Part 50: Immortal Council Chambers II

Update 50: Immortal Council Chambers II



Welcome back! Last time Primus finished draining the final Relic and was then betrayed by Raife and Grim Eye. Raife begged Kyrie to help him defeat Primus and get rid of the Immortals once and for all. Kyrie agreed out of the need to stop Primus from going absolutely crazy with his new dark powers.




We’re immediately put into another fight where we just need to defeat Primus to win.



We start off divided so I put Bobby and Sophia with Kyrie.



While Hannah, Anadine, and Azure all go over with a fully controllable Raife!





Primus summoned three warriors to fight with him, fitting the typical themes of Rogue, Mage, and Fighter. They all have good equipment and the full abilities of their 2 classes. Each of them also has an “Avoid” counter skill, so you can’t expect the same thing to work on all 3. And finally, these guys all have a secret ability: if they get taken out, a full health Overscourge will spawn in their place! They’re definitely very solid guards to prevent you from just focusing down Primus.



Speaking of Primus, here is the man himself. High stats all around with an absolutely monstrous HP stat and a gigantic movement range. He’s also immune to all of the disabling status effects except for Root, which won’t help much as his abilities all have quite a long range.



He has a full set of unique abilities too. Teleport is exactly what we’ve seen him and Septimus use before, and he will gladly use it to dunk people on this map too. Downfall is an interesting one, where he targets all units in a 3x3 square centered on himself, lifts them 9 tiles and then drops them for falling damage, which can be quite a lot. Furystorm is a map-wide physical attack that’s not too powerful on its own but allows Primus to pass all of his debuffs on to all of its targets. Skipping down to Lapidatus, it’s basically just Earth II with a much longer range and vertical tolerance. But the real kicker of his ability set is Interstitch. With it, Primus picks his target and teleports them inside of another unit, instakilling the secondary target and doing high magic damage to his initial target. It is totally unavoidable and the instakill will totally ignore things like Reraise.

Overall, Primus is an incredibly dangerous enemy who you really have to just outlast. He doesn’t have any healing of his own and you’re not going to be able to get away from him, so you need to make sure that you have the capabilities to survive and either keep people up or revive them after they fall.



Right when the battle starts, Raife makes sure to let you know that you’re controlling him.



Meanwhile the enemy opens up the battle with a blood magic fueled Firestorm. It takes out about half of his health for MP and does a decent bit of damage to everyone. The Fellblade then uses a potion to mostly heal him back up. Thankfully, the Lich does get hit by a bunch of counters including Kyrie’s Slow, so that takes a bit of the all-map pressure off.





For Primus’s first move, he teleports to the corner and uses Downfall to take about half of Raife, Anadine, and Hannah’s health out.



Anadine uses the boost from low health to take out about 200 of Primus’s hp, while Hannah follows up for a bit more and Raife heals Anadine up a little with a potion.



On Kyrie’s turn she demands answers from Raife.

With all the Relics drained, we have a chance to be rid of the dark energy that has been sustaining the Immortals since the Council’s inception.
The Immortals had The Maw’s energy sealed for a reason.
Yes, to gather that power to themselves! Dark energy has been sustaining them and their rule for centuries!
…



I then have her run up to start weakening the Lich.



And, thanks to some help from Sophia and Azure, Bobby is able to take him out with a Firestorm.



Spawning the new Overscourge in his place.



The Fellblade moves to attack Azure but misses. I have Anadine attempt to take him out, but she also flubs it.



Instead, Raife and Hannah cooperate to take him out with a rock to the face. Bringing me up to 2 Overscourges.



Meanwhile Kyrie continues questioning Raife.



The camera pans down to Grim Eye, fully engulfed in energy and chanting.

He’s preparing a massive blow, to end Primus once and for all. Let’s focus on doing our own part.
…



She hits both Overscourges with a Holy Beam.



Sophia heals Anadine back from the brink.



And on Primus’s turn he takes the chance to monologue.

From now on, I alone shall be the one to mete out justice in the realm.
You are no longer fit for your position, Primus. For the sake of all that is right, I cannot allow you to continue on this path.
How trite. But there exists no authority higher than mine.



He then pops back up to the middle. And what did I not add between the last Immortal fight and now? That’s right, the ability for Sophia to swim. So Primus drowns her again.



Meanwhile one of the Overscourges kills Hannah and hurts Azure.



But she’s able to return the favor and kills him on her turn.




Anadine then takes out the other Overscourge and falls just short of killing the Templar so I have her take another big chunk out of Primus instead.



Raife and Hannah contribute to taking Primus down as well.



While up top I have Kyrie revive Sophia in a spot too far away from the water for her to be drowned. She uses her turn to heal Hannah back up to full.



The Templar takes advantage of Anadine’s low health to kill her.



Bobby doesn’t do anything on his turn because the Templar dodges magic and Primus is bulky enough for the map wide ones to not really matter. Primus is apparently offended by this refusal to attack and drowns him too.




Back on the other end, Hannah, Raife, and Kyrie cooperate to take out the Templar.



And Sophia uses the low power Revive to bring Anadine back with low health.





Azure weakens him a bit, but Anadine had just enough MP for Corrupted blade and absolutely overkills Primus anyway.



Though he gets knocked down, Primus just stands right back up with full health.

How many times must we bring him down?!
I’m almost done! Just do your part and keep him busy a bit longer.
…



After a flurry of attacks from Hannah and Raife, Kyrie then takes out the final Overscourge, leaving just Primus to deal with.



I’d advanced Sophia to heal Anadine up, so Primus leaps at the opportunity to drown her yet again.





But at this point the action economy is fully against him and he’s in range of all of my units.



I had Kyrie use an MP stone on Anadine to let her use Corrupted Blade again.




And she takes Primus down for good.



Overall, I wasn’t that close to actually losing the fight, but I was definitely hurting a lot of the time. I think my continuing refusal to teach Sophia and Bobby how to swim actually worked in my favor this time, since Primus continually focused on the cheap and easy instakill instead of hurting multiple people or using Interstitch to kill and do damage. It definitely could’ve gone a lot worse, at least.




Afterwards, we come in to Kyrie landing another blow on Primus and knocking him to his knees again.




As blood pools underneath Primus.

I do not understand. I was… all-powerful.
Grim Eye! Now!





The circle Grim Eye summons keeps expanding until it disappears.

My ancestor’s work is at last complete!




And he takes one last laugh before collapsing.

I leave… the rest… to you, Raife.

And then Grim Eye dies.



What… have you done?!



The bells in the background start chiming as everything gets darker



And darker



Until a shadow forms out of Primus



And takes shape as The Maw itself is freed! It destroys the background and drives the party backwards with a great screech!



Raife recovers and advances on the beast, holding aloft a broken medallion.

By its power you must obey my commands!



The Maw screeches once more before flying off, totally ignoring Raife.

Hmm. Unfortunate.



And he then teleports out.



The party then takes a moment before regrouping down at the base of the chamber.



Something I had hoped never to see again. That was The Maw.
The Kawa elders told us it had been sealed away, but until now I still had my doubts.
We were unable to fully defeat it.

Quintus then stands up.

You’re in no condition to move yet! You should rest.
Thank you my dear, but I’m feeling much better. Thanks in large part to your kind ministrations. Although the great resilience granted to us by The Maw’s energy played a part as well.
Wait, is that the real reason you imprisoned The Maw? In order to drain its energy and become all-powerful Immortals?!
Reiner, please don’t be daft. Our powers were an unforeseen byproduct of periodically draining The Maw’s dark energies. Which was necessary to keep it from breaking the seal.
But why did you seal it away in the first place? You always claimed to have defeated it.
Truthfully… we proved insufficient to the task. It was impossibly strong. That’s why it was necessary to bind it to the Relics. We knew that we must continuously siphon its power to keep it in check. And that it would take a toll on us, a severe toll.
A very extended lifespan doesn’t seem like much of a toll to me.
…
Ah, I see that Kyrie understands me. As a Marked, absorbing all that dark energy places a great strain on one’s mind. Nay, on one’s very being. That corruption will eventually become too much to bear. That is the reason Immortals relinquish their position in the end. And we have all witnessed what it did to my friend, Primus…
It appears we must seal the beast away again. How did you do it the first time?
It wasn’t easy. The Kawas helped. They have a greater understanding of summoning magics.
They probably did so to assuage their guilt! It was the Kawas who summoned The Maw to begin with.
The gentle little Kawas? Why would they do such a thing?!
We were at war with the Kawas at the time, and the Humans were prevailing. The summoning was their trump card. A bold gambit, but foolhardy. In exchange for their assistance, and to help preserve order, we erased their involvement with The Maw from history.
Although as a precaution, the Council has never allowed one of their number to become an Immortal.
I see. Could we simply ask the Kawas to help us as they did before?
I doubt that will be possible. The Council initiated a very strict prohibition on Kawa summonings, so by now the art is probably lost to them.
That Grim Eye fellow sure seemed to have a handle on it.
Hmm, true. He was a descendant of the original summoner who opened the gate for The Maw to enter Teora. Perhaps he found an ancient text written by his ancestor. But we can consider requesting Kawa assistance later. The most important component for the Sealing Ritual is the original token used to summon The Maw.
Raife’s Medallion.
Precisely. It had been missing for decades. I can only assume that Raife stole it when he let the Arbiters.
All right, where does that leave us?
I will-
YOU will remain in Illuster and help restore order to the city. You need to rest, Quintus!
… You’re right of course. As has so much before, the task will fall to you and your companions, Kyrie. First, track down Raife and retrieve the Medallion. It is our only chance at sealing The Maw away again. From what I’ve seen, the world is ready for new heroes. I know you won’t disappoint, Captain.
We will get it done, Quintus. You have my word.



And with that we’re put back onto the world map. Things seem fine initially.



Until we scroll down and see a giant plume of smoke wafting out of Gelligh. Which we will be investigating next time!