Part 53: (Part Four, Chapter 2) More like "Disciples of Odor"

The Hawk King's company includes Queen Elincia of Crimea, her trusted aide Lucia, the heron prince Reyson, the laguz warrior Ranulf, Daein's King Pelleas, and the queen mother, Almedha.

While they receive reports from the other two groups about the Disciples of Order, they have encountered no resistance, and have thus far traveled in peace.



King Tibarn! Queen Elincia! We may need to halt for a bit.



We have some stragglers lagging behind.

You mean Almedha and Pelleas are slowing us down again. We have to reach the Tower of Guidance as soon as possible. We can't have them always hampering our progress.

But we have no idea when the Disciples of Order might attack. We need to keep everyone together, for safety's sake.

Reyson! We'll rest here. You can land and give your wings a break.

Reyson, I remember when a trip like this would have exhausted you. I'm impressed at how well you're handling it.

Yes, physically I'm quite healthy. But I can't say that I'm really happy about that...

Why would that be?

We of the heron clan can feel the energies of others. In times of war, negative energy is dominant, and we sicken. Now that all of the people have been turned to stone, the energy is gone and, physically, I feel much better. It's unsettling to feel healthy and know that the reason is such a sad one.



Could this truly be the world that Goddess Ashera wants for us?

No, this is the world she had to give us after we ruined hers.

...

Any sign of the Disciples of Order?

Unfortunately, no.

If Janaff and/or Ulki are in this army, then they will be the ones to report the absence of enemies. Just a minor thing.

I don't like this. Why are they leaving us alone?

I'm not sure I see the problem, Tibarn. If they're going to let us stroll on through, I won't complain.

Not me. Right or wrong, I would prefer a stand-up fight. Right now, even.

What are you saying, Tibarn? how could you wish that upon us? I don't understand you.

Right now, the world is calm, peaceful...almost eerily so. It almost feels...comfortable. If this goes on, we might relax, lose our edge. I'm worried that we'll get careless.

Hmm...




Don't forget for an instant that the world isn't supposed to be like this. It should be noisy, vibrant, and chaotic.

You're right. A peace built on the sacrifice of so many lives is monstrous and unjust. It cannot be allowed to stand.

I didn't mean that I'm losing motivation to save the petrified people. It's just that, before we started talking about it, I was feeling... complacent. Is it just me?

The spirit of order is hanging heavy across the land. When we fight, we get a dose of chaos, which may help us get back in touch with our true selves. If our enemy has also figured that out, it might explain why they're staying away.

---



Mother, I'm fine. Please stop asking after my health.

But you're so pale, darling. You were always such a sickly little boy... You should rest a while. We can't have you exhausting yourself.

No, Mother... If we stop walking now, we would slow the others.

Never mind them, sweetheart, they can wait. You should take a nice rest under that tree. Son, remember that you are a scion of both Daein's and Goldoa's royal families! You are more important than any of these peasants! The others can certainly wait for you; don't spare a single thought for them.

L-let go of me! Leave me alone!

Haah!



Pelleas...

I'm sorry, Mother. I...



---



And with that, it's Base time. Which means conversations!

Reyson! Where are you!?



What are you doing so early in the morning?

I'm hunting for treasure!

Could you repeat that?

I believe it was the goddess Yune. She sent me a message in my sleep. I saw patches of ground that glowed. I went to one of those spots and found this.

A satori sign... Don't see these very often. It's a good find. But blast it, Reyson, why didn't you wake me up?

I didn't know what I would find. Besides, you looked so comfortable.

Hm. I didn't even notice you'd snuck out. I can't believe a heron snuck by me...

Even heroes need their sleep to keep fighting, Tibarn. Where's the harm in sleeping? I know that you haven't had a good night's rest since the incident in Phoenicis.

Yeah. But you know, there must be something in the air... Despite all that's happened I feel fantastic. It's a perfect day for hunting treasure... and enemies.

Excellent.

[Received a Satori Sign!]

Wonderful. I'll put it in the pile, then, shall I?

---



Oh. Good morning, Jorge. It looks to be a pleasant day, doesn't it?

Indeed. And a splendid morning is the best time to present a queen with a fine gift.

Oh, Jorge... Your kind thoughts are enough. You and Daniel have worked so hard to supply our army. If you have something for me, please let me pay you for it.



That's why we wanted to give you a gift. It's a token of our appreciation.

Daniel...

We'll take payment for everything else. But please, take this one item without any protests. It's our pleasure.

Please, Queen Elincia! We insist.

Very well. I suppose it would be quite rude of me to not accept it.

Wonderful!

Here it is. Please use it with our compliments.

Oh... This is a fire tome.

Yes. It's a very valuable one.

So I can see. I am not a mage, but I feel great power from this tome.

Daniel and I happened to be in that building when there was the big flash of light. That's how we escaped being turned to stone. But you avoided it because you were one of the chosen.

But we still want to help you. We can collect weapons to help you in battle!

Please, save the people who were turned to stone.

Please give us the world we used to have.

I promise you I will do my utmost. I'll work toward it with everything I have. Together, we can accomplish anything.

[Received a Rexflame!]

Rexflame (as you should be guessing by now) is the SS-rank fire tome, and as such, Sanaki is the only person in our army who'll be able to use it. It's quite heavy, but does have the benefit of giving the wielder +3 speed, so it's not so painful if we can get the girl some strength. If we were training Calill, she'd be very well suited to it, but we're not, so, yeah. Oh, and there's Tormod... man, what the hell happened to Tormod, anyway? You'd think he'd have joined up with Ike and co or something, but he seems to have vanished off the face of Tellius.



We're finally able to tinker with Tibarn's skills. It goes without saying that we harvest every damn thing that isn't locked on him; he doesn't need any of this stuff. Of particular note is Pavise - which you might remember as being the one that grants a [skill]% chance of negating all damage from each attack for no discernible reason. He also doesn't really need Savior because he doesn't take any damage, and therefore he's not in any particular danger when rescuing other units.

Now, it's time for one of Radiant Dawn's most spectacular dick moves:



Surprise! Bet you weren't expecting Elincia to suddenly sprout new skills, were you? So you blindly charge into battle, and deal lethal damage to an enemy, and hey what the fuck why aren't you dead?! Seriously, what the hell were the developers thinking? Not only that, but this abominable skill has the gall to actually take up ten skill points.

Now, admittedly, there are undoubtedly some practical applications for Mercy. You can use it to make Elincia cripple enemies so that your lagging units can steal the kills and get some easy levels. The thing is, though, we're now at the point where Elincia herself could do with a few levels. Now that the enemy EXP output has caught up with her demand, she can actually gain some decent EXP from combat. She's not as godly as she was in part 2, but she's still extremely capable, and has the potential to be a star player at the endgame as both a combat unit and a healer.

But for the love of fuck, you'd think they'd at least tell the player that this damn skill has appeared out of nowhere.

And the real kicker is that the skill is unique to Elincia, so you can't even stick it on someone who could really use it to help out, like, say, Tibarn.

Intelligent Systems. Assholes (sometimes).

So, yeah, we remove Mercy.



It's Nolan's turn to ride the BEXP train to godhood. Since he's capped Magic, Skill, Speed, Defence and Resistance (you know, everything that fighters are famous for lacking), these five levels are going to give him +5 to strength, HP and luck (and not actually capping any of them).



It's odd that this massive strength boost is the last thing Nolan gets that makes him amazing, since you'd think that'd be his thing from the get-go, but no. Nolan is basically a swordmaster trapped in the body of a warrior. Not that I have any complaints about an axe wielder having astronomical speed and skill.



Here's Fiona before being pumped full of BEXP...



And after. Like Nolan, her primary gains are strength and luck. I decide against giving her one more level because she doesn't really have much need for more magic and skill, and she'll get plenty of skill post promotion anyway.



Zihark's first BEXP level...



...caps his speed and skill, in addition to resistance. The next six...



...crank up his strength, luck and defence. I observe that I have a bit of leftover BEXP...



And buy Fiona that last level after all.

We have two Master Crowns. They're going to Fiona and Zihark - Nolan can promote easily on his own.





Fiona's promotion loses her helm for some reason, but does add the crest of Daein to her horse. That's pretty frickin' rad right there.

Man, I can't quite believe we're actually seeing third tier Fiona! This is LP-validating content, right here, folks. I feel like I have contributed something wonderful.



Oh, right, stats. Yes, female physical units get the best stat gains. In fact, since they tend to have lower strength caps than their male counterparts, the additional strength gain represents a seriously boosted potential for BEXP abuse.



Zihark's turn.



Since he already has a longcoat, Zihark's model change isn't that serious. The biggest change is the sleeves and the bitchin' new boots.



And the stats. Always, the stats.



Today's bargains. Again with the Wyrmslayer. This one we buy, so Zihark can add it to his sword collection.



GET OUT OF MY INVENTORY



A bit of skill shuffling later - i.e. putting Pavise on Fiona, and Resolve and Cancel on Nolan, we're outta here. I'm not sure why I bothered putting stuff on Nolan, since he's not going to get hit, ever, but there you go.



Again, this line will be delivered by Janaff or Ulki if they are present.

How did they get so close without being noticed? Did we have men out of position?

No, I just checked in. Enemy forces just suddenly appeared, with no sign or warning at all.

Guess that's one good thing about fighting a goddess... Things are sure to be exciting. Everyone, get in position!

...An entire legion that can appear from nowhere? Who are these Disciples?

To be honest, I don't care who they are. I just want to knock a little disorder back into the world.

---





We have more than enough room to accommodate everyone we care to train. There's very little room for deadweight in these missions, due mostly to the Disciples' tendency to send in teleporting asshole reinforcements.



Here's the battlefield. The circular layout has exactly the implication for our strategy you might expect it to have. And there's a familiar looking person over to the left...



It's Senator What-The-Fuck-Is-That! Fancy running into him here! As a combatant, he's no joke, though. He has quite high magic and tons of resistance, so you'll want to send in a fighter to deal with him, but of course that makes the magic problematic. His tome, Valaura, is a unique light magic tome that poisons anyone it hits. Nifty but not really that useful. It's a pain when used on us, though.



As for our formation, Nolan and Zihark are going to take the top path by themselves, while everyone else heads south. The objective is rout; this will be a pain due to asshole reinforcements, but this time around, we're more concerned with combat training than BEXP farming, so this is fine by me.

I intend to break up Fiona and Volug after this fight and switch to Fiona and Oscar (also an Earth Pair). Fiona can function quite well even without that magnificent avoid boost, though, so she'll be fine with Oscar even before their support matures.



Let's roll.