ridersbane for.... all one people who can use it, right now.
Karin dances for Hicks, after dismounting (since she's in range of two ballistae, right now).
This allows Hicks to fly over to this specific spot and nab that man's booze. I did want to do all this on turn 1, because...
… crossing a certain line makes it so Olwen and Alfred will spawn before turn 4. During a normal playthrough, you don't want that to happen since that means more turns dealing with an invincible Dire Thunder cavalier killing your guys.
However, this isn't a normal playthrough, and this isn't a Dire Thunder I have to deal with.
It's the Kingmaker (I love that name), a killer brave sword with 60 uses and Charisma. And it's only C rank. It's incredibly good, and I want it. So the more turns lady Olwen stays out, the better for me.
Now, her and Alfred have an Immortal & Uncapturable flag, so the only way to get her items is by stealing them. This is how you get a second Dire Thunder in vanilla Thracia, by the way... if you grinded Lithis or Lara to 13 Con. And if you did... what are you doing, grinding like that in FE5? Go play Dragon Quest 2, or something.
Also, she has 13 Speed, so I needed a clever way to get Hicks to 14. I initially gave him a Master Seal so he'd gain +2 Speed on promotion, but...
Then the game reminded me that the Dismount penalties are only weird for unpromoted male Dracoriders, and dismounting while promoted actually decreases stats.
Thanfully, he got a speed level on the last map, so even without a promotion, he can still nick Olwen's stuff.
Alfred also brought some good stuff, including our fourth Mareeta's Blade. He's quite dangerous in combat, but very easy to steal from.
Now that that event's triggered, Marty dances for Selphina, who is going to do what she does best: dismount on top of a mountain and kick ass.
And that's one ballista down. Pretty good first turn, huh?
And one that I would need to redo if Hicks didn't dodge at least one of 2 ballista shots aimed at him. Those things are nasty, in this game.
Before we progress further down the valley, let's clean up this little area. The shops are very uninteresting, with Iron/Steel/Slim Swords, Iron Blades, and Antitoxins.
Selphina doing some sick maneuvers with her basic Iron sword. Who needs legendary weapons... or mounts... or gravity?
Or good levels?
The closer of the two thieving knights isn't going toward his designated village, but rather tries to cross the river toward the southern one. Safiya pulverizes him with the power of Ridersbane.
Can you believe she has gained as much strength as she has magic? She does have a 30% growth, which is... quite weird, but convenient, for this seed.
Hicks deletes the nearby ballista while my two strong men are going to take the fort.
I don't really know what to do with Orsin (or most of my units, really) until Olwen and Afred arrive, so there's going to be a lot of nonsensical moves, this chapter.
Nothing much on enemy phase. The piñata squad is drawing closer. The cavaliers refuse to attack Lithis. 
He is going to take a little trip down south to deal with those ballistae. Everyone else stays clear of Alfred's range.
Ronan and Shiva are going to be staying here all map. I wanted to have them catch up on levels in the Arena, but I'd rather do that at the end.
Alfred gets juuust a bit too close to Hicks, who briefly hops on his dragon, gaining just enough Con to lift the Master Sword.
A bad level and a dance later, he hops back down and grabs the other sword. Tactics! 
(Advance! What with all the weapon-stealing.)
Over on the north side, behold this absolute galaxy brain move. I want Orsin to contribute, so.... I'll move him over here.
Ah, but there are ballistae around, so he'll have to dismount first.
He has no swords. On foot, he dies in two ballista shots, so he can't move away from this forest anymore. Mounted, he dies in one hit, so he can't attack this ballista either.
Olwen moves first, so Alfred is blocking the way to Hicks.
Olwen moves to stand by Alfred's side. He seems troubled. She wants to be there at his side. Who in blazes is this enemy they're facing?
When she gets closer, he silently moves out of the way. Where are his weapons? Is he retreating... without her? That can't be right.
As he rides away from her, she can see the man who was hiding behind Alfred's horse. Black hair, tall frame, he bears the crest of the manster knights. She hears a dragon crying high up in the sky. When she looks back down, the man is now right in front of her. He has a mocking smile. Where's her sword? She had it right there, in her hand!
: Hail to the King, Baby!
Lithis and Dagdar make their way toward clearing the south. The ballista get Master Axe'd.
Dagdar actually uses Sol for something useful, for once.
Marty dodges a ballista bolt for great uh... defense? God, those promotion gains can't come soon enough.
Fergus says dodging ballistae is for losers.
: See, I fancy myself a botanist, and a few months ago I started an experiment. I wanted to see what would happen if I watered a tree using only Pure Water. I won't keep you in suspense—this here staff is what resulted from the whole thing! Use it, and it'll fortify your magic, same as if you'd just gulped down Pure Water yourself.
: Hm? Where's the rest of the tree, you ask? Uh... You're looking at it. That staff WAS the whole tree. Poor thing never grew bigger than three feet tall... Heh, it turns out Pure Water actually isn't very good for plants. Yeah... Probably should've checked that before I spent months on the whole experiment...
I wish these grew on trees. Dagdar is gonna love this.
Normally, I'd have avoided visiting the village, so that this guy would keep moving toward Hicks's grabby fingers, but since there's still the northern village, he's still going to try and cross over the river to get there.
Up north, Selfina jumps in to rescue Orsin from his self-inficted predicament.
The three bandits try to take on Lithis and die for it. The myrmidon doesn't even try.
That leaves him a clear path to the penultimate ballista. This chapter has been very fruitful, but man, it's such a slog.
Up north, the bow knights have started moving, so Leif's little squad can't cross over to the High Priest just yet.
As for the middle portion, Hicks is just gonna plop himself onto the fort, equip the Kingmaker, and steal this guy's Javelin.
Please do not use flaming swords as walking sticks, it's a fire hazard.
Eating giant arrows makes Orsin big and strong!
Hicks snatches a Long Lance from the last generic I wanted to steal from, gets double-danced, and...
… no more ballistae! Finally!
Time to wrap this thing up.
MORE Speed!
For Selphina as well, who dodged arrows because I'm bad at positionning.
Lesson learned: stick to on-foot combat.
Sometimes, you just find hikers lost in the mountains. Ya just gotta help them out. And then they just leave without saying a word. Rude.
Bah! 
… bwuh? Fergus getting a good level, from thundering a guy? Maybe he just doesn't like doing the heals.
By the way, this entire time, Safiya has been duking it out with the lone myrm lady, and losing, somehow.
Welp, now that Olwen and Alfred are out, that just leaves Largo, a Forest Knight.
These are some pretty good stats, and weapons! He even gets a ranged option with the Bolt Sword...
Shame he doesn't outspeed Hicks.
Small aside on the Bolt Sword's name, but the only reason we kept this instead of Shadows of Valentia's “Lightning Sword” is to keep consistent with Project Naga's name for it. Until BookofHolsety updates his translation, we're sticking with Jugdral consistency.
It's not a “Levin Sword” either, because those are magical even at close range.
But yeah, Hicks gets danced in and out to steal everything. Karin is slowly growing to power, while still being stuck to D Swords and Lances.
Meanwhile, Macha pelts Largo with fireballs until he dies. She's looking quite good, though it's a shame about her offensive stats. Maybe it'll be time for a promotion soon.
Anyways, remember these guys? They're a bit behind on levels, and really need to catch up.
Thracia's arena is pretty merciless, but Shiva is actually doing quite fine! I think Wrath is disabled for these fights, but his 5 FCM isn't, so he crits a whole lot.
Ronan though? He's less fine. Most mages have too much Mag to pierce through, and Dark Mages are aplenty.
Even armors have stupidly high magic. Seriously, look at this.
It did take a little bit of savestate abuse, but here he is, 4 levels higher, putting that Mag growth to great use!
And Shiva now has stats comparable to Largo's. I'm loving that high Skl.
Oh, and these guys leveled up too. I guess Fergus got Magic, that's rare enough to be worth pointing out.
And that's about it. If you capture Largo, you get commended for the honorable way you defeated him. What I did to him was the opposite of that, so... whatever.
That was a very profitable chapter!
Next time:
code:
[S] Ronan: Ascend